mitchy1441
Junior Member
What is the name of your state? AZ
My husband and I have owned our own business for less than three years an didn't think that we could purchase a house because we were self employed for so little time. However, we consulted a broker who was confident that he could get us a loan. He worked for a reputable company at the time that we signed with him but during the middle of our home build, he left that company to go to another. We had to put down $10,000 deposit to secure the lot and build the home, whose mortgage we could afford, based on our pre-approval and interest rate. We were told by our broker to hire a "credit repair" guy who would assist us in bumping up our score and allow us to get a better interest rate by the time the home was built ( in seven months). At each step of the way, being a sceptical persosn and worried about such a large initial investment, I asked this broker if he was certain that we had a loan. He assured me before we put down our first 5k, then before we paid the rmaining 5k and again when we paid the 1k for his credit guy, that not only were we "pre-approved" but we had a loan and were going to close with no problem. When he relocated to a new firm, he called us to assure us that nothing changed and we were still pre-approved, now through a new lender ( as his contacts were now different).
A week before we were ready to close on the loan, he voiced concerns that he now needed all of this additional information to secure our loan and the lender that he had now doesn't do loans for self employed and yada, yada, yada... He then told us that he will get the closing postponed by contacting our sales agent at Meritage and having them push back the closing to buy us time to regroup. He didn't call our agent untill he day before closing. Meritage would not trust him to postpone our closing and we lost our house along with the $13,000 we had put up for a down payment, the credit repair, upgrades and appraisals.
We had my parents relocate from MA to rent our current home when we moved into our new house. They sold their home and left their life to move here and have to rent a tiny apartment. This whole disaster has caused me, my parents and my four kids such mental anguish. I am still having such a hard time with it. And we might as well have thrown that money out of car window. I am finding it hard to believe that this broker does not have to pay for all of the hardship he caused. Is there anything that we can do? At the least, i feel he should have to pay us back what we lost! He lied to us and just gets to walk away and do it to someone else.
Michelle Ortiz