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Washington Mutual Construction Loans

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Richard of Santa Clara CA writes (4/15/03):
We used Washington Mutual for our custom construction loan. We were informed that at the time of application that we would close in less than 60 days. We bit and filed our application paperwork with them. We received an approval letter on 2-4-02. The funding did not come through until May.

This is where it all begins. WaMu's senior loan consultant, Laura Lundy, advised us that we were the guinea pigs for this process as we were the first to use the new loan process in her branch. She was very personable and walked us through the process. She then handed the account over to a junior account rep who mishandled all steps, lost our complete credit information twice and also failed to collect funds required to process the loan even though I travelled the 40 miles to their office several times to ensure that the loan was being processed as quickly as possible.

After finally getting the funds to the land owner we secured our permit and began construction. A few weeks into the construction, we received a phone call from their collections department. The gentleman informed me that the loan was past due and we needed to pay immediately or lose the loan and property. I informed him that Laura had us complete the auto-payment forms with her and guaranteed that the loan would be paid from our other account. This rep told me that she was mistaken and that the law prohibited variable dollar amount transfers and since construction draws affected the amount of payment that it would not work. Not to mention that they had been mailing items to the empty construction site thus we had missed the information relating to same.

Our account was then handed over to Theresa Hagman, VP of NA Construction Loans. She refunded our appraisal fees in a good-faith effort to calm us down and watched the loan carefully during the course of construction. When we completed construction in Feb of this year, the loan was to roll into a normal mortgage and autopayment was to take effect. We noticed that there had not been a transfer from our bank to theirs during the due date period so we called the bank to check and see what was wrong. They informed us we were late again and that there was no autopayment established and that is why it was late. This, while I was looking at the signed and completed copies of the auto pay forms WaMu had us complete to effect this process.

I called customer relations (customer care) and talked with Michelle Sorce at 1-800-282-4840. I explained the situation to her and she informed me that we never established the auto pay. I corrected her and informed her that I had the paperwork in front of me proving we had. She continued to be defensive, constantly interrupted me and informed me that she would wave the late charges but that she was not going to assign blame nor accept it. I asked her if they tracked the loans from department to department and she said no, that would not be practical or words to that effect. I expressed my dissatisfaction with the bank, her attitude etc., and received a relatively hostile reponse that was argumentative. This is not how you are supposed to handle customers.

WaMu is about to lose my retirement account and we are actively looking for new funding so WaMu is going to lose well over $500,000 in interest payments over the life of the loan. WaMu advertised as being the #1 home loan company. My opinion is that they may be #1 in getting the loans but are not #1 at keeping my loans.

The stress that has surrounded this entire loan has been extreme. This was a new home. Our first. And we had to pay an extra 3 months of payments to the property owner instead of the bank and thus did not reduce our principal. I am self employeed and had to take time off without pay to handle the issues relating to waMU losing our paperwork repeatedly, which cost me money as I do not get paid when I am not "billable" to my customer base. I cannot believe that they can continue to conduct business like this and not be held accountable.

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