PNC Mortgage

Two weeks later the new appraisal came in 20k less than their 1st appraisal. THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE SINCE WE HAD JUST INVESTED 120k. PNC did not want to loan us what we were requesting so we reached out to another lender, and we are already set to close on 9/22/22. The new lenders appraisal came in at 115k over what PNC had. They were so disturbed by the other appraisal company’s incompetence, that they decided to file a complaint. It took PNC almost 3 months to process a basic HELOC loan with good credit and income, as our new lender completed the process in about 3 weeks. I will never use PNC again!

We got a loan officer who makes statements about approval that do not happen. We got denied because of it. We found out in a passing conversation with the loan processor!! We got denied 2 weeks ago and Still Have Not received anything in writing saying we were denied!! We are now 7 weeks in and starting all over again. Got passed onto a loan processor that Does Not Know The Difference Between:

2) A Deed of "Trust"

That is just scary!!! Getting asked 3 and 4 times for the same supporting documents. "Tracker", the website they request you work through, is frustrating to work with. We had a 4-page document to upload and it is not letting me because it is "too large". It is a mortgage website and 4-pages is too large?!?! We have had 8 homes between us, refinanced a dozen times, and have never had a worse experience. Save yourself time, trouble, aggravation, and headaches.... Run, do not walk away from the idea of working with these people. I can already tell you it is a smart move.

I called customer service, and the person I talked to had no clue how to do the principle payment online. She said she would transfer me to the mortgage department, but was on hold for over 20 minutes, and I hanged up. Another corporation with declining customer service - people who cannot fix the issue, online programs that do not allow for simple principle payment. PNC is not easier to bank with, they are harder to use than in the past in my experience.

Due to lack of timely response, from PNC, we lost our deposit of $41 K, and they wiped themselves clean, and did not care about us losing our money, due to their unresponsiveness, and their dishonesty. Had they notified us early in process, we could have tried another bank, by then we were two weeks of closing date, and could not get a loan approval on time and lost our deposit. I called the loan officer's supervisor, to discuss, he told me that, we did nothing wrong, nor lied in our application, everything matched the application, except the new house was in close proximity to the current address, and his hands are tied. When I contacted consumer affairs, the loan officer and her supervisor lied, and said "Good to Go" is not a commitment. Do not go for a Mortgage with PNC, you are going to regret dealing with them.

Their customer service is incompetent, though they’re often kind. With ANY question I’ve had, I’ve been told something different by each person I’ve spoken to. Clearly no one knows what’s going on. Multiple representatives have input incorrect information to their system regarding my loan on multiple occasions and claim they “can’t prove this wasn’t what was discussed.” (I thought calls were recorded? Could you not check?) Also, they call from different numbers each time they’ve contacted me so I rarely know to answer. There’s also no physical location within 3 hours driving distance of me so I have to deal with phone calls.

Last issue I’ll mention is their mailing system. I have done everything in my power to request paperless mailing, but nothing works. If it were once a month or less, that’s fine! But it’s not. In fact, I would estimate that between my PNC mortgage and checking account, they send me at LEAST 5 pieces of mail per week. Multiple statements per month saying the exact same thing. Separate pieces of mail for me and my husband, despite both the loan and the bank account being joint. Honestly, if I could afford to refinance, I would do it in a heartbeat just to get away from PNC even if it meant a higher interest rate.

I explained to my PNC rep that I would like to challenge the appraisal and she agreed, said I should get 3 comparable properties from within 1 mile sold in the last however many days. I did so and submitted it to her. After that though she told me we didn't need to bother with the challenge since the amount I was asking for was low enough and there wouldn't be a problem using the appraisal they just did. Uh ok, I wouldn't think so but who am I to question their process? I figured she should know, so I trusted her. But, guess what ended up happening? Yep, few more weeks go by with little or no communication then I receive the "sorry we can't move forward" email due to appraisal.

I wish I would have never wasted a "hit" on my credit report for this. I just had a gut feeling it wasn't going to go well but I've been banking with PNC for 30+ years and thought it'd be easy and convenient to have the HEL with them. I will say though at the outset of the loan process, PNC seemed great. You get access to their portal, everything is uploaded, agreements signed online, etc., but then the waiting came without much else happening. I'd recommend finding another lender who is committed to working through the loan process much quicker and knows your area; especially in this market where homes seem to go quickly!

3) I'd ordered the original Appraisal of my home, originated 15 years ago. They said it would take ~30 days, it's a month and 3/4 & not a sign of it yet. Calling today to track it down, yet again is over an hour of my time, I'm going to invoice them for deliberately messing me over! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Take care of your customers, else you'll have NONE! At last got a decent C/S guy Aaron #** who tried his best, despite being a 'peon' (his term). No one else would even identify themselves professionally, no less try to help! He deserves kudos!

But what I do not appreciate is the massive holes in communication between me, my lending agent, the inside loan processor, the underwriters and everyone else involved in this. It's like they don't even talk to each other and I frequently am the conduit and have to pass on communications and information between them. Also, you've heard the term "Throw them under the bus"? PNC employees are throwing each other under there so many times they must have run out of buses.

PNC#2: "He (PNC#1) does not always have or give out the right information. I'm taking over things from here. Call me going forward".

Not kidding. These are actual quotes from actual PNC employees. And the fact is, neither of them seem to know what the ** they are doing. So if you can look past all this and just ignore this nonsense, you'll probably be fine. In addition to the information gaps I mentioned, they rarely respond to emails or texts within a day and sometimes it's several days. I cannot say Don't Use PNC Mortgage! You just have to be prepared to deal with all of the above.

Then the loan process went to Sylvia ** who kept me going over and over the same stuff, more check stubs and bank statements, I even called her supervisor Kelly ** who kept insisting all this was normal loan processing, I know I have excellent credit and sufficient income and I have refinanced in the past so I knew this wasn't right. Six and a half months later they were still refinancing my mortgage so I called another Mortgage Company and I closed in 6 weeks and I was told I didn't need an appraisal in the first place, I have tried contacting PNC to get my money back but no luck. This company is not worth the stress and aggravation.

Examples of their policies. 1] Automatic payments set up online [even for a 5 year loan] expire after a year or two. So you would think that as that date approaches the company would remind you? Nope, only once you are 2 months behind and then they will send you a default letter and report to credit history. 2] If you pay any additional money on your loan, it is applied to next month's payment, instead of coming off your principal amount. Now in their defense, maybe there is a way to have it go to principle instead of accumulating to next payment. But I've had plenty of car loans, this is the first time I have had it automatically apply to the next month.

They just don't seem to know what they are doing. When you call to rectify a situation [you better have an hour minimum] they don't seem to know what went wrong to start with and when everything is said and done, it's not!!! They don't make notes on the account so a week later when you call back [and you will have to] no one knows what is going on. I even switched my personal banking to PNC in the beginning of my loan, because I thought it would be easier. They couldn't even get that right! I mean ALL my money was in an account with them and they couldn't withdraw a payment on time. What a mess. Thank goodness I'm done with PNC in a few months.

1. The survey for the property. For starters, this is a townhome. It does not come with land, and therefore the buyer should not need to pay for a survey. PNC did not agree. This was the first time I have ever heard of a bank requesting a survey on a home that comes with no land.

2. The HOA master insurance policy. PNC insisted that the buyer obtain this and send it to the bank. For those who do not work in the real estate industry, this is ALWAYS requested by the mortgage company, and never by the buyer. As the real estate agent in this transaction, I was luckily able to send the HOA's request website to the underwriter with a message that said "the website clearly states that only a mortgage company can request the document." They didn't bother to acknowledge this mistake.

3. The appraisal. Typically an appraisal is ordered to assure the bank that the property is worth what the buyer will be paying. Originally the underwriter told us that they felt comfortable with the purchase price, and sent a waiver stating that the buyer did not need to pay for an appraisal.

These three items caused our first delay, both of which are wholly caused by PNC. The final nail in the original closing date's coffin was that everyone at the mortgage office we are working with took off work that week for Thanksgiving. The poor buyer couldn't get ahold of a single person to find out what was going on with our closing.

Fast forward and we are now into December. PNC tells us we will likely not be able to close until December 21, 2020 -- nearly a full month after our originally scheduled closing. Why you might ask? PNC decided that they were going to need an appraisal after all. A week AFTER our scheduled November 30th closing is when they decided to change their mind on this. They did not notify us of this sudden change, we simply received a call from the appraiser who told us they had been ordered by PNC. I called the buyer to ask if she knew and she said she was not called or emailed about an appraisal.

After we missed our original deadline, it became absolutely impossible to obtain answers from PNC. The original loan officer, Sam ** had completely dropped off the face of the Earth. Only the underwriter, Rhonda ** responded when she decided she felt like it. I would send a few questions in an email to Sam and Rhonda and would be lucky to have half of one answered. They were unwilling to acknowledge their mistakes which caused several weeks worth of delays and negative consequences to the buyer. I finally had enough with the runaround and started including the underwriter's manager.

The manager responded quickly, however, even she would not acknowledge our frustrations with PNC's negligence. She would simply respond "the loan has not been fully approved yet." Nobody gave consistent loan status updates, and it felt like pulling teeth just to get vague responses. Even the title company which needs to work closely with the bank on several documents and number balancing couldn't get ahold of PNC.

At no point during this process did we feel PNC actually cared about the buyer, the deadlines, or our business. They stuck to their corporate script unwaveringly, and never once attempted to expedite the background processes after causing us several delays. The buyer has not been offered any sort of compensation for PNC's failures when at the bare minimum I would have hoped PNC would offer to waive the $500+ appraisal fee that she was told she wouldn't need.

All in all, PNC missed every deadline, seemed to know very little about their duties as a mortgage lender, and failed to maintain proper communication with all parties in the transaction. They requested documents they didn't need, asked multiple times for the same documents that they already had, and worst of all they asked the buyer for documents that only they could obtain. The only thing they were consistent with was dropping the ball and disappointing their client.

As I said before, I am a real estate agent. I have worked with just about every bank and local lender you can think of. This was my first experience with PNC, and I along with everyone else in this transaction have agreed that they have been by far the worst bank we have ever worked with. Do yourself a favor and stay away from PNC Mortgage, and definitely check out local mortgage brokers for a much better customer experience.

All business was conducted via email...The only time I was able to speak to a live person was when I called Customer Service and complained about not getting responses to my emails or return phone calls. Documents were asked for repeatedly. Every other week there was something else that they needed. Twice, I went to the local branch to have them fax what seemed to be a ream of paper. The local branch employees hated to see me coming I'm sure... The process took so long my credit report expired. Then there was the issue with my homeowners insurance. I have a site condo and PNC needed a statement from my management company verifying the amount of my association dues and that they were paid up to date (I had already emailed a copy of my up to date payment history from management company to them).

Only the management company puts the lot number behind the mailing address on our invoices/payment history and that became an issue with PNC. I tried to explain that each property owner was able to select their lot to build their home on and we selected lot #4 and it is not included in my legal address. PNC called my property insurance company asking questions about my mailing address and then the insurance company said they didn't insure condos.... Another problem. I told PNC I've never had a problem with insurance and that its a site condo. A single family home for which I was responsible for ALL maintenance.

Finally the insurance company had to add the #4 to my mailing address to satisfy PNC. This was not an issue in 2015. I kept receiving closing estimates via email and postal mail. A few days before closing I received a closing estimate that was higher than originally quoted. I could not get an answer as to why from any of the agents that were suppose to be helping me. I do not escrow my property taxes nor my homeowners insurance. Finally I learned the title company which is owned by PNC wanted me to pay at closing 2 months homeowners insurance payments AND my Winter property taxes. I told them my homeowners insurance is on automatic deduction from my checking account each month.

I even emailed them a copy of the statement from my insurance company verifying this. They still insisted that I pay two months premiums at closing therefore my homeowners insurance will be deducted from my checking account for Nov and Dec and I've already paid it at closing. I also told the title company that I have NOT received my winter property taxes and they aren't even mailed out until December, 2020. How do I know what the amount is going to be?? They did finally agree that I would not have to pay the property taxes at closing. None of this was and issue when I refinanced in 2015. It seems they were going after as much money as they could collect from me at closing. There was one thing after another trying to refinance. I probably would have gotten a better interest rate and customer service somewhere else. I DO NOT recommend using PNC. Communications and customer service is extremely poor.

All was moving along and it was just waiting for underwriting. I was set to close on or before the 7th of November. On the 5th I had not heard anything so I began calling my loan processor daily. I left several messages. On the 10th I called the general help line and reached another processor that said everything was still moving along and they are just back logged and I should be getting a call soon when they had finalized the final underwriting process. They encouraged me to sign up for the refinance tracker tool.

I signed up for the tool and when I logged in my anticipated closing date had changed to JANUARY 9th 2021!!!! FIVE MONTHS TO CLOSE!!!! Because of the delay I now need to submit all of the documentation I originally sent over in August because the pay stubs etc are STALE!!!! WHAT???? They were also charging me almost an entire point more than one of my local banks would charge. Needless to say PNC has lost a very loyal good paying consumer!!!! SAVE YOURSELF A HEADACHE AND DO NOT USE PNC.