Reviews of Citizens Bank, Home Mortgage Office (Loan Agency)

Jan Chizinski

I currently have two loans with Citizens One. One loan on my primary residence is a 5 year ARM. When I was contacted by Alex Evans from Citizens One at the end of March regarding refinancing, because I would be getting an adjustment in July, I decided to go forward with refinancing. After providing all financial information over the next month, including all rental information, tax returns, etc., Alex indicated that I would need to take a distribution from my IRA of $50k to make the numbers work to qualify. At no point was there any indication that we would not qualify for the refinance, especially since we had just received financing in January for the purchase of a different property, and were required to take an IRA distribution, similar to this situation. In early May, Alex informed me that I needed to pay $555 for an appraisal which was done on May 8th. Again, no inkling that the mortgage numbers did not work. On May 25th, I was told by Citizens One that we did not qualify for the mortgage. I contacted Alex, who indicated he would speak with the Underwriter to find out the problems. Alex never got back to me again. I reached out to his supervisor Maria Esposito, who explained that she told Alex that we would not qualify, even with a $50k distribution, but would find out if a higher distribution would work. A few days later she told me that would not work either. She also indicated that the appraisal should not have been done and that the money would be refunded. After two weeks of unanswered phone calls and emails, there is no refund. It's amazing how quick Alex was to return phone calls and messages when he was trying to get a commission, and his supervisor is obviously, no better! For over a month they could see that they were not going to make this mortgage work, yet still let the appraisal go forward at the expense of the customer, and then they just disappear when it comes to correcting their mistake!