Locked Us In Without a Signature
Pulte Mortgage’s representative “Ashley” (name changed for privacy purposes) reached out immediately after my wife and I signed and made the initial deposit on the new home build: over $18,000. Her job was to convince us to use Pulte Mortgage’s lending services, which would provide faster approvals and $4,000 towards closing costs. Calls were recorded for quality purposes (according to Ashley), and much of the process was handled over phone calls.
After several months of phone calls and emails during the build, we had moved closer to the original estimated closing date, and Ashley began discussing rate locks, despite the home being nowhere near done. My wife and I were also still shopping for other mortgage companies, in case we found a better alternative. We were careful not to sign anything that officially agreed to using Pulte Mortgage, in case something better came along.
In July 2021, just weeks from the expected closing date, Ashley suggested a rate lock with Pulte Mortgage. We reviewed the options, and found a lock that seemed reasonable, but wanted to compare it against another lender’s options. During a phone call, I expressed that I would like to move forward with the Pulte rate lock, and requested the documentation I expected to review and sign in order to approve the lock.
Instead, I was informed that the lock was already made, and that a recording of the phone call was being used as proof that I gave legal consent verbally to perform this action. Ashley did not tell me any of this until after the rate lock was made. I immediately requested a hold to the rate lock, both verbally and in written communication, and was told that management was working on a solution. During this period, we realized that we had to specifically request written information from Ashley, and began using spoken disclaimers at the beginning of calls to prevent further binding actions being taken after calls. This process stalled, and we were informed that management would work to fix the issue.
Ultimately, we decided against using Pulte Mortgage out of a severe drop in trust, and turned to another company. The home closed three months after the original estimate. Pulte Mortgage reached out again to attempt to follow through with the approval, and we informed them again that we went with another company. We were then told that the cost to the rate lock was over $3,600, and that it had been automatically deducted from our home’s deposit without our direct approval. We now owed an additional $3,600 on the home, due to the missing funds.
After multiple phone calls and emails over several weeks to various managers based in Colorado and Ohio, Pulte Mortgage decided that they had done nothing wrong and were keeping the money. They did not forward any of the phone recordings used to make their decision, they refused to compromise on any of the funds removed, and the Ohio-based manager, “Bill,” refused to communicate through any written methods. We were forced to cover the funds they stole from the deposit account in order to close on our home.
I spoke with other loan officers and real estate agents, who informed me that verbal confirmation on rate locks was normal, but were horrified at the way Pulte Mortgage handled this process. I was not informed, at any step of the way, that my voice was being recorded for legal confirmation purposes, that my verbal confirmation would be considered enough to charge me, or that my earnest money used for the home’s deposit would be automatically extracted from the holding account without my knowledge or consent. It is especially heinous that this happened, considering that Pulte goes to great lengths to keep their homebuilding and mortgage companies legally separated, and even though I signed no agreement with Pulte Mortgage, my money could be so easily removed between them.
(By the way, that photo was taken 6 months after closing. The yard is still unsodded and covered in garbage, gutters are still disconnected and hanging off the roof, the siding is crooked and poorly installed– in other words, we definitely learned our lesson about working with Pulte on this home.)