COMMONWEALTH MORTGAGE SVC INC

If you go with Commonwealth Mortgage, I hope you have a great attorney on your side like I did. I chose them because they are a local company, seemed responsive and matched the best rate I found. However, they were unhelpful, incompetent and useless. I understand that mortgage regulations have tightened up since the bubble burst so I was expecting a thorough examination of my finances. I carefully put together a large package of the documentation they requested and returned it to them well before their deadline. In a pattern that Commonwealth repeated numerous times, they took a while to get back to me, then asked me for more supporting information. Their requests were very unclear though. For instance, "Provide proof of source of income in Such&Such account". There was never any clear guidance on HOW to prove their requests, even when I asked direct questions about what they needed. In one case, I had to ask the same question three times before it was even addressed. Over the next 6 weeks before my closing, I quickly responded with all the documentation they requested but they kept asking for more. In the week before my closing, we still didn't have a guarantee of funds and continued to get requests for new documentation. We were supposed to close on Monday in the middle of the month (a slow time for mortgage companies). We were still receiving requests from Commonwealth for documentation at 2pm that Friday afternoon forcing me to leave work to go to a local bank branch to get a statement printed. It ended up not meeting their undefined standards so I printed off the online version even though they'd previously said that was unacceptable. This time it was OK for some reason. Around 3pm, we finally got the news that we were approved but my attorney didn't receive the binder required to create the HUD-1 statement until after the close of business. We were forced to delay the time of the closing until the last possible time on Monday that we could file the deed. On the day of closing, we met the attorneys at the Registry of Deeds to sign the papers. My attorney was told on the way to the Registry that the funds would be in her escrow account by the time we were done signing the papers. Her assistant checked in with Commonwealth Mortgage repeatedly over the next hour but the funds never arrived! Thank Goodness I didn't use their in-house attorney for the closing! My attorney called them several more times that day and the next morning since they were in breach of contract. Finally, around 11am the day AFTER our closing, the funds arrived. Luckily, our seller did not need the money immediately for another closing but had they not been so flexible, I would have lost my 20% deposit and the option to buy our new home! Commonwealth took NO responsibility for the issue and seemed unconcerned about the problem, blaming it on a miscommunication. My attorney may be referring them to the Attorney General for this breach of contract. Unfortunately, the pain didn't end there. A few weeks later, I got another request from Commonwealth for additional information so they could sell my mortgage. They essentially wanted me to sign a document saying that I had the authority to use a business account for personal purposes since some of my deposit had gone through the account. Aside from being a lie, I had no interest in further assisting them and declined to provide it. When they finally sold the loan, they sent a form letter to notify me of the sale. It was confusing and had incorrect data on it indicating that I did not have to make my 2nd payment. When they didn't receive that payment, they started emailing and calling me to resolve it. Luckily, I had ignored their letter and sent the payment to the new servicer. However, I had to provide Commonwealth with additional information to prove this so they could collect it. Throughout the entire process, the only way Commonwealth exceeded my expectations was in the amount of pain that can be inflicted while applying for a mortgage.