Lexington Mortgage

We had originally sought an USDA loan to purchase my parent's home, which was just outside of the Longview city limits. However, my husband and I recently went over the income cap for the USDA loan and had to switch to FHA. We were 'accepted' by the FHA computer December 14th and JUST finished closing on February 4th. This process took approx 52 days from acceptance to close. While we had some interesting circumstances with the requirements due to it being a family home, if due diligence had been done on the part of the mortgage company, we should have been able to close at least two weeks sooner. Because this transaction was not considered "at arms length", we had to obtain two different appraisals for the property. However, my husband, mother, father and I did not know this until the we had waited a week for the first appraiser... and while he was at my house. While I was talking to the appraiser, I was notified via email that we'd need a second appraisal! We had to wait an additional two weeks for the 2nd appraiser to come out. When it was all said and done, the mortgage officer adimited that she KNEW about the two appraisal requirements for transacations that were not at arms length, but she said she wasn't sure that we'd need the 2nd one. (Shouldn't this have been something that was CHECKED at the beginning to avoid delay??) The final straw came when we were about to close and the ppwk had been sent to my parents in Corpus Christi. It arrived via Fedex overnight at 11:34 in the morning on a Friday. My mom is a RN and works the post surgery recovery room and would be at work until around 10 that night and would be on call Saturday. The mortgage company told me that they needed the documents back Monday. (That meant that my parents would have the documents LESS than one business day.) I asked them why and all I got was that the documents were time sensitive and couldn't wait one more day. That seemed a little strange to me. Come to find out that our interest rate lock would EXPIRE on Monday and we would have to REDO & RESUBMIT ALL of the ppwk if that happened! At any rate, this would have gone a lot smoother if requirements and ppwk had been double checked. It seemed like every time I turned around, a new document was needed, or I had to resubmit a form or proof of something that I had already provided. While the staff was friendly, never once were we offered an apology despite several complaints about the delay and duplication.