CTX Mortgage Company, LLC / CTX Mortgage / Centex HomesCTX Mortgage Company / Centex Homes Predatory Lending Bait and Switch? Maitland Central Florida

September 2005, we signed a purchase contract and made a $12,000 deposit for a Centex Town Home in Oviedo, Florida. The builder's mortgage company, CTX Mortgage, offered $3,000 in incententives so we decided to use them. We were given a Good Faith Estimate and interest rate of 6.25% but were told we could not lock in because it was too far off from the closing.

By late November 2005, we had heard nothing from CTX, so we contacted them to lock in a rate. We were again told that we needed to wait until the closing date was determined. We were given three new Good Faith Estimates with rates between 6.840% - 7.090% and were told they were the best CTX could offer, but we were approved for all three scenarios. We decided to shop around and received a Good Faith Estimate with a rate of 6.625% from Wells Fargo. A few days later, Centex contacted us to schedule the closing. We told them we were going to use Wells Fargo but were told that we could not change lenders after the completion of the framing inspection, which took place on October 21, 2005. We reviewed the contract and found a page this to be true. So we agreed to proceed with CTX but complained about the rate increases on the good faith estimates. Our file was transferred to a new loan officer, Jennifer Powell. According to her, our original loan officer had never ran our credit and we were not approved for any of the good faith estimates she provided to us.

Our closing was scheduled for Dec 28, 2005. Between December 8th and December 27th, we received five different good faith estimates from Jennifer (6.75% on December 8th, 7.75% on December 20th, 7.99% on December 21st, 9.125% on December 22th, and 9.375% on December 28th). Jennifer said my "low income" made me high risk, which caused the rates to jump. We told Jennifer that the significant rate increase made the mortgage payments completely unaffordable for us and pleaded with her to either allow us to seek other financing or cancel the contract. She said either take the rate they gave us or lose our deposit of $12,000. We did not want to close on the property, but were not prepared to walk away empty-handed, so we asked for a loan program that would allow us to refinance without penalty. This is what made the rates jump up to 9.375% and 13.550% (an 80/20 loan).

The closing documents were not made available to us until 6:30 p.m. the night before our closing. We stayed in their office to review everything and noticed that my income on the application that CTX had prepeared was double my true income. We asked Jennifer why this was and she told us that in order to get approval, my income had to be ?stated?, meaning my income would not be verified by the lender. Please note in the above paragraph that we were told the rates were high because of my "low income". After the closing, CTX immediately sold our loans, even before the first payment was due. There is only one reason why they offer mortgages and that is to rip people off!!!!

We have struggled for the past year and now have two liens against our property and our credit is ruined! We believe that what CTX Mortgage did is termed Predatory Lending. They tricked us, showing us good rates until it was too late for us to change lenders. We have two young daughters, a 5 year-old and a 3 month-old, and we are in jeopardy of losing our home. We are going to file a complaint with any and all agencies we can but would really like to hear from anyone else who has had this problem. I don't know how these people sleep at night!

Constance
Oviedo, Florida
U.S.A.