1 /5 Ron Hansen: First, I would like to say that this review is not for the local branch. I would easily give them 5 stars.
Let me just say that the only reason we stay with BBVA is that we love the people at our local branch and we’ve always had excellent service from them. Otherwise, we would have closed all our accounts and found a more competent company.
If I could give negative stars to the mortgage loan department, I would. My wife and I decided to refinance our house to get a lower interest rate. Keep in mind, we didn’t have to refinance, because we were handling our existing mortgage easily. We weren’t affected by Covid or any other adverse conditions. We just wanted a lower interest rate and our payments would be reduced by $200 per month. Oh, one thing, this was started one whole year ago and just closed this week.
Were we marginal risks? No. Our credit rating is in the high 700s. The equity in our home was over 50%. Our income was adequate to qualify and no late payments on anything. This loan should be a slam-dunk, right? Wrong.
We filled out all the paperwork at least 7 or 8 times. They always needed something else. These were the same things that were just given to them over and over. Communication was non-existent. I would call almost on a daily basis for updates and got voicemails and no response for weeks at a time. I have pages of dozens of emails, most with no response.
We paid upfront for an appraisal that was recertified at least 3 more times. Even the appraisers were wondering why they were being sent out. We got to know them on a first name basis. We had to get a new survey, because they said the one we had was too old. Keep in mind, nothing has changed on our property since we bought the raw land and built our house on it. These 2 items cost us over $1000.
I was getting payoffs from my existing mortgage company every month, because they kept telling me, when they did talk to me, that we were closing. I have 16 different closing estimates over the year period. First, we were supposed to get $2000 back at closing, instead we wound up paying over $1400 to close.
When we finally closed, they were supposed to wire the money to the title agency to pay off the mortgage, fees and finalize the closing documents. BBVA sent the wire to some title agency we never heard of. By the time they got the money to the correct place, it was about 9 days. The only reason it was that soon, is that the local title agency was on the ball. If it was up to BBVA, the money would still be bouncing around the country.
I could go on for pages about the incompetence of the loan department at BBVA mortgage loan department. If you want to hear more, if you decide to apply (bad idea), please contact me first.
PNC bank will be taking over BBVA soon. Will it get better? I doubt it. Some of the people I was dealing with came from PNC.