March 2024 by Dillon Chase
My mortgage experience with M&T.I had found a house that seemed in my price range from pre-approval from multiple banks, including M&T.I had decided to move forward with trying for this house. I reached out to multiple lenders and landed with M&T after working with Patrick Santora. This is where things started going wrong.On my first call with him I mentioned that the home needed a roof, asked if it could be tied in to the mortgage, and he said likely not but there may be some possible solutions. At the end of the call I asked again about this roof as to which he responded "what roof?". He reassured me that we should be good to move forward after discussing it again.From the first call, I started providing all the information required. At this time, it was determined that I would have trouble with closing costs, and Patrick found me a grant! $5000 for the home, this made it so it was once again “feasible” with my closing costs. This was a blessing for sure. This is where things started to move forward to inspection and such, and Patrick once again reassured me that the roof will be figured out.However, that blessing was a lie. As time continued I got to underwriting, it felt like the house may be a reality. Underwriting had fully reviewed my financials and this is where things started to really get a wrench in it, and show that Patrick was not covering my application adequately.Patrick had miscategorized my active car payment as “paid off” from the beginning, falsely deflating my DTI. This was the first major wrench. I ended up with a raise that counter acted it, but it was not enough because as we get further through underwriting, he starts to tell me that my options are either Escrow or to have the money in pocket for the roof. Something we could have answered from the beginning instead of reassuring me the entire time that we can figure out.The $5000 grant? As I mentioned it was a lie, my location was not eligible for it at all, a simple thing to review…. I was still going to be getting it, but it was entirely because Patrick did not correctly manage the review (as is consistent throughout my process) but I had already signed for it, and in doing so, the bank would have had to “Cure” the grant.. While this was still a “positive” to me, it’s evidence as to the fact that Patrick from the beginning did not do his job correctly.Eventually it had finally been determined that between the seller and I that the roof would not be replaced, something we could have determined within the first week, and I lost the opportunity to buy the house. It then took M&T over a week past my closing date to get me the rejection letter.I incurred unnecessary expenses, and wasted over a month of dealing with this house for it to fall through entirely based on the fact that my mortgage officer did not appropriately guide me.I am still currently out a “third party” expense of inspection, as the manager of Patrick, Kevin Gentry has failed to actually review my case and is hiding behind a policy. He didn’t know the details of my case and just kept referring to “third party expenses aren’t refunded”. If it weren’t for Patrick failing to do his job, I would have never even made it to the expense. I’ve reported this case to the CFPB and am hoping they find a resolution to the third party expense issue.Overall, make sure you work with someone who knows what they’re doing, and don’t take blind reassurances.
