Any Advice - Building a house, VA loan...new and old 30 day lates popped up before house is done.

[natesmom]

Hi all,

My husband is a veteran and we are currently building a house. We signed the contract in May and the house was supposed to be done this month, however, the new closing date after many delays is now November.

At the time the lender we are working with pulled our credit scores in May, NO lates anywhere. My score was 683, his was 740. There have been no concerns about our credit at all. We also have plenty of reserve cash.

Fast forward....two weeks ago, I get a notification that my score dropped from myfico. I check and was 603. A few payments posted and its now 619. The drop was caused by a car note (for a totaled car) that I pay monthly reported late payments of 30 days for October 2012, January 2013 and July 2013.

I called the finance company Santander (it was sold by citifinacial) and was told that since the car was totaled, I had always been paying a month behind!!!

The car was totalled in September, I made a regular payment in September, The insurance paid in September..I was told by customer service that no payment was due until November. I continued to make payments on the due date starting in November and twice made two payments a month thinking I would pay the account sooner.

I have sent goodwill letters to Santander begging the removal of the lates and explaining that I never received any correspondence and that the lates are a result of the misinformation with how the September 2011 payment was applied. in it I even offered to pay the balance in full (900.00) owed on the account.

I am so petrified that we will lose this house since our credit reports on file with the lender will expire on 9/18. When they see these lates will my husband and I be out of the house we are building???

Please help, I have no idea what to do as I have not heard from the finance company regarding the goodwill emails but I was told on the phone that they do not at all do them and they're sorry but there's nothing they can do.

[natesmom]

Nobody?

[natesmom]

Bump!!!

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

It could go either way - I'd be prepared with a letter of explanation for the underwriter regarding what went on.  1 late payment in the last 12 months isn't usually an issue, particularly if you have had no prior history of delinquent credit... but 3 late payments in the past 12 months would definitely be a concern to an underwriter.  Bummer that Santander provided bad information, however it is odd that the late payments are so far apart... didn't they consider the months inbetween late as well?

[Sunshine85]

You were given some great advice on the other board. Follow it, and you should be fine.

Good luck-

[natesmom]

@ Shane, nope just those payments were reflected as 30 days late. According to Santander they were exactly 30 days late (paid on the 30th day). Outside of these newly posted payments and until a few weeks ago when they posted them, I had NEVER had any late payments of anything on my credit history.

[natesmom]

@sunshine, exactly what advice ate you referring to?

[Sunshine85]

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@natesmom wrote:
@Sunshine, exactly what advice ate you referring to?

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I'm referring to the posts advising you to file disputes with the credit bureaus, as well as filing complaints with the CFPB, BBB and AG. Another poster also provided a number to their credit reporting department, and you were advised to contact their executive offices as well. Following all the suggestions given would likely get this cleared up quite quickly. You may need to push your closing our for 2-3 weeks, but I'm confident the builder would rather push the closing out while you clear this up, vs. putting the home on the market. 

[natesmom]

@sunshine, i also commented to those as well as I mentioned those things in my initial post. They have been disputed and returned the same results. I have contacted a manger at the credit reporting department, the response is in my initial post. I have sent a letter to their "office of the president" and am awaiting the result. If you read anything anywhere about Santander you will find that any and all measures of getting them to rectify ANY problems is an ongoing, never ending and no win battle. So "quickly" is not applicable here.

Additionally, I am in Texas is a very popular and high demand location. The builder wouldn't give a second thought to putting the house on the market especially since they could sell for much more than we purchased as the same house is now starting at 20k more than we contracted for.

[natesmom]

Also, my concern is not my closing date which is not the end of October. My concern is the result of the lender pulling my credit next week.