In the mortgage process and scores are way too low after recent 30 day late in CRs

[Homeowner2014]

First I want to thank this forum for all the helpful and informative posts. Without all your contributions I wouldnt have made it this far in the mortgage process.

To give you a quick background my scores as pulled from lender on 1/24 were EX628 TU655 EQ670 and my husband's were EX660 TU672 EQ672.
He's on permanent disability and receiving SS benefits.  I work full time and had the same job for over 5 years and work in the same industry for the last 15 years. Our combined income is $91,000.  We have no other debts besides rent, utilities and my student loan with a monthly payment of $104. Our CLs are low and all cards are paid to zero. Except for a Discovery card with a credit limit of $1200. We had a balance of $446 and I just paid $400 today.

After our credit scores improved to the above scores in January, we received a pre-approval for up to $400,000 for a FHA loan (that was February 1st). A week later we found a house price at $330,000.  We did an inspection that same week and a week later our offer was accepted. Contracts were finalized and signed and gave our 3.5% downpayment with the signing of said contracts. We have leftover about 13K in the bank (will have 3k more in a few weeks). Our closing costs should be about 5k with sellers' concession of 10k written into the contract.

Last week we started the mortgage process with our lender starting with all the disclosures and the appraisal was done this last Thursday 2/28. At the same time MyFico alert notifies me that I have a 30 day late on my JCrew card. My credit limit is $750 and I had used it only once and had a balance of $43. Obviously I overlooked the bill in December and got the negative remark on my CRs. I immediately paid the $76 balance. My scores went down a lot! Now they are EX588 and EQ599 (not sure about TU but on CreditKarma my score for TU is 623). I am worried that this will jeopardize our mortgage. I spoke to a representative in the credit dept at JCrew who told me that "it shouldn't be a problem to get that removed". She instructed me to write a letter to their credit dispute dept. I just received a response from them saying that they investigaged my account and that the information was accurate! I didn't say it was innacurate, I asked for them to remove it as a good faith act.  What should I do next?

I spoke to my LO after I realized the 30 day late mark was on my CRs and he said "yes, that could be a problem" but that we will be ok if we use the reports we have within 90 days from when he pulled them originally. We are scheduled to close on May 1 or later, way past the 90 days from when he pulled our scores. I am puzzled about what to do.  I haven't told my LO that my scores dipped so low. Last thing I heard from him Friday was a list of things that his processor asked for to get the loan into underwriting. The list was 8 items ( 401k statements, award letters from SS, bank statements, letter explaining derogatory items, etc).

I am in tears about this! I feel our mortgage is in jeopardy over such a stupid mistake!
What happens if the loan goes into underwriting and there is this late item so recent? I don't know what I should do besides worrying.

Thank you all for your help.

[Homeowner2014]

Anyone?

[wildbillcody]

have you tried calling J.Crew and begging them to take off that 30 day late?

[maliluka]

If you check over in the rebuilding forums they may have some info or numbers you can try for j.crew. to help get them off your report. Just a thought. I didnt want you to feel alone out there. I am sure someone with more solid help or answers will be responding.  Dont give up.

[Homeowner2014]

Thanks for your reply.
I did. The representative said that it should be a simple thing and just to send a letter to the credit dispute department. I did that and a few days later received a letter reply saying "we found the information on Jcrew credit card account is accurate as currently reported on your credit file"
So frustrating. Maybe more phone calls and letters might do the trick. I am just worried as to what happens if that doesn't come off.

[Homeowner2014]

Thank you maliluka!

[jadeite788]

You need to go to the rebuilding credit forum to write a proper Good Will letter.

[MovingForward_2012]

OMG! You have to get that off of there! If you don't close until May 1st they will certainly repull your credit and find it. Send 20 goodwill letters to that dispute department if you have to between now and then! Write another letter right now and get it in the mail!

[credit3xhausted]

Send Goodwill letters to every department that has to do with credit.

Try to find email addresses for the Executive office and send out goodwill emails, too.

Hope it gets taken care off ASAP. 

[violetsmom]

Something similar happened on my husbands report a few months ago when we were getting approved for our new build. Do your current reports shoe the account as past due? I GWd like mad but in the end the rapid rescore showing account was current brought his score up enough even with the late mark still on there.