Our family's attempt to build a custom home using a construction loan managed by Intercoastal Mortgage, LLC (ICM) was nothing short of horrendous. More specifically, John Kinzer, a "senior loan officer" with ICM, provided services that fell far below our expectations of an "experienced" professional responsible for overseeing the ongoing construction funding of a high value single-family residential home. Over nearly two years, ICM collected tens of thousands of dollars in interest from my family for a loan on the construction of a home that our original contractor, one Richard "Craig" Tadlock of T&S Homebuilders, LLC, promised would be complete in approximately eight months. Craig Tadlock required us to use ICM as our lender. He directed us to John Kinzer specifically, who assured us that Craig was a "great builder," that we would be in good hands, and that our home would be completed on time. Based at least in part on these representations, we signed a contract with Craig Tadlock and T&S in November 2021. At the time, we were still stationed in Colorado Springs, CO, but we anticipated relocation to the Washington, D.C., area in July 2022. Little did we know that not only was Craig Tadlock not even licensed to build homes, but that ICM had no real knowledge or experience with him or T&S, nor had ICM done any diligence to ensure Craig Tadlock and T&S could build our home at all, much less in a timely manner.
ICM and John Kinzer's lack of oversight over third party inspectors directly contributed to Craig Tadlock and T&S receiving draw payments, taken out of our construction loan, for work that was not performed at all, was only partially performed, or was performed so poorly as to require us, the homeowner, to pay out of our own pocket to completely re-do or significantly fix the work performed. We expressed concerns to John Kinzer, but neither Mr. Kinzer nor ICM took any action to implement more stringent inspection measures. When we asked ICM about Craig Tadlock's delays in completing work he had already been paid to do, John Kinzer told us it was our responsibility as homeowners to ensure the work had been fully completed in accordance with the draw schedule. How we, as homeowners, were expected to be able to verify that complex construction phases had been "completed," was neither clear nor possible.
Furthermore, when we relayed our issues with Craig Tadlock to John Kinzer, he feigned surprise, as though this was the first time he'd heard of such problems. The same was true of our interactions (and our lawyers' interactions) with ICM's leadership, including Senior Vice Presidents Jonathan Kinard and John Pyne and CEO Ed Dean. However, as time went on, we learned that Kinzer and ICM were put on notice months before we signed a contract with Craig Tadlock and T&S regarding the same issues we experienced. Finally, as we learned during the mortgage appraisal process for our new home, ICM appears to have failed to adhere to some of the lending requirements associated with VA construction loans, which we utilized for our home. Had these lending requirements been adhered to, we believe Craig Tadlock and T&S' fraudulent practices may have been identified earlier in the process.
On John Kinzer's ICM webpage, he states that the "homebuying journey doesn't have to be painful or scary" (see https://intercoastalmortgage.com/loan-officer/john-kinzer/). For my family, it was all of this and worse. We cannot emphasize enough what a nightmare this experience was for us. If you are a customer searching for a construction loan servicer to oversee your project, or if you are a lending institution shopping for a construction loan servicer to manage your loans to customers, we cannot more strongly recommend you steer as far away from Intercoastal Mortgage as possible. read more
