I purchased a home last month, and the seller's mortgage was with Umpqua, who nearly unraveled the entire transaction.
We were set to close on our new home on a Friday, which was great because we could move in on Saturday and then were heading out Saturday evening for a week-long vacation outside of Leavenworth. Everything was moving along faster than expected, and we actually had the opportunity to close a few days earlier, on that Wednesday instead. Our mortgage lender had everything lined up, home insurance lined up, escrow was all in order, and the sellers had everything lined up with requesting payoff info for their mortgage.
At this point, everyone is simply waiting for Umpqua to deliver one single document with payoff info for escrow. Tuesday morning, they say "it'll be there by EOD". Wednesday they say "it'll be there by EOD". At this point Wednesday closing is out, and Thursday is highly unlikely.
Everyone is on the phone calling everyone--our escrow agent is calling Umpqua every hour. The sellers' agent is calling Umpqua every hour. My agent is calling escrow and the sellers' agent every hour. Umpqua tells us they'll send it over by EOD Thursday. That doesn't happen. Friday morning, they suddenly say that the sellers need to actually wet sign the document for release. What is this, the 90s? Docusign is a thing. Also, why didn't Umpqua notify the sellers of this a week ago?
So now our original closing date of Friday is out of the question, and we have no idea if/when we will close. We have to extend our closing timeline into the next week. Meanwhile, my family and I head out to Leavenworth on vacation, with our old home entirely packed up. So if this transaction doesn't go through, my young children literally will not have beds to sleep on when we get back from Leavenworth.
Monday comes around, and everybody is trying to escalate things and we get ahold of some director at Umpqua corporate, who promises to expedite things. Great! He says he has the document and can send it over. But wait! The payoff request was for last week so now it's no longer accurate since the payoff amount has changed, so the sellers need to submit a new payoff request. I'm now worried we're going to be stuck in this infinite loop of the seller requesting payoff, it taking multiple days for that to process, and now they have to request it again since the amount is no longer correct, etc etc.
Sellers resubmit the request, "it will be over by EOD". It's not over by EOD. Tuesday morning we hear "it's in our process, it can take 1-5 business days, there's nothing I can do". Literally all they have to do is email / fax a single page to escrow. We're unsure now if we'll even close on the house before we get back from vacation. I believe it was Wednesday midday we finally close. Thank god.
Now, my wife and I have to leave vacation, leave our kids with my parents and brother, and drive back to Tacoma from Leavenworth in order to move everything into our new house and get cribs and beds set up. Then drive back to Leavenworth on Thursday evening, essentially losing a day and a half of our vacation.
Our escrow agent told us that she has never witnessed such disorganization and incompetence in all her decades in this business. She also said that she does all her personal banking with Umpqua and this experience made her leave Umpqua entirely.
Oh, and the real frustrating part? I believe the payoff amount was only 4 figures, maybe in the low 5 figures. Umpqua messed up HOURS of work from like half a dozen people, all over a few thousand dollars.
At the end of the day, we got our house and are super happy, but I think I aged a year in that week.
So whatever you do, DO NOT get a mortgage or HELOC with Umpqua or you will be doomed by their utter lack of basic processing. read more