Liberty Bank of Utah Story

What else can Liberty Bank of Utah get Wrong?

A week after closing we got a letter from Countrywide Bank saying they were happy to service our new loan. This was not a surprise as it said in our closing documents that Liberty Bank had every intention of selling our loan to them. We almost wrote out the check and sent in an early payment to get our payments to fall better in line with our paychecks.

For some reason we didn’t and it is a good thing because two days later Liberty Bank writes and said we need you to sign some extra documents. Weren’t we happy because it seemed like they were trying to change the terms of our loan through the mail. They had a problem with margins of our loan and wanted us to sign some documents to fix it for them. After seeing how much they got wrong with our closing we were not about to sign anything without a lawyer.

We called them up and they swore up and down the changes had to be made and that they didn’t know if they were going to be servicing our loan or if Countrywide would be. They said that was beside the fact and that we need to sign the new documents and send them back so they could finish our loan. We asked what was different and all they would say is that there were just minor changes. They couldn’t point them out so we felt good enough to sign these new loan documents without some legal advice.

Calling them again about the documents after talking with a relative in the mortgage business they were even more rude to us. Their account manager was very unhelpful. He said there was nothing he could do we would just have to sign it and accept the changes they needed to make on our loan. We didn’t know what that meant but it didn’t help us want to sign it.

I said I wanted to talk to his boss and get this straightened out. He said I needed to come in to talk with Kendal Phillips, the President of Liberty Bank of Utah, and we would need an appointment. I said that would be great. I would love to talk to him and tell him how much trouble we had at closing too. Maybe a little feedback from a customer would be a good thing for helping the next person’s experience go smoother. An appointment was set but we didn’t have a clue what we were going to find out was going on at Liberty Bank.

If you have had trouble like this with Liberty Bank or any other bank leave us a comment or send me an email about it at nightmare@libertybankstory.com.

Somehow we made it through closing and got into our house. We should have thrown in the towel long ago and gone with someone else but we kept at it. Our forgiving nature and patience should never let them get so far, but most of all we would have to give up that grant money if we went with someone else. So we just kept saying to ourselves that it was worth it.

We joked that that is what the grant money was for. To put up with Liberty Bank of Utah long enough to get through the process. It is not much of a joke for us anymore. Our title company said that in all the years they have worked with Liberty Bank they don’t think they have ever had a repeat customer. I wonder now if the grant money is the only way they close loans now or if people really ever come back.

(This first time home buyers grant money is why I have the image of the money in the mouse trap in the header of our site. It was too perfect of an image for what happened to us as we tried to get $5000 to help with the down payment on our first home.)

Either way I know from my own knowledge that Liberty Bank is hard to work with. I will tell more of our story with future posts about how they drove us away within a year and a half to spend $6,000 to refinance our house with a different company.

If you are a Liberty Bank of Utah repeat customer please comment on this post or email me at nightmare@libertybankstory.com and tell me your story.

Liberty Bank - The Closing Story

Never have I understood the importance of a good mortgage loan servicer until my latest home purchase. I have always heard the stories of mortgage companies that are always selling your note and you never know where to send your check. I have also heard of people getting stuck with a company that doesn’t have a great way to make payments or know what your payoff balance is. These can be frustrating but I feel like we have one of the best stories around.

We were referred to Liberty Bank of Utah last year by a friend who said we could get a grant for working with them. The grant was legit and we thought five thousand dollars would be a great way to put some equity into our home upfront. Most of the troubles started to arise though when we got to closing. Documents (REPC) were lost multiple times (ten or more) and it seemed they would never get things straightened out.

We went into closing two weeks late after yelling at them to get things worked out and they had the wrong names and property address on everything. So we waited while they fixed them that night for two hours only to have them sent over wrong once again– the loan note terms were wrong. So we left and the lady at the title company said “Who are these people? Is this their first time doing this?”.

Two days later she called us and said things were ready once again but in reality it wasn’t ready because they had misspelled names and had the wrong address on the note again. This time the lady talked them through putting it in their system so they could get all the names and addresses in correctly. Somehow it worked out that night after another two hour engagement that was only supposed to be 15-30 minutes.

We thought we were done but two days later the title lady called me up and said that Liberty Bank did not have a REPC and wondered if we could fax them one. She also said we needed to come in and sign another document for Liberty Bank. She told me what it was and I said we already had signed it and she agreed but said Liberty Bank must have lost it. So I took another lunch hour and went and signed this again. My wife got the kids ready and met me there to do the same (not an easy thing to do). A couple days later the title lady called back again and said that Liberty Bank had lost some other crucial document and that in order to fund we need to come back and sign again. She was mad at them and so were we because it took two weeks for funding to switch hands because of lost documentation. Finally this is over we thought.

This trouble should have been our first clue to leave this company while we still had the chance but we thought it was just normal closing troubles. It turns out it was much more that that. It was the way the company has been running for years and we were just its next victim.

If you feel the same way about Liberty Bank of Utah or any other bank like this. Please let me know with a email nightmare@libertybankstory.com or comment to this post.