Cristie Stapp : Guild Mortgage Company Northgate (Seattle) office

Guild Mortgage Company has an office in Northgate, an area just North of Seattle. The Yelp page for this office contains three 1 star reviews, and one 5 star review.

User Janna K described a positive experience with an employee named Kyle, saying:

"Kyle was very easy to communicate with, and made himself available to work around my schedule. He was very personable, and was great about explaining things to me when I did not understand. I am a first time home buyer, so the process was intimidating at first, but Kyle made things much more comfortable."

However, two of the three remaining reviews mention Cristie Stapp, a Guild Mortgage Company broker.

User Katie H, from Seattle claims that Cristie Stapp suggested that she fake a disability in order to expedite the completion of her mortgage deal:

"Cristie was awful and suggested I fake a disability to finish my deal, when I transferred to Kim she went out of town and let my file go to underwriting with incorrect info and got me denied for the loan they'd pre-approved me for. 

I wasted so much time and money working with them and lost out on two homes."

An anonymous user wrote:

"As a realtor I had a horrible experience with the lender Cristie Stapp. I was representing the buyer and as a result of her lack of follow through, total lack of communication or attention to the timeline or details the buyer ended up not getting the house! She never answers the phone."

I did some more research into Cristie Stapp and found that on Redfin, she had decent reviews  and there was one review on wallethub, but the same complaint was evident on both sites, citing lack of communication which caused the borrowers distress.

Guild Mortgage's top complaint is their poor communication skills which seems to flow from corporate all the way down to individual brokers.

Zillow review for Kris Davis, Guild Mortgage in SC

Zillow.com allows uers to review mortgage brokers, underwriters, mortgage officers, companies, etc.

User egn541 posted regarding Guild Mortgage company's Kris Davis.

This user alleges that Kris Davis and Guild Mortgage were helpful, but that Guild Mortgage's underwriters are "horrible!". It is alleged that Guild does not have the expertise required to handle past mortgage problems, ie: bankruptcy, a foreclosure or a short sale. The user claims to have lost thousands of dollars due to the delays and being pushed into homelessness as a result.

Pissed Consumer - Guild Mortgage

Spread across six complaints, Guild Mortgage is accused of causing over 10K in losses on Pissed Consumer.

As alleged on other review sites, customers cite the lack of professionalism and misleading practices as top complaints.

This review of an Atlanta office calls out an assistant by the name of Alec Norets. They claim massive delays in the underwriting, causing them to have to pay out of pocket to the sellers.

"Go with another mortgage company, and avoid Alec Norets, an assistant of Michael Dunn, in San Diego.His laziness and non-responsiveness to our calls and emails caused our closing to be delayed twice.

We had to pay the seller of the home hundreds of dollars because Alec Norets can't do his job efficiently and correctly. We had all of our paperwork in and ready to go for months in advance, and his laziness to get it to the underwriter delayed us and cost us.
Please do yourself a favor and don't get stuck with this company holding your loan.We had a much better experience with Mutual of Omaha for our first home loan."

 Another user posted about Ralph Ponce with Guild Mortgage in El Centro.

It is a long, but useful read if you are considering using Guild Mortgage, but here is an excerpt:

"So many things have happened in the middle of our buying process that we are ready to walk. I cannot believe what a nightmare this has been and how many errors have been made by Ralph Ponce of Guild Mortgage, El Centro. Terrible experience and he blames us for his mistakes and seems confused about everything. My suggestion if you have to use this company, have all conversations via email. Paper trails are good."

I have seen the suggestion of maintaining a paper trail a few times reading the reviews out there. This doesn't seem to be a complaint about Ralph Ponce, per say, but about the entire process and includes a lot of lost time and finger pointing.

Guild Mortgage Company Reviews on Lending Tree

Lending Tree has made a name for itself as an aggregate site for loan providers to connect with individuals who are interested in purchasing or refinancing their home. They have a reviews page dedicated to Guild Mortgage Company.

A user by the name EricLongBeach, from California claims that his loan process took four months and that Guild Mortgage allegedly moved him from program to program, always re-starting his place in the process. After complaining, a Guild manager promised the refunding of his appraisal fee, but after the manager quit, the company refused to respect the promise made by the manager. See the full text below:

"The entire process took 4 months, thank goodness this was not a purchase because I would have lost the house and probably my deposit. At first they put me into one program and all was fine, but then they moved me to a different program. Instead of moving my loan to the front of the line because I already waited a few weeks, they moved me to the back and I had to wait a few more weeks. We went back and forth for a couple months and finally the manager promised to refund my appraisal fee as a consolation. After they closed the manager quit and now they will not respect they deal he made. It is not a large amount of money, but it is the principle and if they cannot follow through on a promise, then I am not sure i would trust them again."

A person with the username "investor" from Boise, Idaho states that they have used Guild Mortgage in the past, I'm assuming with a positive enough experience for them to warrant doing business with them again, but that their latest experience was not a good one. This user claims that Guild was unable to adequately understand their unique investment property position, causing Guild Mortgage to lose their business to a company which has a wider breadth of capabilities given this user's position. They did say that Guild Mortgage was good for a "first time buyer".

"We have used Guild Mortgage in the past, but this time they pulled the rug out on us. At first they gave us a good rating to use on a hud house bid. Then pulled the offer when they could not understand why we took a loss on our rental properties for tax purposes. now they want all new information, and it all has to show on our taxes. (our taxes are done) We are now looking for other lenders that understand investment property. Good for the first time buyer, but don't make it to involved, they don't understand profit & loss statements." 

The LoanSafe.Org page on Guild Mortgage - Some advicel

There is an article on loansafe.org regarding some alleged fraud on the part of Guild Mortgage by user "soooomad" in 2011.

The accusations range from predatory loan practices:

"We have just recently found out that the bank committed fraud in that the loan was predatory in nature as they knew that he would not be able to afford the loan as his workers comp payments were going to stop within a 2 year time frame."

to illegal foreclosure:

"We also found out that the bank illegally foreclosed on us about a year ago and then accepted forbearance payments from us for 4 months! The biggest issue with that was that we were never notified that we were even in foreclosure until the bank posted a sale notice on our door back in mid april of this year and the sale date was for the 5th of may 2011! "

and ends with the user stating they are going to sue Guild Mortgage for fraud:

"Again, guild mortgage never, ever sent us any documentation as to their filing for foreclosure or the transfer through mers or attempted to call us/answer emails/etc... In order to work this out and we are now beyond the point of working anything out with them. The only option left is to sue them for fraud."

The community members on LoanSafe give some excellent advice on how to handle situations like these, including contact phone numbers and addresses for the Attorney General and how to dispute the debt with Guild Mortgage Company's litigation department.

If you are experiencing a similar hardship with loan practices you find predatory or think you are dealing with fraudulent foreclosures, this page has some advice that could be of use.

 

Comstock Mortgage is owned by Guild Mortgage

Comstock Mortgage, based in Sacramento, California, was acquired by Guild Mortgage in September of 2014. The company stated:

“We will benefit from bringing our two companies together, providing powerful synergies that will allow us to be successful as a company, and individually”

The acquisition brought Guild Mortgage 15 offices throughout California, over 180 loan offices and reported $600M loan originations in 2013. The acquisition was effective in October of 2014.

The BBB for Comstock looks good and prior to the acquisition there didn't seem to be many customer complaints, but it is considered "Closed" by the Better Business Bureau.

Better Business Bureau File for Guild Mortgage Company

The Better Business Bureau has a page for Guild Mortgage.
While they are not officially BBB accredited, you can see past complaints and resolutions.

This is so far the only place I have seen Guild Mortgage attempt to communicate with individuals who feel slighted by the company. It does seem as if the people who are responding to the complaints have authority to make changes and leave people feeling better than they did when they filed.

There are 11 complaints that have not been addressed by them.