The Finance Group

Review: I am the president of a NYC residential housing cooperative, [redacted]. The coop refinanced its underlying mortgage on August *, 2011. The Finance Group acted as the mortgage broker and adviser for this transaction. On May *, 2011, the Finance Group submitted a formal proposal for the refinance transaction to the coop's Board of Directors. The proposal stated refinancing would involve a pre-payment penalty and that the pre-payment penalty on the coop's existing mortgage would be $26,095. This figure was based on the Finance Group's review of the coop's existing mortgage. In reality, the pre-payment penalty that was paid at closing was $140,000. The calculation method used by the Finance Group was incorrect and the Finance Group was negligent in both its research and providing of financial advice. The Finance Group did not research [redacted]'s original mortgage documents or confer with the mortgage holder at the time, Capital One, when calculating the pre-payment penalty. The advice that was provided focused solely on interest rates dropping and that time was of the essence to make this transaction occur. The managing partner of the Finance Group, [redacted], in a conversation with the coop's management company on August *, 2011, agreed to refund the fee that was paid to the Finance Group. This fee was $20,000. This refund did not occur.The coop hired an attorney to recover the $20,000 fee. Since that time, [redacted] has refused to answer the attorney's communications, including telephone calls and certified letters.Desired Settlement: [redacted] is asking for a refund of both the $20,000 fee paid to the Finance Group plus the $2500 paid in attorney fees to recover the fee, for a total of $22,500.[redacted] would not have pursued a mortgage re-finance, if it knew upfront that the prepayment penalty was $140,000, as opposed to $26,095. [redacted] relied on the advice of the Finance Group that the figures presented in the proposal had been validated and were accurate.

Consumer

Response:

[redacted]:

At this time, I have not been contacted by The Finance Group LLC regarding complaint ID [redacted].