Ken and Meredith Williams have been waiting 79 days for the Bank of America in Georgia to close on their home loan.
The bank has delayed the closing three times. And the Williams, who live outside Atlanta and want to buy a modest home in the city nearer to their work offices, have grown frustrated with the hold-up and ... clever couple that they are ... their ire turned to humor.
They started a blog chronicling their misadventures with the banking behemoth, created a Twitter account to bombard the bank with message through it's @BoA_Help account, and then made a music video — Ken plays the guitar and sings while Meredith, in one scene, dances in the background in the parking lot of the Bank of America branch in Lawrenceville, Ga.
It's hilarious and, they hope, effective.
In an interview with ABC News, Ken Williams said, “We’re more than qualified. We’re buying a really cheap house and it shouldn’t be really difficult...We just felt really powerless like we had no leverage.
“We didn’t want to sound unreasonable,” he said. “A lot of people are mad at Bank of America for different reasons and I didn’t want to be another angry voice with profanity, so we thought we’d take a different angle with it.”
The couple began their (now epic) loan waiting game on July 22, 2011, when they received pre-approval for a FHA load from Bank of America. On Sept. 8, they made an offer on a house in Atlanta and on Sept. 18, according to a timeline posted on their blog, a senior loan officer from the bank told them, "I will need 30 days from the time I have the appraisal in hand.”
The bank has postponed and rescheduled the Williams' closing date three times since then.
According to their blog, now:
We are asking that Bank of America contact us at closeourloan@gmail.com. We are approaching our 4th closing date on our $203k FHA home loan. As of 12/13/11, we have been attempting to buy this home for 76 days.We are asking for an internal Bank of America advocate to take control of this process and close our loan.
We have had two Bank of America employees quit during the course of our loan. E-mail and phone messages continue to go unanswered. Seller now charging per diem for multiple Bank of America delays.
Their fourth closing date is scheduled for today. But, as of 11:25 a.m. EST, according to ABC News, they still hadn't heard from the bank.
In a statement to ABC News, a bank spokeswoman said, "We apologize for the delay in closing Mr. Williams’ loan. We are on target to close his loan today. For the inconvenience, we have provided him a credit at closing.”
The ABC News report continued:
“Why can’t a house go fast when a buyer’s got cash, pre-approval and two cats?” he sings. “It takes time, obviously, a month or even two but now we’re looking at three.”Ken Williams made the video on Saturday and posted it to YouTube on Sunday afternoon. By 10 a.m. on Monday morning, Bank of America called the couple.
“I can certainly tell that a fire has been lit under the people who have been working on our loans,” Ken Williams said. “They’ve become very responsive all of a sudden.”
He said the matter “escalated really fast” and the couple received phone calls from a representative of the bank’s CEO.
Even though Ken Williams has not heard from the bank yet about today’s scheduled closing, he hopes this will be the big day.
“All I want is to have a home, and a front yard for my garden gnome. Bank you’ve got to close this loan!” Williams sings at the end of the song. “We can sign the papers and grab a beer, then you take my money for 30 years. Bank you’ve got to close this loan!”
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