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Moving across country and buying a new home are stressful events. Those stresses were partially ameliorated for my wife and me because we were moving to Massachusetts, a state that recognizes our same-sex marriage and protects residents against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Imagine how our stress levels soared when we were blatantly discriminated against as a married same-sex couple by Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (WFHM), our mortgage provider in Massachusetts.
From the start, WFHM insisted on treating my wife and me as separate borrowers rather than co-borrowers. This is not something they normally do with married couples. When asked for an explanation, our mortgage consultant wasn’t shy about the reason for the discrimination: we are a married same-sex couple. Here are the pertinent parts of our email exchange (right-click the picture to enlarge):
From: [Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Consultant]
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2011 8:47 AM
To: Laurel Ramseyer
Cc: [redacted]
Subject: RE: some initial questionsHi Laurel,
Pls see my responses in blue. Thank you
Best regards,
[redacted]
Mortgage Consultant
From: Laurel Ramseyer
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2011 4:48 PM
To: [Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Consultant]
Cc: [redacted]
Subject: some initial questionsHi [Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Consultant],
I’m starting to go through the packet I received today from Wells Fargo, and I have the following questions I hope you can help me with: [snip]
2. Regarding the loan application,
a. Why are [my wife] and I listed as separate borrowers rather than co-borrowers even though we’ll hold the title jointly? You are married but the system doesn’t yet know how to handle same sex marriages. The system is a bit archaic. We are moving to a new system in the coming months that will have the flexibility to accommodate same sex marriage.Thanks,
Laurel Ramseyer
“Sexual orientation” was added to the Massachusetts law banning discrimination in mortgages way back in 1989, and same-sex marriages have been recognized in the state since May 17, 2004. Thus discrimination against married same-sex couples applying for a mortgage in Massachusetts has been illegal for over 5 years.
A call to the Legal InfoLine at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders confirmed that if a company wants to do business in Massachusetts, statements like “You are married but the system doesn’t yet know how to handle same sex marriages” won’t fly. We were, indeed, being illegally discriminated against.
Despite their discriminatory treatment of us on the application, WFHM did approve us for a mortgage. Until that happened, however, we were highly stressed because we didn’t know how far the discrimination might go. And while we could have switched to a different mortgage provider after we recognized the discrimination, doing so meant we would risk losing our bid on our new home by no longer meeting the very quickly approaching loan qualification deadline stipulated in our purchase and sales agreement.
Besides confirming what we suspected, the call to GLAD was instructive in another way. The people at GLAD that I spoke with were surprised to hear a complaint about Wells Fargo, a company with a stated commitment to diversity and a long track record apparently backing it up. GLAD hadn’t heard of other complaints of Wells Fargo discriminating against customers. The facts taken together seemed to point to localized ignorance and/or poor training in a regional office of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage rather than a company-wide policy of discrimination.
The question remaining was, what should we do about this? Nobody could reverse the humiliation we had felt or relieve us of the stress of uncertainty we had already endured. The most important thing, we decided, was to secure assurances from WFHM that the problem in their system would be identified and errant employees would be properly trained so that nobody else would have to face this discrimination. And, we would ask for an apology.
When I called the main number for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and explained that I had a discrimination complaint, I was immediately connected to Mr. John Petermeier in the Office of the President. I expressed our desire that the flaw in the WFHM system be corrected so that nobody else would have to face this discrimination. I stressed that we weren’t attempting to get anyone in trouble, that we just wanted assurances that WFHM employees would be properly trained and treat all customers equally.
Mr. Petermeier said he would investigate the situation and consult with WFHM’s legal and compliance departments, then sent us the following letter (link added).
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., (“WFHM”)August 19, 2011
This letter is in response to our conversation on August 12, 2011, regarding your loan application.
WFHM wants to apologize that you did not receive the service you expected. Your correspondence was forwarded to management to review and take appropriate action as needed.
Please be advised that WFHM does not tolerate discrimination and complies with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“Regulation B”).
As discussed in our conversation, WFHM has corrected your Uniform Residential Loan Application to show you are a married couple filing a joint loan application. I have enclosed the corrected application for your records.
If you have any additional questions, please contact me directly at [redacted] or toll free at [redacted]. I am available to assist you Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Central Time.
Sincerely,
John Petermeier
Executive Mortgage Specialist, Office of the President
Mr. Petermeier had been more forthcoming over the phone, so I found this letter disappointing. We appreciated their retroactively correcting the loan application, but we didn’t feel that the statement “forwarded to management” was a very solid a commitment to address the specific problems we faced here in Massachusetts.
So we’re left with having to trust that Wells Fargo Home Mortgage will follow through and train their employees to treat all married couples in Massachusetts equally. Doing so would be in line with the company’s stated values. It would also be in the interest of their reputation and bottom line since discriminating against same-sex couples in a state with such clear anti-discrimination laws only invites lawsuits.
Cross-posted at Blue Mass Group.
6 Comments
Why should such a system even care about the genders of the people entered into it? You enter two names and a marital status and that’s it.
It’s really shoddy programing. There is no need to track the gender of the applicants, let alone make it exclusive to opposite-sex couples in the first place
I know, it made no sense to me. And nobody at WFHM defending the discriminatory way of filling out the form could explain beyond “because”.
I applaud you for following up on this issue in a very tactful and proper manner. Apparently the reason the problem has persisted for so long is that nobody before you had done so.
I’m impressed that they went back and corrected your paperwork. As you said, you have the mortgage either way, but I think this illustrates a sincere desire on their part to make the situation right. I’m not disappointed by “forward to management” part of response. Assuming it’s sincere, management does need to be made aware of the problem, and they probably need to provide the funding and resourcing to finally correct the problem. It would be difficult for Mr. Petermeier to effect the needed changes without forwarding it to management.
The problem is, you may never know, unless Mr. Petermeier replies to you again in a few months to inform you of the progress that was made (which is admittedly unlikely).
Or, the more skeptical way to look at this is to think that maybe dozens or even hundreds of people have called this matter to their attention previously, and every time it disappeared into the “forward to management” black hole, as a matter of course. But Wells Fargo has a good track record on LGBT issues, so I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Sounds to me like a bigot worked his way into the ranks and now he’s trying to cover his ass. How long will it be before the religious reich uses this as proof of us taking away their religious freedom?
sigh….Laurel, though I am glad that this got straightened(no pun intended) out, I am sorry that they put you through this, particularly since SSM in Massachusetts is hardly a new thing.
Hugs to you,
Maura
I’m certainly no fan of the megabanks, but —-
Um, you got the apology, and Wells Fargo did correct your application. Sometimes systems DO screw up, and the fact that GLAD indicates that your case was anomalous does suggest no real pattern (although, as far as I know, Wells Fargo doesn’t do much business in Massachusetts).
BUT, now GLAD -does- know what happened to you, and presumably will be aware when/if someone else has a complaint.
So, thanks for bringing this to our attention, and GLAD’s attention, and even the bank’s.