We are native-born Americans living and working overseas for US companies and have been HNWI customers of Bank of America and its subsidiary Merrill Lynch forever, letting them manage all our assets which are Stateside. For a decade I kept telling our manager that someday we'd move home and I'd want a mortgage. Sure, sure said our banker. No problem. We know you are overseas, he said, and we are ready to help you return. Then last month in the middle of an expensive house-hunting trip Stateside, ML/BofA told us that they had stopped writing domestic US mortgages two years ago for any Americans deemed resident overseas. So after years and years of reassuring noise in writing and in person, we were told No. Our own wealth manager, a VP, and the bank rep in his office didn't know about the ban. As an extreme position, one could say we were victims of (a) incompetence or (b) misrepresentation. Or both. The blanket ban also applies to military vets and military retirees who stayed overseas, even with VA homeloan guarantee. I have held off filing formal complaints with the FTC, the Fed, the NYS banking regulator, the VA, and others only because we feel our own wealth manager shouldn't carry the blame for BofA's position. He has been a positive resource for a decade, and apparently he is as angry as we are at the No Exceptions decision. Meanwhile, JPMorgan/Chase, Bank of New York, and another, smaller bank have all said they would welcome our accounts. read more