Mortgage broker shuts down without notice

Independent mortgage banker Sunshine Mortgage Corp. abruptly shut its doors Thursday, employees said.

It’s not immediately clear what impact that will have on pending mortgage closings, but one employee said they are trying to move customers with locked-in rates to other home loan lenders.

The Smyrna-based mortgage lender, in business since 1981, had 20 offices throughout Georgia, Florida, the Carolinas, Maryland, Tennessee, Mississippi and Colorado.

The move came as a surprise to Todd Crane, who was a manager of the firm’s Colorado Springs offices.

He said employees are at a loss for the closure because they were not told why.

“We have no idea,” said Crane, who joined Sunshine in 2002. “We really never got an official notice.”

Fred Powell, who is listed as the company’s chief executive according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Web site, did not return a telephone call seeking comment Thursday.

Edward L. “Ted” Terry, Sunshine’s founder and a principal in a number of real estate related firms, could not be reached.

Carlisle Dent, a mortgage consultant who worked in the Buckhead office, said employees found out at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

“We were all in shock,” said Dent, who had worked at Sunshine for almost 10 years. “We were in a daze.”

He said the No. 1 concern now is moving clients who have locked-in rates to other companies.

Crane said employees will likely not be paid for December and that as recently as a few months ago, employees were told the company was in good shape financially by senior officials.

In fact, despite the housing slowdown, Crane said origination volume remained strong.

“We were as busy as we’ve ever been,” he said.