Consumer complaint received 2023-07-21
Company: Home Point Financial Corporation
State: TX
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
High level summary is that the XXXX removal process run by Home Point appears to be unfairly manipulated to the detriment of their customers to keep them paying XXXX. 

I started the XXXX removal process with them back on XX/XX/XXXX. Not only is their process cumbersome to the customer, but it takes entirely too long to reach a conclusion, all the while they continue to benefit from the XXXX  being in place on the mortgage, as you know effectively making the mortgage a risk free profit for Home Point b/c their downside is 100 % protected by the XXXX insurance. For context, it took until XX/XX/XXXX to work it's way through their system, get an updated value ( that I, the customer, had to pay {$150.00} for ), and then provide a response to me of no ( because I was conveniently at 80.4 % XXXX XXXX 80.0 % needed for removal, more on the absolute sham of an updated valuation process later ). Since Monday XX/XX/XXXX I have tried to contact someone in the XXXX  department at Home Point via phone to try and sort out the issue, or to just pay the extra 0.5 % principal to hit 80 % XXXX, but have consistently been told by the Home Point Customer Service team that there is no such contact # for the XXXX department and I should just wait to be contacted. All the while we have lost another week trying to sort out this issue, which as mentioned above, continues to conveniently benefit the lender while the insurance policy stays in place. My fear is that even after disputing the valuation and/or simply paying the 0.4 % additional principal to hit the 80 % XXXX threshold that they will make me start the entire process over again, which of course will take several weeks and continue to cost me money to their sole benefit. 

Now for the worst part of the entire process, the appraisal/valuation. As part of their process I was required to pay {$150.00} for the updated valuation ( despite the fact that their own portal has an " estimated value '' of my home on their website that is well in excess of the value needed to be below 80 % XXXX ). At the time of the XXXX removal request I provided the valuation of my home from XXXX XXXX Appraisal District, the County Appraisal District that handles assessing home values in my county for the purposes of property taxes. XXXX XXXX also provided the comps used to support thier valuation, which I also provided. XXXX XXXX also came up with a value in excess of what would be needed to be below 80 % XXXX. So, after paying the {$150.00}, the person Home Point hired to do the valuation reached out to me to schedule the visit to my home. In chatting with him he mentioned he had over 40 home visits on the same day as mine, sure seems like a lot of valuations for one person to be doing on a single day and I struggle to believe he can put in the time necessary to accurately review each home in detail if he is putting out 40 a day. Upon arriving to my home the person doing the valuation appeared very unprofessional, wearing old sneakers, shorts and a t shirt. Once I let him into my home he asked if I had made any recent improvement to my home, which I have, about {$25000.00} worth over the last year. The problem here is that all of this information, along with the actual invoices/receipts, was already provided to Home Point in my initial XXXX  removal form. Very frustrating that this information was obviously not provided to the person who would be determining the value of my home. And upon reviewing the updated valuation, these improvements were not considered whatsoever. Seems pretty obvious that brand new paint & carpet throughout an entire house would increase the value vs a similar property. After explaining to him that yes I had made all these improvements and that they were outlined in detailed in my XXXX removal request he then proceeded to take a quick picture in each room. In total the valuation person spent no more than 3 minutes at my house. How could he possibly get an accurate feel in under 3 minutes? And finally, upon reviewing the comps provided in the valuation it is clear the person doing the valuation was searching for comps that would help justify a lower value to keep me paying XXXX. For example, his top comp used for the valuation happened to be XXXX years older than my home and in a separate neighborhood that is not gated. He assigned a value to my home that was a measly {$5000.00} higher than the home that is XXXX years older, and as mentioned above completely ignored the fact of the {$25000.00} in upgrades in the home. There is no doubt in mind that this valuation was purposely biased to keep the value low. 

So long story short, their XXXX removal process appears to be rigged in their favor and then their customer service and willingness to help resolve/work through the problem/dispute afterwards reveals their intention to keep customers paying XXXX  for as long as possible. Just an absolutely unacceptable level of customer service for a company that I am paying thousands of dollars to every year. It is hard not to feel completely helpless in the situation when I continually call and they say they can't help me and I just have to wait until someone responds.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation