Consumer complaint received 2017-03-27
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY
State: CA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Loan modification,collection,foreclosure

Complaint:
I worked hard and rebuilt my credit and saved money so that I could buy a home for my family with an FHA mortgage loan. My problem is that the mortgage company that holds my FHA loan Wells Fargo is not giving us a fair chance to resolve missed payments. They have given us conflicting information, told us after a review that we qualified but then later told us we do not, and advised us to miss payments so that we would qualify for help. We are now being told by Wells Fargo that there are no options except a short sale or deeding the house back to them -- but we just made two large lump sum payments in the last few months and they accepted these payments. How can we be in this situation? It does not make sense. I have enough income to afford the monthly payment, but was injured at work and out for a few months which is how this downward spiral started. 

In XXXX 2016 I hurt XXXX on my job as a XXXX ( been doing it for 27 years ) and found out that I had some XXXX and XXXX. I was out of work for three months, and even though I had some money saved fell behind one mortgage payment. My wife tried to call in to make the missed payment but Wells Fargo said we could not do that ; we could only pay the current month 's payment and would then be responsible for late fees. We were not able to get ahead because the way my business works I have to buy all the materials for a job in advance and then recoup this money when I get paid at completion. We called in to Wells Fargo to see if there were any programs to help us get caught up and spoke with XXXX at Wells Fargo. She went over our loan, our situation and our financial information and XXXX said that we qualified for help, but that we needed to be at least " 3 months behind '' to qualify for these programs. At that time it was helpful for me to have extra money from missing two more payments so we followed her advice and then called in to apply after we were three months behind. We went over everything on the phone and once again were told we qualify and that all we had to do was send in the paperwork, which Wells Fargo said they would mail out. Of course they never sent it, and we actually had the paperwork sent to a Wells Fargo branch where we picked it up. 

We sent it to XXXX who told us she would have an answer for us in two weeks. We waited nearly two months, and were then told that we were denied and that we either had to short sale the house or give the house back to the bank. We were in shock. How was this possible?? 

I am not sure what programs we were reviewed for by Wells Fargo but XXXX XXXX had led us to believe it was Save your Home California. It appears this is a program offered by the state of California. Wells Fargo has government and internal modification programs available -- additionally, this is a government insured FHA loan. I am pretty sure that Wells Fargo is REQUIRED to consider us for modification, partial claim, forbearance agreement or repayment plan. It appears they did not review us for ANY of these programs. 

We make enough money to afford our mortgage payment. We have made two large lump sum payments to Wells Fargo ( that they ACCEPTED ) over the last 3 months to cut down our delinquency, yet Wells Fargo is telling us we have to give back our house while they take our payments?? What is going on here?

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation