Consumer complaint received 2022-07-19
Company: CARRINGTON MORTGAGE SERVICES, LLC
State: RI
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage

Complaint:
XX/XX/XXXX To whom it may concern : Carrington mortgage tricked me into thinking my home was in forbearance all while processing a foreclosure. My home will be sold XX/XX/XXXX if someone doesnt listen and see how wrong this is. 
XX/XX/XXXX XXXX XXXX informed me that my mortgage had been sold to Carrington mortgage ; I got in touch with Carrington and informed them that I would be in forbearance for my mortgage for various reasons related directly and indirectly to COVID-19. I believe this was done online which was one of the options I was given about contacting them. Shortly after, I received a letter stating that my forbearance was accepted. 

In what I believe was late XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX ( that is my best recollection of when it happened ) a man came to my house in a XXXX XXXX, asked my name and handed me a letter stating it was for me. The letter was from Carrington and they requested I call. I called them immediately and spoke with a representative ( I believe her name was XXXX ) ; we discussed my financial situation and decided that I was not in a position to resume my mortgage payments at the moment. I asked her when my forbearance was ending and shared with her that I thought it would be ending within the next few months because I had been in forbearance while with XXXX XXXX and it was my understanding that it would be ending soon. The Carrington rep. explained to me that when the loan came over from XXXX XXXX ( XX/XX/XXXX ) to Carrington my forbearance period began at that time. I unaware that this is how forbearance would work when a mortgage is transferred to another servicer, but the Carrington Rep took plenty of time to discuss this with me at length and reiterated my forbearance began when Carrington commenced servicing the mortgage. She assured me that my forbearance started in XXXX of XXXX. I took what she told me to be correct as I assume someone who works for Carrington should know better than I when they consider forbearance to have begun with them, and how those things work ; I admittedly know very little, this is my first experience with home ownership. Having some knowledge of the extensions that had been put on the COVID relief forbearance I knew I would have 18 months from XXXX XXXX. Within days I received communication that my forbearance was accepted ; I'm not sure whether this was online or by mail, but I did receive something stating that my mortgage was in forbearance.

I would like to emphasize the following : Carrington Mortgage Services sent a man to my house to hand deliver a letter to me after confirming my identity by first and last name. This man did not work the United States Postal Service that I am aware of and drove a white pickup truck. The letter instructed me to call.

Upon reading the letter I called Carrington Mortgage Services immediately and before beginning our conversation it was noted by the Carrington representative that the call would be recorded for quality assurance.

At the time this note was hand delivered to me there were strict COVID restrictions in place and interactions between postal workers, delivery personnel and such were being replaced with other forms of communication, yet Carrington mortgage still felt it important enough to physically send somebody to my house. 

Following that call and subsequent to receiving a communication either by physical letter in the mail, or by way of my online Carrington account notifying me that my home was in forbearance, I have received monthly statements from Carrington every month each of them containing a statement within them that Is highlighted in red and reads : You are currently on a COVID-19 forbearance plan see additional information related to COVID-19 for parents on page 2.

( page 2 ) Important COVID-19 forbearance notice : You are currently on a COVID-19 forbearance plan. Please note that the billing statement shows the amount due which is the contractual amount needed to bring the loan current however you are not required to make any payments during COVID-19 forbearance. In addition your account will not be assessed late charges receive adverse credit reporting and there will be no foreclosure action taken during the COVID-19 forbearance. 

All of my statements ( mailed to me from Carrington Mortgage ) have the forbearance notice ( above ) on them ; I have located the following statements : For the year XXXX I have XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX ( all which include the above verbiage ) For the year XXXX I have XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX ( all which include the above verbiage ) Note : at the time of writing this ( XX/XX/XXXX ) I have not yet received XXXX statement which would have been issued on or around the XXXX of XXXX. 

On the evening of Thursday XX/XX/XXXX I received a letter in the mail from someone I did not know. The letter was an offer to buy my home before it is sold at the foreclosure auction. I would normally ignore this and assume it was a scam, however it occurred to me that my forbearance would be ending very soon and I should call Carrington and make arrangements to resume payments via a loan modification of sorts. 

Basically the letter I received reminded me that I did need to call them soon, before I received a statement from them that my home was not any longer in forbearance ; I did also fear that there was a chance because I wasn't looking right at my statement and I was unsure of the dates that I was just at the end of my forbearance and the reason that this person contacted me is they know ahead of time that I would be being sent to foreclosure or that I was in the very beginning stages of foreclosure. I did not at all really think that my house was being foreclosed upon as I had checked my last few statements when they came in relieved that I was still in forbearance. My son 's wedding is coming up I'm extremely busy at work. And the house keeps me busy because of the amount of updates and repairs it needs, I do them all myself to save money. I was admittedly distracted but every time I got that monthly mortgage statement I was relieved that I had another 30 days that I could breathe before entering into the stressful process of modifying my mortgage. 


XX/XX/XXXX Call to Carrington Mortgage On XX/XX/XXXX I called Carrington mortgage and spoke with a representative, I told her about the letter I received and ask her when my first mortgage payment will be due, or what the next step was because I realized that my forbearance would be ending soon. It was at that time that I was informed that my house was going to be sold via foreclosure sale on XX/XX/XXXX. At this point it became hard for me to speak - my middle son is getting married on the XXXX of XXXX in Wisconsin I have been unable to help with much of the wedding at all, I have not even bought a plane ticket I will be driving out to save money but I can not miss my son 's wedding. The anxiety induced by this conversation had me crying and carrying on and the representative was very kind and went over with me exactly where it was because I honestly still did not believe that I was to the sale end of foreclosure. I thought maybe she mis-worded something, so I made her go over it again so that we were clear. She explained to me that my house would be sold on XX/XX/XXXX. I asked her then, did the foreclosure process start months ago? The Carrington representative confirmed that it did, it started in XXXX when they mailed me letters, when they got no response it was sent to a lawyer in XXXX, and the process was begun in XX/XX/XXXX. 
I was trying to figure out how I could have been so off, how I possibly went six months miscalculating what was going on. My brain was swimming I couldn't even make a thought there was no way I had any idea this was going on, I was under the impression it would be coming soon and I needed to get in touch with them and that's what I did. The representative tried to calm me down as I was crying pretty hard and shocked. She said we can put you in for a loan modification that'll take five days I'm doing the quick math in my head saying I only have 25 days and there's no guarantee that I'll even get approved to start the process of loan modification and then there's no guarantee that I'll get approved for that which was making me panic and at some point the anxiety just became overwhelming there was nothing more to say I just had to get off the phone because I couldn't think straight I couldn't figure out how I didn't know this was going on. 

The representative assured me that she would at least start my loan modification and that I could call back in two or three days because sometimes you can get approved to begin the process within two to three days but that it normally took about 5. We discussed what that meant and how often she sees them approved, and what would be the types of things that I could get denied for. She informed me that if I had any liens on my house or there was more than one person who was not willing to participate - all situations which did not at all apply to me. End of call. 

While trying to figure out in my own head what happened now that I wasn't on the phone anymore I grabbed my most recent statements and that is realized why I though everything was fine all of those statements have a COVID forbearance statement - that is why I thought I had time it was with great relief when I would find the statement on my most current statement - assuring me that my mortgage was not being sent to foreclosure, that is why I thought I was still within my forbearance. Carrington stated that they had sent letters to me they didn't say how many, and they may very well have sent a letter but I know for a fact I did not sign for a certified letter I would have read it immediately had I. The issue being if your paperwork is not in agreement- it would be really important that you make sure someone who is unresponsive is actually getting the letters that are in direct contrast with other paperwork the same company is sending. I don't have the letters saying it was going into foreclosure and that's not to say that they weren't sent but it does seem strange that while they assure me they were sent, my statement saying something completely different then the letters that were sent made it to me just fine. And then over the course of five to six months my home was being foreclosed on and no one noticed that I was being told it was not with each and every monthly statement? Further that no foreclosure action would be taken. 

On a side note whether legally required or not if you send a guy to my house to get me to call you and I'm definitely in forbearance you were just trying to make contact during a time when contact was limited then how can you foreclose on my home without sending somebody or at least sending a letter I need to sign for so you're sure I received it? I just don't understand that? This is my home, it's not a business transaction to me, it's where I intend to grow old, and play with future grandkids, I have poured every piece of myself into this house and I never would have let it to go foreclosure knowingly. It's my family home. 

On XX/XX/XXXX I placed two more phone calls to Carrington and spoke with two somewhat rude representatives one of them actually raised their voice and yelled at me I was calling to clarify why my statements say one thing in theyre telling me another thing - I havent received a letter saying I'm being foreclosed on, I have my statement saying I'm not ; it became apparent they really didnt think what my statements say mattered. 

On Friday XX/XX/XXXX I called Carrington mortgage again to confirm that they received the mortgage statements I sent over. These statements were requested by the person I spoke to on my third calls to them on the XXXX. I wanted to be sure they had them - the rep confirmed receipt and stated my loan was being placed under review to see if I am eligible for loan remodification, and that they wouldn't have any answers for five days since that was done. 

Still no one has answered my question, how can any mortgage company send out a monthly mortgage statement- of which I have for ( XXXX XXXX ) - every single one of them containing the mortgage forbearance statement, clearly reassuring me that my house is not in foreclosure and yet in the background they are foreclosing on my home.

This couldn't have happened at a worse time I am beside myself I feel like my home is being stolen from me and my family. I'm hoping someone can do something to get them to see that they are at least partially responsible for this and backtrack my mortgage to work with me on a loan modification. 

Thank you for your time. 

XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation