Consumer complaint received 2019-10-22
Company: CARRINGTON MORTGAGE SERVICES, LLC
State: CA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage

Complaint:
In 2018 my wife and I communicated to Carrington about going through Loss Mitigation with Carrington Mortgage Services. After receiving the packet in the mail, we promptly filled out all areas and returned the package. We never received any response after that and decided to just try and forge ahead. Carrington Mortgage Services has sent us current notice that we have in fact tried for loss mitigation prior to our current process of loss mitigation but we never received communication as to it. To us, that sounds like they dropped the ball and never followed through with even attempting to help out when we asked for it. 

On to the current circumstances. We once again submitted the package requested in late XXXX, and it was recorded that it was received on XX/XX/XXXX. Up to this point we submitted everything asked of us. We did in fact receive communication that we had left a few items out from the application which we again, promptly corrected. We never took more than 1 day to resubmit documentation that was asked from us. I can myself for follow up nearly 20 times if not more and that does not include my wife calling for follow up. Although we understand it is our responsibility to follow up, it would have been nice to get some type of communication after the first call. I have screenshot after screenshot on my phone about how it was an " incomplete package '' been never mentioned why. When we would call in it was generally a missing piece of documentation and we would have to explain that we already sent it in. However, this was never with the Loss Mitigation Department as it was with customer service. Almost every time, customer service was able to track down the missing documents that were submitted. The times we needed to put signatures on the right pages we did again only because customer service would let us know. 

This process wouldn't have been so bad if A ) it wasn't so confusing! 
B ) what was needed was more clear. C ) It wouldn't take literally 1 week between the submittals of docs and an update on their " flow chart ''. D ) we got our hopes up when it finally went to " underwriting '' the next step of a " complete package '' only to receive a letter stating they needed one more piece of information that was already in the initial package with the letter of reasoning we wrote. 

We sent in everything, it took some more time but finally it went back into underwriting. We were denied, which is obviously a huge downer going through everything they put us through with all of these documents. But more so that when we finally got that letter it was in XXXX nearly 2 and  a half months after the submittal of assistance with Lost Mitigation! The process was worse than applying for our home in the first place and when we refinanced with Carrington some years ago.

Originally when I called Carrington to get some help, I asked to see if we could refinance the home, even at a higher rate, because the amount of equity we have in our home is very high. Long story short, nearly 4 weeks after, I decided to call Carrington and make a payment and also ask what was taking so long with the process and also what to expect. After talking with the customer service representative at that time, she informed me that I would have to contact a completely different department and work with " lending ''. 

I did that. Talked to a gentleman who was going to be able to help us by getting us a refinance loan that would wipe our debts and pulling some cash out but we would be paying a XXXX % which we would have loved to do, but then it didn't work on their end because of some finance issues they saw. I understood that, so we tried a different angle. After we stated discussing, the gentleman that was helping us completely stopped responding to my emails and my phone calls. I understand that what was being asked could put someone in a compromising position should we not be able to repay or other red flags, but what bothered me was again, we had to submit all kinds of documents, sign a bunch of forms and in the end, it was a complete waste of our time and got our hopes up. And in the end, the communication stopped in the middle of us working on a different way to refinance with the same department and person. We received a denial letter from that department a week before we received that Loss Mitigation denial stating our " credit application was incomplete ''. We know it was not as we submitted the documentation and kept documentation of the submittal and we were still getting correspondence up to that point and everything was supposedly good. Again, the problem I have is the lack of correspondence and complete disregard to returning our calls and emails. 

I believe us to have been very patient with this process but now feel as the company is extremely poor in the way they handle relations with their customers and clients and feel as though this particular situation was uncalled for with how we were treated. 

I'm currently working tons to keep up and we are doing okay now. My kids are young and moving in the house that they have been growing up and that we are the originally owners of our home, one would think that we are doing the right thing by working with our current lender. 

I have tons of documentation to attach if it will be needed to help resolve this issue. 

In the mean time, we are resubmitting everything again with even more up to date information to Loss Mitigation at Carrington. This was due to discussion after calling today and being transferred over to Loss Mitigation ( their number never works! I have called direct many times and it never worked. This was the first time I was able to talk with someone there. ) We did appeal the action and that was denied because apparently the underwriter put that our new income that we put in was less than what we were originally making. In the letter of appeal that I wrote the new income was on top of what we were making putting us into a category that would have worked to go to the next step. We were blamed because we never originally submitted that. Which we did not because we were not asked to. When I submitted letters prior to the denial I declared that I had picked up a new full time job on top of our current income. I did also submit paycheck stubs that apparently were " not received ''. I have record that I did submit this information to Carrington. I don't appreciate or like the fact we have to do this process all over again just to get a month or two of breathing room so we are actually officially caught up. Our mortgage is literally the only debt we have. No CC 's no car payments, nothing. 

We would just really like to move forward and continue making our payments and that's it.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation