Consumer complaint received 2023-05-25
Company: FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF PENNSYLVANIA
State: MD
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage

Complaint:
I have been working with my lender/Servicer First National Bank ( FNB ) in conjunction with my housing counselor and The Maryland Home Owner Assistance Fund ( MDHAF ) Program which was supposed to help bring my overdue mortgage payment current and avoid foreclosure. 

My lender had denied my loan modifications, initially due to insufficient income but after my family moved into the home with me, the combined household income had improved and my lender also denied us a modification based on too much household income. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately in this, my daughter also lost her job just after the 2nd loan modification.

We were prevented from making any monthly payments to the loan and was told that they would be requiring the complete overdue amount but they'll be waiting for, and working with MD HAF to help bring my payment current.

I have been working with MDHAF since XXXX XXXX XXXX. Since XX/XX/2022, when the process had progressed initially to the point that MDHAF kept asking my lender to send in my loan documents so my application is not delayed, my lender kept insisting that they had no way of sending the requested loan documents because they had no access to the MDHAF Portal ( and this was over a month before the 2nd loan modification which was denied due to too much house hold income ). It took them 6 months to finally access the portal after my housing counselor intervened to them access the MDHAF portal in order to send in the required documents.

MDHAF finally had to deny my application this because my lender had denied my loan modification. 

When I spoke to XXXX XXXX who is my contact person in FNB to find out why the bank had decided to cause me to lose the MDHAF 's assistance, he became quite furious with me, claiming that they had been trying to help me all along and they will now be following up with the foreclosure and I could speak with their foreclosure attorney. 
Although I tried to explain to him that the household income had decreased due to my daughter losing her job, he didn't ask for a termination letter but said I should contact a Realtor and sell the house. He instead kept yelling " what's your current household income, tell me your current household amount '' when I told him that I was waiting for my nephews to send me their current paystub that evening, then I can give him the real total amount, he took that as prove and said that we would not qualify and can't afford it. This occurred when I requested for my most recent mortgage statement. 

I told him that I wanted to keep my home and would prefer another loan modification because we should qualify now with less income and that I will also be appealing MDHAF 's decision, which we did, waiting for their decision. But I am afraid that would be a problem because my lender is bent on denying us a modification.

I don't understand why the sudden change in tone and manner from wanting to help me save my home to now preferring that I lose my home. I thought that whole purpose of working with MDHAF is for the overdue amount to be paid off to avoid foreclosure.

I am now believing that their inability to access HAF 's portal and refusing further monthly payments was a delay tactics designed for our debt to pile up enough to lose my home. 

I also believe this because he had told me that I'm wasting their time as he needed to attend to another client 's file in the same situation with HAF Program and my question was why does mine have to take 6 months.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation