Consumer complaint received 2019-03-10
Company: Ocwen Financial Corporation
State: MD
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage

Complaint:
Our mortgage ( P & I, not including escrow ) is about {$6500.00} due to an initial bad mortgage in XXXX. We have tried to refinance it since then, but because of the drop in property value, the LTV ratio was not in a favorable range for refinancing and we have been rejected on multiple times. We submitted multiple applications for any form of assistance to our loan servicer ( OCWEN ), but we were rejected by the loan servicer every time stating that we were not eligible due to the investor guidelines. On three occasions we asked for information about who owns our loan and what are their guidelines, and every time they responded by providing a different entity 's name. In XX/XX/XXXX, according to publicly available land records we discovered that our loan was transferred in XXXX of XXXX, without any notification to us. After requesting for clarification, OCWEN responded by apologizing for their errors, and provided the correct investors name. Subsequently we requested for mortgage assistance and were told we won't qualify until we are at least late for one payment. We postponed making a payment in XXXX and our application was accepted. We provided all the necessary documentation and eventually received an offer for a three months trial period of {$5800.00} per month without any explanation regarding how the payment amount was selected and what it covered. We also were reminded that if we don't accept and sign their offer, we would lose our house. They assured us that we shouldn't be concerned about the trial payment because everything is subject to negotiation after the three months trial is successfully completed. Because we didn't want to be late on our payment, we made the first trial payment without signing any agreement and requested for an explanation of payment modification calculation in writing. According to the worksheet they provided, the majority of their calculations is based on incorrect assumptions resulting in a loan offer that is unfair and unaffordable. According to their worksheet, our income was inflated by {$7200.00} a year, and all other indicators such as income-debt ratio, total debt, ratio of mortgage to total gross income, etc were incorrect. When we challenged it, we were told that we had to submit our request in writing. After we submitted a request in XX/XX/XXXX, we received a response in XX/XX/XXXX, that they can not change the modification since we had already made a payment. According to their letter, for them to review our request ( their mistake ) we have to submit in writing declining the proposed modification, and resubmit a new application, however, there are no guarantees that they would entertain our new application. My wife and I are both government employees and our income is straight forward and publicly available. However, Ocwen insisted that they are correct in their assessment and our income is more than what we claim it to be. Ironically, we received a notice from our credit reporting agency last week, that OCWEN ( Maybe in retaliation ) has reported that we are late 90 days on our loan, which dropped our credit score by more than 200 points. We were not aware that while we make the trial payment, we are considered as being delinquent on our original payment. Furthermore, we were specifically advised that we should not pay our property tax or home insurance since the trial payment is collecting for an escrow account. On XX/XX/XXXX we were notified by our insurance company that they are going to cancel our home insurance and Ocwen has refused to pay. We were also notified by the County that our taxes are not paid as was due by the end of XX/XX/XXXX and we were assessed a penalty. It seems the focus of OCWEN is not on helping their customers but showing the regulators how many applications, they have processed. It is always challenging just to reach out to them and when we do, often they either provide you with an incorrect answer ( seems deliberate ), or delay answering by asking to submit our concerns in writing. Based on a simple web search, it is evident that their track records are not favorable toward their customers. Thanks for your consideration of this complaint.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation