Consumer complaint received 2020-01-02
Company: Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Inc.
State: CA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX my home suffered severe damage during the XXXX fires. My family evacuated and lived in a hotel for almost a year. On or about XX/XX/XXXX I called our mortgage servicer, Dovenmuhle to inform them of my property damage and to also ask for a forbearance during this uncertain time. My husband was unemployed at the time of the fire but we were still current on our mortgage payment and continued to pay until XX/XX/XXXX when we were forced to stop payments due to lack of funds. Insurance settlement delays and living expenses came straight from our savings. We asked again if Dovenmuhle would extend us a forbearance given our circumstances and that our home is located at ground zero. They were of no help and continued to impose late charges and penalties. I finally received a loss mitigation packet in XXXX sometime, filled it out completely and turned it in. Never got a response. Multiple follow ups and multiple different stories as to my application. I was reassured numerous times that we were not in foreclosure. I was also finally told my loss bit application was incomplete. It wasn't. I checked and rechecked and the package was 100 % complete. This is when I retained a HUD certified counselor to help with the servicer. Once again was told package needed to be completed and told not in foreclosure. At this time my statement indicated that I was participating in a modification program and that I had until XX/XX/XXXX to bring current. Interesting that I received a letter dated the same day of the Hud counselors phone call that my loan was referred to a foreclosure attorney. This was news to me. Then 2 days after I received another letter stating that they would be accelerating the loan and if I wanted to bring it current I would have to come up with close to XXXX XXXX dollars. They bank locked us out of our portal and cut us off from all of our account related documents. Next we had to speak to the foreclosure attorney, who were unsympathetic to our plight and were told in order to bring it current it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of {$40000.00} plus foreclose fees. As time is passing we had asked for a sale date, no response. We scrambled high and low and eventually cashed out of XXXX XXXX XXXX to pay the back payments along with another XXXX in attorney fees. Only to have just recently found out they never filled a notice of default with the county recorder. So how did they get away with all the foreclosure bullying and fees to reinstate. To make matters even worse, our home insurance dropped us in XXXX and the services purchased a policy that was 10 times what we paid and then impounded those charges to us. If I couldn't make my regular payment and they were complete unwilling to accept responsibility for losing my documents after sending inn 3 complete packages then how the XXXX am I going to afford more then double my mortgage? I am now 2 months behind again due to settlement issues and other disaster related debt. My husband and I are divorcing and I blame all of this on the financial stress that Dovennmule has put on us. I have no other options and have listed my home for sale. My once pristine credit is ruined and I won't even quality for a rental due to my credit score. Every other servicer offered some type of forbearance without the back and fourth and straight lying about being put in foreclosure. Thanks Dovenmuhle, I was lucky enough to not have my home completely destroyed in the presidentially declared disaster only to have you force me into selling my home, uprooting my children and essentially ruining my life. You should be ashamed.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation