Consumer complaint received 2021-04-15
Company: Mr. Cooper Group Inc.
State: MT
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Closing on a mortgage

Complaint:
In late XXXX of this year, we sold my deceased fathers property, which spans two counties in Montana. My father had purchased the property and gotten a loan through a local lender. The mortgage was then sold to Nationstar, which is now Mr. Cooper. 

In 2017, my father, a XXXX XXXX  not a rich man, managed to pay off his mortgage in full. The company, Mr. Cooper, does not dispute this. They confirm that the loan was paid off in 2017. Upon payoff, the lien was released on the property title in XXXX County, but it was never released in XXXX County. 

So, when we sold his property in XXXX, XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX immediately started working on preparing the titles for closing and transfer to the new owner. But, the deed in XXXX County still shows a lien and therefore, is locked up. XXXXXXXX XXXX started then in requesting the lien release from Mr. Cooper. XXXX XXXX contacted Mr. Cooper weekly for several weeks and were told each time that the case was being escalated and that they would respond. Mr. Cooper never responded, prompting XXXXXXXX XXXX  to keep checking in weekly. Each time, weve been told that the lien release department is handling the case, but we are told that the lien release department can not be contacted by phone or even email. 

After moving the closing back several times due to Mr. Coopers refusal to generate or send the lien release to XXXX County, XXXX XXXX  asked that I call Mr. Cooper to see if I could get any further. 

Starting in XXXXXXXX, I began calling Mr. Cooper every few days to request the lien release and get updates. Each time, I was told the case was being escalated and that they would respond. I even asked to get individual office lines so I could bypass the cumbersome customer service line. I as told to call anytime and leave messages and that the rep would get back to me with in a business day. I have called and left messages and emailed and never, not ONCE, gotten any sort of response. Just yesterday, I talked to someone on the escalation team who twice said she would respond with an update. She never called back. The only response Ive gotten after a month of requests at least every other day has been from the social media team and that only happened once, after exhausting all other channels, I took my plight public on social media. This is a disturbing trend companies removing options for resolution in other channels and instead, pushing people to social media, where ostensibly, they will get lost in the noise on social media. A quick look at Mr. Coopers social media pages confirms this. Nearly every post on the company XXXX page is a string of complaints just like mine. 

I estimate that Ive spent at least 15 hours on this issue in the last three weeks, on the phone with Mr. Cooper and dealing with the fallout of pushing our closing date back so many times including the coming cancellation of the property insurance on the property because its been so long since my Dad died. 

My father paid off this loan and the lien should have been released within 45 days of that payoff. That Mr. Cooper didnt perform that basic function in 2017 is one thing, but the repeated failed promises and ineptitude of the company in handling our recent requests to rectify that mistake have been truly outstanding. Not giving a customer any access to the lien release department, which Mr. Cooper says is working on the issue, is also predatory. It leaves us with no recourse whatsoever in trying to get this resolved other than call the customer line again only to be promised, again that the lien release department was working on it. We did call the number on the title that was released in one county and found the name of the lien release department : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX So, I emailed the contact we got there and she informed me that its not the lien release party holding up the lien release, its Mr. Cooper that XXXX XXXX XXXX is waiting for information from Mr. Cooper. Thats the exact opposite of what Mr. Cooper has been telling us all along. 

Please, please help us get a resolution on this matter and please help others to avoid this situation. Dealing with the loss of someone you love is one thing, but dealing with the incompetence ( maybe malfeasance? ) of large companies who can not perform basic functions after you've lost a loved one makes everything so much worse. Mr. Cooper is holding my dead father 's property hostage and by proxy, holding me and my family, and our grief hostage as well. This is not a better way of doing business. It's predatory, incompetent and fully reprehensible.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation