Consumer complaint received 2024-04-09
Product: Mortgage — VA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Loan sold or transferred to another company
Company: M&T BANK CORPORATION (PA)

During the XXXX pandemic, I was granted a relief, from my mortgage as I was affected by XXXX. I was experiencing some hardships and this program assisted in providing some relief from the economic hardship that I was going through. When the term for the XXXX relief expired, the terms of the agreement was that I was required to pay the entire amount of the outstanding monthly payments during which I received relief. It was a total of 12 months mortgage payments. I was unable to make the payments. The bank informed me that I could apply for a loan modification. They asked me if I could continue the regular monthly payments if necessary and I told them yes I could do that however, the large lump sum represented XXXX  months mortgage I could not pay in the lump sum that they were requiring. They committed to helping me to find a resolution where my mortgage payments would continue to be what they had been prior to XXXX. That payment would be XXXX XXXX monthly. My interest rate was 2.5 % as I had refinanced my house previously to take advantage of a lower interest rate. It took several months before the loan modification was processed but finally at the beginning of XX/XX/2023 they informed me that the modification had been approved, and we arranged for closing, which was completed as normal using a mobile notary. 
Shortly after the closing on the loan, I started receiving calls from M & T BANK, informing me that they had purchased the loan from XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX. They informed me that I would need to make the first XXXX monthly payments by phone with XXXX of their representatives and then after XXXX months I would be able to pay online for future payments. I made the first payment on the phone with their representative on XX/XX/2023 for the month of XXXX. After making that payment, M & T bank contacted me once again and said there were some additional documents that I needed to sign and that they would make arrangements to have those documents delivered to me and that they would provide a mobile notary to facilitate the signing of those documents. I did inquire at the time as to the nature of the documents, and they told me that it was the same documents that I had signed at the closing with XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX. I asked why I needed to sign them again. They told me M & T BANK had just acquired loan, and that they did not yet receive all of the paperwork from XXXX XXXX mortgage, and they needed to have a copy of that document. That did not seem to be a reasonable request in retrospect because I would imagine that, if an organization like M & T Bank was purchasing an asset of such value, that they would have acted with diligence to ensure that they had everything needed at the time when they closed the deal with XXXX XXXX XXXX. Anyway, the mobile notary which they committed to providing arrived at my house on XX/XX/2023 with the document I needed to sign. I signed the documents and the mobile notary took the documents with him. As it was XX/XX/XXXX, and the date when I needed to make the second payment, I called M & T Bank that same afternoon to make the payment. When I called, M & T Bank refused to take the payment and they said that the documents which I needed to sign had not been received, and that it was due XXXX weeks earlier. Bear in mind that they had just sent the documents to my house on the same day when I signed the documents and the same day when I called them and tried to make the payment. They never informed me that there was any sort of requirement that the documents to be signed XXXX weeks earlier than the day when they were brought to my home by the Notary. They refused to take the payments and told me that they would Start foreclosure proceedings on the house. They indicated to me that I could apply for another modification but I sensed that the process did not have any integrity, and that there was no guarantee that they would ever honor their word. This was only the first action on their part that indicated an excessive measure of aggressiveness towards foreclosure on the property. 
I decided to try and sell the home myself which they told me that I could do in order to try and recuperate at least some of the equity I had built up in the house which was in excess of {$200000.00} worth of equity. I started working with a realtor company to make the home available for sale. 
I put the house on the market. It had been marketed by realtor who placed a lockbox on the front door to facilitate the showing of the home. I had to travel for work and I informed the bank of this and told them when I expected to return. The bank sent someone out to the house to remove the lock box that had been placed there by the realtor and changed the locks on the house preventing anyone from being able to access the house, thus denying me the opportunity to potentially sell the house. 
When I returned and went to the house that was when I discovered that the garage door would not work I tried to use the remote opener from inside of the car and it did not work. I came out of the vehicle and I tried the keypad that is installed outside of the garage door and that would not work either. I walked around to the front of the house, and I tried the key code for the lock box which had been placed by the realtor. The code did not work. I then noticed there was a note from a company called XXXX, an Agent of M & T Bank, indicating that they had secured the house. They left a phone number for me to call which I did right away to indicate that I was still living there and that the house had not been abandoned as they had indicated. No one answered the phone. I called several days and left several messages before I finally got in touch with someone. 
Of course that night when I arrived at my home and could not get in, I ended up having to stay at a hotel. And then the days that followed when I could not get in touch with them. Once again, I had to get or find a place for me to stay. When I finally got in touch with the company that had secured the house on behalf of the bank, they told me that I needed to call the bank. I called the bank. No one answered. I called several times I left several messages. No one returned a call it was another week before I heard from them. They gave me the code which I needed to access the key inside the lock box. 
By this time there had been a significant snowstorm and XXXX of the issues with the property which the bank already knew about because I had informed them about it before, and that is that when there is a significant snowstorm, it is not possible to get into or out of the property on the temporary driveway that had been provided by the builder. There is a significant danger if you happen to be at home and you were trying to get out when there is snow on the ground. There is no way to prevent the vehicle from sliding because of the incline at the entrance to the property which is very steep, and then snow and ice at the entrance to the driveway, makes it impossible to control the vehicle at all. You simply slide right out into the street, therefore when it snows, Im generally stuck at home until the snow melts on its own. So I could not get into the home because of the snow on the ground. I had to wait XXXX weeks before I could get in. 
By this time when I went, I tried to open the lock box with the code that had been provided by M & T Bank. I discovered that the code that they provided for the lock box was incorrect. At that time while there at the house, I called the bank on the phone once again, and I told them that the code that they gave me was incorrect. Surprisingly, someone actually picked up the phone And they gave me a different code which I tried at that time and I was able to get in. 
When I got inside the house that was when I discovered that the lockbox from the realtor was actually sitting right there in the living room thats where the M & T Bank XXXX XXXX had put the lockbox after they took it off of the front door. Once I got inside, I noticed that there was no electricity, which was very strange because my electricity bill is automatically paid online every month. There was also no water which is expected as there was no electricity, because my water is supplied from a well. It was in the evening so it was getting dark and I couldnt see what was going on. I called the bank and I told them that I was inside. I was on the phone with them. They asked me if everything seemed to be ok, and at that time the only thing I noticed was damage from flooding in the garage ceiling. There was also the appearance of flooding in the basement, but there was no heat or water or electricity in the house. 
The house was therefore uninhabitable. The bank told me that I needed to contact XXXX to find out what they had done to the house. The other thing that I noticed is that the garage door would not work. The electricity was turned off in the house, but the garage door has a backup battery which should allow it to be operated, even if the power is off. 
Anyway, the next day I called XXXX to ask what had been done why I dont have any water or electricity at the house why the garage door wont open. It took them almost a week to get back to me and they told me that someone would call me back and they took almost another week to call me back. When they did get back in touch with me, they told me that they had turned off the circuit breakers inside the electrical panel, so I went back the next day and I turned back on all of circuits in the panels. They had also shut off the main valve for the water supply to the house. After turning on the electricity, the heat returned to the house immediately. The cold water also came on immediately. There was no hot water. I checked the tank and noticed that the inlet valve was closed. When I opened that valve to allow water to get into the tank, the water started running of the tank through the outlet where the valve was removed flooding the basement. Obviously the outlet valve was removed from the tank causing the basement to flood when any attempt is made to use the tank. 
The garage door still would not work, and when I went and took a close look, I noticed that the garage doors were both padlocked from the inside. I removed both of the locks, and still the opener would not work, called XXXX once again, to inform them of the issue with the water heater and the garage door opener and they told me that they would get back in touch with me. 
As of now Im still waiting to hear from them. It appears the bank and their agent XXXX have taken steps to make it impossible for anyone to live in the house. While waiting for them to fix the issues with the house, I was informed by the XXXX XXXX that my home was scheduled for sale at auction by M & T Bank.