Consumer complaint received 2019-07-25
Product: Mortgage — VA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: Shellpoint Partners, LLC (NC)

We got a VA loan in XX/XX/XXXX for our home and we put a very large down payment, because my husband is a XXXX XXXX XXXX and the monthly payments needed to be low. Everything was fine until our mortgage co. sold our mortgage to Shellpoint Mortgage in XX/XX/XXXX, and our payments went from {$750.00} to {$1600.00} which we couldnt afford. We called them, they said they didn't have enough info on our acct yet to give us any answers, and gave us some suggestions to check, like property taxes, insurance, etc. They also told us to just keep making our regular payment until they figured it out and to check back in 2 weeks to see if they had all our acct info. We checked all their suggestions, nothing had changed except prop taxes went up a tiny bit. 

We asked who else to talk to and they gave us a contact, XXXX XXXX, who we called repeatedly but got no response. We later found out she didn't work there anymore. They kept giving us non-responsive contacts, until months later they told us that they found out the problem. When they took over our loan, they didn't realize for some reason that our home insurance was wrapped up in our monthly payment. So not only had we been paying our insurance, they tacked their expensive home insurance on top of our payment. 

We asked them to fix their mistake and remove this huge amount we now owed through no fault of our own, but they refused & said we were still responsible for it. 

By now we realized we had a contact at the VA, and she had been trying to get ahold of this company too. They had supplied her with completely different contact names, such as XXXX XXXX, who was also not responsive. By now, Shellpoint was threatening us with foreclosure. 

Had we been better informed, we would have found a foreclosure attorney, but we didn't know how to get out of this mess. We did receive a foreclosure letter. We were told our options were to let the bank take the house, do a short sale, or try to sell it ourselves. 

We called our realtor and she said she could help us sell the home quite fast, but we would need a pay off letter to give the court to get an extension. She also felt this company was trying to kick us out of our home, and wanted to get some information from them. We authorized them to talk to her but they refused. She suggested we get a lawyer because of their shady practices. 

We called Shellpoint on XX/XX/XXXX and were given the contact XXXX XXXX by XXXX XXXX. She promised to email the pay off letter within 2-5 days. Nothing came, so on XX/XX/XXXX my husband called and talked to someone who claimed the letter was sent on XX/XX/XXXX, and he said he'd resend it right over. My husband waited with him on the phone, and nothing came. He put us on hold for about an hour and then told us he couldn't get ahold of our contact XXXX XXXX, but he'd sent her an email requesting her to email the letter. So we waited until XXXX and called back & talked to XXXX in customer service because we didn't receive anything, she was the third customer service agent we'd talked to, and each agent had different information about the payoff letter. XXXX gave us a new contact, XXXX XXXX. XXXX said there was a payoff letter written but they couldn't send it because they had to update it. This would take at least 3 more business days. We couldn't wait because we had court. We asked if the letter had the payoff amount, which she said was {$160000.00}. We again told her we needed the letter in time for court, but she would not send it on time. My husband told her we would give this information to a lawyer, and she then promised to send it within the next 2 hours. We finally received it 20 minutes later. 

We were able to take it to court and get an extension until XXXX. We sold our house on XX/XX/XXXX, a week after listing it, and are now getting ready to close. 

But that's not the last of what Shellpoint has done. Last week our realtor stopped by to check on the house, because we moved to AZ 2 weeks ago, and she found that they had posted a notice on our door saying the property had been abandoned and vacated, while we are still paying for water and electricity on the property, and there is a for sale sign in the yard that says under contract. On XX/XX/XXXX we called XXXX XXXX, who had been hired to post the notice, and told them to remove it immediately. They checked their notes only to realize that the property was indeed not abandoned. I believe Shellpoint owes us some kind of restitution for all the mistakes they made and for not providing adequate service. This situation could have easily been avoided if they had recognized their insurance in the beginning. It has damaged our credit and forced us out of our home.