Consumer complaint received 2017-07-21
Product: Debt collection — Mortgage debt
Issue: Written notification about debt — Didn't receive enough information to verify debt
Company: Onity Group Inc. (ME)

Dear CFPB, I am submitting a complaint to you regarding my loand with OCWEN Loan Servicing. OCWEN acquired my loan in XX/XX/XXXX. As is often the case, mortgage companies transfer loans to other companies without customer knowledge until after the acquisition. I had no idea then how bad it could get with this company. OCWEN has a very poor performance of payment processing and then charges customers excessive additional late fees. There are unexplained charges on my account, totaling over {$3700.00}. Every three months or so they charged for title report fees and property inspection fees and title searches and property valuation expenses with no explanations. These fees are unnecessary and I have been overcharged. OCWENs deficient management systems have caused me substantial financial harm, and as my attorney advised me, violated consumer regulations. OCWEN must refund these charges. Along with the padded charges, my over arching problem lies in the Shared Appreciation Modification I have with OCWEN. Their inability to accurately monitor the Ocwen SAM program caused them to send confusing and misleading escrow statements. Ocwen did not have any procedures in place to detect escrow statements that contained SAM accounting entries. I have made timely monthly payments for the entire duration of the SAM, established in XX/XX/XXXX, except for a setback six months into the agreement. Those missed payments were all repaid soon after, and to this day I have remained current. I am requesting a release of liability from my SAM with OCWEN. This is my story. As I stated earlier, my relationship with OCWEN began in XX/XX/XXXX. Due to medical XXXX, I suffered loss of income for an extended period of time, and consequently fell behind in monthly mortgage payments by a few months. OCWEN sent letters threatening foreclosure. When I spoke with them to work out a resolution to avoid foreclosure, they advised me to enter into a Shared Appreciation Modification. On XX/XX/XXXX, I paid all outstanding payments and then signed the SAM contract. OCWEN lowered my balance from {$210000.00} to {$130000.00} with a Shared Waive Adjustment of {$91000.00}. My attorney has since advised that the SAM contract is vague and missing legal consumer protection clauses, probably making the contract illegal. Six months into the modification I fell behind due to continued medical issues with XXXX XXXX in my neck. By XX/XX/XXXX I was able to repay all outstanding payments and get back on track. I have paid on time every month since then and I am current with payments. I was never notified by OCWEN that my SAM had been cancelled. Last year, XXXX of XXXX, my circumstances became such that I needed to sell my property. I contacted OCWEN to inquire about my balance due. Phone communication with OCWEN is difficult at best with long wait time on hold only to speak with customer service representatives who are from XXXX. They can not be understood with thick accents and inability to comprehend the issues. Phone conversations would become repetitive and then I would be transferred to another, and then another. Instead of resolution and explanation, reps would read aloud, over and over again, the very same words I was seeing on my computer screen from the website as I was talking with them. That said, and after days and days, hours and hours of plowing through broken communication, I was able to speak to an OCWEN representative who absolutely confirmed that the Regular Principal Balance listed on my monthly statement was, in fact, correct. He adamantly stated that the only principal I was responsible to pay off was the interest-bearing portion of my principal, and that {$91000.00} had been waived. I asked him to check and recheck, and he confirmed. So, based on that, I borrowed funds and took personal funds to fix up my house so that I could sell it for as much as possible. The house went on the market in XX/XX/XXXX. By the end of XXXX I had interested buyers. I requested a Payoff Quote from OCWEN. What a shock - the representative had misled me. The payoff included the waived balance of {$91000.00}, even though he had reported to me that it had been waived. Upon questioning OCWEN as to the discrepancy, I was assigned a Relationship Manager. The RM agreed that I had been given false and incomplete information, and yet took no responsibility. Obviously I could not sell because this immediately put me underwater, plus the money I borrowed and invested to get the house ready for sale. I took the house off the market. The {$91000.00} Waived Balance is extraordinarily high, and the house will never be worth the amount OCWEN is demanding for payoff. How is the Shared Waived Adjustment amount calculated? In all my research I can find nothing to explain that. The current market value of the house is {$170000.00}. My principal balance including the waived balance is {$210000.00}. I have been damaged severely by OCWENs actions to date, and I can not see any way out. Taking a hard look at my situation before entering into the SAM compared to my current financial picture with OCWEN, I have made near to no progress in paying down the loan. It is inconceivable to me that before I signed into the SAM on XX/XX/XXXX, my principal balance with OCWEN was {$210000.00}. Now, after four years ( 52 months ) of making payments on time, except for one instance a few months into the SAM, my principal balance is still {$200000.00}. It makes absolutely NO sense that after paying OCWEN over {$52000.00} over the past 4 years, my current principal balance is only reduced {$3400.00}! The many recent lawsuits against OCWEN clearly state that the company was not to do this kind of action any longer, but they continue to be the Winner and the consumer continues to be the Loser.  OCWEN is penalizing me {$91000.00} for one incident of a few late payments, placing me in an untenable position. I request that OCWEN credit my account for the many unnecessary fees and charges, and waive the SAM adjustment.