Consumer complaint received 2019-04-01
Product: Mortgage — Reverse mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: Onity Group Inc. (ID)

On XX/XX/XXXX my sister died in a house fire that had a reverse mortgage from OCWEN and the house was a total loss. XXXX had taken {$38000.00} out of the {$100000.00} line of credit provided by OCWEN. I got a heloc loan against my home to allow me to pay off OCWEN through XXXX XXXX. When I called OCWEN on XX/XX/2019 to ask for the amount of the payoff and payee information for XXXX XXXX to send the check they told us that there is a " process '' to obtain that information which can take up to 90 days to provide and could not be provided to me at that time. They requested a copy of the will, death certificate, and change of address letter which I emailed them and faxed them that day. The next day, my friend and I called again on XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX XXXX PST and again were told it could take up to 30 days to get the payoff and payee information to us. My friend XXXX said " then since you won't provide us the address to send a check to, you must suspend any further interest charges at this time ''. She said, " NO, that's not how this works. We will continue to charge interest over the month. '' XXXX said that we want to know the payee information now so that we can at least pay off the amount due as of the last statement from XX/XX/XXXX to prevent interest accruing. She again stated " that's not how it works, you can't do that ''. He said we are recording the call and you are refusing to allow payment on the account. She said " no, I am not but we have a process and you have to follow it '', but still refused to provide payee information. After that, he told her that we are providing a recording of this call to our lawyer that afternoon, she then said " if you have your lawyer send us that payout request to the following email addresses, on business letterhead then we can get it to you in 7 days but you will still be charged the full month of XXXX for interest, etc. '' We have had our attorney XXXX XXXX send them the request for payoff information. In the meantime, over the weekend the next day, I received a letter dated XX/XX/XXXX ( same day of first contact in which they learned the house was burned ), stating that an unspecified inspection ( no detail of who did it or when it was done ) on the property was done and it was found " vacant and unsecured '' however the property was boarded up by XXXX the day following the fire being put out by the fire department and has been secured ever since so this is a false report. The letter goes on to say you must call us within 10 days of this letter to confirm security or we will secure it at your expense. We are still awaiting the payee information and are able to pay not only the amount we know is due but the next months charges in full at which point they can owe us a refund of any over payment. We have been asking who to pay and how much for over a week now but they refuse to provide that information while continuing to send threatening letters about foreclosure proceedings, and other harassing notifications. Please assist us in investigating them and forcing them to provide us the information we seek in order to get them paid and remove their lien holder status from the property so we can move forward with repairs. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. We have all documents related, notices, and the recordings of conversations which can be provided to you upon request.