Consumer complaint received 2019-07-16
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage — 
Company: Onity Group Inc. (GA)

We discovered when attempting to obtain a payoff amount for the existing loan, that we had become subject to loan modifications in the form of a balloon payment and a SAM without our knowledge. XXXX XXXX was dropped from the loan documentation without notice resulting in her being unable to access account information, make any changes, or even discuss the loan. 

The backstory for this begins with a woman from Minnesota XXXX XXXX who had loaned money to XXXX XXXX, an uncle here in XXXX. Through a mutual friend of XXXX 's the niece who had been ejected from a local motel, was brought to the home of the XXXX 's. Subsequently, they offered her a place to stay on promise of her paying rent as soon as she got a job. 

During this time ( XXXX ), the XXXX 's were in danger of losing their property to foreclosures. XXXX recommended XXXX as a " fixer '' and the XXXX 's asked for his help with their bookkeeping, and he then offered to help them with the foreclosure problems. Amazingly enough, a few phone calls later, the initial mortgage company XXXX, predating OCWEN, withdrew the foreclosure notices. 

In XXXX of XXXX, XXXX, according to the documents shown as Exhibit A ( which include a cover letter by XXXX ), falsified a Power of Attorney to represent the XXXX and to conduct business on their behalf in all matters related to their mortgage account. In it, he claimed to be fully authorized to negotiate the terms and conditions of the mortgage loan and modification agreement and proceeded to make changes with OCWEN ( the current mortgage holder ) that were not revealed until some time later. We have also included as Exhibit B a draft of same addressed to XXXX. 

XXXX moved in to the house during XXXX of XXXX and signed a rental agreement drawn up by the owners for one year ( XX/XX/XXXX thru XX/XX/XXXX ). The original rental agreement has been misplaced among papers. In XXXX, the owners prepared another rental agreement for signature and it was voided by XXXX and a Lease Agreement was created for period XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX ( Exhibit C ). Exhibit C was signed by both the owner and XXXX. Please note the signatures because this is the last and only document signed by the owner. 

The next document prepared by XXXX was a Lease Purchase Agreement to be in effect XX/XX/XXXX for three years ( Exhibit D ) during which time the Tenant could pay the Mortgage Lien on the property at any time to take possession of the property. Exhibit D reduced the monthly amounts due from {$700.00} to {$610.00}. [ Please note that the amount of {$610.00} was the exact amount of the mortgage payment only obtainable from the mortgage company. ] Most glaring was the obvious falsification of XXXX XXXX 's signature. [ Note : when comparing both signatures from the Exhibit C, it is evident that either XXXX 's signature on Exhibit C was falsified, or is falsified on all subsequent documents because they do not match. ] Exhibit E is a copy of the the Lease Purchase Agreement and has XXXX 's comments pointing out the fraud it contains. Exhibit F is a page that XXXX found that was one of many signature pages signed by XXXX for use by XXXX, according to XXXX. 

At no time was there ever received any monies from either XXXX or XXXX which violated the terms of the rental agreement and Lease Agreement. The owners were advised by both XXXX and XXXX that payments were being made directly to the mortgage company. To that end, the owners discovered later that XXXX had authorized access for XXXX without their permission. Furthermore, where there had been monthly statements received by the owners, now there was no communication from the mortgage company to the owners. Sensing there were issues involving Ocwen, the owners began attempting to obtain documents that would provide them with the loan status. It took two years to finally accumulate sufficient information to determine that the loan was in jeopardy. The true intentions to force the sale of the property and enable XXXX to obtain the house in a short sale didn't come out until after the attorneys were brought in to assist in the eviction of XXXX. 

XXXX is an XXXX year old senior citizen, fathered XXXX children and XXXX  XXXX more and they are all creative, successful, and self-supporting individuals. XXXX is a former XXXX active in his church and community and although we can not ascribe intention to Ocwen during this period, we can describe the effects on the XXXX and their finances. 

By Ocwen failing to properly " vet '' or screen every person seeking information about the XXXX 's account, they were subjected to gross fraud. In his communications with Ocwen, XXXX complained that when he would call in, there was no requirement to authenticate himself, not even a password. Further, Ocwen 's obligation to protect the XXXX 's right to ownership was so lacking that even people taking calls at Ocwen did not know that the XXXX 's were the owners. 

In XXXX, Ocwen forced the owners to pay for flood insurance even though they had been provided documentation by FEMA that the house would never flood. These forced flood insurance payments added thousands of dollars to the mortgage payments. 

Some time prior to XXXX, as a part of the restructuring undertaken by XXXX, Ocwen applied various types of modifications to the original loan. These included balloon notes, ARMs, and SAMs. These did not surface until XXXX when the owners attempted to refinance their residence. When the owners objected to the modifications, specifically the SAM, by initially charging {$8000.00} and in response to the owners complaint raised it to {$15000.00}, then a third time when the owners complained, they raised it to {$77000.00}. Please note, the original payoff for the house in question was {$54000.00}! 

Learning of this abuse, the owners contracted with an attorney to assist them in the removal of the " tenant '' XXXX ; however, even though a sitting judge declared the documents used by XXXX as forged, the owners were told no criminal charges would be filed against XXXX, that these were civil matters.