Consumer complaint received 2016-05-02
Product: Mortgage — FHA mortgage
Issue: Loan modification,collection,foreclosure — 
Company: M&T BANK CORPORATION (NY)

We have been attempting to work with M & T Bank on a short sale relief option as an alternative to foreclosure for about a year now. We have complied with all of the bank 's requests for submission of supporting documents ( pay stubs, letters of hardship, tax returns, bank-specific documentation, bank account information, etc ), only to have been met with continuous delays on the bank 's behalf, incomplete, inefficient, contradictory foresight / guidance on the bank 's procedures for short sales, rude M & T representative communication, inaccurate / repetitive requests and status updates.. For example, the bank has inexplicably " lost '' or failed to acknowledge previously submitted documentation, the bank has stated on numerous occasions that our foreclosure case would be halted while in review for retention / short sale review, while we have continued to receive motions against us while negotiating for a short sale ( on one occasion their representative flat out said that despite what they actually say, they ca n't ever guarantee that the foreclosure would be halted and that other representatives are wrong when stating this ), the bank seemingly changes requirements depending on the person involved in the same process during the same time frame.. Overall, as a able-bodied, knowledg-ed professional, I have found the entire foreclosure process with this bank to be borderline fraudulent - I have never in my life been involved in such an inefficient / ineffective " process '' .. The goal of this is to assist homeowner 's with alternatives to foreclosure, but I can not honestly come to any other conclusion that the process is simply " for show '' because they are required to do this by law, with no true emphasis / intent on actually assisting homeowner 's to their best ability to actually avoid foreclosure. In my eyes, the current process in place by this bank is set up for failure, the time elapsed between " required '' reviews is set up in such a way that you 're caught in a continuous loop of submitting / resubmitting essentially the same supporting documentation ( every 30 days ), which inevitably resets the amount of time to be reviewed for retention prior to short sale - which means just based on all of the time in between documentation submission and re-reviews of the same documentation, you 're constantly being sent back to the start of the entire process ( ie " Shoots and ladders '' ) - this is in addition to constant new requirements being discovered as we move a long through the process and withholding of complete information in regards to the process upfront. 

In summary, we have yet to get a complete short sale review from the bank in a year 's worth of time, despite having submitted an offer more than 6 month 's ago and always complying with the bank 's ever-changing requirements. 

It has been the worst experience of my life in dealing with a " system '' that is designed to assist others.. meanwhile we have continued to be intimidated by the foreclosure proceedings threatening to take the property with no respect to our willingness to work out an alternative with the bank. Please see the attached letter for a full description of my particular role in the situation, as I am not even a primary resident of the property and in the end, was only attempting to do something good for a friend in need - and are once again trying to do the right thing now by working something out to get the bank their property back.