Consumer complaint received 2025-03-18 00:00:00
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage — Trying to communicate with the company to fix an issue related to modification, forbearance, short sale, deed-in-lieu, bankruptcy, or foreclosure
Company: Selene Holdings LLC
State: NJ

Complaint narrative:
I am extremely disappointed and concerned with the way that Selene XXXX has handled the servicing of our loan, which has put this home we have owned since XXXX in foreclosure. Selene Finance made the unilateral decision to pay taxes that had already been paid, failed to offer CARES forbearance when we had Covid related income loss and have stonewalled our attempts to resolve this matter. We understand that Selene may have misunderstood the situation and made errors and we are trying to move forward but feel that we have been obstructed and denied access to programs that could help us resolve this situation. 

This property has been my family home since XXXX and was owned free and clear. We refinanced the home in XXXX and I co-signed on the loan along with my mother XXXX. At that time she was working as a XXXX XXXX  XXXX and I was working in XXXX  XXXX. We had no issues with the mortgage payment until our incomes were impacted by Covid in XXXX. I reached out to Selene to request assistance but was denied access to the CARES forbearance that was mandated by Congress as a solution to help homeowners who were struggling due to Covid related income loss. Selene did not provide any type of forbearance or assistance when we requested and as a result we fell behind on the mortgage. We came back a few months later and made 3 months of payments to get back on track but we were still behind and continued to struggle to try to get fully caught up due to the initial problems caused by Covid. At this time Selene was still accepting our monthly payments for the mortgage which was {$680.00}. We paid our own homeowners insurance and property taxes ( there was no escrow account on the loan ). My mother had paid the property taxes MONTHLY for several years ( not quarterly ). In XXXX the first quarter taxes for XXXX were paid current on XX/XX/XXXX. The second quarter of taxes were due on XX/XX/XXXX with a 10 day grace period, and my mother was prepared as always to make the monthly payment towards the taxes. However Selene stepped in and made the unilateral decision to pay the entire second quarter taxes on XX/XX/XXXX with a payment for {$1700.00}. These taxes were not due yet and Selene took it upon themselves to pay our taxes, calculated what they believed the correct amount to be with interest and penalties on top of that. Two months later Selene added an escrow account without our knowledge and our mortgage payment went up to {$1100.00} per month. We made multiple calls to try and resolve this and get an analysis done to determine how and why this happened but were stonewalled by their representatives, and told this is how it is, there is nothing we can do about it. My mother XXXX then made additional payments to satisfy the past due and upcoming escrow bills in the amount of {$2700.00}. We were hoping this would resolve the matter, but Selene did not apply these funds to the escrow account and kept their mandated escrow account on our mortgage payment. 

We need to know what happened to these funds. We were very frustrated and resumed making our mortgage payments but still were carrying a past due balance. In XX/XX/XXXX Selene told us they would no longer accept a single mortgage payment and that we were required to reinstate the full past due amount of approximately $ XXXX which is not something we can do. Not long after that Selene XXXX  initiated foreclosure proceedings against my family. 

We feel this problem was caused by lack of communication and transparency by Selene. We should have been offered the CARES forbearance when we first contacted Selene for help due to Covid back in XXXX and now this situation has snowballed and led to foreclosure.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation