Consumer complaint received 2018-07-04 00:00:00
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Struggling to pay mortgage — 
Company: Ocwen Financial Corporation
State: MA

Complaint narrative:
The Servicer, Ocwen, had initially entertained the idea that a short sale could be done on the property. The homeowner is deceased and his wife who is NOT on the loan was the only person that could sign off on the paperwork. Ocwen however, took the short sale review all the way until the very end when we were told that the homeowner 's wife now has to file a probate case in order to be appointed the homeowner 's representative so she can sign off on any paperwork related to the Short Sale Approval ( despite the file NOT being approved just yet ). This was about XX/XX/2018. For the entirety of the time that the file was going through probate, the Escalation Department at Ocwen was fully aware that the homeowner was trying to get this probate case finalized but they started the foreclosure activity on XX/XX/2018 despite awaiting probate decision and set the date for XX/XX/18. We were able to get the date postponed to another 30 days after much resistance from Ocwen ( they let us know there was " nothing '' they could do because the Probate case was not finalized and they needed the probate paperwork in order to review the file fully for a short sale approval ). We had to get assistance from the Foreclosure attorney as well as filing a previous CFPB Complaint on XX/XX/18. As soon as the foreclosure was postponed, I contacted the short sale department and Escalation department at Ocwen to see what other documents they needed in order for the short sale review to be completed. After a whole week of no contact from the short sale negotiator or the Escalations department, I was told by XXXX XXXX from the Escalations department that the file now had to be reviewed for a loan modification. This is concerning because when the loan was taken out by the Homeowner who is now deceased, his wife did not go through the loan qualifications so to have her go through the qualifications now when Ocwen fully is aware that the wife is Unemployed and is only receiving a Pension from her husband 's death. She no longer lives in the house either and when we mentioned all these to the Escalation Department, we were told there was nothing they could do but get the loan reviewed for a loan modification since this was their rule. This rule by the way, was NEVER informed to us. Everyone who we were in contact with at Ocwen always pointed out that they needed the probate documents before they could review the short sale completely and there was never any discussion abt the possibility of a loan modification review being Mandatory. This seems to be a way to waste her time since the review for loan modification does take at least 30 days and the foreclosure date is 16 days away. We escalated everything for paperwork that we could control and Ocwen unfortunately has stalled the short sale review once again.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation