Consumer complaint received 2024-08-11 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: NEW YORK COMMUNITY BANCORP INC
State: TX

Complaint narrative:
In XXXX & XXXX of 2023 we reached out to Flagstar as we were beginning to have financial hardships due to my Wife losing her job and my loss of hours due to a XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX and doctors appointments. We tried to get general information from them about our options and they would not provide any options or information unless we applied for Loss Mitigation, even though we were still current on our mortgage at the time. We explained that we were trying to be proactive, as to not have any late payments reported, but the representative said they can only assess options for us once we apply for the loss mitigation and that an application would only be considered IF we were delinquent. 
We applied in XXXX of 2023 when we didnt make our payment on the XXXX, and after about a month of back and forth with the company asking for additional documents, our application was officially complete on XX/XX/scrub> 2023. 
During this application period, we talked with a representative named XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX expressing our concerns about the late payments and we were assured that we would not be foreclosed on and that nothing had been reported to the credit bureaus about the late payment because we had applied for loss mitigation. 
On XX/XX/scrub> 2023, we called Flagstar because we still had not heard from them about our application. The representative XXXX let me know that they marked our application as complete and that it was in underwriting on XX/XX/scrub> 2023. We were assured once more that we were not in any threat of foreclosure but that we were reported to the credit bureaus as a 30 day late on XX/XX/scrub> 2023. 
We then received a letter from XXXX XXXX XXXX notifying us of pre-foreclosure. 
On XX/XX/year>2023 we called Flagstar about this notice and we spoke with representative XXXX and she assured us not to worry about it and disregard it because we were covered under the Loss Mitigation application. 
On XX/XX/scrub>, 2023, we called to get current on the mortgage payments, as we still did not have a resolution/recommendation from our Loss Mitigation application. We made the payment of {$5100.00} and were told that we were current. We then let the representative know that we did not need to proceed with the Loss Mitigation, as we decided we were going to list the home for sale and scale down with the changes in our income. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, Flagstar mailed the approval for FLEX MODIFICATION PLAN and we received the letter at the end of XX/XX/scrub> 2023.

We made one last mortgage payment on XX/XX/scrub>, 2023 and sold the home on XX/XX/year>. 
We moved out of state and my credit was hit with two 30 day lates AFTER we closed through escrow.

We are now trying to purchase our next home and can not because there are two 30 day lates and a 60 day late that is showing on our credit report.

In addition, I was the only person on this home loan with Flagstar, but they ran a hard credit inquiry on my wife ( without our knowledge ) during the loss mitigation review, significantly negatively affecting her credit.

Because of the loss mitigation representatives failure to provide accurate information to us regarding credit reporting, we are now without a home and potentially having to wait 24 full months before we can be considered for a home loan again. We both have credit scores in the mid-high XXXX even with these lates reporting.

We have applied for an internal review of the credit reporting and after their review, they denied us the deletion we requested.

We finally reached a supervisor with Flagstars credit reporting department after many lunch break phone calls and being placed on hold for 45 minutes to an hour, and he said theres nothing they can do about it, but we were welcome to submit a letter noting the dates of these conversations so they could review the calls and to also submit the letter directly to the credit bureaus.

Our late payments werent reported until a month after we sold the home, and 3 months after we got current on the mortgage. It feels like we were told very wrong information by multiple Flagstar loss mitigation representatives and are now paying the price. If they had been clear to us that they would be reporting late payments even during the loss mitigation, we would have borrowed money from family until the home sold to avoid taking hits on our credit.

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