Consumer complaint received 2024-10-18 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: M&T BANK CORPORATION
State: IL

Complaint narrative:
There were so many errors//miscommunications by M & T Bank during our loan modification. I'll just try and focus on the main ones. Dates may not be totally accurate. My wife XXXX XXXX had a mortgage serviced by M & T Bank ( XXXX ). She became XXXX and as POA I attempted to do a loan modification during COVID ( XX/XX/XXXX ). I was able to begin the loan modification without issue. We completed a trial modification ( XX/XX/XXXX ) and when it came time to finalize the loan modification we sent in the signed documents that M & T Bank had sent to us. M & T Bank cashed our check, but then said that the documents were incorrect ( on their end ) and that they needed to draw up some new ones. The documents that they sent were not drawn up for a POA to sign even though I had told them that was going to be the case. A month or two went by without any new documents being sent to us and finally I called them and inquired ( XX/XX/XXXX? ). I was continually being told that they are really busy over those couple months so that's why the new documents hadn't arrived. It was then that I was told that the POA needed to be recorded -- but I didn't know what that meant and it wasn't explained to me properly -- as in the same conversation they asked me to just resend the POA, so I thought maybe they had to record something on their end. I called back a few days later to confirm but my assigned mortgage specialist never returned my call. When I did speak to a mortgage specialist again, recording of the POA was never mentioned and I continued to make payments. This went on until XX/XX/XXXX. 

Then one day we receive a letter that they terminated the loan modification process because the POA was never recorded ( XX/XX/XXXX ). They only mentioned it that one time on the phone and never again, even though we spoke a couple of times after to make payments. By the way, during this whole process a payment was never missed. They twice reported my wife to the credit bureau ( in XXXX ) during this time as well. They started to send foreclosure letters even though I was still making payments. I had to write the CEO XXXX XXXX ( XX/XX/XXXX ) in order to get some action on it. Nobody cared. This is 6 months later. Then I get a response from XXXX XXXX ( XX/XX/XXXX ) more than 2 months after my complaint letter and basically they blame me for not getting the POA recorded. They did not adequately explain this to us nor did they communicate it more than once. Funny thing, in XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX investigation she mentions that I sent in the recorded POA on XX/XX/XXXX. When in fact that isn't the case. Again, at that time, the mortgage specialist just asked me to resend the POA, so that's what I did. I thought they needed to record it on their end. They didn't say anything about me recording it. I dealt with other financial institutions and never had to record the POA so I had no clue what they were talking about. It wasn't until I spoke a third time about it to a specialist that I was made aware that I had to go get it recorded like a deed, etc. Anyway, I did that the following day, which was XX/XX/XXXX I believe. I was continually being blown off for nearly 2 months before I wrote that letter to XXXX XXXX. I mean it was ridiculous. Foreclosure letters, reporting to credit bureau, etc. Even though no payments were ever missed. 

They finally offered me a new trial loan modification in XX/XX/XXXX. But I refused, I already did the trial. Another funny thing. When I inquired in the beginning of the loan modification process and asked if I could get a lower rate. I was told by a specialist that my loan type didn't qualify for a lower rate. However, the second trial modification that was offered came with a lower rate. Anyway everything was settled by XX/XX/XXXX. 

I have a couple other issues though. In the trial loan modification contract that M & T Bank sent to me it says " There are no modification processing fees for this Trial Period Plan or for modifying your mortgage. '' To me, that states that there are no fees for this loan modification. They never ever sent any correspondences mentioning fees. I thought that this was a government COVID program so I just assumed that there were no fees as they weren't mentioned in phone calls either. It wasn't until a fee randomly showed up on our XX/XX/XXXX statement ( I believe ) that we were made aware of any fees. Then on two other occasions, they just showed up randomly again on a statement. With no explanation of what the fees were for. When I called M & T Bank about the fees. They couldn't tell me what they were for. I received one correspondence calling them corporate advance fees. I did get one breakdown, one was for a title search. But I called many times to see what the other fees were for and couldn't get a straight answer. I ended up writing two more letters to XXXX XXXX about this ( XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  and XX/XX/XXXXXXXX  ). They did refund part of the fees after the XXXX letter. They still never told me what the fees were for -- I missed their response to the final letter as I was having issues with my email account. When I did see their response I could no longer access it as the condo was sold and no more mortgage. 

M & T Bank are the servicer of the loan. I'm not sure what that means legally, their responsibilities, etc. I only touched on about one third of their incompetence. All I can say is that they failed us in a big way and someone from M & T Bank needs to take accountability. We received the letter in XX/XX/XXXX informing us of the cancellation of the loan modification due to not getting the POA recorded. However, in the basically year long process, it was only mentioned once over the phone and not communicated clearly at that time. Is M & T Bank not obligated to mail a letter requesting such a procedure or leave a detailed phone message, or at least mention it more than once over the phone? That never happened. As the servicer of the loan I'm assuming that they have a greater obligation than they showed us in this loan modification process. I barely touched on M & T Bank 's incompetence and lack of interest in assisting us in this process. 
It truly was mind-boggling how many errors and/or misinformation can occur in one loan modification and I truly pity others that have to deal with M & T bank .

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