Consumer complaint received 2024-07-03 00:00:00
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Loan sold or transferred to another company
Company: Rocket Mortgage, LLC
State: WA

Complaint narrative:
Rocket Mortgage did not follow through on my recast because they decided to sell my loan with servicing released. 

They did not inform me that if they sold the loan they wouldn't process the recast of the loan. I was told by their agent that if my recast payment was made by XX/XX/XXXX that the recast would occur and my first lower payment would be XX/XX/year>. Their website didn't indicate this was a possibility either. It indicated that the payment need to be at least {$10000.00} and the fee was {$250.00}. I informed Rocket mortgage in XXXX that my combined payment would be coming from XXXX different places and that was okay per their agent. One payment would be for {$10000.00} and the other would be for {$400000.00} to {$430000.00}. The mortgage was originally funded on XX/XX/year>, for {$640000.00}, so the recast involved a significant reduction in the balance. 

I contacted Rocket Mortage the last week of XXXX prior to my planned payment date of XX/XX/year>, to obtain wire instructions so I could wire the larger payment to them from my brokerage account. Rocket Mortgage maintains their wire instructions on their payoff statement so an agent had to run a payoff statement to provide the wire instructions to me for which my account now shows a {$25.00} charge for that statement which I did not need since I wasn't paying the loan off, just needed the wire instructions to make a large payment to recast the loan and lower my payment. The auto chat response as to whether there is a fee is that Rocket Mortgage doesn't charge a fee, however a fee is showing on the online screen when I sign into their online system. 

On XX/XX/year> I authorized a wire for {$420000.00} from my brokerage account which was received the same day and my payment for {$10000.00} from XXXX was also received from Rocket Mortgage. My XX/XX/year> payment was received on XX/XX/XXXX by Rocket Mortgage so my account was current on interest and in a status where the {$10000.00} and {$420000.00} payments should have gone directly to principal except for the {$250.00} recast fee. When I accessed the online site and started a chat on XX/XX/year> to confirm the wire payment, I was informed for the first time that they would not process my recast since my loan was scheduled to be sold on XX/XX/year>. It would be up to the new purchaser and servicer to recast the loan as they couldn't do it because they were selling the loan. After I explained the situation to the agent through chat, she said that she ( XXXX XXXX XXXX would look into the situation and get back to me the next day. On Tuesday, another Rocket Mortgage agent ( XXXX XXXX XXXX responded that they could not recast the loan as it was designated/scheduled to be sold on XX/XX/XXXX. No reason as to why, they just won't do it even though they originally told me they would recast if I made the payments by XX/XX/XXXX. 

Rocket Mortgage has provided no information or options other than to say they can't process the recast because the loan is scheduled to be sold. They did not inform me that they were planning to sell the loan until after my payments were sent on XX/XX/XXXX even though they informed me they would recast the loan as long as my payments arrived by XX/XX/XXXX. 

XXXX XXXX from Rocket Mortgage informed me in an email " Please be assured that we have successfully applied your additional funds to your principal balance. I went onto their site and my payment for {$10000.00} was applied against the XX/XX/XXXX payment and against interest and principal and using interest from the old principal balance so that payment now needs to be corrected. 

I understand that loans are sold and that they are probably selling the loan since it is now seasoned 6 months and was a decent balance. I've paid the loan down almost XXXX XXXX of the original balance and the sale excuse seems lame since they have a significantly smaller balance to sell to the purchaser and a recast would keep the balance higher since with a lower payment the principal portion of the payment would be lower. Maybe they were trying to sell the loan at a premium, but the premium would now be substantially reduced by almost 70 % so I do not understand why they are unwilling to recast the loan payment since I followed all their rules and then they decided they do not have to keep their word to me when I informed them of my intent before they sold the loan. Maybe they were trying to sell the loan at a premium since they knew I was going to pay the loan down and they would try and get a premium on the full balance before I paid it down. That way they could recognize the premium and get the buyer ( XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX to pay a premium for the loan and servicing and transfer any loss to them when the loan is paid down. 

Now they want me to deal with the new servicer, XXXX XXXX XXXX on the recast and have informed that XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX fee may be different, higher I assume, otherwise they wouldn't need to warn me. 

Rocket Mortgage needs to keep its word to me and other customers and process the recast for {$250.00}, apply my payments correctly, and remove the {$25.00} fee if they charged it like the online screen says they did.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation