Consumer complaint received 2025-06-21 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: Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Inc.
State: VA

Complaint narrative:
Hi, In XX/XX/XXXX I approached my lender/servicer ( XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX for a loan modification as a result of XXXX ( from Social Security Administration ) , XXXX XXXX, and unemployment. 

Initially I was rejected because I didn't explicitly state that I was unemployed, only that I had the XXXX and XXXX XXXX  that contributed to my not being able to maintain my employment. 

I reapplied in XX/XX/XXXX and was eventually approved in XX/XX/XXXX by way of a trial modification plan. 

At the time I went into the plan I was current on my mortgage, and I believe that I still am. Here is why : XXXX ) I paid all of the modification trial payments on time per the trial modification plan for XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX. 
XXXX ) I have made payments for XXXX and XXXX. 
XXXX ) On XX/XX/XXXX the lender/servicer to my regular mortgage payment via autopay despite receiving my trial modification payment for XXXX on on XX/XX/XXXX. 
XXXX ) I began contacting the lender/servicer about the double payment for XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX stating that I was heading toward financial distress so could not afford to pay my regular mortgage and the trial modification payment as that would nearly double my monthly outlay. 
XXXX ) Starting XX/XX/XXXX -- and for several weeks after -- I requested that the lender/servicer return the regular mortgage payment to me. I also asked the lender/servicer to suspend autopay because I would not have the money to maintain my regular mortgage and the trial modification payment. 
XXXX ) Instead of returning the regular mortgage payment the lender/servicer returned the trial modification payment, nearly 60 days later. Since receiving the trial payment back in XX/XX/XXXX I have been requesting that the difference, which is roughly {$550.00}, be returned to me. To date those funds have not been returned so the lender/servicer still has excess funds. 
XXXX ) In XXXX the lender/servicer reported my account as delinquent to the credit bureaus. I asked the lender/servicer how that could be when I had paid all trial payment as directed and they still had excess monies due back to me. I also challenged that report with all three bureaus. The bureaus modified the report, but the impact to my credit ( was in the low XXXX XXXX but went down to the mid XXXX ) XXXX ) Since late XXXX I have had many contacts with the lender/servicer, but have found them to be so fragmented and inconsistent that I can not trust anything that they tell me by phone so I have requested all communications be in writing, preferably email to avoid delay. 
XXXX ) My loan modification was approved by the lender/servicer in XX/XX/XXXX, to take effect in XX/XX/XXXX. However, the lender has not updated my account so it is still showing as delinquent so when I tried to make payment online because it would not allow me to make the modified payment amount. 
XXXX ) In late XX/XX/XXXX I started calling the lender/servicer to make the XX/XX/XXXX modified payment. Every time I was routed to their Loss Mitigation department who would insist that I was behind on multiple payments and would demand an amount of between $ XXXX {$3500.00}, which I disagreed with and said I would not pay because a ) the lender/servicer had excess funds due back to me and b ) the account had successfully completed loan modification. 
XXXX ) It wasn't until a third phone call on XX/XX/XXXX -- the last day that I could make my mortgage payment without penalty -- that I was able to get a loss mitigation representative ( XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX  ) ) that actually listened to me and went deep in my file to see that my loan had completed loan modification and took my regular payment without insisting that I need to pay {$3500.00} of overdue payments and penalties. 
XXXX ) That loss mitigation representative ( XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  ) ) then transferred me over to customer service so that I could inquire about the status of the overage from XX/XX/XXXX and escrow overage of $ XXXX dollars. I was told that the XX/XX/XXXX overage had been approved for return and a check issued on XX/XX/XXXX ( today is XX/XX/XXXX and I have still not received the check ). The customer service representative to me the escrow overage had been held by the the lender/servicer because my account was in trial modification and/or delinquent status and that I would need to put in a request for that check to be reissued, which could not be done until my account was set to current in the system. 

I have received some correspondence from the lender/servicer attempting to justify their reporting of my account to the credit bureaus and holding of my excess funds. The correspondence is signed " XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX '' in the lender's/servicer 's Research Department. XXXX XXXX says the type of modification I was in came with no protections as far as reporting of credit. I responded that I had asked several times which of the XXXX payments I should make : the modifications payments or the regular payments because I could not make both given my XXXX, XXXX XXXX and unemployment. I never received a straight answer. Since that letter the servicer/lender has continued to report my account to the bureaus. My credit score is now in the XXXX ( down from low XXXX XXXX when this all began ). 

I have kept fairly detailed records and have copies of my payment history and all written communication between the lender/servicer and me.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation