Consumer complaint received 2025-02-19 00:00:00
Product: Mortgage — Reverse mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Trying to communicate with the company to fix an issue while managing or servicing your loan
Company: MUTUAL OF OMAHA MORTGAGE, LLC
State: FL

Complaint narrative:
My name is XXXX XXXX. I live XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Florida and was impacted by flooding from Hurricane Helene on XX/XX/XXXX. I am one of the fortunate ones, in that I had flood insurance. The process for submitting a claim and what comes after has been harrowing. With flooding, mitigation has to be quick, so that mold doesn't grow. I had to quickly engage a flood restoration company and get onto their schedule. Their estimate was {$41000.00}, with 50 % up front to get on their schedule. As you can imagine neither flood insurance or XXXX can respond in days with funding, so I had to get a loan for the start of this work. 



My flood insurance adjuster put me in for a {$25000.00} advance so that I would have money to start the process. I believe I received that check about 5 weeks after flood. I couldn't wait 5 weeks for mold to grow in my house, so I borrowed money to start the restoration process. 



I finally received settlement from my flood insurance company XX/XX/XXXX, for a flood that occurred XX/XX/XXXX, so I was able to engage the construction contractor. The contractors statement of work contains various milestones at which payment must made. This artifact, along with remittance settlement that I made to the restoration company was provided to Mutual of Omaha XXXX XXXX 



The flood insurance check was made out to me and to Mutual of Omaha. I had to sign the check and mail it to Mutual of Omaha. Now I am constrained by an additional bureaucratic process. Mutual of Omaha expects me to make a request of them at each milestone of work, so that they can send their inspector to certify, before they will remit the money, FROM MY INSURACE SETTLEMENT, to pay the bills. Their inspection, and internal review adds an additional 18 business days before they provide my money to pay the contractor. Although the financial lobby in Washington is strong, this policy must be changed because it forces the homeowner to have an additional pool of money to continue to pay the contractor and wait for the mortgage company to send the money to cover the out flow. At one point I had paid out {$29000.00} more than Mutual of Omaha had remitted back to me. Currently, that amount is {$4000.00} ; Mutual of Omaha has settled for {$25000.00}. To comply with Mutual of Omahas requir
ement for their independent inspection, on XX/XX/XXXX, I requested Mutual of Omaha to schedule their inspection. Thye sent their inspector on XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX I noticed that the XXXX XXXX  XXXX XXXX XXXX had issued a Building Permit, this is a milestone on the contractors statement of work at which 10 % ( {$14000.00} ), is to be paid. I forwarded the building permit to Mutual of Omaha for remittance of the {$4000.00} that they had not remitted earlier along with the new charge of {$14000.00}. I decided to follow up with a phone call to Mutual of Omaha to insure that they are processing a check for {$18000.00}. During this phone call they told me that their inspection was incomplete and needed to be repeated, which means again I have to borrow funds to continue the work. Every time I call Mutual of Omaha I am only able to speak to customer service representatives. When I request to escalate to a manger in the department responsible for issuing the remittance I am told that they can not be reached or that they are on a conference call. So, their customer service department is a gate keeper. 
As far as I know, Mutual of Omaha Mortgage has no complaint tracking system where customer complaints are tracked and aged until resolution. All my communication are recorded in notes on my account, which means that there is no aging of issues or escalation based on the age of an issue. 

This process is not working. The funds that Mutual of Omaha is holding is not their funds but my funds. I need my funds released.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation