My husband and I built our home in 1991, raised our daughter there. Didn't pick Ocwen, our mortgage was sold to them by Countrywide without our knowledge and first statement received demanded entire balance of mortgage (approx. $103,000). I guess that was the beginning of the end. Thru the years, we had several problems with Ocwen. Forebearance agreements were made, broken, screwed up etc. Several thousand dollars sent to Ocwen to be able to keep house at times (per their legal dept. This would be only way.)
My husband was self-employed truck driver, on the road a lot, so I handled a lot of dealings with Ocwen when he was on the road. Then in husband diagnosed with Lung Cancer at the age of 41. He had to stop driving, I worked, he was undergoing chemo. Treatments for 15 months. Of course during that time we fell behind on pmts. Caught up somehow, fell behind, always keeping in contact (I have a huge file, names, times, details etc.)
We were always told either, we will work with you or talk to our legal department. And when we would they would threaten us, belittle us, make fun of us one of the attorney's even laughed at the fact that my husband had Cancer. Then when he would have us so scared that we were going to lose the house, he would decide to work with us, as long as we paid a large lump sum (usually 3-5 thousand dollars) which we would basically beg or borrow just to keep the house. For me I just wanted to keep a low stress level for my husbands sake.
The company had some sick way of using whatever power they felt that they had to lord it over us. My husband lost his very brave battle with Cancer at the age of 42 after 15 months of treatment. I immediately contacted Ocwen, (the house was under my husbands name only). They stated that I just needed to write a letter stating that I would be responsible for the loan from then on (which I did), send a copy of his death certificate (which I did), and durable power of attorney (which I did). They in turn, sent me a letter stating that they had received all of the above, and that the loan was now in my name, and they had noted on the account that I was now responsible for the loan. I continued paying the house payment religiously for 1 year after my husbands death, until I came home from work just three days shy of the anniversary of his death to have my daughter tell me, " mom some man just brought this to the door"."This" turned out to be a letter stating that my house had been "sold on the courthouse steps" the week before. No notice, no phone calls.
The letter was like a flyer and had a real estate agents name and phone number on it and instr. To call him within 24 hrs. I called him, he supposedly didn't know why, or any details, but he had been "authorized" to offer me $500 to be out of the house in two weeks! I basically froze, cried many emotions and phone calls to Ocwen later, getting the run around (ie thats not my dept. Let me transfer you, I don't know what to tell you, and the best response... The real kicker I finally got when I asked why?...
"Because we can"... Many details later, we moved out within approx. 1 1/2 mos. (they refused to let me know how long we had). They scared me, so I hurriedly found a place to rent. 3 mos. Later, a friend of mine that works in real estate called me, said the house had sold, but when they went to transfer the title, they found something wasn't right. She immediately had me come in, sign papers (basically we got the house back...
Ocwen said "oops, we made a mistake" agreed to work with me, to avoid a lawsuit, so I could at least get my 12 years of equity out of the house when it sold.) Then because they are such sadistic people, they decided at the last minute, nope, we don't want to cooperate, they found some way, and they got it back from me again. Four attorneys have been consulted, all said I have a very good case, but there wasn't enough money in it for them. So here we are still renting (although we like our house we are in now). This, believe it or not is the condensed version of our nightmare. Well I guess the evil really do prey on widows and orphans like they say.
Michelle
Reedley, California
U.S.A.
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