I entered into a forebearance agreement with Ocwen last year when I took a $1000 decrease in my monthly income. I paid Ocwen faithfully at the same time under this plan. They cashed my checks on the 3rd or 4th of each month. I discovered, however, that they had reported me to the credit bureau as late — EVERY OTHER MONTH. They explained that this was due to their "internal" accounting process that held a payment in suspense one month, then released it the next.
I gave up trying to figure out how Ocwen could cash a check on the 3rd or 4th of EVERY month, but decide to report it as late 5 out of 10 times. I contacted the Consumer Ombudsman's office for assistance.
After their review, they determined that the payments should have been reported late every month! They changed the info in the credit bureau to reflect that ALL of the payments were late, and then tacked on an additional $800 of late fees! Okay, I understand that contractually, I am late; under the forebearance plan, I am not. Can't fight that logic.
Since those 5 late payments prevented me from refinancing my adjustable rate mortgage, I decided I would go through Ocwen's loan resolution folks to see if they would modify the loan to a fixed rate. They agreed, but here are the hoops that they want us to jump through:
1. Give up any right to litigate regarding their handling of the loan;
2. The amount they are asking for today can change at any time — if it changes, it can be tacked onto the amount that I'm behind and I will HAVE to satisfy this undisclosed amount before April.in their world, if they decide to add thousands of dollars in fees and costs by April, I will automatically default on the agreement if I don't pay these hidden costs;
3. All payments must be wire transferred or overnighted to them to be received by the 1st of the month. If they claim they didn't get the payment (which they have done in the past), all bets are off — they will begin foreclosure proceedings with no further notice!
4. If I am able to satisfy all of their requirements by April, they will "use our best efforts" to notify their counsel that we have reached an agreement. If they fail to do so, it is up to me to notify the counsel, and if I fail, they will begin foreclosure proceedings;
5. Remit to them any escrow balances in full; In other words, pay them by April, all of the taxes due for the entire year of even though they are not due until December. Also, pay the homeowners insurance for all of 2008. None of these expenses had been escrowed before, and they are currently auto-deducted from my checking account.
Now, if I manage to luck up and Ocwen does not tack on a bunch of fees and costs, I'll have a new mortgage agreement with a better interest rate in April. Until my credit score improves, I can't do any better.
With Ocwen's track record of class action lawsuits and reputation of swindling customers, etc., it scares me to death. It's like making a deal with the devil. If anyone has any experience with one of these loan modification agreements, please contact me or email a reply to me or usacomplaints.com site.
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