We live in the home built by my husband's paternal great great grandfather back in 1889 and it has stayed in the family through each generation. We have lived here since 1992 when we graduated from high school. On March 1st, 1998 we awoke to a fire in our home. Fortunately, we made it out alive, but our home was destroyed as well as all its contents.
I fell from the second story window trying to get out and I broke my back, my right leg in 6 places and my foot in 2 places. I had to have surgery on my leg to take the place of the shattered bones. My husband, daughter and myself all suffered smoke inhalation as well. We had lost everything and were now homeless. Thankfully the homeowners insurance my mother in law had on the home rebuilt it but did not cover our personal belongings and only a portion of the medical bills because the home was on a land contract at the time of the fire. We lived with my husband's parents while our house was being rebuilt. After it was completed, we decided our only option was to refinance the land contract and use some of the equity to replace our furniture, clothing, appliances, etc This was in October of 1998.
All was going well until 2001. I gave birth to our second child and had several complications and had to have emergency surgery due to an infection that set in from childbirth. I missed a lot of work during the end of my pregnancy and was off work longer than expected due to the surgery and as a result we fell behind in our bills. After I returned to work full time again we caught everything back up.
Then in I developed an infection in my leg from the prior surgery where the metal rod was inserted. After several other treatments, my doctor elected to remove the rod due to infection setting into my leg muscles So once again I missed work and had to be in a wheelchair with a drainage tube for 3 weeks. Our bills started falling behind again as a result. This time we were not able to get caught up, and at the advice of our attorney we filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. We did that in November.
We thought this would help our problems and we could get back on track. During our bankruptcy process, our mortgage holder sold our loan to Litton Loan Servicing. We were sent a letter advising us that they were now our mortgage holder and to send our payments to them and that they would be in contact with us. We have never received an account number, billing statement or coupon book for our loan with them. We have called Litton several times and just get the run around or transferred and even hung up on. Even after numerous requests, we do not understand the refusal to help us or answer any questions. We have sent in our payments to your company anyway.
All was well we thought until May when we received our April mortgage payment back in the mail telling us that we had sent it to the wrong address even though this was the address given to me during the bankruptcy and Litton had been accepting them before. We called them and were given another address to send the payment to. So we sent the April payment in with the May payment to the new address with a note saying why the April payment was late.
On June 2 we got both checks back in the mail with no explanation. We called and Litton and were told that they did not show a loan in the system for us. We asked to speak to a bankruptcy specialist and were put on hold for 45 minutes then hung up on. So we sent the April, May and June checks to them on June 6. On June 10 we received a notice that Litton Loan had filed a relief from stay with the bankruptcy court for nonpayment. We contacted our attorney and asked them what was going on. We provided them with documentation for all payments for November to March. Litton Loan was alleging that we had not made a payment since February. We were given a court date scheduled for August 12 and our attorney had us to bring our July and August payments to their office until the court date. At court the judge ordered a stop on the foreclosure and accepted all payments and documents.
As of the court date, the May and June checks had been cashed, but the April check had not. After we got home that evening we called the automated number to our bank and found out that the April check had been cashed that afternoon.
We were told to send the payments to Litton Loan at 4828 Loop Central Dr in Houston, TX from then on. So in September we mailed the payment in on the 12th and included a separate check for the late fee. Litton cashed the late fee check but not the regular monthly payment. We sent the October payment and still the September payment had not been presented to our bank for payment.in November we sent the payment and neither the September or October payments had been cashed. We did not think too much of it because it is up to them to cash the checks, if they want to hold them that is their business. But we were concerned so we called Litton again in November and were told that we did not have a current account with Litton Loan Servicing, so any checks we mailed to them would be sent back to us, this did not make sense.
After doing some research, we went to the bank and put a stop payment on the September through December checks that they were holding and got the payments in the form of a cashiers check and sent them to Litton along with the January payment on January 8, certified with a return receipt requested.
On January 10 I called my attorney to let them know what had happened and to see if they could take care of this situation before we found ourselves in court once again.
My attorney said that they had just received a notice from the court that same day that Litton was filing for a relief from stay for nonpayment alledging that we had not made any payments for September through December.
I was very upset to say the least, I went to my attorneys office and gave them proof of all the stop payments I had placed on the checks, copys of the duplicate checks from when I wrote the checks, and the copy of the cashiers check and the return reciept request reciept.
They took care of it and everything was back to normal and we got a response from Litton saying that there was a posting error and that we were caught up on all payments through January.
We continues making our payments in the form of cashiers checks for February and March.in april we fell a little behind on our bills and were not able to send in our monthly payment on time so I called Littons customer service department to let them know it would be 2 weeks late and that we would pay the late fee also at that time and I was told no problem that they would make a notation in the computer.
Well, here it is May 14 and we are going through this same ordeal again because Litton is alledging that we have not paid our payments from February through May and we were advised by our Bankruptcy lawyer that we have 7 days to bring in proof of all payments or $3000.00 or the foreclosure will go thru and we will have 30 days to get our of home.
We were told that when we sent in our February and March payments that they went towards suspension fees from the September through December ordeal. And so in reality we have made no payment for February or March.
My sister is a mortgage loan officer, and she advised us that after 12 months of a chapter 13 bankruptcy with all on time payments we could refinance our loan and get a lower interest rate so our payments will not be so high. We are afraid that due to the many problems with Litton our chance for this opportunity has been lost. If we did not intend to pay our loan back on our home, we would have filed Chapter 7 and been done with all of it. But we wanted to repay our debts and keep our home as it has sentimental family value. We have paid all our trustee payments on time and they have no problem cashing the checks from our personal bank account so why is it such a problem for Litton Loan to cash the same checks.
This has been a very frustrating and stressful ordeal. We want to keep our home as it is the only one our children have ever known. We have worked very hard trying to keep it. I just want to know how these people can sleep at night knowing they are throwing innocent children out on the street all for the sake of a piece of property, and we are not giving in or giving up because it is ours and we are not going down without a FIGHT!!!
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