I would like add'l information regarding any potential or currently active class-action lawsuits against Homecomings Financial. My husband and I are currently in a Chap. 13 bankruptcy plan and have been for 2 years now. Due to Homecomings reporting false LATE payments on our credit report, we were not able to qualify for an FHA refinance back in Dec. 2007. When we asked the potential new lender why he said that our credit reports stated we had 30 days past due each month being reported by our Homecomings since May. This made no sense to us since we had been paying our bankruptcy trustee on time every month regarding our monthly payments, which included the mortgage payment in them. We then noticed that our BK trustee had not disbursed funds or payments to Homecomings on our behalf since May. When our atty contacted the trustee to find out why, the trustee stated it was because apparently, the last payment the trustee had sent Homecomings in May it had come back returned in the mail due to an address that was no longer valid.in other words, Homecomings changed their payment mailing address and failed to notify our trustee all along. So basically we were/are being penalized on our credit report because of their own address change that Homecomings themselves never updated with the trustee. It is illegal for a creditor to report late payments when you are in a Chap. 13 bankruptcy plan. When you make payments to a trustee it is supposed to assist you in rebuilding your credit by ensuring that all creditors within the plan get paid according to the plan. There is no such thing as late payments. Otherwise, you would have your bankruptcy case immediately dismissed anyway. So, not only do we have false late payments listed on our credit report, but we have been trapped in this ridiculously high ARM high-interest mortgage since it reset back in October. We should have been able to qualify for Pres. Bush's recently enacted FHA mortgage relief program which would allow us to refi with a 30-yr fixed rate mortgage that would be at a fair rate in today's market, despite our bankruptcy. This plan was put into place specifically for people like us, who have found themselves trapped in these ARM's. Since we can not qualify for an FHA refi, we are essentially stuck and being held hostage by Homecomings by an ARM that is ridiculously high in this economy (to the tune of 11.12% interest rate for us currently)! It's been 9 months since our mortgage payments went up by over $600 a month and we can not keep up with this in our budget, nor should we have to. Just knowing that we could have already been in a fixed rate mtge at 7% or less is very upsetting. Also, don't forget the fact that since we first attempted to refi with a new lender back in Dec. the market value of our home has undoubtedly declined in this market. This ensures further that we would not currently qualify for an FHA refi, since one of the stipulations is that you must have at least 3% equity in your home. I am doubtful that an appraiser would say we have 3% equity right now, but maybe I am wrong.
The add'l financial harm and upset this has caused us is the fact that since they did not receive money from our trustee from June-Dec. 2007 due to them not updating their mailing address, their records of our mortgage deductible interest on the Form 1098 when filing our federal income tax return are reflecting inaccurate information. They say we only paid $10,000 in mortgage interest in 2007 ($2000 x 5 mos., Jan.- May). When, in reality, we had made timely payments all along to our trustee during the remaining months in 2007. Thus, our true tax-deductible mortgage interest should actually be about $24,000 ($2000 x 12 mos.). Our atty was finally able to get through to their atty and have them provide an updated mailing address for the trustee. The trustee then disbursed over $19,000 to Homecomings on our behalf in March (to include payments for the months June Dec. as well as Jan. And Feb. 2008). We had to file an extension on our tax returns, hoping that Homecomings would update their records based on the documentation we provided from the trustee, which clearly showed all payments made for the mortgage in 2007. When we called Homecomings in March to request that an updated and accurate Form 1098 be sent to us, we were told to send documentation showing when the paymetns were made in 2007 to our trustee and they would have someone investigate the request. Their opinion of the matter (according to the Cust. Srvc. Rep.) was that since the payments for June-Dec. 2007 were not received until then we would be able to claim that as mortgage interest to be deducted from our taxes when we file for 2008. I say, 'No way!' We were out that money in 2007 and we should rightfully be able to claim it on our taxes as deductible mortgage interest in 2007. Since Homecomings failed to respond or correct this situation as well, we decided to go ahead and file our tax return for 2007 and reflecting the info that we know to be true and accurate, not what their inaccurate Form 1098 indicates. I will not be penalized yet again by ending up owing taxes in 2007 based on their false information, when I know darn well that we are due a tax refund, as we normally are!
These are just some of the major issues we are addressing in our motion for sanctions filed against Homecomings Financial. Our atty filed the official motion just a few days ago. I don't know how things will turn out or how long it will take for justice to be served and for things to be resolved to our satisfaction. But, we are hoping that this company has their *ss handed to them on a platter for their unfair business practices and false credit reporting which has caused us undoubtedly major financial harm!
Please reply or repost with any info on any class-action lawsuit against them. I will not hesitate to join in!
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