Complaint Review: CitiMortgage

IN CASE NO ONE ELSE KNOWS – WE’RE ON THE RECEIVING END OF THIS PROBLEM FROM CITIMORTGAGE

Back in 2010, we fell into some hardship with me losing my second job due to the bad economy and our family’s increasing debt, my wife and I tried to get some assistance from Citimortgage with their ‘government assistants plan’ by lowering our monthly mortgage payments.

The representative from CM informed us that we pre-qualified for their program

based on the information we supplied them regarding our financial hardship. She asked us to fax over our monthly

expenses, including credit cards, car payments, child care, school funds, etc. and again was told we ‘pre-qaulified’ base

on the information. She adjusted our monthly payment from $1906.42 per month to $1406.42 per month and said there

shouldn’t be any problems considering the income percentage going out vs. the percentage coming in.

After exchanging phone calls, emails and faxes for what seemed like an eternity because the representatives from CM

always stated that they needed more information, more paperwork, more letters from our current employers, etc. to

proceed with the adjustment and all the while still reassuring us that the process is moving along nicely and we should

hear some news soon. Well, several months later, we receive a certified letter from CM to say that we were defaulting

on our mortgage due to us being late on our mortgage payments for 10 months. We couldn’t believe what we were

reading!!! I immediately called CM and they routed us to a collection agency that wanted to set up a repayment plan for

us due to our late payments or else we were going to lose our home. We were confused and somewhat taken back by

the information so we asked the representative to explain to us how we got to this point. He stated that we did not

qualify for the mortgage adjustment and that now we have to repay the $10,000 of late fees on the monthly payment

that we had during the ‘adjustment period’. I told him I didn’t understand how we didn’t qualify when my financial

situation hasn’t changed from the previous claims that I made. I did get a second job 2 months ago but it was at a

fraction of my other second job that I lost earlier in the year. He explained in ‘bank terms’ which I didn’t clearly

understand and by the sound of his voice, he didn’t understand much about it either because he was just reading off the

computer screen.

My main concern wasn’t to try to understand this anymore, but more or less ‘try to save our house’ so we had a

forbearance agreement with them. We would pay $4,068.00 for the down payment (we had to borrow from relatives)

and our monthly payment would increase by $700 per month from $1905.42 per month to $2609.00 per month for the

next year – apparently in Citimortgages’ eyes, ‘They couldn’t afford their mortgage then, so let’s up their mortgage byanother $700 and see how that turns out’. After much deliberation on that new monthly payment, my wife and I realized that there was no way for us to handle a $2609.00 per month payment for the next 12 months so I took the liberty of borrowing money from my 401k and gave in to Citimortgage's demands so that I may keep the house that my wife and I worked so hard for and wanted to make sure our three girls will be able to wake up in the morning in their own home and no one else's. We had to give them $10,000 so that our monthly mortgage can be brought down to it's original $1906.42 per month. After all that time, my wife and I gained nothing from this modification - the only thing it did was ruined our credit, and wasted 10 months of our lives.

PLEASE BE ADVISED about the impending problem that CAN happen during your mortgage adjustments / modifications 

and IF something sounds too good to be true…It could very well be.