Complaint Review: Centex Home Equity - Tempe Arizona

First off, I worked for Centex, (Real Estate Loss Mitigation Dept, DLS/Lewisville, TX- 1 yr and 6 mo's. Terminated for questioning illegal practices- and know other employees terminated for same reason: Employee of the month, 3 times in first year. Only person who follewd government ruules and regualtions, and did forbearance agreements, so foreclosure fees and costs would be collectable. King of Forbearance. 1) Charging Fees and Costs not allowed by Federal/State law. A) Pre-payment penalties on mortgage loans that have been involuntarily accelerated by Lender. How can you an early payoff, if lender accelerated, making entire note due and payable? Not early payoff if full amount now owed. Centex will do this, if payoff requested at Service Center, and not through Foreclosure Attorney office. In Texas, Foreclosiing Attorney told not to quote payoffs, and sned request to payoff dept. These Attorney's refuse to include in their payoffs. Centex will not take out, unless Customer's Attorney questions practice. Most Attorney's, not formiliar with Foreclosure law, do not know this is illegal. B) Charge foreclosure fees and costs on Re-instated loans, where no Forbearance Agreement was signed and agreed upon by both parties. This cannot be charged w/out forbearance, unless specifically stated in contract, some specific language has recently been added, in a few states Centex Services, but the couple I read, did not seem to be specific enough. This specific language was added approx 1 year ago, How many times have uncollectable fees been quoted in loans paid off in the previous 9 years by Centex(?) Above several multi millions of dollars? Most definitely. Centex's Foreclosure Attorney's I have worked with, who have seen a few of these contracts, agree with my opinion on the new language in these contracts, but afraid to question Centex's in house Legal Staff. Questioning Centex is fasted way to LOSE Centex as your client., c) Do not adjust interest rate on computer system, once foereclosure judgement granted, to State allowed rate, almost always, State judgement rate is lower than loan interst rate. Centex's Computer system is a modified Credit Card system, the LSAMS system. To make proper adjustments on system, like interest rate, modification of loan terms, a Computer programmer has to do. System not designed for these adjustments. There is no place in system, where average foreclosure Rep can go and make these changes. Any Auditor can go look At LSams, and find all fees and costs aadded, and figure out what is legal and not legal. Nothing is hidden. If you bring up LSAMS, Centex Management will state, no we also have Fortracs, and are converting solely to this system. The main reason for having the Fortracs System, is basicly for show. Investors hear FORTRACS, and they think, oh, Centex spending the money on Fortracs, like the big boys @ Chase, Citi still uses Fortracs in some Divisions, etc. The Investor's who think Fortracs is a Superior system for Sub-Prime market are clueless on Fortracs strengths and weaknesses, and know about system, other than what Mortgage Lender wants them to know. Prime Lenders w/ a smaller delinquency rate, and a better loan to value ratio rarely attempt to re-instate loans. They use Fortracs because it is great for tracking foreclosures and also great for assisting and tracking properties sold by Lender's REO Dept. Prime Lender's typically do not put forth much effort to re-instate non-performing loans, since the percentage of distressed loans is a smaller percentage of portfolio, with a better Loan to value ratio, meaning a much smaller, acceptable loss amount. Prime Lenders loss projections are easier to obtain, without wasting money for a larger work force in the Loss Mitigation -Foreclosure Workout Dept. Also lowers risk of FDCPA laws being violated, since putting forth little or no effort to re-instate loans, since contact with Debtor is not actively pursued. By claiming Fortracs as main computer system, is only a selling tool to Investors to securitize their loan portfolio's. By the way Centex's system is set up, SVP or higher has to authorize removal of almost all foreclosure fees and costs. I never obtained SVP or EVP approval for removal of fees and costs, or pre-payment penalties, until after funds were in hand. I would write, not allowed by Law on Loss projection form for processing payoff. Have generic memo ready, from my foreclosure Attorney, stating what the law was, when someone in Accounting/Pmt Processing would occassionally request this. Senior Management definitely did not like, but were too afraid to say so after initially being brought up, right after being hired. Came up on first payoff I adjusted, to legal amount allowed to charge. Not a shortsale, since only removed fees not allowed by law. They definitely were not going to say, no, we want you to overcharge, break the law, and risk being criminally charged a felony for breaking Federal/State Law, going to [prison, and being fined up to $100,000.00. I was set up to be terminated on loan, where foreclosure judgement was obtained almost 2 years prior, which was extended for 15 or 16 months, after 1st pre-payment penalty was finally obtained. Extension covered 8 or 9 months prior to judgement, and 7 ot 8 months adter judgement granted. In first payoff quoted, Extension interest included, along with interest calculated at Judgment, and rate never changed to state allowed rate. In other words, 15 to 16 months for extension, @ 12.5% to 13%. Then 8 or 9 months of interest, from month due at time judgement granted, and then additional interest due to no adjustment to interest rate, after judgement granted. Interest rate after judgement suppose to to 6%, Florida state rate. Customer filed bk a 3rd or 4th time, stop fcpr sale, so she could sell, before lost at foreclosure. Due to miscalculation, payoff was off by approx $24,000 to $26,000,. Bk VP, came and cussed me out, stating, since re-filed bk, no longer considered a foreclosure(?) Filing foreclosure only put foreclosuree on hold, Centex still has forecloure judgement, going for lift of stay, to take to foreclosure sale. Also claimed allowed to charge pre-payment penalty, even though balance accelerated by demand, pmt posted to account, had to be posted, due to federal banking laws, and had just refiled ano bkruptcy, this was first post petetion payment. I wrote email, explaining why this adjustment was done, to correct payoff and conform to Federal/Florida State Law. Sent to my Manger/ My VP, and Bankruptcy VP. Written up, not following chain of command(?) Sent to all parties involved in discussion. Believe this was all planned out. they know I AM very detailed. Have copy of email somewhere in a box. Wife put in boX, along with other legal and financial paperwork.Will locate. A copy went to Todd Phillippe, Midlothian, TX. Wife told me, this guy works on class action lawsuits. Claimed for Consumer. But when talking to, believe works for large corporations like Centex. Have asked for copy back, Secretary claimed looked for, he was out of town.He was to call me back when in town. in a week. that was 1/2 weeks ago. Will try again tomorrow. After this, notes on LSAMS di-appeared, my phone call reocrds were being tramperred with, make it look like I was not working, Manager berating me, att to make me look like an idiot. Manger, talking about not knowing much about laws, and Loss Mitigation. Now he was very capable of breaking FDCPA laws when talking to customer's, just like most of the Collections dept. Talking about a renegade law breaking Dept. Threaten foreclosure, tell you to move, very in-sensitive to personal hardships, excessive harrassing phone calls,several times a day. etc. Centex Home Equity's delinquency is over 10% now, around 12%, told this is 90+ delinquency, but find hard to believe, 60+ seems more accurate. Then take into consideration, they are only paid an average of 10% of the interest on each loan serviced, , and portfolio is almost all recourse. If a loss is taken, Centex takes the loss. Pre-payment penalty is how losses are offset. Company got all of the pre-payment penalty on payoffs, that is why they never want to remove. the pre-payment penalties. Whether legally allowed to collect or not. Always want to collect foreclosure fees and costs, even when not allowed to charge. Servicing Division for Centex Home Equity set up set up to assist Building/Sales Division, not to make a profit. By servicing portfolio, they were able to keep hands on loans, in case loan defaulted, were in a position to minimize losses. When first started, new loans, no loss. Good Profit first years. EVP, SVP, VP,bonus's depend on if they make a profit. As time goes on, Delinquency starts, SALes, makes more loans, more bad loans. Only averaging $40 to $60 a loan profit for each loan serviced. Harder to show a Profit. Management charging for fees and costs, 9 or 10 years ago, few people questioned, some not yet ruled uncollectable by law, pre-payment penalty the main one, and Service Divisions Bread and Butter. Interrpretation of laws change, Government changes collection laws, courts re-interprets these laws, making it harder on lenders. Centex home Equity starts losing an average of 30 to 40% loan of value on foreclosure. $30,000 to $40,000 per $100,000. How may loans @ an average of around $55.00 to $60.00 profit a month for servicing does it take to make up for a $35,000 loss? Over 10% of Portfolio not paying each month. Granted- Building Division has to put back approx 5% to 10 % in a reserve account, but that is on new homes. A large part of portfolio is straight refinance, homes not built by Centex. then you move into a new Servicing Center in Lewsiville, and Arizona, overhead costs, labor costs estmated $25 million to $35 million. Only way to show profit now is to really cheat. EVP, who runs the place, has to be one of the most heartless, un-ethical, could care less about breaking the law as long as I get a Bonus type of a guy, I have ever run across, in my life. He is a fiormer V.P. from Associates/ Citifinancial Mortgage... I have known who he was for 15 years. Until working under his division , did I realize what he really was. Also note- currently Centex attempting to sell sub-prime, Centex Home Equitry to HSBC. Also considering, Centex is currently having to buy back a large part of portfolio from Investor's, due to delinquency triggers, in servicing ad Securitizing agreements. HSBC buys for a little over Government resrves, 20% to 25% on the dollar tops. Make a huge profit. Centex gets reserves back.. If they hold onto this portfolio. They are in trouble.

I was working for Centex Home Equity in Retail division for 3 long years! Yes, the ex manager is telling the truth and that's why myself is no longer writting loan with Centex. One of many reasons I left the Company because i have learned that you don't have to charge people 4 or 5 points in fee to do loan. There are many subprime lenders will do just 1 or 2- point which make these consumers happy. Centex like to hire people that have no experience in the Banking / Mortgage industry so its easier for them to train and to brain wash on new loan officers. Remember to ask for Good Faith and Truth Lending up front. It's the law! For the person that commented on the report "this guy is a Liar" must be the one with no Moral or Principle. I believing helping people out of debts/troubles not adding more.

THIS GUY IS A LIAR... CENTEX IS A TOP 250 CO. AND A TOP 3 HOME BUILDER IN AMERICA. CENTEX DOSEN'T DO A LOAN IF IT DOSENT BENEFIT THE CUSTOMER IF THIS GUY IS AN EX CO-WORKER OF CENTEX, HE MUST HAVE BEEN FIRED FOR A RESOAN TO WRITE THIS COMMENT!