Uncooperative Independent Investor

[northwoodslady]

I did not make any mortgage payments at all in 2008. If Citi would have progressed with foreclosure at that time, I would have had no options, because for about 2 years I only had $7,000 income and ran up credit cards and went through all the savings I had except for the home equity.

I stayed in constant contact with Citi all this time, or at least tried to. My loan had a rep who I could never get hold of because his voicemail mailbox was always full.

Last September, I finally started making money again. At about the same time, Citi finally offered me a loan mod which would take that year's payments and spread them out over the rest of the loan. I've got a 30-year which I've had since 1998 and had paid regularly all those years. The rep gave me the payment amount and everything was good to go.

I didn't hear from them again until December, when a woman called and said the house was going into foreclosure that day. I was so shocked -- as far as I knew, I was going to start a loan modification. She looked through the notes and said the independent investor, Hudson Bank, turned down the loan mod.

Hudson, as it happens, says they don't do anything for people who are not current on the loan. They don't do loan mods. They don't refinance. They don't do payment plans. They don't do forebearance.

I've spent the last half-year trying to set something up with Citi that would bypass Hudson. There seems to be no way to bypass Hudson. Finally, in April, somebody at Citi figured out who could bypass Hudson and set me up on a year-long repayment plan, which I started May 1st.

At the end of May, I called to make the June payment on a debit card as I'd done the previous month, only a different card. She told me they didn't accept this card. I asked what would have happened if I'd called on June 1st, because there'd have been no way I could have made the payment that day, due to limits on ATM withdrawals on the card. She said they'd have taken a post-dated check.

Then I screwed up. Her comment had stuck in my mind as I looked at a stack of bills at the end of June. I called Loss Mitigation and asked if they would be willing to do an automatic w/d on July 7 for the July 1 payment. They said sure.

You can see where this is going.

Having dealt with Citi a lot, I realize that not everyone there knows what they're doing. I called back a couple days later to make sure it was ok to make the payment on the 7th. They said the next payment was due August 7th. I said July 7th. They said August 7th.

I called back a couple days later. Repeat.

I called back a couple days later. I was determined to make absolutely certain it was ok to make the payment on July 7th. Again I was told August 7th. I asked why. She said when they changed the payment to the 7th, they moved the payment plan up a month and it would now end a month later.

I called back a couple days later. This time, I spent about a half hour on the phone with someone from Loss Mit, who again confirmed the August 7th date. I felt an incredible sense of relief because this would give me a chance to catch up on a whole pile of stuff that needed to be paid. He also talked to me about the new HMP and once again took all my info and said he couldn't see any reason I wouldn't qualify. I found it hard to believe, because Hudson has never been willing to do anything, but I thought perhaps this actually is something new.

Yesterday, the guy who originally set up the payment plan called, sounding frantic, because I hadn't made the July 1st payment. Hudson had called him about it. It turns out nobody at Citi had ever been authorized to set up this payment plan, and Hudson had called back in April and chewed him out. But for some reason, they let it stand, apparently monitoring it like a hawk for the first sign of trouble, which happened yesterday. There was no way I could make the payment yesterday, because since all these Citi reps had told me it was not due until August, I sent money to a zillion other places I owe money to.

I can hardly believe I'm back in the situation I was in before, with the house in foreclosure, when I confirmed with all these different people that the plan's due date had been changed. The guy wanted to know who I'd talked to. I figured it should be in the computer notes. People made changes to the plan, took info for HMP loan mods.

Citi has been more than helpful, although many of the people who work there really don't know what's going on. I have no idea what to do about this bank, Hudson Bank, that owns the loan.

This payment plan was absolutely perfect. I don't think Hudson is going to participate in HMP. When I look around these message boards, it sounds like it's very difficult to actually get an HMP anyways.

To get current, I have to come up with $9K. I have no way of getting $9K quickly. Given the year's time frame, it was a possibility.

I have no idea what to do now.