CitiMortgage Successful mod

[m_nair]

I just got my mod successfully done. I was laid-off from Bank of America and was on severance when I notified them of my job loss. I was put on one of those temporary help plan for three months.

In three months I managed to find a job but had to take about $28,000 in paycut. My payment PITI was $2,900 a month at 6.250. The mod is 3% for the first year, 4% second year, 5% third year and then on for the rest of the 30 year term a rate of 5.125%. I will endup with a savings of $300. The budget I submitted, I was over $300 on my income and this mod helped me out on it. I got the paper work on the 6th day, which I signed and got it notarized and it. I also enclosed first months payment and it has also been encashed.

I started this process in May and was given a bit of a run around. Being persistent helped me. I kept calling and emailing them.

Bottom line do not give up. There are plenty of good folks at Citi who are really willing to help you.

[Liz Medrano]

Congrats on your mod...more good news is always good!

[Evan Bedard]

Congrats M nair,

I started this process in May and was given a bit of a run around. Being persistent helped me. I kept calling and emailing them.

Bottom line do not give up. There are plenty of good folks at Citi who are really willing to help you.

Persistence is definetely a huge key factor in this process. Did you go through the three month trial period or a forbearance?

[m_nair]

Moe:
First of all thank you from the bottom of my heart for running such a wonderful site. I always referred to your site for guidance.

I had a trial period of three months and just after I made the third payment, I started calling them about making the mod. I was initially sent to Mortgage Outreach services and kept following up them, until I went no where.

I then kept calling the mortgage assistance hotline and the lady told me I have not been assigned and they had no information. I had to fax my information to an 800 number.

In the next week or so I got a phone call and a voicemail from Citimortgage loan councillor asking me to call back.

I called her and talked to her and gave her my email address. Since then most of the communication was thru email and Citi uses secured email where your email comes thru as a password protected PDF file.

I had to fax back again the entire mod package to the loan councillor and she took couple of weeks to get some numbers ready. After we agreed upon the Modification, I got an email from CitiMortgage :

Your mortgage assistance request has been approved. Expect your mortgage solution package within the next 5-7 business days.
You may also track the status of your request by signing on to your account at www.citimortgage.com.
We appreciate your patience during this time and look forward to helping you find a mortgage solution to manage your financial needs.
Sincerely,
CitiMortgage


After I got the email, on the 6th day I received the packet, which I signed and got notarized. I also had to enclose a check for the first payment.

Thats been it. Its been a long journey, but persistance and followup pays. Let the loan councillor know what works for you and they usually will work with you.

Last of all have all documents they need and fax it over as soon as they request it.

[kcjeep24]

Way to go!
Just today I sent in my paperwork, UPS just came about an hour ago, so now I wait!
I will be tracking and once I see that they have gotten it I am going to start calling.

[m_nair]

I had to go thru three months trial. After I made the third payment, I started to call about doing the Mod.

Once I got a loan councillor information, I kept in constant touch with her and emailed her. I had to fax the Loan Mod documents couple of times to different folks, but nevermind, kept doing what had to be done.

Finally, I got an email from the loan councillor asking me to give her a call and she called me and went over the numbers and She went thru everything in detail and repeatedly asked me if the numbers would work for me. Once my wife and I agreed, she said the paperwork will be mailed to us shortly.

We also got an email like this:

Your mortgage assistance request has been approved. Expect your mortgage solution package within the next 5-7 business days.
You may also track the status of your request by signing on to your account at www.citimortgage.com.
We appreciate your patience during this time and look forward to helping you find a mortgage solution to manage your financial needs.
Sincerely,
CitiMortgage

On the sixth day I got the paperwork which I had to get notarized, signed and mail it back along with the first month mortgage.

Also went online and checked the accounts which accurately reflected the paperwork.

[Ragtopgal]

M Nair - your story is encouraging; yet, if you got nowhere with Mortgage Outreach and ultimately gave up calling them (after your third payment was made) then who exactly did you call and fax information in to get assigned a counselor. Are you saying you called Loss Mit dept?

[m_nair]

Ragtopgal,
Yes, it was the Loss Mitigation Dept. They are immediately able to check to see what the status is based on your loan number. The lady then immediately assigned me to a counselor. The counselor contacted me and got the ball rolling. I had to fax all the info once to Mortgage Outreach, then again to Loss Mitigation and finally to the counselor who all seem to have their own direct fax numbers which gets delivered to their outlook.

I always communicated with my counselor using email except the first couple of times and finally when agreeing to the mod. They use secure email and you need to setup a password the first time you use it. All the emails comes a password encrypted pdf document.

The message I posted above is from the email I got after I agreed to the mod and Citi apparently sends out automatic emails once your status is updated on their system.

These folks are based O'Fallon Missouri. Please let me know if you need any other information.

[l0anm0ad]

m_nair,

Good....i am going thro these final process for last 15 days (originally for 9 months)...I got 5 agreements which has multiple changes everytime...I sent signed agreements two times so far...the last one reached on Sept 14th.

The counselor assigned to me is not explaining any numbers, for everything she is mentioning go to your LAWYER. Citi added around 7K to my exiting principle balance. If i ask they are not giving any details about 7K, just mentioned two months of my original payment and part of property tax.

The counselor has absolutely zero knowledge about numbers she got and saying programme or system generated these numbers, i CAN NOT explain in detail, we are doing big favour by doing loan mod and bringing down payments.

Even property tax (escrow account) every month $100 more asking to pay, just to keep / maintain fluctuations.

Please let me know how to handle.

Thanks

Originally Posted by m_nair

Ragtopgal,
Yes, it was the Loss Mitigation Dept. They are immediately able to check to see what the status is based on your loan number. The lady then immediately assigned me to a counselor. The counselor contacted me and got the ball rolling. I had to fax all the info once to Mortgage Outreach, then again to Loss Mitigation and finally to the counselor who all seem to have their own direct fax numbers which gets delivered to their outlook.

I always communicated with my counselor using email except the first couple of times and finally when agreeing to the mod. They use secure email and you need to setup a password the first time you use it. All the emails comes a password encrypted pdf document.

The message I posted above is from the email I got after I agreed to the mod and Citi apparently sends out automatic emails once your status is updated on their system.

These folks are based O'Fallon Missouri. Please let me know if you need any other information.

[Ragtopgal]

M Nair: I appreciate your time in answering my question. I'm preparing for the future; I have only made one trial payment but I have read, one must continue to be pro-active to get the modification. I'm assuming the papers you faxed back in were ones similar or identical to the original papers that allowed you on this trial mod plan? I believe it is to check and see if anything financially has changed. It is good to know some people are having success and its not all bad news. Thanks.

[m_nair]

l0anm0ad,
I am sorry to hear the problems you are facing. If I were you, I would call the Loss Mitigation Dept and talk to the folks there. Just dial the 800 number and talk to someone. Most of the folks there are very understanding. They are also able to lookup your loan status if you provide them the loan number. These folks would be able to clear up most of your doubts. Also explain to them the problems you are facing. Do NOT try complain about your counselor, rather explain to them - about incorrect contracts, the $$ going up on the escrow, etc.

Unfortunately, its us who need to get this done so its better we play it cool and be persistent.

[m_nair]

Ragtopgal,
Not a problem, we are all in this and I feel its my duty to share what ever I know. My first Mod was done by the folks at Mortgage outreach. After I made the third payment On still not hearing anything is when I called the Loss Mitigation folks who quickly got me assigned to a counselor. From then on it was just constant emails with a subject referring my loan #. I exchanged emails to check on the status and then she emailed me asking me to call her. Then the whole process was done in a weeks time I guess.

I was not sent contract by MOS folks just verbal. But the document which Loss Mitigation sent me for the mod was exactly what they told me on the phone. They told me that they are recording the conversation when they gave us the offer.

From what I understand, they are speeding up the process. Even the automated email is something new I guess.

Just be positive and be persistent. Just a quick hello to remind them would work.

[teddy4]

Originally Posted by m_nair

We also got an email like this:

Your mortgage assistance request has been approved. Expect your mortgage solution package within the next 5-7 business days.
You may also track the status of your request by signing on to your account at www.citimortgage.com.
We appreciate your patience during this time and look forward to helping you find a mortgage solution to manage your financial needs.
Sincerely,
CitiMortgage

On the sixth day I got the paperwork which I had to get notarized, signed and mail it back along with the first month mortgage.

I am very encouraged by this, as we paid our third trial payment and are waiting for the final decision. I logged into our citi account online and it states:

10/01/2009 Your mortgage assistance request has been approved. Expect your mortgage solution package within the next 5 business days.

We appreciate your patience during this time and look forward to helping you find a mortgage solution to manage your financial needs.

This is almost identical to what you received and yours was approved! There might be hope for us???

Of course I'm going to call tomorrow first thing, but I've been obsessing about it all weekend! ARGH!

[davephx]

This bothers me..

Your mortgage assistance request has been approved
look forward to helping you find a mortgage solution

Implies still looking for a solution and your request has been approved.

When I first sent my stuff in back in March and April I received a similar letter in the mail, it was simply acknowledging that they had my paperwork and that I was being considered.

Hopefully however it now is a final solution for you.

[teddy4]

Originally Posted by davephx

This bothers me..

Your mortgage assistance request has been approved
look forward to helping you find a mortgage solution

Implies still looking for a solution and your request has been approved.

Yes, I totally agree. At first I thought we were approved, then I read it better and I thought they are starting us COMPLETELY over (after 7 months!). But the poster m_nair quoted the exact message and it meant approval!

The stuff citi tells us is so vague so much of the time! Another night of no sleep!

[jhn_plsn]

Very nice! Congrats!

[m_nair]

Davephx,
I got that message after I had accepted the permanent mod offer on the phone. After I got the message I got the paperwork for final mod just as I had agreed to the terms on the phone.

I guess I was lucky based on what they implied on that message.

I sent back my paperwork and the enclosed check for first payment for permanent mod was encashed the next day itself.

[m_nair]

Teddy4:
Did you fill out all the paperwork, paystubs, bank statement, budget and proposed budget? Do you have a contact who are you are working with?

[teddy4]

Did you fill out all the paperwork, paystubs, bank statement, budget and proposed budget? Do you have a contact who are you are working with?

I've given them all of those items and then some, many times over. We paid our third trial payment early this month. We had been working with Annette until the third month of the trial, in which a Lisa from Loss Mitigation called and had us fax our last three bank statements and 2-4 paystubs. She told us she'd know within a week or so if it's approved or not, which would be about Oct. 1st, coincidently, as that is when we got that message. She made it seem like she'd let us know if there was a problem.

I noticed the message online yesterday, so I have to wait to call Loss Mitigation tomorrow. Hopefully we will know once and for all. I'm just hoping we don't have to start the whole thing over (which is what that second paragraph sorta implies).

[m_nair]

Teddy4,
Get their email address and just keep sending out emails on weekly basis. Usually they reply to it in 24 hours or so.

My gut feeling says that you should hear the good news soon :-)

[m_nair]

Teddy4/Davephx:

Digging thru Fannie Mae website I was able to find links on HAMP mod for mortgages whose investor is Fannie mae.

https://www.efanniemae.com/lc/sir/pd...checkprint.pdf

https://www.efanniemae.com/lc/sir/resources/index.jsp

[teddy4]

Our investor is Freddie Mac, but the info in those links are very interesting!

Thanks for posting.

[kiranedison]

Hello nair,

Your mortgage assistance request has been approved. Expect your mortgage solution package within the next 5 to 7 business days.

Did u receive Home Affordable loan Modification agreement form 3157 or what are the documents u received from Citi.

Kiranedison

[m_nair]

Kiran,
I received the 3157 which I had sign, notarized, witnessed by two friends and returned back with the check mentioned in the cover letter before the date mentioned on it.
In my case the date on which they had to receive it and the date I got the document was the same. I had to couple of hours to get everything done and UPS it back.

After the permanent mod, the information changed about week before the permanent mod went into effect.

Hopet his helps.

[kiranedison]

Thanks Nair.i got signed the same form 3157,i made 2 payment also after modification ,but after 2 months they cancelled my agreement without any reason.Citi is working on fixing this problem.Hope it will be resolved this week.