Question about Class Action Suit

[ledude]

I have a Payment Option ARM through CW. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of not selling my previous SFR prior to moving into the one I reside in now. I fell for the standard "You can refi later, everything is going up". Yeah, I feel like an idiot for my mistakes. Needless to say, I'm knee deep in mortgage payments. I have 2 primary loans and two HELs on a total of two SFRs in Northern California. I'm current on all my loans. For the 1st year and and a half I was paying below the interest only payment on the Payment Option loan. Since then I've been paying over the interest only amount, whittling very slowly away at principle.

Anyway, I called CW yesterday and it appears my primary on my current SFR is flagged as being a loan that may fall into this class action suit. So then I read from (by Moe):

Countrywide & Bank of America Watch: The 11 State Attorney General Settlement in Context | Home Mortgage Forum | Protect Your Home & Mortgage With Loan Safe

"According to the plan, the payments would be modified so that they will not exceed 1/3 of the mortgage holder’s adjusted income, after accounting for interest, taxation and insurance costs (¼ for those whose fees are not strictly escrowed according to the original terms of the loan.) "

This has raised a ton of questions about the Plan:

- Are they looking at my pretax (federal/state) income?

- Are they considering the 2nd loan on this house?

- For a payment option loan, which payment are they considering? Interest Only? Ammortized?

- Will they take in consideration the other loans we have on the previous SFR (which we rent out, but are losing at roughly 1.3k a month on)?

I feel like such an idiot for falling into this trap. Lot's of woulda/shoulda/coulda's go through my head every day on this stuff. I don't want to walk away from my mistakes and really want to take responsibility for my actions, but it's hard for us to make ends meet.

This site, has so far, proved to be invaluable. I'm already working with Citimortgage via the contact info here and plan on attempting loan modifications on all my loans. Plus, I plan on trying to bring down my property taxes (any success stroies on that would be helpful as well).

Thank you so much!

-Dan

[Dan Bailey]

Dan,
Welcome to the forum. Cat or Moe will be by to answer your questions as soon as they can. Good luck and hang in there!

[alikeith]

Dan-
From what i have read, and i have been doing alot of research, they are basing the 34% off of your gross income. Not take home pay. They should but the last i read that was not the case.

Ali

[Cat Damiano]

Hi Dan,

Welcome to the forum and thank you for joining................

They should be sending out a letter if your account was flagged.........the program is set to begin in 12 days...........once you receive the information you will be able to go over these questions with the person assigned to your file..........the only information that is available so far about this program is on countrywide's website.

[gray517]

the last time I talked to CW, the rep Mandy I spoke with said they won't be sending out letters, we need to call them to qualify, she also said they are using net income, but the next rep Ken said letters will be going out. the third rep Juan I spoke with said he was't sure what, just that my account was flagged by invester for 12/1 program and he though it was gross income. Sounds like they are all clueless, as to exactly what is going on, this forum seems to know more about CW than its employees do. I sure hope its net income, because we all have no control over taxes, social security and medicare taxes (some have state taxes too) that come out of our checks, we can't tell the IRS wait, don't take out so much gotta pay my mortgage, LOL! I am like others hoping for relief or help, but I am very skeptical of how much help is really gonna be available.

[ledude]

Here's a quick followup. I went ahead and called CW after the Dec 1st date. Turned out my account was flagged but was not Pre-Approved. Essentially I had to give them a bunch of my financial information over the phone and fax in a couple of pay stubs. This was on the 10th. I was told that the account would be reviewed and then I would be contacted. On their website I could see that I would be notified by Dec 29th. So today, I log in and see that the loan modification has been canceled without any reason. Here is the text:

" Your Loan Modification has been canceled from workout servicing. We regret to inform you that the loan did not qualify for a Workout Assistance program. Please be advised that normal collections activities will resume on your loan. Please continue to explore alternative options to bring your account current. If there is any change in your financial situation, please call for reconsideration. Thank you."

Obviously I'm a irked by this sort of response. I guess the next question, is what should I do next? Do I call them and ask for a reason? Or will that send me down a path of even more frustration? I can't help but to feel that the way they collected my information was done way too loosely without too many specifics. Citibank actually has forms you have to fill out.

Thanks!

-Dan

[Dan Bailey]

Dan,
Although it might be very frustrating, if you want to keep your home, I would call and ask. That one program is not the "end-all" and I would keep pursueing any avenues I could .

[ledude]

Oh, I'm not done I'm just curious what paths others have taken.