Attempting Loan Mod With PHH (Cendant )

[pb7455]

I am currently six months behind on my mortgage that is serviced by PHH. It is a Fannie Mae loan. I received a Notice of Intent to Foreclose a couple of weeks ago . We have been trying to work things out with PHH since January when they requested info to see if we qualified for a program. I faxed them a hardship letter, copies of bank statements, copies of paychecks, and two years tax returns.

I have been attepmting to contact the person that was supposed to be working on our loan mod., but so far have been able to do nothing more than leave messages or send her an email.

I called last week and was on hold for nearly two hours when I finally got a real person. He told me that my file was in the process of being transferred to another person but did not know that person's name yet. He also said that it looked like we were "pre-qualified" for the Making Home Affordable program, but they did not yet have information necessary to provide details.

My frustration is that we are now going into six months without making a payment and I'm afraid we may not get a loan modification in place before our home is foreclosed.

Has anyone else had any experience with PHH/Cendant Mortgage? What has your experience been?

By the way, I am a pastor and my income has decreased more than 25% because of the economy.

pb

[Moe Bedard]

Hi pb,

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

I am not sure what number you are using to contact PHH, but here is one in case it is different.


PHH Mortgage Loss Mitigation Department
800-750-2518


also, if this is the only property that you own, since it is FannieMae backed, you may want to take a look into getting the help from NACA....they are a HUD certified counseling agency and the services for their Home Save modification are free...............they have also signed an agreement with FannieMae to help with modifications on the loans that they back..............here is the link for the info just in case PHH is still dragging their feet........
https://www.naca.com/refinance/refinanceTenStep.jsp

[ShinesLikeJustice]

Hi,

I am attempting a loan mod with PHH Mortgage as well. They service my Fannie Mae mortgage. My original request went in late January 08 and was received in mid February 09. I call every week for an update, but like the OP I get conflicting information each time I call. I have faxed/mailed/e-mailed my information at least 6 times. I have yet to speak to Lisa Difazio, the loss mitigation "specialist" I am told I am assigned to. I e-mail/call/fax and have never spoken to her directly. I wonder if this person even exists. Each time I call I ask the rep if they have modified any mortgages under HAMP and I am told no, but they are participating. PHH is not listed as participating at the Fannie Mae website.

[butacska]

I would like to start a loan mod with PHH (Cendant) and have been browsing the internet for a success story I am yet to find one. All I read is BAD. Frustrating.
Hopefully somebody will tell us they had a success with them...
Have a good day everybody,
I am trying
Marie

[ShinesLikeJustice]

I am still aggressively pursuing a mod with PHH/Cendant. Prior to finding loansafe I had contacted Acorn Housing and Acorn submitted a modification request on my behalf on or around 5/23/09. The counselor I was assigned to stated that Acorn had not worked with PHH on a loan mod or any sort of refi/mod at all thus far. After reading here on loansafe I wonder if I should have gone with NACA instead??

Does anyone know if I can contact NACA and attempt a modification through NACA while I have an open/active modification request with Acorn?

I also sent PHH a lengthy QWR just before Acorn contacted me. In my QWR I asked PHH for any and all info about my loan that I could think of. I received the green certified mail receipt back today that my QWR was signed for.

[pb7455]

I am still attempting to get some sort of an answer regarding the paperwork they keep asking me to submit.

My last call must have been answered by an alien because he seemed to be totally disconnected from the information I had been given in a previous call. It was all very generic sounding information, but he could not provide any specific answers about my loan modification request. On previous calls I had been given the name of a person who was supposedly reviewing my file. When I pressed the CSR this time, he told me that it was in review by a team of people and that this was the first step of three. He told me that each step would take 30-60 days. I asked him if that meant that I could be looking at a 3-6 month wait before a decision is made, to which he replied, "yes".

I was told that they would not foreclose while my paperwork is being reviewed. It would almost be welcomed at this stage. Unless they can give me a 2% mortgage, I can rent a comparable home for less.

[phhvictim]

Hi there,

I'm hoping my user name (phhvictim) is premature, but for now, here is my similar situation:

I fell behind in my mortgage (PHH serviced, Fannie Mae) last September, and literally the day before I had the funds to catch up (in November), PHH started a foreclosure proceeding. At that point, in addition to having to pay the months I was behind, I was told I'd have to pay the "attorney fees". I called the attorney's office at 9:20 am and was told by the person that answered that they would send me a letter with the amount needed to pay the arears plus attorney's fee. She said, "Oh, the attorney fees won't be too much, as we just received the file this morning."

Yea, right. When I received the letter a few days later, they had tacked on nearly $1500 in fees. I could not afford that (I had the $5700 needed for the mortgage payments, but not any more than that). And even if I had it, I wouldn't have paid it (nearly $1500 for a file they had for 20 minutes?!?!?!). So the foreclosure preceeded.

A month later I had managed to scrap up the next month's mortgage and even the $1480 in attorney fees - but by this time they had DOUBLED the "attorney fees". Now they wanted more than $2900 in fees.

While they've been moving ahead with the foreclosure I have attempted to work with their Loss Mitigation department. I've spent as much as 2 1/2 hours at a time on hold, only to find myself talking to somebody in India.

Eventually, with the help of a Government-sponsered Community Development Corporation, I've been able to make some progress. We wanted a modification under the "Making Home Affordable" plan, for which we are definitely qualified. Finally, an offer came through from PHH - and it was completely bogus. Instead of reducing our 6.75% interest rate down to as little as 2% as they were supposed to do, they just put most of our arears back into the mortgage and added 10 years to our 30 year mortgage - which only reduced the payment from $1867 to $1839 a month (plus another $400 a month for taxes), while adding 10 years of payments.

Our family income is only about $4000 a month at this time, so under the Making Home Affordable plan, the interest should have been dropped to around 2%, making our payment including taxes around $1240 a month. PHH's offer was completely out of line with the program. Our rep at the Development Corp called them, and they claimed they didn't realize what our income is (this is possible) and that also, our modification negotiation had started before the "Making Home Affordable" plan existed. So they said they'd have a new application in the mail immediately for us to fill out. That was 4 weeks ago now. Still nothing has arrived. Meanwhile, they scheduled a foreclosure sale for our home on July 20th!

I was really sure they were just purposefully dragging their heals on the modification negotiation in order to take our home - which really makes no sense because we owe $287,000 on the first mortgage and the home isn't worth more than $290,000 even at a normal retail sale, and probably wouldn't get even half of that at a foreclosure sale.

But now, there is some good news: According to PHH and their law firm, Fisher and Shapiro, LLC they have postponed the Foreclosure Sale to September 17th in order to provide time to process the Making Home Affordable loan modification.

My experience with PHH has been that once you get to the point in the process where your file is being handled by their higher-level representatives, they are easier to contact, and return telephone calls much more expediently.

So, keep pressing, be polite, and be persistant.

As I have more information about what is happening with my case, I will update this thread.

Best wishes,

name withheld

[pb7455]

After my original post and a lot of persistence I believe we have finally arrived at a workable solution.

I had to specifically ask for the "Making Home Affordable" program through loss mitigation. If you don't ask, they will try to tack the arrears onto the back of the loan and increase the length of your mortgage.

After providing a new application and calling them weekly I received an offer that basically brought the interest rate down to 2.6%. Our property taxes and insurance impound will remain the same, but the actual mortgage payment has been reduced by nearly $800 a month.

We have sent our paperwork back with a check for the first of three payments during the "trial period". After we successfully complete this and they verify our income and that we are actually living in the home, the plan will become final. At least that is my understanding.

Although this doesn't solve the problem of being "upside down" on our mortgage, it does provide a breather so that we can step back and look at our situation without the emotion pushing us to make stupid decisions.

[ShinesLikeJustice]

Anyone have anything to report with PHH? I'm now 4 month behind, a Lis Pendens filed, and I still keep getting the runaround with PHH and my mortgage mod attempts. After 2 hours on the phone today, I was told that something was mailed to me yesterday regarding HAMP. Every time I call I get a different story.

To top it all off, I sent a full one month payment on 10/29/09 electronically through my bank account and PHH claims they never recieved it, even though my bank assures me it was sent and the money debited from my account. Now I have to send PHH proof of the electronic payment, which of course I can do, but, WTF???? They conveniently lose my payment that was sent 4 days I was officially put in foreclosure? Sounds pretty egregious to me.

My loan i owned by Fannie Mae and I according to all the HAMP docs, I should be the HAMP beneficiary poster child, and yet....