Predatory Lending!?!

[jencornel]

Here is my story. In 2006 we decided to refinance our home, we found a lender who seemed to have good terms and fee's and when he called us, he suggested that we pay $150 to lock in an interest rate of 6.0% fixed we promptly gave him a credit card number to get the ball rolling, we gave him all of our personal info and just waited for the loan to close, however the day we where supposed to close all of the sudden the loan officer tells us we cannot get the loan we applied for because we had one late payment on our loan so that put us in a subprime lending bracket, this is two months later by the way so I don't know why he would not have told us this info in the first place, anyway when we see the paperwork we are supposed to sign our interest rate is now 8.4% on a two year arm with a huge prepayment penalty, I did not want to sign the paperwork but feel we where pressured to do so. What can I do? How do I prove any of this? Unfortunatly I no longer have the good faith estimate showing what our original rate was supposed to be. The company that "Took" us is still in business and thriving and it makes me furious.

[Moe Bedard]

Hi Jen,

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

A good faith estimate is a standard form which is intended to be used to compare different offers from different lenders or brokers. The good faith estimate is only an estimate. The final closing costs may be different, sometimes very different than what is on the good faith estimate.

Are you in a hardship situation where the rate is about to adjust and you will not be able to afford the adjustment?
Is this the only loan on the property?
Who is the lender servicing the loan?
Have you tried to ask for a modification?

[jencornel]

We are now trying to modify our loan, my husband is self employed and we are not making hardly any money at this time, Countrywide is giving us the same run around as I have seen other people go through. I sent our paperwork in 9/8/08 right now my husband is on the phone with CW and they are requesting that we send our info over again, which is actually ok with me because right now we are putting less money in the bank. Anyway they are now talking about locking in our rate at 5% so we will see. I am not real optimistic about the process. I will keep you posted, thanks loansafe for being here to provide me with this info.

[Moe Bedard]

No problem...........


Please keep us posted on your progress...........

[jencornel]

The frustration never ends with CW, they told us they would be working on two modifications with us, one to see if they would be able to just lock in our rate and the second was to see if they could actually lower our rate and get us a lower monthly payment, they did lock in our rate but rejected the lower monthly payment, each month my payment to them goes in later and later as I struggle to come up with it. I have also found my loan is backed by a private investor and not Fannie or Freddie, I am not sure what that means but the way CW talks we are stuck until we can refinance, and they wont tell us the name of the investor due to privacy and security. I do not know what to do, I really cannot afford an attorney. Advice please?

[Moe Bedard]

If this is the only property that you own..........you can try going through NACA instead............they will work to get you into a low fixed rate modification and the services for the Home Save modification program are free.........here is the link for the info..............

https://www.naca.com/refinance/refinanceTenStep.jsp