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Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 4
Nominated 0 Times in 0 Posts TOTW/F/M Award(s): 0 | Home EQ Success
My wife and I did a refi with Argent Mortgage in May of 05 that was previously serviced by AMC. AMC was a ARM that had an initial rate of 8.75 and the payment of $1226.00 a month on a balance of $112,000. The market down here was cooking, I am talking RED HOT at the time. So Our home being an older one(circa 1951) We decided to shop around for some decent windows and found some that we liked but really could not afford at a price of fourteen thousand dollars. Not to worry says our rep, we have a broker that refies just for this kind of thing. Broker contacts us and we do all she says. House appraises at $175,000 (her appraiser) Wow Wee says us ! She says it would be no problem to borrow 100%.Wow Wee we say! But after some reflection we decided to only borrow $153,000 leaving $23.000 in instant equity just in case something happened. This loan is not to bad, it is fixed @7.25 for thirty years and the best part was that my new payment is now only $1287.00. This sounded like a good deal to us, pocket $41,000 and the payment only increased $61.00. WOW WEE!!!!! We got some nice impact windows, replaced the HVAC System, and I personally installed a steel roof, Paid a few credit cards, and other bills, Heck we even went out to eat a few times. Paid our mortgage on time every month, Ahhh life was good. That was all before THE LETTER ARRIVED! It looked harmless, not unlike any of the other letters that were in the mail that day. Little did we Know at the time that the simple act of tearing the end of that envelope off would change our lives so dramatically.
It was from some company called HOME EQ stating that our loan has been sold and we would have to pay them from now on. " Who are they" I ask? Wife says "It says here that the are a division of Wachovia". Oh, not to worry Wachovia is a solid company so it should be OK. Wrong!! This mess has been going on so long now its hard to really remember when everything went all to h%$l.
I don't even think we made 2 payments when the "adjustments" started. At first they seemed insignificant, nickle & dime stuff, no biggie. The first time we really took notice was when we got hit with a late fee because we didn't include the latest "adjustment" with our regular payment and got a lecture call from from some jerk wanting to discuss "financial responsibility" with my wife while she is at work even though we have told them repeatedly to not call her at work, to call me instead. Its like talking to a fence post trying to tell these people anything. They just will not listen.If you have a Payment due on the 1st not made yet, not to worry you will have an opportunity to tell them why at 8:01 AM the morning of the second, or if you choose you can just wait to talk to them at any of the other 40 times that they will call you that day. It was all annoying but still not really a big deal. Work is starting to slow down a little (I am self employed, I install kitchens, Built-ins, home offices and such) But our bills are getting paid, credits good, Life is good even though things are running tight were living the dream.
Enter the tax fiasco. Tax and Ins are escrowed on our mortgage seemed prudent at the time even though Argent did not require it, we chose to. Every year in Fl. the tax collector sends you an estimated tax notice. It is just an informational form to assist people in budget planning I guess. it says in big red letters across the face THIS IS NOT A BILL, DO NOT PAY. they copy the mortgage co. This is in august I believe, So I get a letter from HOME EQ Stating that my payment is going up to $1640.00 due to an escrow shortage. Went something like this:
Hello, I am calling concerning a letter I received about an escrow shortage.
Home Q: I cant help you with that, That is a different dept.
Can I have their number?
Home Q: I don't have their # all I can do is transfer you, But while I have you on the line we need to talk about why it is we are not receiving all of your payments by the first.
Because we get paid on Fridays, and thats when we pay our bills, when we have the money.
Home Q: When you signed our contract you promised to pay by the first of every month.
We have never signed a contract with you, we never asked you for anything, You bought the loan, It never was a big deal with the other two servicers that we paid whatever date that Friday landed on.
Home Q: Well you are under our terms now and we want to be paid before the first.
I could go on but i am sure you see where this is going, You guessed it, me going from being mad to livid when I get hung up on during the transfer to the escrow dept. oh well, I shouldn't worry so much about 2 hours of my life I will never get back. finally get the escrow dept . Turns out My insurance is almost due but I don't have enough money to pay it. Well where is it? Well we just had to pay your taxes and....... My taxes ? those don't have to be paid until April and its barely sept. Well when we get a Bill we have to pay it. How can you have gotten a bill in august when they don't even come out until Nov? so they took my Insurance money which is due in Nov and sent it my local tax collector. This took about 4 months to straighten out. The money got lost because Home Q didn't put a title # or even include a part of the THIS IS NOT A BILL DO NOT PAY so it got put in the mystery file at my tax office until I came looking for it.
So were having fun now paying 17 instead of 13 every month, cant wait to get this over so We can afford our house again.
In fl we have a state run insurer called Citizens, which is the only ins we could get due to age of house, nearness to the coast,etc. It used to be that if a company would accept you from citizens your had no choice but to go with it. So this guy in Sarasota starts up a brand new co to absorb some of the citizen policies and ours got transfered to them and they immediately more than double our rate. Here we go again, just when things were getting back to normal. Now we get the double whammy, not only do I have to pay all the extra it took to pay them that we were short but the projected for next year as well, Now were up in the 18s . We simply cannot afford 1800 a month. What are we going to to do? Don't worry honey we will just call them and explain and they will just have to work out something we can live with.
HA,HA,HA, forget it , we don't do that, That is not available to you, etc. There are no programs in place to help their customers who can see a problem coming. The only thing they know how to do is to add fees to make it even harder.
Well the markets shot, Building has all but stopped, no jobs to be had that pay a living wage. We have been late on just about every payment for the past 20 months, went over 60 back last July. they forced us on to a repayment plan that we could not afford, Paid Aug,sept,Oct,Nov, missed DEC, paid Jan. Missed Feb called 8th march to make a payment, was informed that they had foreclosed on the 4th. This is the 1st we have heard about it no letter no phone call no nothing.and if we wanted to stay we would have to pay them 7700 by the 25th and that would still leave a payment due on the 1st. Wife gave another financial statement and they told her that we didn't qualify for another repayment plan and give them 7700 or start packing and make sure that we save up a lot so we can pay the deficiency after the auction. A small part of my wife died at that moment , I couldn't believe what she was saying. What the hell would they want with this house when half the town is vacant and the other half are for sale or rent but there all empty? I call back, after I calmed down, and gave another financial statement and this time we qualify. 2632.00 by the 17th and two payments of 3500.00 for the next two months this will mean that we don't have to make a payment in June The down payment is not a problem but I have to admit that I am kind of stressing about the 3500.00 dollar ones.
So thats our story, at least the abridged version. I have been lurking here since the 9th and I believe I have read the whole site, which has been extremely helpful but I still have a few questions.
If we make the down payment on Monday, do I still need to answer the foreclosure notice? If so, is there a sample letter I could use to answer it myself?
If they accept the $2600 should that be the end of the foreclosure (IE. if an installment is late, do they have to refile the foreclosure papers?) ?
Concerning the lost note, my papers state that they are requesting a reestablishment of a lost note. It states they have lost the original note and are "demanding" the court reestablish said lost document. I've read about Mr. Deep Pocket's in Boca Raton and am wondering if this could help us also.
I have also read about a lawyer with Jacksonville area Legal Aide who has had some success with getting foreclosures with this "demand" dismissed.
Our goal is to get back to the payment that we signed up for and haven't been allowed to make in nearly 2 years now. Credit is now shot, everything is behind.
Please help.
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