Another SUCCESSFUL Countrywide Story...thanks to LoanSafe

[sbrown]

Hello,
I have been reading lots here about Countrywide and people actually getting help so I thought I would give it a try.
Our situation:
We have 2 homes mortgaged through Countrywide, with 4 loans in all. One being our residence which we love and do not wish to leave and the other our previous home that we could not sell and now have rented with a lease.
I am a stay at home Mom, and my Husband is in the construction industry.

Our residence: 1st is a neg-am loan at 8.5% with a balance of approx. $635,000 and the second is an interest only loan at 14.5% with a balance of approx. $178,000.
Rental: 1st is again...a neg-am loan at 8% with a balance of approx. $327,000 and the second is an interest only loan at 8.5 with a balance of approx. $38,000.
I know these are horrible loans, but we were stuck with 3 houses last year, and no one was buying in our area. We thought these loans would help us stay afloat while we were trying to sell the other 2 homes, and would refi when the caos was over. We ended up having to short sale one, rent out the other and of course we live in one. We spent almost all our equity trying to stay afloat waiting for our houses to sell. Our rental is about to adjust...and we do not have the extra funds to make up the difference as our renters are paying the min. we owe each month (and this is high rent for our area so we can't raise the rent).
In October, 2007 we got a property tax bill of almost $8,000 which hit us hard. We paid half...and are now late on the other half as of April 10th. We had requested an escrow account and signed docs for it at closing..but we did not get one for some reason. This along with less work in the construction industry has made it difficult for us to stay on top of our bills.
On Feb. 25th, we called Countrywide and explained our situation to them and let them know that we were not late yet...but were trying to be proactive in the situation. We gave our financials and were told we qualified to be referred to the HOPE dept. We were told someone would be contacting us within 3-6 weeks and that we could send a fax with our hardship letter and bank statements (self employed) now or wait till we were contacted by the hope department. we waited...thinking in 3-6 weeks our bank statements will no longer be up to date..and they would just need us to resend. After waiting several weeks, we started callling. We were always told someone would get back to us...no one was assigned our file yet and to be patient. Several more calls got us to someone who told HOPE won't even assign someone to us until we fax the info in. Well...we were a little annoyed..but did as they asked right away. Still no calls...we called a couple times a week..now we're getting told our file had been assigned to someone and they are reviewing it...be patient.
Last week we got a letter stating we were denied ...reason stated: "the financial info. submitted to date stronly suggests that you appear to have sufficient resouces avail. to support your current monthly payments".
The letter only addressed one of our four accounts....which we thought odd. We called and were told...yes..we make too much..when we tried to tell her no one had called us to inquir...we definatley didn't make "too much" and were having to barrow money to make our bills. She told my husband his additude sounded as if he didn't want there help anyway...and suggested maybe we should sell our home!
We waited a day and called back...Now...we are getting a completely different story. This guy says the bank that actually ownes our loan denied the request because it would not benefit from the change. When asked who the bank was that owned the loan...he looked it up...and came back with...oh...countrywide owns your loan. He told us there was nothing at all that could be done! So..we asked about our other 3 loans and were told that they had a "policy change 2 weeks ago" and that even though our loans were submitted before the change...they all got dumped and no further action could be taken.
I have written a QWR requesting the copies of docs, etc for all loans. Also explained everything to them in the letter as I did here...with a little more detail.
My question is this...
Do I send the hardship letter and the QWR together to the 3 addresses "certified", or just the QWR?
Do I email the QWR with the hardsip letter I am going to email out to the email addresses , or just the Hardship letter?
Is it OK that I put all 4 loans on the one letter, or do I need to make one for each loan?
Should I be faxing these somewhere as well? And if so..again..both or one..and if one..which one.
I really appreciate your help and am sorry this turned out to be so long.

Sincerely,
Shannon

[Moe Bedard]

Hi Shannon,

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

O.K..........you have been through the CW runaround ringer too..........I see, as have alot of members on the forum...........this is going to take a while and you really need to keep on top of CW, you can't wait for them to call, even when they tell you that they will in a week to two weeks............you have to still call...........you can do this yourself...........or you can try NACA as they work with CW as well.........

QWR goes to the addresses...........
Hardship and detail of the runaround you are being given goes in the body of the email..........don't put it as an attachment...........they might not read it or open it...........send that alone to the email addresses below........

Put together a QWR (Qualified Written Request)

In that letter demand your Life of Loan History, Copy of Note, Deed of Trust, Riders, all Assignments of the Deed of Trust, TIL, Right of Rescission (if refi), Lender Final HUD-1, Copy of Initial Loan Application and Final Lender Loan Application, all Disclosures and all Loan Documents in your file, Copy of Appraisal.

There is a blank copy of the request in the Homeowner's Tool Box to the Left of the Forum

Make sure you send it certified mail return receipt required to at least 3 addresses below:

Mailing address: (Send all your certified complaint letters, etc. here.)




Hope this helps...........
Please keep us posted on your progress..........

[sbrown]

Thank you for replying so quickly!
I will do as you suggested. I have a couple more questions though.
In my QWR I have about a page worth of telling them our situation, actions we have taken and outcome from Countrywide as well as questions I have that have been left unanswered. Should I keep this in the QWR or remove it and keep it simple...only requesting the copies?

Also...Should I use the same page worth of details from the QWR(minus the request for copies of docs)...and copy/paste it to the emails I send out with the hardship letter?

Lastly...Should I also fax the QWR to the president's office as well as mailing...or is that overkill?

Thanks again for your time....I look forward to your reply..and will write again when they respond...

[Moe Bedard]

Shannon,
Yes.......log all of your runaround in the QWR also......like a timeline of phone calls and persons that you spoke to if you have that,..........if not from here on out try to be as detailed as possible and keep a call log of extensions and people you speak to.

Mailing the QWR certified mail return receipt request will be enough for the President's office..........
Remember you are also emailing the hardship letter there too.......
You don't need to mail both the QWR and the hardship, the hardship is for the purpose of the modification..........the QWR is serving the purpose of getting you the documents that were submitted to the lender on your loan so you can compare them to what is in your closing packet and see if anything is missing............it also coincides with helping the mod process along......

Please do keep us posted...........and ask any questions you like..........that is what we are here for.......

[sbrown]

Hi again,
I am almost ready to send off. I was going to email my hardship letter, but was wondering if it would be best to make a whole new one or use the hardship letter I sent to the HOPE dept. originally?
Thanks again,
Shannon

[Moe Bedard]

I would just type in the same one............if it outlines what you are going through and what caused the hardship......it should be o.k.
It might not be good to change it to a completely new one, but if you update some of the info that might have changed, that should be o.k.

Good Luck..........

[sbrown]

Amazing! I mailed off the QWR letter's today, and emailed the hardship letter. 5 hours after I sent out the email, we got a phone call from Countrywide! Our first phone call since this ordeal started! She was pleasant, helpful and seemed to actually care about getting us help. She said we should have this resolved within 10 days! We just need to resend all our financials, etc. WOW!
Will keep you posted as to what happens from here.

Thank You ...Thank YOu...Thank You

[Moe Bedard]

Shannon,

That is great..........good job....

Make sure you call that person at least every other day to check on the progress during the next 10 business days..........

Keep us posted............and your welcome.......

[sbrown]

Hi ***!
Well, a few days after I emailed the hardship letter and got the call, we got a letter stating they graciously request 30 days to reply. Then today we got a call from our new negotiator...who says we just need a couple letters from our credit card companies stating the payments we make are our minimum payments. They want proof we're not trying to lower our mortgage payment to pay off our credit card debt. I will do that. He also said to stop making our payments on both the houses 1st Mortgage's and go ahead and continue paying the 2nd on both houses. He said he will be running all the scenarios and get back with us no later than 1 week, to tell us what he has come up with...and then it goes to be reviewed by the investors. Since the investor's are not outside..but actually countrywide...he said it should be pretty quick.
I can't believe how much help we're getting all of a sudden...after such hassle and greif before...its incredible!

Thanks a MILLION!!!! Without this site...we would probably be packing our things right now!

I Will let you know what we find out in a week.

[Moe Bedard]

Shannon,

That is great!!! Thanks for the update..........and check in with them in a couple of days........don't wait the week..........

Keep us posted..........I am glad that you can feel some relief.......

[sbrown]

Sorry its been so long!
After many delays which seemed to be on purpose...and us standing our ground, we were offered a lower fixed rate for both our firsts, while keeping our neg-am loans...so we can pay more as we're able. They also lowered the margin on one of the 2nd's..but said they wouldn't change the other second . We signed the docs...and are now paying about $800 less a month..and we aren't loosing as much each much on our neg-ams either..which is great! We were also able to stop paying on all 4 loans for about 2 months while the whole waiting game happened...without penalties ...they just put that amount onto the back of the loan. I know for a fact that none of this would have been possible without this website! You were truely an answer to our prayers! I feel like you helped us stand up to the bully and make our voice heard.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! and Thank You some more!

[Moe Bedard]

Shannon,


That is awesome news!!

Congratulations!!

[schwefls]

sbrown kudos you, party hardy, you derserve it

[RudyJay]

Way to hang in there... Congratulations..