Mortgage Forum

Joel Fraser

Beware - this is a long story. I didn't want to leave anything out. My story begins in 2004 when I bought my first investment property for only 10% down with Countrywide. It qualified as a vacation home. I worked directly with a loan officer that was referred by a friend. In 2005 we sold our primary residence because we were moving. We received about 160,000 in equity for that house (times were good). We moved to a location that had several new housing divisions going up (Discovery Bay). At that time it was a lottery system in which you are pre-qualified and then put on a list to be in attendance at each release. We wanted a certain house (the house we live in today). They were only releasing one and we were number 26 on the list of qualified buyers. The possibility was slim of receiving that house. So prior to to the release date, I spoke with lender friend and asked her what she thought about us buying a home now, living in it for about 12 months and then renting it out. She was now a lender for American Home Mortgage. She gave me an amount that we should stay under and that should work. We found one for under the amount and we bought it. After we bought that house, we had the release of my dream house and miraculously, we got it. So now instead of 12 months living in it, we now have only 6 to 8 months while the other is being built. In the meantime, we decided to test the investing waters and purchase other cheaper properties in other states and help my sister. In 2005, we ended up purchasing 6 properties (including our primary residence). That was a grand total of 7. All of the loans were originated with the loan agent from American Home Mortgage. They were all "full documented loans." We were very green and did not know the different types of programs we were getting into. I believe they were so new that either did our agent. My husband lost his job late 2005, as well :(. We worked extremely hard over the last 3 years to maintain those properties, trying to keep tenants in them and keep the money coming in. Some of the toughest years of my life. Fast forward to 2007, we sold 2 of the properties, and sold 2 more in the beginning of 2008. Our first one went into foreclosure in April 2008 due to an unsuccessful legal battle with a horrible tenant. We won - however, they filed BK. They also destroyed the property. That loan stayed with American Home Mortgage. We tried unsuccessfully to refinance that propety with the same lender when we noticed our principle was increasing each month. That was in 2006 - the beginning our our education on loans and predatory lending. I found out that our original loans were approved with falsified application documents when it came to the rental income. And when I "WOULD NOT" substantiate the amounts given by my loan agent, by providing fake leases in which she was going to give me a blank lease form, we would have to wait until our financial situation improved and try again. It is now 2008, we are down to 2 properties (our primary and our vacation home). We are in Neg Am loans that have a cap of 110% on both. The vacation home is now with Saxon Mortgage (transferred from Novastar in November) and this is where my new nightmare begins.:eek: I have been paying through my bank's online payment. On or about 4/19, I received a call from Saxon CSR to find out that the April payment that was received on 4/14 did not cover the whole payment. She said my payment was now 3400 (that is approx). I asked why and she could not tell me. I told her I did not receive the March statement, nor was it available online. She opened what they consider a "work request" to locate the March statement because she said it had not been imaged yet. However, April was there? This work request was due to be worked on around 5/6. So on or around 5/6, I called and spoke with CSR - Joe. We spoke for hours. I specifically asked him if my loan had reached my cap (I called it recasting). He said no. He said that I should wait until the work request was worked. I decided to contact the "loss mitigation" department in hopes of receiving indivualized service. I did speak with a senior rep., Angela, she tried at first to tell me that my payment had increased because of it being an ARM and it will fluctuate based on the interest rate at that time (duh). I had her go through the past 3 months and the interest had gone down and she could not explain why my payment had increased. There was nothing on file and the March statement was still unavailable. She opened another work request asking for a review of my account. This one was due to be worked on or about 5/17. Online, there was no longer the January or February statement that were there in April. There was only the April statement posted on there 12 times :confused:. I then spoke with a Supervisor Whitney that was extremely rude telling me that my loan had reached my cap and now this was my minimum payment due. I asked her about the open work requests and why the other reps were unable to locate this information. She could not answer for them she said. I asked her about the March statement and she said it was imaged and it was dated March 6 which was different from all other statements normally dated the 16th. She said the work requests were still not worked, though. I asked her about online. She sent me to the tech support in which I was unsuccessful. They have not applied my April or May payments, yet. On May 22, we received a notice from our primary home loan of the payment change on that one. This is what I expected from Saxon, if in fact that is what happened with my loan. I am still weary of their bookkeeping. I have written Saxon a letter explaining what I have gone through and requested a copy of the document stating that my payment had changed (very similar to the one I received on my other loan). They have sent me a form letter and copies of my notes for that property AND 3 of my other properties - why they have them - I don't know. Anyway, I sent another letter yesterday reclarifying my request. I am in the process of trying to get my primary home loan modified with IndyMac. I would like to do the same with Saxon. However, they are extremely difficult to work with as I am reading and I work full time AND my husband is back to work "permanently, as of 4/18.:D He was working on and off since he first lost his job in 2005. Based on my loan doc's, Saxon Mortgage is required to provide me 30 day notice of a payment change. That did not happen. That was a breach of our loan contract section 3 (d). What are my options? Over the last two years, not only was my husband out of work, the property values have decreased significantly. There would be no way we could refinance. Help - what to do next? BTW - this is a great website. I found it from one of the postings on the Ripoff Report website when I was looking to see if anyone else was having issues with Saxon. THANKS!!