
matthew of east liverpool , OH on April 28, 2010
In March 2009, my husband and I applied for the hardship program due to his being laid off from General Motors. When we contacted HSBC, we were actually told it was not worth our time because it would take 3-6 months for the paperwork to be reviewed. We said it didn't matter because at that time he had already been laid off 4 different weeks and in March was being laid off indefinitely. Reluctantly, the woman on the other end said, "Okay, we will send the papers out." At that point, we were never told that we couldn't receive help because of our being in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy and that's why our lawyer suggested we apply for the hardship due to the impending layoff. However, the papers never came. So my lawyer told me to call again and ask for the paperwork, which I did. We never received them until May 2009.
In between that time, I tried making a payment only to be told that they wouldn't accept it and that I should call their lawyer. On June 19, 2009, I "overnighted" all the paper \work to HSBC. I have the person's signature, the date and the time when the information was received. We never heard anything back from HSBC about the hardship, nor did our lawyer. I was told to call them once again and see what was going on and was told that they never received the papers. I called my lawyer and she told me to forward them to her and she then would forward them to HSBC attorneys, which she did. None of us ever heard back from them until October when they said I owed $7000 and needed to pay that in 10 days or they would start foreclosure proceeding.
Once again, I called and tried to talk to someone and make a payment only to be told that they couldn't take the money and I needed to contact their attorney. I also asked about the hardship program and they told me they had no record of us applying so again, I told them to send the paperwork. They told me to contact Novadebt, which we did. Novadebt contacted them; we did a three-way call. The lady at HSBC told them, "Yes, we could do the hardship" and we needed the paperwork done, so we told them to send it out. They never did. That was attempt number 3.
Present day, we still know nothing about our home. Our attorney had tried several times to contact their lawyer and nobody calls her back (this is of March 3, 2010). We were discharged from our bankruptcy in January 2010 and have just received our very 1st billing statement form HSBC on February 22, 2010 (which was due by March 16, 2010 in the amount of $16, 424). We have had HSBC since 2003 and have never received any paperwork or anything when they became our bank other than a booklet with the account number and a phone number for them. They purchased our loan from another bank which is how they became our present mortgager. We didn't even know the actual balance on our home until this year when we received this current billing statement.
When they purchased our loan, they also omitted my name off the loan for whatever reason and also we come to find out someone put my husband's name on our deed. It was land owned by me and only had my name on it since before us building our house. They raised our interest rate three times, which we were told that they could not do while we were in a bankruptcy. Our payment started at $937 and ended up at $1335. They also didn't apply our payments to our loan 4+times and then would call us saying that we never made a payment and were in default when in fact, they had withdrawn the money from our account and never applied it to our mortgage. They did this so often that when we would make our monthly, sometimes, the payment was around $900, when it should have been $1335, almost like someone wasn't calculating correctly.
Our interest rate hadn't changed and we only made the monthly minimum payment the months before, so how on earth could it have gone down that far. Oh, they would say, as if to be surprised, and lo and behold, they were holding the money elsewhere, for whatever reason, but never crediting full payments to our account. It makes zero sense why they would do that, because we never knew anything about an escrow account, because during this time, our taxes or insurance were not paid through them. We paid for that separately. (This is why I have never mailed a payment fearing that they would say they never received it.)
On March 3, 2010, after talking to my attorney, I called to see what was going on. I talked to three different people, all of whom gave me different information each time. I was told that unless I make the full $16,000 payment they would not accept anything from us. The 3rd person that I talked to actually said there was no record at all of us ever trying to apply for a hardship in 2009, which as I said before was actually 3 times, and "you will be our 5th". She went on to say that they can only go by this year's pay/income, not last year's. If that is the case, then they will clearly deny us because of my husband not getting laid off until the week of March 1 and the week of March 8.
As of 4-27-2010, we found out through the local newspaper that HSBC had filed foreclosure proceedings on our property as Household Realty Corporation on 4-23-2010. We have no clue who that is, because according to my current statement it's HSBC Mortgage Services not Household Realty Corp. And, as of today, we haven,t been served anything from the local court nor has HSBC sent us anything, only a billing statement.
There have also been major discrepancies as far as to what and how much our payments should be, because our payment was $937 and went to $1335 and back down to $1114 (which is what it is now). This all happened in the last 5 years. Our payment fluctuates every month and from April 2007 to March 2009, we paid well over $40,000. Now if you add all this up since they have become our lender, even when we were paying $937 and then $1335, to present we have paid approx. $86,000.
The loan that HSBC purchased was, according to my paperwork from Regions Bank, which granted could be incorrect but even so, if we have been paying all that kind of money our loan would technically be in the 60s without the fact of interest and finance charges, of course. But, it does make a person go "Hmm" and we never got extra money so if in fact, the account closed and paid on my credit report is Regions Bank dba American Home Mortgage, that loan balance was only at $143,100. How is it now that I have paid $86,000 to HSBC and my balance is now $143,600? Oh, and yes, we do have an arm loan with an APR of 11% but to our understanding the APR laws of ARM loans can only go up 1 point or down 1 point every 6 months. I would have to say that $400 is more than 1 point in less than two years; how is that?
I have called Jim ** at the Attorney Generals office, our State Representative Charlie Wilson, and Save the Dream Ohio and they in turn have told me to contact ESOP and NDS from Ravenna, which I am currently doing. I am also in contact with Community Action, all of which was suggested to do by our attorney.We don't want to not make a payment nor do we want to lose our home (I am the 3rd generation to own this land). We just need someone to help us. Something isn't right and something truly needs to be done.