Fredy, FL says:

   "WE WERE PROMISSED 8% & 10% AT CLOSING THEY AUTOMATICALLY CHANGED IT TO 9% & 11% WHAT CAN YOU DO?"

Jack Answers,

   If this can be documented (proven) there is a good case for getting the interest lowered and the return of all interest above what you were originally quoted. 

Jenny, CA says:

"Hi, I would like to get help to audit my recent re-fi.  I didn't get the program what my broker referred me to.  it supposed to be a 3.7 fixed with a margin of 3.1. So first year is 2092.00, 2nd year is 2894.00, 3rd year, is 3111.00, 4th is 3345.00, 5th is 3595.00.  My 1st statement arrived and the interest rate is 8.245%.  Can you help me!  thanks, jenny"

Jack Answers,

   Without knowing what year you got the loan or seeing the loan papers it’s impossible to answer your question. My thinking is that you got what is known as a ”teaser rate.“  This rate is typically below the going market rate, and is used by brokers/lenders to entice borrowers to choose ARMs over traditional mortgages.

It seems that the broker put you into an initial low interest rate so that you could qualify for the loan thereby earning the broker a commission. It appears to be a classic predatory loan and you certainly should have a valid case against the lender and mortgage broker.

   Jenny Follow Up,

   "Jack, I do have some question about the statement you need from me. I don't seem to be able to find the good faith estimate.  Is this the first part of estimated closing statement?

I am off at home so I can get all the doc to you. So far I found out the broker liar.  He told me that it is no pre-pay penalty, and I found out this loan has a three year lock on it.  I can get thru a year, but three years...  I am so shock....

Talk to you soon.

Jenny"

Jason, CO says:

"We are interested in someone to look at our contract. We have a 80/20 Loan the first one is fixed for 30yrs. at 7.95% and the other one is an ARM at 12.40% and the rate is going to change in July/August.  Right now we are in foreclosure we have tempted to make payment arrangements with Saxon and they just keep giving us the run around and their payments get higher every time we want to work out a payment plan and all we get told is that it's not enough money and we don't have to accept the payment plan.  We have sent a Financial packet to Saxon and they have not contacted us only when we call and have to wait for hours to get thru and everybody has a different answer every time.  Select Portfolio will let us pay the monthly until we can get caught up but the fees and and eveything is spiraling out of control.  I hope you can give us a straight forward answer. If not we are seeing if we can sell the house even if we want to keep it."

Jack Answers,

     Sorry to hear about your frustrations but this is very common with all lenders. It sounds as though you’ve been working with the Loss Mitigation Dept. it is the only area of any lender that can do a workout agreement with you. If you filled out a workout agreement it has to be reviewed by an underwriter for approval, it can be approved first time around or the underwriter may ask for revisions or turn you down.

Depending at what stage of the foreclosure you’re in you may want to have Mortgage Audit Service look at your loan documents. Remember if the docs show violations or fraud a complaint can stop the foreclosure and resolve the problem.

Louise, CA says:

"I believe I'm in a Predatory Loan, the lenders went bankruptcy shortly after I received my loan, in NY. They are being sued left and right for mortgage fraud. I would like to talk to someone. I am a senior, and I'm a first time homeowner. Bought it in sept. 04.  I would like to investigate this situation."

Jack Answers,

     There have been hundreds of lenders who have gone bankrupt (see our link Implod-o-Meter ), there you’ll find hundreds of lenders who have gone bankrupt, closed or been bought by other lenders. When this happens your loan is taken over by another lender and that lender becomes responsible for your loan - meaning that your current lender (the one you’re making payments to) assumes full responsibility for any Fraud or Violations from the Original loan documents.

Anonymous says:

"We refianced our home through Dana Capital and the loan is with IndyMac bank.  We refianced to take cash out and pay off some debt. Now we are having trouble keeping up with our mortgage payments because the interest rate is 11.65 and our payments have gone from 1525.00 to 2325.00. I know we should have checked out our budget to see if we could easily afford this higher payment but figured even with the higher payment which would include the bill we had been paying - the monthly mortgage payment would be approximately the same as if we were paying a separate mortgage and paying credit card and student loan debt seperately.

We tried to work out a couple of repayment plans with IndyMac Bank but of course they wanted us to make an even larger payment than we were which didn't work out since we were having trouble paying the mortgage with the smaller payment. The house went into foreclosure and I've been contacting every agency I hear about for help. The person who was supposed to be helping us at IndyMac Bank, Sharon G., told me that she would allow us to pay $2700 as a down payment and then put us on a new repayment schedule which would be the same as our regular payment for 6-8 months depending on what the investors approved for us and told me it would just take a couple of days for the repayment plan. At the time there was no court date set for the sale of the house. After a few weeks I tried calling Sharon and found that her phone numbers were no longer working numbers.(my mother had triple bypass surgery and carotid artery surgery so I was not paying as much attention to the repayment as ! I should have been). I then started calling the main customer service number just to be put on hold for 10-20 minutes and then transferred to someone's voice mail. When I finally got to talk to an actual person, I was told that Sharon didn't work there any more and hadn't been there for weeks. Needless to say no one else at IndyMac Bank bothered to pick the ball and after so much time had passed, we had a foreclosure sale date. I finally have worked out some sort of repayment plan with another person and I spoke with the county clerk of courts' office to see if they've received notice that the sale was to be cancelled. They are still checking on that.

My point is that for starters, I think that our house was given a higher appraisal than what's it's worth and Dana Capital based the amount we could borrow on our annual income before all the taxes and everything was taken out plus our annual income included overtime for my husband. My husband has not been able to get as much overtime in 2007 as he did in 2006 (which was what the loan was based on) and consequently we fell behind because we've been short money to pay our bills almost every month.

I was just wondering if there was something fradulent about any of this. Our house was appraised at 290,000 by one mortgage broker and it was appraised by Dana Capital at I believe $340,000."

Jack Answers,

     Fraud is always possible and we run into it more times than not. When an appraisal is in question we always pursue the appraisers’ license status and insurance at the time the appraisal was done. This is a very technical area that needs to be looked at from several different perspectives in order to determine culpability.

Linda MI says:

"Hello Jack,

Thank you for working with us. I am sending you what we have right now and I'll continue to look for the other 2 loan documents. I have a feeling that the broker did not give us copies when we signed the documents, instead he gave us a CD. I opened the CD today and it is totally blank. My husband called him and he said that it may still be in his computer and will call his secretary to look for it. He said repeatedly that we really don't need those documents, I did not tell him what we are doing but I hope that he had an idea. I also had a feeling that he will not give us copies anyway, just by his tone of voice.

Well Jack, please let us know if you need anything at all anytime. Thank you so much for your help.

Sincerely,

Linda"

Jack Answers,

    Sounds like Fraud to me! By the way this is fairly common, except for the CD that’s a new one on me.

Jack,

Thanks for taking my phone call and forwarding a copy of your Complaint so quickly.

The level of detail in your report is impressive especially as it pertains to debt ratio and affordability. As you pointed out, the Broker did not proceed from an income verification data point because if he had, I would not have qualified at 72%. Instead, he used my disability income and my pending divorce to justify the loan to his boss and the loan review board.

I appreciate you working my package so expeditiously. This issue remains a detriment to my health but I feel I can breathe easier knowing I am in very capable hands. Please advise as soon as you receive a response. I understand that I am not to make any more mortgage payments until this is resolved-correct?

Sincerely,

Robert