Tuesday, September 25, 2018

The “Joys” of Having Your Mortgage Sold to Another Company, Part I

It happens all the time your mortgage is sold to another company. In fact it is possible to have your mortgage sold several times over the life of the loan. But don’t expect a smooth transition. Don’t believe the information sent to you by the new loan company that it will be a smooth and easy transition.

This is what happened to me. The first part of the story takes place right when the loan transitioned to the new company. While what happened is not really terrible it was a precursor to part II which was an eye opener of just well how unprepared my new mortgage company was to handle my loan.

The mortgage company was New Penn Financial c/o of Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing. My understanding is that Penn Financial holds the mortgage note while Shellpoint actually takes care of all the administrative duties of the loan like collecting the money.

Sometime in May of this year I got a letter from Capitalone (I’ll have a post about them at a later date), saying that the loan was sold. It said what the name of the new company was and when this would all take place and when the last date it would accept mortgage payments. The letter essentially said there was nothing to be concerned about that all the information would transfer over to the new company and I would not have to do anything.

A couple weeks later came a letter from New Penn Financial that said just about the same thing. When it could receive payments, where payments should be sent to etc. Again all I would have to do is go online and set up my account. That’s all I’d have to do. Don’t believe that for a second in part two of this tale you’ll learn you need to be very much on the ball. And I ended up doing the mortgage company’s job.

June arrived and the problem started. I started getting automated calls saying that the mortgage company needed to get in touch with me. The message seemed to imply that if I stayed on the phone I would be transferred to someone. So I waited for a couple of minutes and was disconnected. This happened a couple of times. Finally I quickly wrote down the number I could call to contact someone. The number was said in the automated call but was said only once and said very fast so it was hard to write down.

I called one day. I said I was getting these calls and I wondered why. I was told they needed to update the information on my account. And that’s what we did updated the information on my account. I’m not exactly sure why this very basic information like my phone number didn’t carry over when the information was transferred by Capitalone but no matter.

I specifically asked during this call if it was all right to mail in the first payment. Also would there be a payment coupon included in the introductory information I was supposed to receive sometime mid-month. I was told there would be a coupon in that packet and mailing in the payment would be fine.

Problem solved right? Nope.

The phone calls continued. One coming as early as 7am.

I called again. The guy on the other end of the phone said it was because they needed information to set up my account. I said I’d already done this but fine we could do it again. There were a couple of questions that were different from the last time but again it was basic information that they should have had to begin with and that I’d given them in the first phone call.

I again asked if it was OK to send in the first payment by mail once the introductory packet arrived later in the month. I was told that would be fine.

So now everything should be fine. Right?

No. Phone calls continued.

I called back for a third time (it was a Friday and I was at a baseball game but I was fed up with all the calls). And again there was the request for my account information. But there was one more thing as well. My payment was late and needed to talk to someone about that.

As quick back ground the introductory packet had arrived. It did contain the payment coupon. I had not gotten around to sending it in yet. I’d written out the check but hadn’t mailed it. It arrived on a Thursday and I was going out of town that weekend. I mailed it the middle of the following week.

I got sent to a supervisor to discuss my late payment (it was supposed to be paid by the 18th). This is what I told that person. I said I had asked repeatedly if it would be fine to wait until the introductory packet came which would have a coupon and mail the first payment in that way. The packet came on the 15th the payment date was the 18th. So even if I had mailed the payment on the 15th it was doubtful that it would have gotten there in time.

I was told well the payment was still late. My response was I should not have been told it was fine to wait for the packet and use the coupon to mail in the payment. I further asked if I was the only person who had waited. I got no response from that one.

I was told they would put a note in the account that the payment was on the way. I responded by saying why wasn’t a note put in earlier saying how I would send in the first payment. If it had this could have all been avoided. There was no response to that at all.

Again not all that bad but it should have put me on my guard about these guys. Part two of the saga is about how
New Penn Financial and Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing didn’t pay my home owner’s insurance.

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