This was submitted by a Loan Safe Forum member

A few days ago I discovered this forum when I had less than 2 weeks before the sale date of my property. Thanks to the advice discussed, I learned some very important things that I wish I would have known 3 months ago when I was 1st given notice that I was in default.

I took the advice given by CAT and emailed everybody on the list on Sunday night that is posted in various threads. Monday morning, I received two different calls from the Office of the President and a couple of emails from others on the list. My loan has been given priority and the attention it needs.

I’m sad for some of the posts where they didn’t take the same advice of emailing that list to get the attention they needed, because it really did work.

While the sale date in 9 days is not yet dropped, I do know that Countrywide is seriously looking at finding a solution. Unfortunately, the balance now due to take my loan out of default has increased from $17,000 to at minimum $38,000 (maybe even closer to $60,000 - still waiting for the Reinstatement Balance).

I believe this to be very unfair and could have been avoided because I believed that CW Home Retention Department was there to help me and accepted their advice to pay $3,000 and apply the remainder of the $17,000 to the end of my loan to lighten the load of the payments.

What I didn’t understand until I read the posts in this forum was that:

• HOME RETENTION is just a deceiving name for debt collector.

• HOPE is the program for loss mitigation and loan modification, not HOME RETENTION.

• HOME RETENTION gets your information to a NEGOTIATOR to review your financial information to determine whether your might be able to receive negotiator assistance in the HOPE program.

I hope word can be spread around for people not to have a false sense of security when they are connected with this department.

As a result of HOME RETENTION assuring that everything was fine with my case for three months:

• The clock was ticking on my sale date.
• Fees were accumulating. Each day I call, it seems that another $1,000 in fees has been added to my loan.
• CW paid 3-4 years of back taxes which, in my case, were exempt because I am low income and disabled with quadriplegia. I have the option to pay them when I sell the property or before if I’m able.
• I’m being charged for all the legal fees involved; the Title charges; the appraisal; etc.

These fees and taxes could have been avoided.

• The HOME RETENTION department had my financial information that showed we had $17,000 to pay the balance to take it out of default.
• If HOME RETENTION would have assigned a negotiator to me within the 10 days they initially promised instead of 2.5 months later.
• If HOME RETENTION would not have represented to me that they were doing everything they could to help me.
• If CW could have kept me apprised of the fees that were accumulating or that they were paying my back taxes.

How can I be prevented from paying the additional fees accrued, the appraisal and other fees that were incurred by CW as a result of the deception of false sense of security and negligence of the HOME RETENTION department for not reviewing my case sooner so I could have taken my loan out of default when it was $17,000?

Now I don’t have enough money and if no loan modification is granted, I really will have lost my handicapped modified home and property that provides me with the rental income I use for survival & to pay my mortgage.

Has the media exposed or made clear to the community that HOME RETENTION is not a warm fuzzy department meant to assist you, but a debt collector?

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