One way Chase is rejecting loan modifications

Here is one example of how Chase is rejecting people who should be qualifying for a loan modification:

When he tried to change the terms of his home loan, Michael Guzman was rejected because the bank didn’t consider his joblessness a long-term hardship.

Perhaps Chase didn’t read the HAMP rules, because …

Guzman, of Lake Stevens, has been unemployed for more than two years and was told — incorrectly — by Chase last year that his joblessness did not count as a permanent hardship.

Chase’s answer when the fact that loss of a job should be considered a permanent hardship?

“Servicers continue to evolve their implementation of HAMP,” Chase said in a statement.

Moreover, Chase said, it asked Guzman to reapply for loan assistance, but he has refused.

Guzman said he’s already submitted paperwork three times.

7+ months for a short sale … yikes!

Here’s an oldie but a goodie:  Chase’s delay delay delay tactics with anything that will help with loan troubles, including this example of a long short-sale delay:

Have been asking Chase Bank for short sale since Jan 14. If not 4closure is imminent, should we pay prop tax?

Husband lost his job in Dec. Just had a baby in Dec. Prop is investment property in FL with tenants who if approved want the short sale. Property tax …. to pay or not to pay in light of short sale or foreclosure? Also .. Any advice on how to get Chase to lean toward short sale?

And just for the record, as far as I know, any type of tax lien will survive foreclosure, short sale, or bankruptcy.  The government gets its money in the end.

Do only celebs have an easy time getting a loan mod with Chase?

This would be the first time I have heard anyone say they had an easy time getting a loan modification with Chase.  I am guessing either:

• Chase didn’t want the bad press that might come from dealing with celebs
• They couple is seriously underwater and Chase wanted to try and avoid taking a big bath on the deal

For the rest of us, it is still slogging it out in the trenches.

Jim and Alexis Bellino, last season’s newest cast members of “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” recently defaulted on a $4.6 million loan for their stately home on Circle Drive in Newport Beach.

According to documents obtained exclusively by The Orange County Register, the Bellinos failed to pay $83,856.92 as of April 26 on their home loan, and faced the threat of foreclosure, plus having their home sold at public auction to the highest bidder.

The original loan amount was for $4.5 million. Because the Bellinos missed all mortgage payments since the first of the year, the debt — with fees and penalties — swelled up to $4.62 million, the documents indicate.

However, the auction (or trustee sale), scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 25, never happened. The Bellinos modified the loan on their home, a foreclosure did not occur, and the family never had to move.

“Chase Bank has been great to work with on my modification,” Jim Bellino said in an interview Friday. “The trustee sale has been canceled, and the modification has been agreed upon.”

Read more …

A particularly well documented run in with Chase and HAMP

We’ve published many posts outlining the tedious, redundant, inept, and frustrating process of applying for a loan modification with Chase, but non have been quite so well written as this one, by a former journalist, former because he lost is job.

SOMEWHERE IN AFGHANISTAN–It isn’t surprising, what with the world falling apart and all, that the world scarcely noticed that I lost my job as an editor in April 2009. Why should it? I was one of millions of Americans who lost their job that month.

But it mattered to me.

It wasn’t all bad. No more early morning commutes. And no more Lisa. Lisa was my boss. My mean boss. My mean and crazy boss. In the long run, I stand to save thousands of dollars on therapy.

In the meantime, however, one visit with HR cost more than half my annual income. (My ex-employer, the Scripps media conglomerate, offered just four weeks severance pay–if I agreed not to work as a journalist for the rest of my life. Needless to say, I refused.) Just like that, I was broke.

The bills, of course, kept coming. Including my home mortgage. Unlike many people, I was conservative. When I bought, in 2004, I put down more than 50 percent of the purchase price. Refusing an adjustable-rate mortgage, I took out a vanilla 30-year fixed-rate mortgage from Chase Home Finance LLC.

Read more …

Three years for a loan mod

You can bet the folks over at Chase Home Finance Sucks have poked into every nook and cranny of the loan modification process and are very well informed.  Despite that, it took them three years to get a loan modification.

Over 1000 dollars lower. Took three years of tears and fear but we did it and you can do it to.
Email us at admin@chasehomefinancesucks.com and we will tell you how we did it.
No Government offices helped in any way.

The process is simply broken, or Chase doesn’t really want to do loan modifications.

Are some Chase loan modification approvals a scam?

I’ve heard a number of stories where people are contacted by Chase to say their loan modification has been approved and then later told that it is no longer approved or has never been approved.  I just got this story from a reader:

Chase has called me twice telling me my loan modification was approved and only days later I receive a letter saying I was denied.  This time they say the reason (always before it was the bogus missing doc thing) I wasn’t over 60 days later (I’m current) and that I don’t have a hardship.  I no longer received $1500/month child support and I’m paying almost 45% in a minimum payment due to reset in December moving it up to 50% … and it’s adjustable.  I called them and they say they don’t know why someone would call me and say I was approved.  I think they are called under false pretenses to obtain information.  This should be illegal.  I also notice they no longer say “this call is being recorded” … surprise.  What can I do?  Chase Sucks!!! 1 year 3 months of nonsense.

I could think of a number of reasons they would be doing this but chief among them is to get people to pay more money than they might if they understood they would be denied in the end.

Chronicle of a typical Chase loan mod saga

This family has been trying for over two years to get some help on their mortgage, due to legitimate hardships – a job loss and medical issues.  They started with WaMu, which did not go well, and continued the process with Chase, which also did not go well.

When they called in May 2009 to check on their application, they were told their case had been closed when Washington Mutual was bought by JPMorgan Chase and that they would have to apply again.

In the meantime, they received notice in August that their home was in foreclosure proceedings.

They applied again and were asked to submit additional information. When they received a call on Sept. 17, 2009, telling them that their modification had been approved, the couple thought their troubles had come to an end. They were given the terms over the phone.

“I cried that day,” Marianne Sevy said. “I told (the Chase representative) I loved him.”

The representative told her that the papers would be delivered and that they should put a signed note on their door so it could be dropped off if no one was home.

The papers never came.

They said each time they called Chase over the next nine months, they ended up speaking to a different person, none of whom could tell them why.

Joe Baldi, a housing counselor at the Frederick Community Action Agency who is working with the couple on a last-ditch effort to avoid foreclosure, said their situation is not uncommon.

“This is a classic problem we have,” Baldi said. “It’s like some sort of horrible game that just goes on and on. Once a loan starts unraveling, it just goes berserk.”

Collection calls began in June, asking them how they were going to handle the foreclosure. When they told the representative that they had an approved modification, she informed them that none was on record.

An underwriter had sat on the agreement and it expired, Marianne Sevy said she later found out.

“I was floored, and the woman was extremely rude and obnoxious,” she said. “She had me so upset I was screaming on the phone.”

Do our Senators and Representatives in Congress know about stories like these, which are more common than not with people applying for loan modifications?  Sure, the loan modification success numbers are pitiful, but it is the process that is truly pathetic and needs addressing.

Chase claims a lot more foreclosures coming

As you walk down the trecherous road to trying to get a loan modification with Chase Bank, and you begin to wonder what their motivations truly are, keep this in mind:

Charlie Scharf, JP Morgan Chase’s head of retail financial services, told investors recently to expect REO (Real Estate Owned) sales to make up a substantial part of overall real estate sales over the next two years, from 21 to 28 percent.  He certainly must know something about Chase’s mortgage business which presumably figures into his statement and might be taken as admitting that Chase doesn’t see itself stemming the wave of foreclosures anytime soon.