Continued Crappy Loan Servicer Practices Harm Homeowners Even After 'Successfully' Obtaining Loan Modifications

ProPublica reports:

• Chanel Rosario was supposed to be one of the lucky ones. After years of sending and re-sending documents, waiting on hold and attending court hearings to avoid foreclosure on her Staten Island home, she'd finally received a much-needed reduction on her mortgage. Eagerly, she and her husband signed it and mailed it in last September. "We thought it was over."
• It wasn't. After months of making payments, Rosario called the bank handling her mortgage, Chase Home Finance, and found out Chase was still reporting her as delinquent, damaging her credit score and putting her home in jeopardy. Despite months of trying to get an explanation with the help of a legal-aid attorney, she still doesn't know why Chase isn't abiding by the agreement.
• It's a disturbingly common occurrence, say consumer advocates: Many homeowners have been granted a hard-fought mortgage modification only to have their mortgage company effectively pull a bait and switch. The problems range from homeowners being hit with unexpected extra charges to the bank simply ignoring the signed agreement.

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• To get a sense of how common this problem is, the nonprofit Connecticut Fair Housing Center conducted an informal survey of 16 legal aid organizations and one private attorney. In nearly a quarter of the 655 cases of modifications they reviewed, the mortgage servicer didn't abide by the terms of the agreement. In the worst cases, homeowners who thought they'd successfully run the gauntlet of servicer errors and delays found themselves once again facing foreclosure. Sometimes the house was actually foreclosed on.
• "It's not just one servicer screwing up," said Andrew Neuhauser, an attorney with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality of Toledo, Ohio. "It's industry-wide practice."

For more, see Even After Mortgage Modification, Shoddy Bank Practices Hurt Homeowners.

See also, Profiles: Shoddy Bank Practices Continue Even After Mortgage Mods for profiles of six homeowners who ended up getting screwed over, despite 'successfully' obtaining a loan modification from their respective banksters.