To say 2012 was an eventful year for my family is an understatement. My family’s story begins in January. After years of trying to start a family, my wife, Paulette, and I opted to use a fertility doctor to assist us on January second. Two weeks later we found out it worked and we were going to have a baby. A week later we found out it would be two. Believe it or not, a week later we found out it would be three. Yes three babies in one shot. Shock, excitement, nervousness, fear, and many other emotions overcame my wife and I. What a year and it was only January. In February my grandmother of 97 passed away and here began the rollercoaster of emotions we were about to experience throughout the year. In April I had an unfortunate accident while playing softball which lead to being struck in the side of my head, while pitching, by a line drive from a batter that fractured the bone on the side of my head, split my ear lobe, resulting in numerous stitches, and a minor case of facial palsy that lasted about a month. May and June were relatively uneventful. In July, Paulette was in and out of the hospital because of some minor complications from the pregnancy and on August 1 she entered the hospital for the last time. On August 7th she gave birth to three wonderful, premature but relatively healthy boys, Daniel, Noah, and Carter. The boys did well and were all out of the NICU by early September, well ahead of their original due date of September 25th. Now began our life as a family at home. Then the unthinkable happened and threw our lives into disarray again, Sandy. We all know what that was like. Terrible for some, horrible for others. While we were definitely luckier than others, we were definitely not unscathed. We attempted to proactively save our belongings by lifting our furniture, clothing, and other items three feet of the ground to be sure it would not touch any water that might enter our house. Unfortunately, we ended up having three and a half feet of water in our house. So like many others, we lost a lot, including a place to live. After almost three weeks of living on air mattresses on the floors of relatives, we were able to secure a 1bedroom townhouse in Smithtown. Although it costs more than we are getting from FEMA for housing, it was clean and in a good location so we figured we would pay the extra money out of our pocket. During the time period between the storm and November 17th, when we found our housing, it was brought to our attention by the director of an organization for families of multiples, MOST, that we should contact our mortgage company to arrange having our payments put on a hold. This leads to the reason for my letter.
My mortgage is with CitiMortgage. I made the initial call to them to ask about the possibility of holding off on making payments on a house that was uninhabitable around November 6th. I was informed that they had nothing in place at that time but I should call back around the middle of the month. I called again around November 16th. At that time I was informed that we could hold off on making payment for 90 days and that someone would contact me within the next 30 days with more information. What a relief! One less stress to have to deal with at this time, which now included my wife returning to work from her maternity leave on November 12th and I started my FMLA paternity leave to be with the boys. It made me feel good about things that a giant company such as CitiMortgage would do something to benefit those in need at this time. Little did I know this good feeling would be short lived. I received a phone message from CitiMortgage on December 5th, within the 30 days as explained, informing me that, although a final decision was not made as of yet, it was very likely that we were going to be responsible for a balloon payment in February to cover the payments that we did not make during the 90 day forbearance and that if we could not make that payment, a payment plan would be a likely alternative. Now the thought of having to come up with close to seven thousand dollars by February or pay a larger monthly payment or continue making monthly mortgage payments on a house we cant live in is not appealing in any way. I returned the call on December 6th and spoke to Dorothy. After 45 minutes on the phone, it was left up to me that I could continue to make my monthly payments on a house I am not living and continue paying rent to live elsewhere or I could not make any payments and hope that come February a decision would be made that did not include a balloon payment or payment plan. The final part of the conversation, which is why I am writing you, is that Dorothy explained to me that this decision is not coming from CitiMortgage, it will be handed down from Freddie Mac and the federal government. This is what scares me the most. What I thought was a blessing has now turned into an added headache that is not something my family and I need right now. How could allowing a family to not make payments for 90 days but then be responsible for the balance after the 90 days benefit anyone? Why would anyone agree to that? Where is the benefit? I am really not understanding what the best option for my family is a t this time. Should I continue to make payment instead of using that money to start rebuilding my house? Or should I take a chance that come February I will not be held responsible for a balloon payment? Either way, I feel that we are getting the short end of the stick. When forced to choose whether to pay for a house I cant live in or the house that I am currently living in with my family, I will always choose what is best for my family. Unfortunately, that choice may extend the length of time it takes to get back into our house and pushes me closer to telling the bank to take my house and I will start over somewhere else. I don’t know what the future holds and this is really a situation that I did not expect on top of everything else that is going on. If you find out any information regarding this situation it would be greatly appreciated. If it is a decision in the hands of the government, I would greatly appreciate voicing my opinion on the matter either personally or through your representation. From a humane level, exceptions should be made that are unprecedented. In no way am I trying to get out of making payments that I am responsible for. I am not looking for a free ride at all. A better option would be to just extend the loan and add the missed payments to the end of the loan. There has to be a better option than the one I was informed of by my bank.
I received two separate letters, dated 12/14/12 and 12/20/12, both stating that Citi had not received my forbearance payment for December and that if payment was not made within a certain period of time, steps would be taken in the collection process. Both times I made separate phone calls and spoke to Matt on 12/21/12 and Johnathon on 12/31/12 and they both said to disregard the letter because we do not expect you to make the forbearance payment of $0.01 under the Sandy forbearance plan.
As of January 4th, 2013, I had a conversation with Tim and the decision has been handed down that a grand total of $10,185 will be due on my account by February first. There are no other options that I would qualify for. CitiMortgage told me that Freddie Mac has decided that CitiMortgage should not be penalized due to this situation and should receive the funds that are due to them. Basically saying that it’s not our problem, it’s yours. Now since we have not received any more money from FEMA, and our insurance settlement still has not been decided on, my family and I are left with the decision “Do we empty our bank accounts to pay for a house that is uninhabitable or do we pay rent on the place we call home right now?” This would actually delay the length of time before we could get back into our house, causing us to have to make more payments on a house we cannot live in. Also, the money in our bank accounts that the mortgage company wants us to pay them with was to be used to put the house back together, the house they will be stuck with if we walk away. Brilliant minds in charge in this world we are living in. Has anyone really thought this through? Have any of these people in charge actually thought about the people who are living in this unfortunate situation? How different would this be if the executives at these banks were in this situation? What if the leaders of our government, who are supposed to be working for the people, were dealing with house they could not live in? Obviously they all have millions of dollars and multiple homes so it would not be an issue. Silly me. It’s a sad society we live in today. Not all of us can afford that though. Unfortunately, there is no compassion in the corporate world, except when it’s them that requires assistance. So easy for them to forget that bailout they needed a few years ago. They were DUE that assistance yet in this time of need when they could pay it forward, how quickly they forget. I don’t know what you can do or what information for assistance you can give me but I want everyone to know how inconsiderate, uncompassionate, misleading, money-hungry, thoughtless, self-centered, unsympathetic, cold-blooded, and vile this mortgage company is.
As of January 5th, 2013, a Safeguard Security company was sent to our house by our mortgage company and placed a sticker on our front door saying that this house has been found to be vacant/abandoned. When I called this company, they said the mortgage company was sent there to see if anyone was living there and if we were they were to change the locks on the doors. When I called my lovely mortgage company to ask why they would do something like that their explanation was that I was delinquent on my payment and this was standard procedure. I explained that your company put me on a forbearance program and was told by numerous employees there that I did not have to make any payments but once again that was apparently untrue. According to the plan, a one-penny payment was due each month while on the forbearance plan and since we did not pay the one-penny for December, we were considered delinquent. That’s right, one penny. So for a family that has never been late on a payment, actually pays two weeks before every due date and pays more than the minimum payment, we signed up for a program and were told by all employees of CitiMortgage that you did not actually have to pay the one penny, we are now considered delinquent and they are sending companies to our home to possibly lock us out. Unbelievable!!!
As of January 7th, no word from FEMA about any money for us to pay rent for the townhouse we are now living in. When we last contacted them they said they had mailed us a letter requesting more information about our income. When we inquired as to what more information they needed we were told “it’s in the letter”. Starting to get the feeling that we will somehow be denied any more money for rent. We still have no word from our insurance company about a settlement check. The last time we heard from the insurance company we were told our claim was in final review and we should be hearing from them shortly. This was over two weeks ago. The problem here is that once they give us their offer we will have to counter-offer in order to get a number closer to what we will actually need to put our lives back together. Lastly we still have not been contacted by anyone from our mortgage company about working on a solution that works for all parties involved. Big surprise there.
As of January 10th, I received a call from Tim at CitiMortgage again and he said that I had three options. Option 1 was to make the full repayment. Option 2 was to repay the balloon payment over 6 months, which would add almost $1700 to our monthly payment. Option 3 would be to modify our loan, which we do not qualify for since we have money in the bank. We were finally contacted by our insurance company and given a settlement price of almost $90,000. The estimates we got from contractors is between $120-130,000 to put our house back together. So where does this extra money come from to start the rebuilding process? Our bank accounts seem to be the answer. The insurance check will go to Citi and getting more from insurance will take time so how are we to start rebuilding when Citi wants our savings? We have already used $7000 of our own money and will be paying at least another $14,000 of our own money to get basics done before I get any money in return. Now add $10,185 to that and I can now see what I thought would be my problem, my family and I are the ones who get screwed.
As of January 11, 2013, I had another conversation with Tim. This is the gentleman that is giving Citi such a bad name right now. After explaining my situation to him, again, for the third time, he was unable to even say that he was sorry for my loss, could understand my frustration, anything that would show he actually had a heart. His response was to explain my options again. When I confronted him and said the reason I am so frustrated with you is because you cant even say I’m sorry, his response was that they are trained to not get close or to involved with any people or one account. In other words, I am just a number to him and all he cares about is to get his commission. So to see if this was true, I called back and spoke to another gentleman, Robert. Much to my surprise, Tim was wrong. One of the first words out of Robert’s mouth was I’m sorry and he proceeded to say that at least three more times in the first two minutes of our conversation. Robert was compassionate, understanding, thoughtful, and unlike Tim, helpful. This is the type of employee you should have as your model. Employees like Tim cause customers like me to write letters to the Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, Attorney General, Senators, Congressmen, lawyers, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Housing Finance Agency, Office of the Comptroller of Currency, Better Business Bureau, and yes, the White House.
It’s a shame when the people in charge do not see the big picture here. I can understand that the insurance companies need to protect themselves. They cannot just write out blank checks to these homeowners. I also understand that the mortgage companies also have to protect their interests, otherwise they would not be in business anymore…….? So based on those ideas and principles, I have to do the same for my family as well. It would not be in our best interest to empty our bank accounts to pay for our mortgage right now. That money is needed to offset the lack of money we will be getting from our insurance settlement. While the big companies can take the stand that this isn’t their fault, so can I. If they cannot get screwed over then neither can I. Why should I be the one that, when all is said and done, is left with zero dollars in his life savings and a house that will not be worth what we owe on it for quite some time, if ever. The fact that I am even writing this letter is what has gone wrong with country. Nobody in the position of power sees this as a problem? I truly do feel that sending aid and helping out other countries and nations is wonderful, but when your own are the ones in need, the focus should change. The definition of aid is “to provide support or relief to: help.” That’s what we need to do here. Those that can aid should. Those that need aid should not be forced to jump through hoops to get that aid based on income, geographic location, race, employment status, etc. Citizens of our country have such a disconnect to this entire ideal today because of the example set by those in charge. We become disrespectful, discourteous, and impolite because we learn by example. We see those in charge acting the same way, which forces us, their peons, to redirect those same actions onto our peers. We also are learning that do the right thing and pay your bills, work two jobs, pay taxes, have insurance in case of a disaster, try to save a little money, and possibly someday achieve a little taste of the American dream by owning your own property. But when that unprecedented disaster strikes you and your family won’t qualify for ANYTHING because you follow the rules, pay your bills, actually saved some money, have insurance, have a job, pay your taxes, and acted like a respectful member of society. Why is that? I follow the rules and do what I am told to do, why can’t I get help when I need it? Why should I have to be the only one the gets penalized here? Doesn’t make much sense to me and I find it hard that it makes sense to those in charge.
What if I did not have to write this letter because the leadership team at my mortgage company saw this situation on the horizon and said we can’t put our clients in that position because it just isn’t right? What if the insurance companies recognized that their clients were in dire need of money to put their lives back in order so they got together with the mortgage companies and said it isn’t right to put our clients in this position so lets work something out? What if the government, who oversees all of them, actually took a step back, looked at the situation, and made an exception due to the unprecedented situation we are all presented with that maybe had its citizens best interests in mind and not the giant corporations? Where would our society be in that situation? What if I didn’t have to write this letter and could focus on spending time with my children, putting our lives back together, and bringing my family home? What if? Not sure but its worth a shot because where we are isn’t working. What if this mission, taken from Citigroup.com
“Citi works tirelessly to serve individuals, communities, institutions and nations. With 200 years of experience meeting the world's toughest challenges and seizing its greatest opportunities, we strive to create the best outcomes for our clients and customers with financial solutions that are simple, creative and responsible. An institution connecting over 1,000 cities, 160 countries and millions of people, we are your global bank; we are Citi.”
Mrs. & Mrs. Daniel Deegan
