Chevy Chase Story

[Joel Fraser]

OK, we are going to weigh in on this one because we are out of options as well.In June of 2006 we purchased our home. Our previous home had the mortgage held by Chevy Chase, (it was a broker refi) it had a soft prepayment, (10k) and when we sold it as long as the new loan was Chevy Chase we didn't have to pay the money. OK, fine. They sent us our TILA and everything looked fine. We were getting a 5 year fixed arm and the payment was 2500. Manageable for us. We moved out and went to the escrow company to sign the new mortgage, and we noticed that they were different than we had. The escrow agent called them and they said that they had made a mistake because they forgot we were in Cali, and that these new ones would be how it would have to be written. We got on the phone with them and they said to just go ahead and sign the papers, and they could do a refi in a couple months. The family was without a residence, and we needed somewhere to go. You don't really check into motel 6 with a kid and 2 125 pound dogs. So the couple months go by, we call them and ask them for the refi, but now the payment would be more than we were currently paying, so we asked if they had FHA or a 40 year program and they said no. They gave us the numbers and told us to call back with what we wanted to do. A month later, we called back and they told us that they couldn't do anything because by this time the market had started the downturn, and since we only put down 5% we didn't have the 20% equity that was required. (Why didn't they tell us that in escrow?) So we paid the payments for the next year, then low and behold the payment adjusts. Then in May of this year we get knocked with an escrow shortage which they say needs to raise our payment $450 to take care of. Then the payment adjusted AGAIN, (even though the interest rates went down) and now we are over $3400. Ironically, the county of Riverside sent out our prop 8 adjustment that took the home value from 579k to 363k. We called Chevy Chase to ask for an impound adjustment, and they refused saying the LTV was too high. Duh. We asked if they could remove the impounds, and they said ditto.So we decided to hire (name removed) to help us reduce the principal, which they assured us they could, then after 3 months of selling stuff on ebay and eating PB and Js, they send us a kind letter informing us that they are becoming insolvent and lucky us, we won't have to pay them more for all the "work" they did. That was our last $1700.We called Chevy Chase to tell them our issues, and they said, "yeah, sorry... short sale it". I don't know, nor have I read about anyone who has successfully achieved a short sale with them. Of course, we have done everything to stay current, in case we end up renting, so they aren't the least bit interested in letting us do that. Our bonuses were way off this year, and one of us has been transferred further away to the tune of about $200 more a month in gas. We are really out of options. We had asked them if we should wait until October to approach them again, and Jason in Loss Mit said, "We won't be participating in the fed plan". Argh. Well, at least he warned us. We don't have any money for any other help. I am sure it would be futile anyway. I would just like to say that yes, the banks continue to manipulate good people into whatever they have to to take their assets. I don't know how I feel about the buy and bail people, because I know that banks don't pay tons of stuff just because they don't want to. I don't understand why that's OK. I know that I want to pay for this house and have my family live here for years and years. I don't want to struggle with credit issues forever. But we are just a number to the banks, and until that changes, they will keep killing us off.