Roughly one in three complaints needed to do with debtors “struggling to pay their mortgage,” and practically half of this share have been associated to addressing foreclosures. Many of the different half stemmed from “attempting to speak with the corporate to repair a difficulty associated to modification, forbearance, quick sale, deed-in-lieu, chapter, or foreclosures,” in keeping with the database.
About 13% of all complaints have been associated to making use of for a mortgage or refinancing an current one. Most of those points stemmed from an try to speak with the corporate to repair some type of an software difficulty. And about 10% of the full share of complaints have been associated to points with mortgage closings.
Of the 298 complaints, 217 have been logged with the bureau on-line and 56 have been taken over the cellphone. One other 18 have been referred and 7 have been dealt with through conventional mail.
Among the many nation’s high 10 reverse mortgage lenders, Onity Group Inc. — the dad or mum firm of PHH Mortgage Corp. and Liberty Reverse Mortgage — had the most important variety of complaints final 12 months at 95. It was adopted by Finance of America (27), Longbridge Monetary (11) and Mutual of Omaha Mortgage (8). Eight complaints have been attributed to American Advisors Group (AAG), an organization absorbed by FOA.
The overwhelming majority of complaints (98%) have been “responded to in a well timed method,” and the same share have been closed “with clarification.” Solely 14 complaints logged final 12 months remained in progress as of Friday, Jan. 24. Just one grievance was closed with financial reduction for the complainant.
Peer Advisors LLC — the dad or mum of reverse mortgage servicer Celink — obtained 51 complaints, second total to Onity Group. In mid-2023, the CFPB launched a report that confirmed the next common share of month-to-month reverse mortgage complaints between 2020 and 2022, and the bureau recommended this could possibly be attributed to latest adjustments on the servicing aspect of the enterprise.
“Of their complaints about reverse mortgages, customers usually categorical frustration in both getting statements or a payoff quantity from their lender, or state that they’re having difficulties making a fee or paying off a mortgage,” the bureau defined within the report.
“Of their responses, firms will generally apologize for the delay and supply the requested data. In different responses, firms will request comply with up data from customers.”
Reverse mortgages as soon as once more encompassed solely a small share of all shopper complaints levied on the broader mortgage trade. The reverse share accounts for 1.4% of the 21,236 complaints obtained by the mortgage trade at giant, with the most important variety of complaints tied to the traditional mortgage area (12,853).
Reverse mortgage complaints have been on a gentle downward development from January 2016 (562) by way of January 2020 (247), earlier than spiking to 425 by January 2022. However they’re again on a downward development.