Renting is no picnic, but owning a home isn’t a walk in the park either. Instead of paying rent, you’re now paying a mortgage, and dealing with the mortgage company can be even more of a nightmare than dealing with an awful landlord.

What would you do if you never missed a mortgage payment, but you get a letter in the mail claiming you haven’t paid your mortgage and threatening you with foreclosure?

That’s what happened to the homeowner in this story. It sounds really stressful, but after multiple phone calls with employees at the mortgage company who didn’t seem to care about or understand her side of the story, she finally decided to take the advice of a manager she talked to.

Keep reading for all the details.

My House, in the Middle of the Street

When I pay my mortgage, I round up and divide in half. I pay half every other week.

So my mortgage got picked up by another company when my mortgage company went out of business. To do what I was doing with the NEW company was $300 to enroll and an extra $40 EACH PAYMENT.

Oh hell no. I spoke to my credit union and they had an auto pay that would pay my bills from my direct deposit FREE.

This would be so frustrating!

So nearly a year goes by and I get one of those scary letters “You are in default on your mortgage. Unless we get X payment within 10 days of this letter we will foreclose.”

I was astounded since I had never missed a payment and was actually paid a couple of months ahead.

I spoke with their accounting department. It seems they couldnt accept “half payments” only full payments (even though they had done so for year) so the money had to sit “unapplied” until a full payment was accrued.

That made sense EXCEPT again, they got MORE than enough and it was always in there in full before the due date so on the due date they should have just taken it and applied it to the mortgage.

Surely, there has to be an easier way!

So further digging, the rep says to me “OH by the way – we have $8200 of “unapplied funds” in this account. What do you want to do with it?”

Uh PAY MY MORTGAGE WITH IT?

“Oh we cant do that.”

So I had to get a check cut for $8200, pay $45 for them to overnight it to me, take it to my credit union, cash it, pay $25 for a cashier’s check, and pay ANOTHER $45 to send the cashier’s check BACK to them.

This sounds really, really stressful!

I called relentlessly to see when it had arrived and had all kinds of postal tracking, signature confirmation, etc.

Remember, I only had TEN DAYS to get this straight!

So they get it and verify that it is applied to my mortgage and that there will be no foreclosure.

The rep tells me “Well your next payment is due in 2 weeks and there will be penalties and late fees applied so the amount is XYZ AND we are raising your interest rate (to nearly twice what it was before).”

In this case, the customer does actually seem to be the one who is right.

Uh no. ALL THIS IS YOUR COMPANY’S FAULT.

She says “You knew these were the terms and conditions when you took out your mortgage with us.”

Uh no. I didnt take it out with YOU, I took it out with another company and I was ASSIGNED to your company.

“Well dont be late with the next payment!”

Uh no. I want to speak with a manager.

She took the manager’s advice.

So I FINALLY get to speak to a manager and he wasnt much better. His only response “Well you can always go with another company but good luck with that these days – so many foreclosures and your credit is not very good from missing so many payments.”

So I decided to take his advice. I contacted my credit union, explained everything, showed them THEIR OWN payment transfers, AND the mortgage statements showing the other company had received the money bi-weekly like clockwork, and…the credit union took over my mortgage.

I got a reduced interest rate AND killed all the fees, penalties, and got the overpayment back (I applied it to the new mortgage payments) etc.

So when a company acts like they have you over a barrel and tells you to try to go with someone else, DO IT!!

I hate how often mortgages change hands. I’ve almost lost count how many different companies my mortgage has been with which really makes things tricky when you have autopay set up so you don’t miss a payment. It’s like they’re doing everything they can to foreclose on your house even though you pay your mortgage on time.

Rant over. Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person loves credit unions.

Here’s how it works in North Carolina.

That really isn’t much time!

A Canadian weighs in.

It would be so scary to get a letter in the mail threatening you with foreclosure, and it would be horribly frustrating if you had been paying your mortgage all this time.

All that stress due to an incompetent mortgage company! She should sue for the stress it caused her.

She should probably also stop making half payments. Why not just pay once a month? Then there’s no problem.

The post She Tried a Popular Mortgage Payoff ‘Hack,’ And Now Her Bank is Threatening Foreclosure appeared first on TwistedSifter.