Being on either side of a short sale is tough enough, but at least one company appears to be outsourcing their work to employees or contractors who are based outside of the United States – creating a whole new layer of complications to the short sale process.
I encountered this when starting a short sale for a client in which I had to reach out to Ocwen Loan Servicing. Ocwen Loan Servicing, based out of Florida, services a huge number of loans in the U.S. Different than lenders, loan servicers don’t actually lend money for loans. In essence, servicers process the mortgage for a fee for the lender, making sure each loan is paid on time, assessing late fees and providing customer service, including processing loan modifications and short sales.
In starting a short sale for a client, I contacted Ocwen customer service to get general information on their document submittal process. To their credit, their customer service representative was friendly and helpful. So, I prepared the short-sale package — approximately 100 pages — and faxed it in to the number given. Once the short-sale process was initiated (by the documents being received in Ocwen’s system), it all seemed to fall apart.
Where is Ocwen’s short-sale department?
With the short sale started with Ocwen, contact was now to be with their short-sale department. To my surprise, I found out on my first call that the Ocwen short-sale department is apparently located in India – that’s right, not Indiana. That deduction comes from my own interactions with the short-sale department, as well as allegations from others that Ocwen is outsourcing jobs to India.
The apparent outsourcing might not have been such a big deal in my case if the process had been efficient. But it wasn’t. While trying to get updates, the automated telephone system continually put me directly through to the negotiator, who never answered the phone. An option to speak to a short-sale general representative was not given, as with short sales with other lenders/servicers. Instead, a message stated to leave specific details and you would get a call back within 48 business hours. The hurdles meant that getting return call could take more than a week.
Trying to reach Ocwen’s short-sale team
When the Ocwen negotiator did finally return my calls in person, it was always to request additional paperwork, such as a specific Ocwen form. There was no real update and a rough timeframe for short-sale completion was never given. Once, I tried to actually speak with someone at Ocwen when I did my scheduled update call rather than wait for a call back. Sounds reasonable, right? After being bounced around by the automatic system and finally reaching a short sale customer service representative, the rep said he would leave the negotiator a message, and I should get a call back in a few hours. That call never came.
Eventually the negotiator left a voice mail message. I promptly returned her call and, again, was only allowed to leave a message. I then heard back from the surprised homeowner that he a got a call giving him options for him to move out of the home. I never did get a follow-up call from the negotiator to discuss the situation.
Ocwen expanding
Would these same problems have emerged if the short sale department I dealt with was undoubtedly operating in the United States? It may be hard to say, for sure. What is clear is that Ocwen is expanding. Earlier this year, Ocwen took over an unknown number of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker loans and Saxon mortgage loans. Substantially adding to their mortgage loan servicing portfolio, Ocwen is acquiring the U.S. portion of London’s Barclays Bank mortgage servicing portfolio, making them a major player in U.S. loan servicing and boosting their bottom line.
Outsourcing may be a part of this initiative, and perhaps it makes sense for their bottom line. However, anytime you add an extra layer of complexity to the short sale process this creates more problems. In my client’s case, I believe that Ocwen’s unwillingness to provide updates and a better communication caused a foreclosure that could have been avoided.
Photo: TheTruthAbout, CreativeCommons 2.0
Do you have a loan serviced by Ocwen? What do you think of their actions?
I worked for HomEq, which was Barclays sub-prime servicer that they sold to Ocwen. Once Ocwen completed the purchase, they terminated all 942 U.S. HomEq employees and outsourced us. 80% of Ocwen’s staff are outsourced to foreign countries and they are very unorganized and unprofessional. I have no idea how they are even still in business.
I 100% totally agree. They have no idea what they are doing. Its literally impossible to get a str8 answer.
I’m a short sale negotiator with two years experience and 99% approval rate.
I had a $100K cash offer on a property that appraised for $85K.
After 6 months Ocwen countered $140K with no HOA payments and a 2% cap on each realtor commissions.
I never received any e-mails or documents from OCWEN, except for the final counter offer.
I had to speak with someone in India that used to call very late at night. The communication was bad since I was not able to understand her accent.
I sent the comps and counter offer and never received an answered back
Too bad they didn’t $hitcan CFO Keith Becher and CEO Art Lyon for negotiating the deal to sell you employees down the river. I suspect Ocwen gave these incompetent pieces of $hit pay raises and bonuses while the aggrieved employees get to enjoy attempting to modify their own mortgages-this time from the debtor’s side.
Why aren’t the employees applying for picketing permits in the neighborhoods of their local residences? Executives don’t know how to deal with it when employees find their homes. They can’t hide behind the corporate veil and they certainly don’t like to be embarrassed in front of their fellow elitist neighbors.
Art Lyon
9693 Wexford Circle
Granite Bay, CA 95746-7120
Keith Becher
4116 Briarwood Lane
Wheatland, CA 95692-9781