The company offered Nickless a modification in 2014, but she said the payments of about $1,650 a month would have been too high and due too soon. Since Ocwen began servicing Nickless's loan in 2011, she has made no mortgage payments, Lovallo said, yet Ocwen has continued to pay all taxes and insurance on her home, which is valued today at more than $275,000. Since 2008, the company has provided Michigan borrowers about 21,000 loan modifications, about 39% of which included principal forgiveness totaling about $317 million, Ocwen spokesman John Lovallo said in an email. Ocwen called the claims "unfounded," but added the company continues to work with state regulators. A press release from the state said Ocwen had a history of improper "servicing and handling of escrow accounts," trouble keeping accurate records, and problems with properly crediting payments.
“I was trying to find answers,” she said, and the information she found online about Ocwen wasn't encouraging.Īs recently as last month, the State of Michigan issued a cease and desist order prohibiting Ocwen Loan Servicing LLC from continued violations of state mortgage law.
She said she withheld mortgage payments because she didn’t know where she was sending her money. She tried to find answers from the mortgage company, but said she could rarely connect with someone who could speak English. She tried mortgage affordability programs but, in some cases, the home’s new equity disqualified her from those payment tracks. She filed paperwork to stop the foreclosure the morning of the sale and the sheriff deed was expunged, according to county records.Īt that time, Nickless said, the mortgage lender offered to pay off the mortgage’s balance if she could come up with $15,000. Before she had a chance to gather the money, she said, her mortgage was acquired in 2011 by Ocwen Financial.įor the next several years, Nickless struggled with the loan. By the end of 2010, the property went to a sheriff’s sale. In 2010, Nickless was in a car crash that caused her to fall behind. She said her home’s foreclosure resulted from an ongoing struggle to manage the property’s pre-makeover mortgage - a balance that rested at about $30,000 after the 2008 makeover, but had ballooned to at least $113,000 by the end of 2016. Nickless is quick to defend the ABC show, whose lavish rebuilds have, in some cases, led to foreclosure because of increased property taxes and pricey utilities. She's less complimentary of her mortgage servicer that is now being targeted by state regulators. “And, truthfully, that’s what I feel right now: I can’t believe this is happening.” “When I stepped out of the house the day Extreme Makeover came, you will see me say ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’” she said. And the overwhelming feeling a tearful Arlene Nickless had all those years ago took on a different tenor.
The 2009 Ford Flex gifted with the home sat in the driveway hooked to a moving trailer. On Sunday, cardboard boxes were stacked on the dark hardwood floors once showcased in nationwide broadcasts. The home was foreclosed on in September, and has been up for online auction for weeks.
The Holt resident must leave her Eifert Road home by Monday after years of struggling to manage the mortgage.ĭesigners with ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" - with the help of hundreds of volunteers - built the home in 2008 following the death of Tim Nickless, her husband of 18 years. HOLT - Nearly nine years after her home was rebuilt on national television, Arlene Nickless is turning in her keys. Watch Video: Arlene Nickless describes life after 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition'