CFPB Releases Monthly Complaint Snapshot Highlighting Mortgages

02/14/17 – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has released a monthly complaint snapshot highlighting consumer complaints about mortgages.

The snapshot shows that consumers continue to report experiencing problems with mortgage servicers. This month’s report also highlights trends seen in complaints coming from Tennessee.

With a value of over $10 trillion, the U.S. mortgage market is the largest consumer financial market in the world. As of Jan. 1, 2017, the Bureau handled approximately 260,500 mortgage-related complaints. Some of the findings in the snapshot include:

• More than 80 percent of mortgage-related complaints submitted to the Bureau had to do with issues consumers report running into when they were making payments, or when they were unable to pay their mortgage.
• Consumers complained that when they paid for identified shortages in their escrow accounts, the money they paid was not applied accurately and resulted in an increase in their monthly payments.
• Consumers reported issues dealing with servicers when trying to negotiate foreclosure-relief assistance on their loans. Consumers stated that servicers were slow to respond, made repeated requests for already submitted documents, and provided ambiguous denial reasons.

As of Jan. 1, 2017, the Bureau handled approximately 1,080,700 consumer complaints across all products nationwide.

For December 2016, debt collection was the most-complained-about financial product or service. Of the approximately 23,000 complaints handled in December, there were 7,196 complaints about debt collection. The second most-complained-about consumer product was credit reporting, which accounted for 3,837 complaints. The third most-complained-about financial product or service was mortgages, accounting for 3,762 complaints.

CFPB Press Release, Complaint Snapshot.