Late payment during loan transfer

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

Wanted to share an experience of late payment during my loan was being transfered from Better mortgage to Ally home loan.

Sep 2021: I finished a refinance with Better mortage.

Nov 2021: Following the instruction in an email from Better mortgage, I set up my online account for monthly payment by putting in my bank information and paid the due amount for Oct. Meanwhile, in the intruction email, it mentioned

"

Recurring payments have been turned off just in case your loan is transferred to another servicer.
If Better retains the servicing of your loan, automatic payments will be turned on.
If your loan is transferred, we’ll send you an email to let you know.

"

So I assumed either my auto payment will be turned on or my loan will be transfered. However, neither of them happened in time.

Jan 04 2022: Better mortgage started to transfer my loan to Ally home loan. However, my montnly payment for Nov 2021, which is due on 12/01/2021, was not paid. By 01/04/2022, it has passed more than 30 days. A negative report for late payment was added on my credit history.

Okay. That is the whole story.

First of all, wanted to share this experience with more people, so people will not face the same issue as me.

Second, I think I was misled by the information in the email, which gave me an impression that nothing need to do on my end after settiing up the online account correctly.

Third, this whole story happened during the holiday season. If the loan transfer started before 2022, everything would be fine..

Any suggetions on how I can fix the credit? Thanks!

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

Well that sucks.  Not sure the best way to handle it, but I'd start with calling the mortgage company up and saying "I want to go over a letter you sent me in November that said my auto draft payments are being turned off but would be turned back on if you retain servicing of my loan.  You decided to retain servicing of my loan and did not turn auto draft back on, resulting in a past due payment of 30 days or greater which has now been reported to the credit bureaus and is damaging my credit.  What are you going to do to recall the 30 day late from the credit bureaus?"  Hopefully someone sympathetic to your situation is assigned to look into it and is able to remove the late payment.

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for your suggestion! Will try. Yes, I have the feeling that I am at the mercy of the lender company...