OCWEN and HUBZU WTF !

deemee, is this true? I've just had the seller sign a letter stating she isn't interested in participating in the altisource program. If this goes through, you are a life saver! I've been working on this short sale since march, we got a verbal counter offer, met Ocwen's counter, then was thrown to Altisource. I really hope this works! The buyer has hung in this long!

I have also been working with Ocwen on a short. We have had a cash buyer with a good offer for about 6 months now. I received an email with the Hubzu listing attached. I read it over, and it absolutely negates our state listing contract. My seller's will not sign this. I do think this is overstepping on Hubzu/Altisource and Ocwen's part. This is a short. The seller is still the owner. Ocwen can agree or not agree to the price but it is NOT their property. It's the sellers. Ocwen is the worst and this is ridiculous. Who can we call or report this to?

I wanted to share my update. I contacted Ocwen as well as Altisource/HUBZU.com and demanded they send me a copy of where it states that the Seller must list with HUBZU.com. After much back and forth, this morning Altisource sent me an email that the file was returned to Ocwen and any future contact is to be thru Ocwen. I have not yet heard from Ocwen but I will update this site when I do. I do not believe Ocwen or Altisource have any authority to try and strong arm the seller into listing on Hubzu.com As real estate agents, we need to work against these scammers and not compromise our sellers, as well as ourselves, with this bullying tactic. The only one benefiting in this deal is Ocwen and Altisource.

I have been trying to purchase a home on hubzu for weeks.I truly believe that,casper the ghost keeps bidding higher.Funny always a few hours before the auction ends.Reserve has never been met..!!!!Unbelievably its back up up for bid when you wake up again...Is any of this legal????What one more thing,you can't contact them nor the agent.Very up setting.Who can I call for... area code504...

IG..I don't know who you can contact other than the list agent. Have you called the agent's office? It's possible since it's on the auction site that the agent has no control over it. If the agent and seller are open to listing on Hubzu it's probably all 'legal.' Is it BS? In my opinion, yes.

Ocwen Altisource Hubzu attempting to capture new revenue stream, "your commission". These people are all about market disruption for their own benefit Hubzu is their funnel.

GC I have an attorney handling a short sale for me and just today we were told that Altisource will be handling the file after we fought with them for 1 month to keep this from happening. I will loose the Buyer and have wasted almost 90 days waiting to clear up this nonsense. I am beyond frustrated....

I have filed a complaint with the Florida Attorney Generals Office related to Ocwen/Altisource/Hubzu properties and the deliberate concealment of defects. Additionally, their horrendous title company missed a county requirement and a letter recorded by code enforcement. Had Ocwen been honest about this we would not have bid on this property which in turn, caused us a large loss. I am glad that NY officials are now investigating this Hubzu scam which apparently exist for the purpose of marketing properties with defects without the normal responsibility for disclosure. Additionally, there are so many Ocwen complaints on Ripoff Report that the administrator has become personally involved and has a special section just for Ocwen. Try also searching BBB'S web site and you will see well over 2,000 complaints logged. Also, given the 2.1 billion dollar settlement Ocwen had to make with attornies general with federal and state AG's, my prediction is that a massive investigation will commence into Ocwen/Hubzu auctions. This process will accelerate if someone gets physically hurt while occupying one of these properties, especially the the hurt occupant is a child. I feel the time for them,covering up defects while only showing complimentary photos on thirty listings and making statements of seller's lack of knowledge of any defects will soon end.

Altisource & HUBZU are owned by Ocwen and right now there is a law suit with the NY Attorney General and more to come. From our experience in short sales Altisource, HUBZU and Ocwen don't even know what the hell they are doing and don't even communicate with eachother. That's what happens when you out source to India and they have no idea how to communicate proficiently in English to Americans the United States. We can't wait til Ocwen comes tumbling down. Making homeowners go on an their auction owned site is illegal and wrong especially if you already have an offer and obviously listed the properties. Their motto where helping homeowners is our priority, what a crock. They tell you will get back in 48 hrs then keep extending and nothing really gets done & that's what pisses people off.

Placed my house on the market... got an offer after the first showing. We went through all of the motions and did our part. To be proactive, we got the water tested and house inspected before we sent it to OCWEN for approval. Three weeks later, I am told the house needs to go on Hubzu. This is two weeks before it was scheduled to close. I have already moved out and shut off everything except the electric. If they expect me to keep paying the mortgage in the interim, they can think again. I am done with it and OCWEN is shooting themselves in the foot. Worst company ever!

FUOCWEN..It sounds like you are the home owner? I have a short sale that was just approved by OCWEN and Altisource emailed me and said they were taking control of the sale. I emailed them back and told them it was not theirs to take control over. The home and the sale is still the sellers. I think people are missing that fact. Unless it is a bank owned, the seller gets the final say in how to move forward. Altisource and Hubzu are nothing more than middlemen trying to get a slice of the money pie. My suggestion for agents and sellers working with OCWEN, let your sellers know that Altisource will likely try and wedge their way in. If your seller does not agree to work with them, have them write a letter, sign it and send it to Altisource/Hubzu. It IS the sellers home until it is sold or the bank takes it back.

GC, you are forgetting that if OCWEN has been contracted to service the loan they are basically your gateway to the "bank" (actually a pool of anonymous investors) and will need to approve any short sale unless the seller plans to kick in the difference to pay off the mortgage at closing. OCWEN has a vested interest in putting these properties to auction. They make an auction fee and can continue to charge the bank the fee to continue servicing the loan or manage the foreclosed property as long as they can delay a closing of any kind. They make a lot more money that way rather than just helping you settle - they effectively lose an account when they approve a sale. I just placed a bid on a condo that I had been watching for some time on hubzu (a spinoff of a spinoff of OCWEN - same guy). 8 months went by and it was listed on hubzu 6 or 7 times with the price going up and down and zero bidding. It was listed on the mls and my realtor was handling the bidding. I was outbid by $10k in the last hour of the auction and guess who the buyer was? The same owner as before the auction: US Bank Trustee with the taxpayer listed as OCWEN loan servicing. They were bidding against me on their own action and actually filed a sale on the property presumably to avoid any fraud or breaking mls listing rules. The property is back on the mls for twice the price again now.

More research turns u that OCWEN is actually the third layer and does not represent the bank. US Bank trustee shields mortgage backed securities owners by "administering the trust for the benefit of the investors". They have no ownership but are listed as the owner and have "no economic or beneficial interest in the loans". See the link below. They contract OCWEN to service the loan or manage the sale and maintenance of the foreclosed property. Altisource is actually a spin off of OCWEN and owns Hubzu, another layer to pass things through and generate fees/revenue. Nobody with any skin in the game is actually monitoring how the properties are being handled but the trustee and management company benefit from creating a vicious cycle where by they make sure they are indefinitely in control of the property and collect a sum at the termination of the account presumably once they reach some sort of predetermined profit margin. This is just another scam spun from the tangled web of these economy tanking mortgage backed securities. Bottom line is that if you have to deal with OCWEN you are passed on so far that you will have very little resources to recover. Your best bet is a complaint to your state attorney general. Sound the alarm and be a pain in the ass. They might just want to make you go away...

Some reading for you:
https://www.usbank.com/pdf/community/Role-of-Trustee-Sept2013.pdf
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304049904579515732139554054
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/new-york-regulator-asks-ocwen-to-explain-potential-conflicts/

deemee and Rebecca - Please let us know the results of refusing the Hubzu process. Was the file indeed sent back to Ocwen and was the short sale approved?

I would think a complaint with the consumer financial protection bureau would be a good place to start.

I would like an attorney to take my case. Hubzu clearly refused to disclose a fire that had occurred on a property and lied in black and white, saying in an email to me that no fire had occurred there. Then, when I told them that I was told by neighbors that a fire did occur and that when I went back a second time I could see charring, then they said "there was no active fire" and when I told them I checked with the fire department and was told there had been a fire there and I requested THEY give me a copy of the report, then THEY gave me a copy of the report. So, all along they had the report and refused to disclose the report of the fire, boarded up both access points to the garage so you could not tell a fire had been there and they lied that a fire had taken place. I have it all black and white. They claimed the house was sold "as is" so that covered everything, even fire. This is illegal and they were required by law to disclose that fire. So, they relisted the property/redid the auction and again, refused to disclose this. They got no bidders so they are going for a special auction out of the area so people at a distance can be duped and not see the actual house and will receive no disclosure of fire.

Never, I hope.

Hubzu/Ocwen/Altisource listed an encumbrance modular home that's on my property (not THEIR adjacent property that the bankrupted couple should have been built it on) not one, not 2, not 3, but 4 times!!! They apparently resurveyed the boundary which verified the house being on my land, then listed it on their sleazy auction site, anyway. Put up dispossesory notice for the couple that moved out 6 yrs. ago. (They know-they winterized-nothing there but rats. )This was so they could sell it without me knowing- (no signs needed)-Do not disturb occupant, no viewing, buyer must take possession, address not disclosed, etc. After each of the 4 listings, realtor promised to get it listed land only, but no-listings show up with pics. of house sitting on my own soil. One time just on sites like homes.com with only a pic. of the corner of 1 room, and only the name of the town. (I recognized the graffitti occupants kids left.) Had to threaten with the Atlanta news to get that set down. The Hubzu ones the realtor had control over, and politely removed. Said he told Altisource (Satan's den) to quit coming out. Day after a guy comes out and asks where sign should go. I notice after he leaves it says HOUSE for Sale. Then a woman says she's come to appraise the HOUSE, but my barbed wire/no tresspassing signs and barbed wire got her attention. Real Homes &Solutions realtor finally had it listed to represent land only. Auction said pending, then was removed. Today it just sold again, for over double fair market value of the land. Bet they think they bought the house. Their title insurance co. offered me $40,000 for a yard sized parcel under the house and I refused, They got a title insurance settlement to move the house over. Crew said house would be moved over in 2013, but project was abandoned after 4 water filled holes were dug. Health dept. has no record of a passed perc. test. So whomever just bought that 5 acre pencil shaped gulley land with scarce road frontage is going to be really disappointed. Especially when/if he finds out that i have a redeemable tax deed. Don't know if that can be split between house and land? I just made an appointment with a lawyer to find out. What a mess.

Saw 2 Hubzu houses yesterday in GA as a buyer. Had been watching them have little to no auction activity for months -- same usernames, same prices.

Low and behold, today, I'm flooded emails today saying these are 'hot properties.' I watched 3 autobidders battle on one of the houses, getting it up 2.6x the vacant lot next door, breaking through the reserve. House now accepting backup bids. Second house looked like an honest bidder creeping up in small increments to hit the reserve, which wasn't met.

Meanwhile, my agent, who went with me to see the houses yesterday, had a county engineer inspect the first (sold) house today due to it's outrangeously dangerous condition. Termites, mold, floors falling threw, roof punctured by falling tree. Awful doesn't begin to describe the 4400sq ft.

Curious how it will end up -- house went for near 600K, but the county engineer is returning tomorrow either to condemn or at least stop showings.

Just started looking for a home and found an MLS listing on multiple sites. It was a foreclosure already in the hands of the bank and had been posted for 64 days with few people showing an interest in it. We thought we’d save ourselves some trouble by going through the selling real estate company. Toured the house on a Thursday, saw the damages, placed our bid with the realtor. He called the following day to say that the bank had accepted, asked for proof of cash, and sent over the documents requiring our signature and hand money within 5 days. It listed a closing date 6 weeks away. Several hours later he called back to say that he’s sorry; “they” didn’t know that the house was going to be put up for auction on Hubzu that afternoon. He offered to place a bid with them on our behalf on Monday, but we backed out at that point. The starting bid was $7000 lower than what we’d offered, and suddenly there were hundreds of viewers watching that house on the local real estate sites. WTF?!