Consumer complaint received 2024-01-21
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: TX
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process
Sub-issue: Trying to communicate with the company to fix an issue while managing or servicing your loan

Complaint:
I had refinanced my home a couple of years ago, put down a large down payment at the time, and had purposefully set up my mortgage account to where I would not have an escrow account because I wanted to pay my homeowners insurance and property taxes separately to keep my monthly mortgage payments down. Freedom Mortgage purchased my loan from the company I refinanced with. I had been paying my taxes and homeowner insurance on my home separately for years without any problem. I had XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX through XXXX and XXXX XXXX out of XXXX, TX. I unfortunately missed XXXX payment on my XXXX XXXX with XXXX back in XXXX but as soon as XXXX and XXXX informed me of this, I had them try to get me back on XXXX immediately but XXXX was not writing new policies back then and would not allow me to go back with them for my homeowner insurance. So XXXX XXXX XXXX wrote me a Homeowner Insurance Policy with XXXX XXXX XXXX that I was making monthly payments on but the policy with XXXX XXXX that I bought myself did not start until XX/XX/XXXX. I was paying my monthly homeowner insurance and had already paid my property taxes for the year by the end of XXXX. My monthly mortgage payment was {$620.00} and my homeowners policy with XXXX XXXX was a little over {$400.00} a month. My property taxes this year were {$3300.00} approximately but last year were {$5000.00}. I had been taking care of these expenses myself. I am a hardworking single mom. I thought everything was going as it should until suddenly in the month of XXXX, with no notification whatsoever from my mortgage company, Freedom Mortgage raised my monthly payment from {$620.00} in XXXX to {$1600.00} in XXXX. When I called and asked them about it, they said it was to pay my homeowners insurance. I called XXXX XXXX immediately and they said that my Mortgage Company had no right to do that because my homeowner insurance policy with them was written as a non escrow policy which meant I alone was the only person to make payments on the policy. XXXX XXXX told me that Freedom Mortgage had overpaid my policy by a little over {$1000.00} which XXXX XXXX sent back to me in a check that I then used for my high monthly mortgage payment that I now have with Freedom Mortgage unfortunately. I called XXXX and XXXX and spoke to XXXX, who also confirmed that Freedom Mortgage did not have the right to pay my homeowners insurance since the policy I wrote with them was not with escrow and was a policy I would pay myself. Then when I called Freedom Mortgage back about all of this, they said I just needed to write them an internal message that I would pay my own homeowner insurance and taxes and they would fix this for me and get my payment back the way it was before. I wrote the internal message to Freedom Mortgage and they responded telling me that because I had a month and XXXX days lapse in payment on my homeowners insurance policy from XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX when I was getting switched from XXXX to XXXX XXXX XXXX, they created an escrow account and were paying my homeowner insurance now and for the life of my entire loan. They did this without my consent and without notifying me. They said the only way that they would change this would be for me to show I was covered XXXX through XX/XX/XXXX which I can not show because I was just notified by my insurance company XXXX and XXXX then and was in the process of getting switched to XXXX XXXX XXXX. When I estimated that since I had already paid my property taxes for the year and that my payment with the homeowner insurance they added in should only be a little over {$1000.00} and I asked them about that. Freedom Mortgage stated that I had a deficit in the escrow account that they created for me against my will that I did not want and that I had to pay for my homeowner insurance and that deficit that makes my payment now {$1600.00} a month. It has been an absolute nightmare dealing with Freedom Mortgage! They do not care about their customers! Where is the XXXX XXXX Freedom Mortgage, when a single hardworking mom can not be allowed to pay her homeowner insurance and property taxes separately and not have an escrow account if she does not want one in order to keep her monthly mortgage payments at a rate she can afford?

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation