Consumer complaint received 2020-02-10
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: IN
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Closing on a mortgage

Complaint:
We are making a formal complaint against Freedom Home Mortgage. They have mishandled our familys mortgage account, failed to pay taxes in time or in in full as required by RESPA, charged late fees for on-time payments, reversed payments after the mortgage was released, have given baseless information and reasons for their actions, and have failed to respond to Notice of Errors in a timely and accurate manner.

We sold this property in XX/XX/XXXX and found out 2 days before closing that Freedom had not paid taxes on time and in full for almost 2 years, accruing {$1000.00} in past due taxes. We had contacted them back in XX/XX/XXXX and they stated that they were responsible for the taxes that were delinquent and would pay them through their corporate account. We followed up with this issue in XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, and in XX/XX/XXXX and was told that they would have it completed by XX/XX/XXXX. In XX/XX/XXXX we learned that they did not pay the taxes and put the taxes due into our payoff calculation. We contacted a " supervisor '' from the tax department named XXXX who refused to answer why they did not pay the taxes when they said they would. All she would say was that the account was paid in full and the taxes were paid to date. She made appointments with us that she did not meet and we left multiple voice mails and messages for her that she has yet to answer. We demand that they refund us the {$1000.00} in tax that they are responsible for. 

While we were speaking with other Freedom " supervisors '' we also found out that they had made multiple errors in our account. They had scheduled a tax payment in XX/XX/XXXX ( that would have covered the delinquent taxes ) but reversed it and instead of placing these funds in escrow they put the refund towards XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX payments. They did not inform us of this so at closing we had paid all way up to XX/XX/XXXX and our payoff reflected this. We did not give permission for these amounts to be placed towards our monthly payments and they should not have made the monthly payments without informing us prior. We spoke with multiple supervisors to have the 2 months reversed to us as this was their error and our payoff also covered all the way up to XX/XX/XXXX. They agreed but they never refunded us those 2 months. We demand that they correct their mistake and refund us those 2 months as they had stated they would do this in XX/XX/XXXX. 

Instead of refunding the payments we learned that Freedom reversed all the account activity in our account starting in XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX. They also reversed the payoff. They reversed the XX/XX/XXXX payment, did not reapply it, and then charged us a late fee. They made 2 extra payments in XX/XX/XXXX of {$690.00} and {$730.00} even though I had already made a payment of {$690.00} in XX/XX/XXXX. They reversed my payment in XX/XX/XXXX of {$690.00}, did not reapply it, made a payment of {$730.00}, and also charged a late fee. They reversed my mortgage payment that was made towards XX/XX/XXXX and place it into escrow instead of refunding this, despite our contract stating that funds would go towards the principle balance before escrow and us calling multiple times to demand this refund which they had agreed to in XX/XX/XXXX. They also did not refund the month of XX/XX/XXXX as we had demanded. 

All together, they charged {$40.00} of late payment fees for the months that they reversed that we had paid, and they took this amount out of the payoff payment. All this activity was done after we received the mortgage release documents. I've attached our monthly mortgage statements to support this. A supervisor informed me that these were in-fact in our account activity and that a ticket would be made to address these issues. We called back about this a month later and was told that there was never a ticket made for the issues from that phone conversation. The notice of error that arrived after this stated that there were no errors made but did address the account activity that we had questioned. 

At this time, we had our lawyer write a request for a meeting. This letter was never responded to. He then wrote a demand letter based on the information that we had compiled. The only response he received from this was a 3rd party authorization form. We had to contact them by email to demand that they send our letter to their legal department, which is standard procedure. 

After this, we also found out that Freedom had reported us to the Credit Bureaus as being 2 months late on mortgage payments that they reversed after closing. It took 2 months for them to fix this issue. A " supervisor '' named XXXX XXXX was our main contact for this. He never made any of the appointments he set and since XX/XX/XXXX we have yet to hear a response back from the voicemails we left for him. We also left a voicemail with his supervisor that was never responded to. 

In XX/XX/XXXX we received a response stating that the issues stemmed from the past owner owing taxes, which was completely false information. We sent in the tax records from the county to prove this and also verified with the title company that this was false. In XX/XX/XXXX, we sent in a response to their letter. Ive attached that to this complaint. 

We spoke with another supervisor in XX/XX/XXXX when we were not able to get a hold of XXXX named XXXX. He was the one who told us to email a response to the letter. Since XX/XX/XXXX of this year we have not heard back from him. He also never met any of the call backs that he scheduled and has not responded to any voicemails that we have left for him. Despite stating that he worked from XXXX-XXXX each time we called him. 

Despite dozens of phone calls since XX/XX/XXXX weve only received 4 responses from the Notice of Errors about these issues. All 4 responses are completely different, have incorrect information, and have not addressed all the issues. We've responded to 3 out of 4 of these in writing, demanding them to answer our questions and to correct their errors. We've also sent in information that has debunked their responses. It is confusing to us why they are recognizing their mistakes and errors and they tell us they will fix them over the phone but then when we get an official update they always state that they have not done anything wrong or found anything wrong despite their activity logs proving otherwise. 

In XX/XX/XXXX the final response was supposed to be sent out but we did not receive it until XX/XX/XXXX. XXXX said that he had reached out to the legal department to ask that someone contact me as the response had incorrect information again. That never happened. We made multiple phone calls before someone emailed me the response letter. We were also told that the past 2 months of calls were not being noted in our account but were being discussed via email in the different departments. 

The letter of response from the legal department on XX/XX/XXXX had yet again another reason as to why Freedom was not at fault and this time they were blaming the tax issues on the past mortgage company. This was signed by XXXX XXXX who based her response from information from the tax department, despite this department being the one who had made the errors in not paying taxes and misapplying funds in XX/XX/XXXX. The tax department also previously stated that there were no errors made and then later stated that the issues were due to past taxes owed by the previous owner, which are both baseless. 

XXXX was now stating that the taxes werent paid at closing by the previous mortgage company, when they were paid correctly according to the closing documents, the title company, and the county. Their response was an issue that we had previously contacted them about in XX/XX/XXXX when they increased our monthly payments due to a shortage in escrow. At that time, Freedom did not state that there were any issues from closing. In their last response, they yet again did not answer any of the other questions that we had in our email. We called XXXX office and left a voicemail asking to speak with her and informing her that we were not satisfied by her response letter. 

We called Freedom and spoke with another supervisor named XXXX who basically told us that everything we were saying was subjective despite the fact that all our information had been taken from everything that Freedom had given us. She scheduled a call back with us for XX/XX/XXXX that we have yet to receive. 

We received a call back from XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX who stated that XXXX XXXX received our voicemail about the last response letter. XXXX started the call by stating that she was there to try to make sure she had a good understanding and that all issues had been resolved. By the end of the phone call she was talking over us, completely ignoring what we were saying, and then stated that nothing was probably going to come out of the phone conversation. She was telling us that we had to send in the other information that we were sharing because that was not in our notice of error communication, and we corrected her by stating that everything we were sharing was information included in our first letter sent last summer. She asked us to tell her the points that we still had questions about and we again had to reiterate the same exact issues we have been stating since XX/XX/XXXX. She also stated after 45 minutes on the phone that she wasnt actually going to be able to do anything. 

Despite us stating that they hadnt done anything to resolve the problems and that they were still stating wrong information, she kept insisting that the issues had already been addressed. She stated that everything was paid accordingly and that the fees were paid by Freedom, which we kept correcting her about, as we had paid those fees out of our payoff. She insisted that Freedom covered the penalty and tax fees but we informed her that we have record and confirmation from the county that those were covered by the title company at closing as part of our payoff. Record that we had already sent Freedom in XX/XX/XXXX, that they apparently didnt do anything about. She also stated that she had no access to our full file despite stating at the beginning of the call that she had all the documents in front of her. She stated that we would be getting a response back at the end of XX/XX/XXXX and we have not heard anything at this point. 

At this point, we have spent countless hours attempting to resolve this with Freedom who has just ignored the facts, have given us the around, and incorrect information for over a year. We are demanding, yet again, that they pay the taxes of {$1000.00} that they said was their responsibility back in XX/XX/XXXX. We are also demanding that they refund us the 1 month of mortgage payment that they reversed from our account, the mortgage payment in XX/XX/XXXX that they never reversed, and the {$40.00} in late fees that they added in XX/XX/XXXX. The account activity logs that they have sent us clearly show that they made these changes after our mortgage was released on XX/XX/XXXX. Activity that was done without our knowledge or consent. 

Weve attached the mortgage records, response letters from Freedom, our letters and emails to Freedom, the tax records, and the account activity log. We also have recorded phone conversations from the past year that we can provide if needed. We would like this resolved as soon as possible as we have been demanding them to fix their mistakes since XX/XX/XXXX.

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