Consumer complaint received 2022-12-23
Company: Mr. Cooper Group Inc.
State: HI
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: VA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
Case Number XXXX I have had an issue with Mr. Cooper since early XX/XX/XXXX regarding its improper assessment of penalties and interest imposed by XXXX XXXX for late/missing payment of property taxes. Rather than go into a great amount of detail in the body of my complaint, I direct the reader to the attachments to this complaint, including my letter of XXXX! XXXX. In my XX/XX/XXXX letter, I attempted to summarize the history of the problem created by Mr. Cooper. 
The short story is as follows : Mortgage History. XXXX provided our loan when we bought our home in XX/XX/XXXX, and it refinanced our loan in XX/XX/XXXX. From the beginning and throughout the history of this loan, we have made our mortgage payments on time, without exception. As part of the loan, the mortgage servicer impounds monies from each monthly mortgage payment to pay for hazard insurance once per year and XXXX XXXX property taxes in XXXX and XXXX of each year. 
XXXX  was in arrears for late/non-payments. Fast forward to the present. Through a series of mistakes, XXXX  on several occasions did not submit our tax payments to the County by the due date or in one case, missed the XX/XX/XXXX property tax payment altogether. 
Mr. Cooper buys loan. XXXX sold our mortgage to Mr. Cooper on XX/XX/XXXX. Neither Mr. Cooper, XXXX nor I realized on XX/XX/XXXX that XXXX was in arrears to the County of XXXX, for unpaid taxes and resulting penalties and interest. The interest was accruing on a monthly basis. 
Mr. Cooper charges us penalties and interest. By early XX/XX/XXXX, Mr. Cooper determined the above problem with our account and made a payment in the amount of {$1600.00} to bring our property tax account to a current status. Of that amount {$970.00} was for penalties and interest and the balance applied against back taxes. Rather than look to XXXX  to rectify the situation surely a more tortuous path for resolution, Mr. Cooper simply charged our escrow account for the entire amount of {$1600.00}. 
XXXX  is responsible for penalties and interest. I agree that we are responsible for any unpaid taxes and those payments should be levied against our escrow account. However, we are not responsible for the {$970.00} to pay the County for penalties and interest due to late payments. The latter amount was the responsibility of loanDepot due to its above-mentioned mistakes. Mr. Cooper should have caught this situation when it was doing its due diligence prior to buying our loan. Mr. Cooper should have looked to loanDepot to make it whole and not the mortgagee, Mr. Cooper knew it was charging us the penalties and interest. This is not a case where Mr. Cooper thought all of the {$1600.00} was to pay for back property taxes. In a XX/XX/XXXX conference call including Mr. Cooper, XXXX XXXX and me, the County representative explained the three components of the {$1600.00}. In its letter of XX/XX/XXXX, Mr. Cooper even admits that some of its payment in early XXXX was for penalties and interest. See the second page, third paragraph of its XX/XX/XXXX letter. 
Mr. Cooper has our money and refuses to pay. Mr. Cooper may have thought we would not notice the improper charges against our escrow account and/or that we would not have the intelligence to determine Mr. Coopers sleight of hand.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation