Consumer complaint received 2023-01-24
Company: United Shore Financial Services, LLC
State: CA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
The problem that I am having with my mortgage company ( UWM ; United Wholesale Mortgage ) is simply removal of a property tax escrow account added to the loan several months after it was funded and despite several months of previous on-time payments. After several months of research, I discovered that due to miscommunication between the XXXX XXXX XXXX Tax Collector and myself despite my repeated, but unheeded attempts to inform the Tax Collector of my change-of-address from Washington, DC to XXXX XXXX XXXX XX/XX/XXXX XXXX my property tax payments had lapsed. Looking back this was most likely due to the Tax Collector Office shutdown in XX/XX/XXXX due to COVID-19. The history is as follows : I paid my XX/XX/XXXX property tax payment ( 1st installment for XXXX ) by a fund transfer from the checking account linked to my XXXX investment account. I received electronic confirmation that the transfer occurred, but for unknown reasons, the XXXX XXXX XXXX Collector did not receive the funds. Notification of this was sent to my Washington, DC address from which I had moved in XX/XX/XXXX. My multiple attempts to notify the Tax Collector of my change my address in XXXX, by mail, by e-mail, by calls, went unheeded. When I refinanced my mortgage in XX/XX/XXXX, I added additional funds to my closing escrow to pay the 2nd installment of the XXXX property tax. However, these funds went to pay the unpaid 1st installment for the same tax year, unbeknownst to me. Several months later, in XX/XX/XXXX, I noted that the automatic payment deducted from my bank account towards my loan, suddenly jumped from $ XXXX to ~ $ XXXX without notification from my mortgage loan servicing company UWM. I stopped the ACH payments after 3 of these payments had been made and began calling UWM " customer service ''. I frequently had to wait on the phone for XXXX - XXXX hours to speak with anyone there. When I finally was able to speak with UWM ( several weeks later ) and was informed of a new property tax escrow account added to my loan, I was surprised by both nonpayment of two property tax payments in XXXX, the accumulated {$1000.00} late payment penalty and the rude, insensitive nature of their debt collector " service ''. I then began confirming my property tax history with XXXX XXXX. Again, after several e-mails, calls with 1-2 hour holds, I finally spoke with the Office and learned of the initial non-receipt of tax payment in XX/XX/XXXX and lack of address change which I promptly corrected for the XXXX time. The time to research and discover these errors required 4 months while working full time as a XXXX XXXX developing XXXX treatments. In XX/XX/XXXX, I made a payment of ~ {$16000.00} to pay off the tax escrow loan and then made two more payments of ~ {$10000.00} and ~ {$3400.00} in XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX to bring the loan payments up-to-date and pay off the still accumulating tax escrow. I requested that the tax escrow loan be closed, having been paid off, to which UWM agreed in XX/XX/XXXX. However, in early XX/XX/XXXX, I was told that they reversed their decision due to a history of past due payments. Of note, I made both property tax payments in XXXX from my own funds and outside of UWM 's tax escrow account as a demonstration of my ability to do this. There is now over {$9000.00} in the UWM tax escrow account while I have already made the second installment of my XXXX property tax payment in XX/XX/XXXX. UWM, is now requiring that I demonstrate 24 months of on-time loan payments with continuing payments to the unused tax escrow account before they will consider closing the tax escrow account. I feel that they are holding my money for their own benefit and not in service of my mortgage loan. 
I appreciate your assistance with this matter.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation