Consumer complaint received 2022-12-07
Company: Specialized Loan Servicing Holdings LLC
State: FL
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
Specialized Loan Services ( SLS ) currently takes impounds out of my mortgage payment to pay for Flood Insurance covering my property. The loan servicer did not make the payment. The policy was set to expire in XXXX of 2022. As of XX/XX/2022, no payment has been made by SLS. 

We had a policy in place with XXXX 's XXXX. This policy lapsed XX/XX/2022, due to SLS not making a payment from the agreed-upon escrow account. SLS then took out a lender policy at an amount over 200 % more than what our current policy was. To this date, SLS made no payment to XXXX. We had to pay XXXX 's directly for a new policy. SLS did not make a good faith effort to pay the existing policy we had in place. Per their representatives, they stated the Insurance Company and Agent were called, the latter, two business days before the policy was set to lapse. Nothing was sent in writing the Insurance Agent, Insurance Provider, or Mortgagee. 

My husband and I did not receive any calls. My husbands number is available through their system. I have requested mine to be updated multiple times, both over the phone and through their customer portal. The number was not input correctly when it was purchased from the previous servicer. As of today, my phone number is still incorrect. 

We have sent SLS a " Notice of Error. '' Requesting that they refund the over {$900.00} they charged us for the Lender Policy taken out due to their non-payment. They responded that they were not responsible. The lender stated the Insurance Office once, two days before the policy was set to lapse. I spoke with the Insurance Office ( XXXX XXXX ), but they did not receive any message or call from them. SLS did not start sending anything to us, the property owners, regarding the new, more expensive, Lender Policy until XX/XX/2022. As of today, SLS has not credited us the amount for the Lender Policy. 

I have reached out to SLS by phone to have the escrow account removed. Our low XXXX allows this. They often transferred me from department to department to automated systems requiring me to hang up and call again. Once I finally did get someone on the phone, I was told that I could not remove the Impounds for flood insurance.

It is incredibly unethical for a company to force a consumer into paying into an escrow account for a policy they have historically had trouble paying. To make matters worse, they took out a significantly more expensive policy because of their inability to pay the policy already in place. 

The $ XXXX policy we currently have is no hardship for my husband and me to pay. We pay both our hazard and property taxes-over {$55000.00} in full. We feel that SLS is profiting from non-payment of policies that should be paid out of the escrow accounts of their consumers.

We request that we be credited {$900.00} for the policy SLS took out and charged us. We also ask that impounds no longer be taken from our mortgage payments.

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