Consumer complaint received 2021-04-01
Company: Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Inc.
State: WI
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
My mortgage is with XXXX XXXX XXXX, who transferred it to Dovenmuehle Mortgage , Inc. for servicing. In XX/XX/XXXX, I got an annual escrow analysis disclosure statement. On this statement, the company address and phone number are listed on the document as being with " XXXX XXXX XXXX, '' however, the number and address are both for Dovenmuehle Mortgage , Inc. XXXX XXXX XXXX, IL. My first complaint is that I feel this is misleading. Dovenmuehle and XXXX should be clear about which company owns the mortgage and which is " subservicing '' it, and not conflate the two. I initially called XXXX XXXX XXXX for answers and was directed to call " the servicer, '' which according to this document, is XXXX XXXX XXXX, but with a different address and phone number. 

On the XXXX XXXX escrow disclosure, included in the breakdown of monthly payments and disbursements for XXXX, there were two annual property tax charges listed as " CITY TAX. '' The combination of both these charges nearly doubled my expected annual property taxes. Because of this extra tax payment, my escrow account is now in a negative balance, and to recoup this debt and rebuild the escrow to a level that could cover a very large newly expected tax assessment for XXXX, the statement informed me that the monthly amount I owe on my mortgage payment will increase by nearly {$1000.00} per month, something that is not financially sustainable for my family. 

The home we are mortgaging was purchased in XXXX of XXXX, and I haven't ever had a property tax payment before. I didn't question the amount at first, but was upset that during the mortgage origination and at signing, the escrow calculation was off by a factor of nearly 100 %. 

When I first called Dovenmuehle in mid-XXXX ( I believe it was XX/XX/XXXX, but I am not sure what exact date ), it was to inquire about why my monthly escrow payment was initially caluculated so low and why there were XXXX charges listed in the escrow disclosure. A clearly under-trained customer service rep claimed that this is a very common occurrence, that the monthly escrow payment calculation was made with the best information they had at the time, and that one tax charge on the disclosure statement was a city tax, and one was a county tax. I was also informed that the only thing I could do to stop my monthly payments from going up by {$1000.00} per month was to pay more than {$6000.00}, and that they would not accept any smaller amount of " downpayment '' to help rebuild the escrow and lower monthly payments. Dissapointed and worried we might lose our new home, I thanked her and ended the call, and did a bit of research. 

After checking the XXXX tax assessor website myself, I discovered that the amount assessed on my annual property taxes was listed as the first charge on the escrow disclosure ( roughly {$5500.00} XXXX and indeed paid, but there was no additional `` county tax, '' or anything else I could find online to explain the additional $ XXXX tax charge listed -- the same charge which caused it to go into a negative balance and subsequently make my mortgage go up by an extra {$1000.00}. 

I called Dovenmuehle again. A much more informed and helpful customer service rep advised me that tax assessors to sometimes make mistakes, and to check with the tax assessor to ask them about the mysterious extra charge. 

Upon calling the local tax assessor and the XXXX XXXX treasurer, I discovered that the city has no record of this " extra '' amount being paid from Dovenmuehle. They do have a record of the correct annual amount of taxes being assessed and paid in full by Dovenmuehle. The city XXXX then asked for me to request a copy of the check that Dovenmuehle paid this mysterious extra $ XXXX tax amount to be sent to them, so that they can try to search for it and to discover if it was ever cashed. 

I contacted Dovenmuehle for the third time that day in XXXX. I notified the helpful customer service rep of the apparrent error of the mistaken tax payment, and told them I could not afford an extra {$1000.00} on my monthly mortgage payment. That customer service rep said not to worry, that they would " expedite '' the " investigation '' process into this matter, and that it would take between three to ten business days to resolve. I informed them that my next mortgage payment was looming and would be an extra {$1000.00}, and the rep told me that they would reimburse me for any over payments once the matter was resolved. 

It is now XX/XX/XXXX and I am being charged the extra amount on my mortgage payment. I called XXXX today to ask about the status of their investigation into this error, and a customer service rep said that there is no update on the file, and that they would " open the file, '' and " expedite '' the " research '' process into this mysterious erroneous tax payment of thousands of dollars once again. Frustrated, I then called the XXXX treasurer again to inquire if they had recieved a copy of a check from Dovenmuehle, and they had not. They asked me to call Dovenmuehle again and ask if the check had been cashed, and what the check number was. I did so -- and the only information I could get was that the check number for both tax payments was the same. I asked to speak to a manager, XXXX, and I asked specifically what steps and work had been done to resolve my issue in the previous XXXX weeks. She replied that the file had been opened, expedited, and that a research team was looking into the origin and location of the payment in dispute. Essentially, after two weeks of " expedited research, '' no progress was made in discovering the origin or outcome of this erroneous tax payment of {$4000.00} that is making my monthly mortgage go up {$1000.00} per month, and today I am stuck paying it or risking falling behind on my mortgage payments. 

I find it hard to believe that a company like Dovenmuehle with a long history and servicing mortgages across the USA has such poor business practices that they included an erroneous tax payment in my escrow analysis disclosure before even verifying that such a payment was recieved by the XXXX treasurer. I have since discovered that there are hundreds of serious complaints and negative online reviews on XXXX, XXXX, the XXXX XXXX XXXX website, and others. Many aren't just frustrated customers angry at poor customer service, but rather seem to involve, at best, questionable business practices, and other seem to be outright fraud. I am starting to suspect that this tax charge " error '' was deliberate fraud of some sort.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation