Consumer complaint received 2020-10-08
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: NC
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: VA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
I received the following response from the company regarding my complaint of waiver for escrow of taxes : XX/XX/XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, IL XXXX XXXX : Your Complaint to the CFPB Complaint # XXXX Dear XXXX XXXX : We have reviewed your complaint and researched the issue regarding your escrow account. Your prior loan was set up to escrow only for insurance and there was an escrow waiver for taxes. Your new loan did not close with an escrow waiver, so we are required to escrow for both taxes ( if not totally exempt ) and insurance. You will be eligible to apply for a full escrow waiver after your loan has been seasoned for 12 months assuming a good payment history. Regarding your tax exemption, our notes indicate that you stated several times that you are 100 % tax exempt, but we could never confirm this. The tax authority website does not reflect a full exemption. The bill you provided in your complaint was for XXXX taxes payable in XXXX. The amount billed in XXXX was {$4700.00} with the exemption applied ( see attached page 2 ). However, if you can provide documentation from your tax authority showing that you are 100 % exempt, we will review and make any necessary adjustments to your account. Please submit this documentation to XXXX '' I contacted the company on 5 separate occasions to ask for the escrow waiver to be completed prior to the closing for the VA refinance. My requests prior to the closing were blatantly ignored. Each conversation with Freedom Mortgage was on a recorded line, so they must have a record of my requests. No one asked for documentation or any other type of verification during my initial calls. I offered documents to the customer care representatives but it was declined as they conducted more research. I took the initiative to send documents through the online messaging system but received no response. I was contacted by Freedom Mortgage again, on a recorded line, to which their representative assured me that the taxes and escrow waiver were addressed before the closing and that is was no longer an issue. I recorded that conversation on my XXXX so I also have a copy of the statement from their representative. To date, none of the representatives I have spoken to, have ever asked for documentation. I asked to speak to a manager and was transferred to the department lead and had to ask again for a manager who could not address my concern. She stated she would research the issue and return my call and to date, no one has returned a phone call to me to explain how to address the escrow waiver. No one can tell me what documentation they need, but they are quick to point out that what I do send them is insufficient. Freedom Mortgage is obviously more concerned with closing loans than it is about customer service. Once again they failed to include the escrow waiver and continued to ignore my requests for assistance. Waiting 12 months for a escrow waiver will cause me a financial hardship because without the escrow waiver the mortgage is beyond my capacity to pay. The lack of customer service and attention to detail is an example of Freedom Mortgage taking advantage of XXXX veterans.

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