Consumer complaint received 2020-12-11
Company: Shellpoint Partners, LLC
State: CA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
In XX/XX/XXXX my mortgage was sold from Ditech to NewRez LLC. At that time I voluntarily escrowed my property taxes but did not escrow my home insurance. Somehow during the transfer of my mortgage NewRez recalculated my escrow account evaluation to an outrageous calculation that quadrupled my escrow. From XXXX XXXX, Ive exchanged 50 calls to try and rectify the miscalculation. As a result of the miscalculation my payment went from approx {$800.00} a month to approx {$3300.00} a month. In XX/XX/XXXX NeRez responded to my request for a reevaluation of escrow and they determined that indeed the calculation was incorrect and reduced my payment. Although I had received notification of the reduced payment the website still reflected the approx {$3300.00} previous miscalculation and would not accept what it saw as a partial payment to be made. I still mailed in a check for what I new was the correct amount and they put that money into the escrow account didnt apply it to my regular payment. After another two months I finally got my account corrected. As soon as it was corrected then I started getting notices that they had no record of my home insurance. 
I connected my insurance agent who emailed AND faxed verification that I in fact do have insurance and I have paid it privately since before NewRez acquired my loan. Despite multiple submission they claimed I had no insurance and placed a lender placed hazard insurance on my account for several thousands more than my actual insurance. In XX/XX/XXXX I was finally able to get the insurance issue corrected that proved I had always had insurance but now they are refusing to return the months of payments where they charged me for insurance that I already had. They told me it had to be put in my escrow account. So, I asked to CLOSE the escrow account completely and that I would pay my taxes privately. Once I sent a request to close the escrow account they DENIED my request to close the escrow account because of a late mortgage payment but the late mortgage payment was THEIR fault from the months prior and they had already corrected that and refunded the late fee. They are forcing me to have this escrow account despite my original loan did NOT require escrow account, the existing loan is LESS than 25 % of the value of the home, there is no record of me ever missing a tax payment, in the 17 years Ive had this loan Ive not have ONE missed payment until they purchased my loan, and the reason for denying my request to dissolve the escrow account based on the missed payment was ultimately due to their error in calculating the correct amount to begin with. 
Further, they are now increasing my escrow payments AGAIN although my taxes havent increased. I believe they are illegally attempt to collect funds each month which they can make interest off for the entire year and then return as an over payment at the end of the year. When I spoke with a customer associate in XX/XX/XXXX she told me that I used had to keep paying whatever they charged and that I had to wait until the end of the year calculation to get any overage amount. Currently my escrow account has more than 2/3 the amount to cover my property taxes for NEXT YEAR yet they still claimed there is a shortage for next year. Their new calculation would have me paying more than 250 % of my estimated taxes.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation