Consumer complaint received 2018-04-17
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: TX
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
I purchased my home in XX/XX/XXXX. XXXX XXXX sold the FHA loan to Freedom Mortgage soon after. Before my first mortgage payment on XX/XX/XXXX, Freedom Mortgage sent me a letter reducing my monthly payment from an estimated {$2800.00} to {$2000.00}. My guess because the XXXX County Appraisal District was showing the home as unimproved, but I was never given a reason.

From XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX, I made my monthly payments of $ XXXX/ month. {$1500.00} was principle and interest and {$530.00} was to my escrow account for taxes and the FHA PMI totaling {$6400.00}. Then in early XX/XX/XXXX, I received a refund of {$960.00} dollars for paying too much into my escrow.

But according to Freedom Mortgage, they paid {$13000.00} for XX/XX/XXXX taxes and insurance and never made me aware of the shortage of escrow payments.

So I continued to make my payments of ~ {$2100.00} for most of XX/XX/XXXX.

It was not until XX/XX/XXXX that I was made aware of the " increased taxes '' from Freedom Mortgage due to the home now being calculated as improved with the appraisal district. So XX/XX/XXXX Freedom Mortgage made another payment of {$13000.00} for my taxes and insurance. Now, a year after the first payment of ~ {$13000.00} was made, they decide to make me aware of the shortage by sending me a letter stating that I have a shortage in my escrow account and that I need to pay {$16000.00} to " catch up '' and create a " cushion '' in my account. If I can't pay the $ XXXX, then my monthly mortgage payment goes up from {$2100.00} to {$4000.00} per month! This was completely insane! How could they delay telling me for a whole year!! In XX/XX/XXXX they could of told me I was short and I could made the adjusted payment then. I could of paid out any shortage and avoid such a high increase to my monthly payment.

Now here we areXX/XX/XXXX. I still do not have the problem resolved with Freedom Mortgage! I have spoken to about 10 different representatives over the last 4 months and I've had 2 different loan officers assigned to my account. I've been told I qualify to 4 different modifications over the last 4 months. First I was issued a spread of the $ XXXX escrow shortage over the next 5 years increasing my payment by {$260.00} per month, plus what I should of been paying for principle, interest, & taxes of {$2600.00}. Then another representative says I qualify for Hurricane Harvey disaster area assistance. Then I was offered a " loss mitigation '' package requiring me to send them numerous documents from tax returns, to profit/loss statements on my side business, to bank statements and pay stubs. In addition, I had to write a letter stating why I needed to be on this lost mitigation modification. Still nothing!

Last week XX/XX/XXXX I spoke to my 2nd assigned loan officer, and he stated that I did not need to send in any of the above documents at all. He stated he was perplexed at why I was asked to send! He stated I could of been placed in an FHA program that basically puts the outstanding amounts into an FHA loan that gets paid either when I sell the house or at the end of my 30 yr mortgage. This was the first time in 4 months of phone calls, almost every week, to Freedom Mortgage that I had been offered this program. So now I've been asked to send in Child Support Court Orders ( which is deducted from my bi-weekly payroll and is a line item on my pay stubs already sent in ) and Profit/loss statements for XX/XX/XXXXand XX/XX/XXXX.

I don't feel confident that this will get resolved anytime soon and I don't know what else to do. I have consulted with an attorney in XXXX and the best he offered was placing me in Bankruptcy. This was out of the question. I don't feel like I being treated fairly and that now I'm having to pay more for their mistake. I've also tried to refinance out of Freedom Mortgage, but have not had any luck due to my current debt to income ratio.

Please let me know if you require anything further and I thank you in advance for any assistance!!

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