Consumer complaint received 2017-11-09
Company: NATIONSTAR MORTGAGE LLC
State: MA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
I received my Annual Escrow Account Disclosure Statement on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX. Included with it was a check for {$640.00} for overpayment on my escrow account. Initially, I was very happy to get that, considering it " found money ''. After more careful examination of the statement, I realized that Nationstar Mortgage XXXX now XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX was estimating my Real Estate tax to be {$1700.00}, which is HALF of the yearly amount. Because of this, they grossly underestimated their anticipated annual disbursement for XXXX, and not only refunded money to me, but calculated my monthly mortgage payment to be {$140.00} lower every month going forward. I called XXXX XXXX to find out how they arrived at this deflated tax amount, and the agent could n't tell me. He stated that the last disbursement they made to my town was {$870.00}, I pressed him and said " that was a quarterly payment, right '', to which he agreed. And then I asked " Well, would n't it stand to reason that my YEARLY taxes would be FOUR times that amount?? Taxes do n't go down, they go up ''. I asked him what my previous year taxes were, and he confirmed they were over {$3400.00}. He then suggested that the escrow department would revisit the issue when the next tax bill came out. I said, " well, in the meantime, you want me to send you {$150.00} less each month, on top of you reimbursing me {$650.00}?? Do you know how much of a shortfall that is going to end up being??? '' He then suggested that when I make my payment each month, which I told HIM was going to be the same amount I had been already sending, that I call in and tell them to direct the extra amount to my escrow account until my escrow account was recalculated. 

So, I will be sending that nice check for {$650.00} back, continue to make my same old monthly payment and have to call them every month until they recalculate my account, taking time out of my life to address their XXXX up. 

Luckily for me, I took the time to thoroughly examine my escrow statement. I am making this complaint because I do n't want some other mortgage customer to possibly NOT pay attention, and then end up with a HUGE shortfall that they 'll have to scramble to come up with. XXXX is coming, and had I not looked closely at that statement, and questioned their amount, that money could 've been spent quickly on gifts, and put our family into a pretty negative financial situation when it came time to correct that shortage. 

This XXXX infuriates me, and I would HATE for someone else to be mislead in this way. If I had not caught this, I would 've ended up with an almost {$1800.00} shortfall over the course of a year!! That 's a huge amount for a family to have to come up with. 

NOTE REGARDING UPLOADS : I am attaching XXXXwo town real estate tax statements and the escrow statement from Nationstar Mortgage XXXX now XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. The town of XXXX does have a strange way of formatting and sending out tax bills, sending XXXX quarters of billing out at a time, but it does note on the invoices that the payments are for QUARTERS. We bought our house in XXXX XXXX, so one statement is for 3rd and 4th quarter of XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX in the previous owner 's name, and the other statement for 1st and 2nd quarter of XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, in my and my fianc 's name. I am also attaching a copy of the escrow statement that I received from Nationstar Mortgage XXXX now XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, which has the projected tax amount that is only {$.00} different that the amount on the most current town FY XXXX real estate tax statement. I am assuming this is where they got that figure from, but again, if they had actually read the statement, they 'd know it was not for one year.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation