Consumer complaint received 2023-01-26
Company: CARRINGTON MORTGAGE SERVICES, LLC
State: UT
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process

Complaint:
We purchased our townhouse in XX/XX/XXXX, and upon closing we paid a full 12-month premium for our condo homeowners insurance policy - valid from XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX - through XXXX ( via XXXX ) XXXX On this policy, our insurance agency listed the address of our house with a unit number- which doesn't typically appear as the address we use to send and receive mail ( but does exist in the legal description of our property 's subdivision allotment on the deed ), and they also did not list our mailing address with the preceding " South '' before the street name - since their system autocorrected our address to not have the preceding " South '' and wouldn't allow them to adjust our address to " XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ''. This was never an issue for our initial mortgage company and everything was fine until our mortgage was transferred to Carrington in XXXX XXXX. ( I also want to mention that it seems Carrington 's own system has the same issue as XXXX - since every single one of their letters is addressed to " XXXX XXXX XXXX '' rather than " XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX '' ). 

In XX/XX/XXXX, we received one of two letters from Carrington asking us for Evidence of Insurance- which we provided as requested through the company that handles insurance verification for them ( XXXX ). The letter stated that Carrington had purchased hazard coverage on our behalf ( with a premium over 600 % higher than our current policy ), and that we would be forced to accept this coverage if they were unable to verify our insurance- so of course we quickly submitted proof that we indeed already had coverage and would not need this Carrington purchased policy.

We then received a rejection notice stating that they were unable to verify our coverage- so we called to speak with them about the issue, and after going back and forth with both Carrington and their insurance verification partner ( XXXX  )- they said this was due to an address mismatch, since our policy address didn't list our address as " XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ''. They then sent us on a wild goose chase to track down this " 911 form '' from the USPS, that we ultimately discovered does not exist. Apparently without this form, they were unable to verify our insurance- since the address listed on our policy was missing the preceding " South '' before our street name.

After calling Carrington again to explain that this form literally does not exist ( at least not through USPS ), and having the agent on the line XXXX this herself to prove it - she proceeds to put me on hold and speak with someone offline, and when she came back to the line- I was told that they would get it taken care of and that there was nothing additional we needed to do. 

Fast forward to XX/XX/XXXX ... Up until this point we had been paying our monthly mortgage payment with no problems. The payment amount had not changed at all ; however, when we received our statement for XX/XX/XXXX- we were shocked to discover that our mortgage had increased by nearly {$1000.00} a month, and after reviewing our escrow analysis - this substantial increase was due to the fact that Carrington was charging our escrow account nearly {$400.00} a month for the hazard policy that they had purchased on our behalf - dating back to XX/XX/XXXX. 

Upon further investigation, we also discovered that Carrington had not paid to renew our policy with XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX- essentially forcing us to pay for the hazard policy they had purchased on our behalf ( without our consent ) from XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX. It should also be stated that our previous policy was valid until XX/XX/XXXX - so we essentially had double coverage during that period of time as well, and Carrington has thus far refused to recognize our initial policy that was valid XXXX XXXX. 

After calling both Carrington and their insurance verification vendor to discuss the issue, we were basically told that there was not much more we could do to fix the issue. We requested them to cancel the hazard policy they had purchased without our consent, and we provided a new policy that we had renewed ourselves with XXXX ( again via XXXX ). They said that they would look into how much ( if anything ) we would receive as a refund- if they decided to accept that we had coverage from XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX, but that we would be required to still pay for the hazard policy they had purchased from XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation