Consumer complaint received 2016-01-11
Company: FRANKLIN AMERICAN MORTGAGE CO.
State: MS
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional fixed mortgage
Issue: Loan servicing, payments, escrow account

Complaint:
I purchased a home XX/XX/XXXX in XXXX XXXX XXXX I purchased it from XXXX XXXX 's real estate agency using one of her buyers agents. In the financing an escrow was set up to pay the insurance as well as taxes. According to the paperwork the taxes for XXXX were XXXX and homestead was filed by the homeowner for XX/XX/XXXX. They set up the escrow to hold out XXXX to pay the taxes each year. That totals out to XXXX. I paid on time every month. XX/XX/XXXX i received a call from the bank and was informed that the withdrawal went from about XXXX to XXXX. So i called to find out what the problem was. They informed me that i failed to file for homestead XX/XX/XXXX and that I had insufficient funds to cover the taxes and my payments would have to increase until that was caught up. I understand that was ignorance on my part and I have paid it and made the changes that were needed in order to pay back the owed amount. They reassessed it for XX/XX/XXXX and sent the info to the bank so the amount owed for that year went from approx XXXX to XXXX which is when I became aware of a problem. My down payment, insurance, and account was set up based on the tax information provided to me. However when i received my estimate for this year the taxes are not XXXX based on XX/XX/XXXX. They are not XXXX based on what I was told to expect to pay. They are XXXX ... nearly XXXX percent more than the estimate I was given. I do understand it was an estimate which implies it could be slightly off. However thats not slightly off. It in essence doubles what I have to pay for it into escrow every month and increases how much I would have to pay for the home if kept full term to about XXXX more. Through my investigating it appears that they gave an estimate based on what the previous home owner would be expected to pay. The previous homeowner was over the age of XXXX I 'm assuming. I did n't know him but I have deduced that. That qualifies him for special exemptions in homestead which I as a XXXX year old at the time did not qualify for which they would certainly know. Not only that there are many more people under the age of XXXX buying homes than over. His rate would be the exception certainly not the rule. Therefore The numbers were going to be roughly XXXX percent off in most cases. Yet I was given nothing to indicate this. Mortgage loans are also to be made in part only to ones who have the ability to repay them. How could anyone claim that is being done when the estimates are allowed to be that far off? I know I might have rambled a bit and I apologize to whoever is having to endure it, but please understand I 'm not one who asks for assistance in matters and I accept responsibility for mistakes when I make them. This however was not a mistake I made and its brutally unfair for me to have to pay for somebody else either purposely misrepresenting the truth or not doing their job. I have another issue with a repair request but I 'll put that in a separate complaint. Thank you for your time.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation