Consumer complaint received 2021-02-03
Product: Mortgage — VA mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: PLAZA HOME MORTGAGE, INC. (SC)

ESCROW MISCALCULATION COMPLAINT : PLAZA HOME MORTGAGE We bought our home in XX/XX/XXXX and have a VA loan with Plaza Home Mortgage. Taxes and insurance are escrowed. 

The previous year XXXX XXXX XXXX our sellers were billed and paid {$1900.00} property tax. This is easily determinable via open-source search at our county 's website. 

For XXXX ( the sale year ) the property was taxed at {$2100.00}. Here 's the problem : for some reason known only to Plaza Mortgage ( and not yet disclosed to us ) their servicing department paid {$8100.00} against that {$2100.00} tax bill. ( {$5900.00} extra ). This is also easily determinable via open-source search at the county 's website. 

When we borrowers saw the error we reached out in good faith to Plaza 's billing/escrow departments to help them understand and correct their mistake. 

Instead of fixing the problem, they continued to pile on the mistakes by attempting to : A ) recover their miscalculated {$5900.00} escrow 'shortage ' by increasing our monthly payment, and B ) to collect even more in escrow to pay their same miscalculated inflated amount next year. Consequently, and to fix Plaza 's {$5900.00} overpayment, our monthly mortgage payment went up over XXXX XXXX/month ( approximately 23 % increase ). Friendly efforts on our part to help understand/correct Plaza 's error have been insultingly ignored or dismissed. Originally we were told that there wasn't a problem ; that internal " escrow inquiries '' confirmed the tax bill as paid ( not 'as billed ' ). Now we're being told that while yes, there was a mistake on their part, we borrowers remain in arrears for not having paid the grossly incorrect and inflated escrow portions of our monthly bill. Further, Plaza asserts that " our escrow department is now trying to get a refund from your county, '' as if that is somehow the borrower 's problem, and that we therefore need to pay the miscalculated amount in the meantime. 

Follow-up phone calls are increasingly fruitless - we've been transferred ad nauseum, lied to, put on hold for long periods, cycled back to the complaint department, then to 'escalation, ' then hung up on ( twice ). Today was the last straw. I was asked to be available at a set time today to talk to someone in authority who could fix the problem, so I took time away from work to do so. Instead of the mitigation management level call we expected, we were again contacted by Plaza 's collections department as if we are somehow delinquent borrowers. The 'person in authority ' I made time to talk to was suddenly " in a meeting and couldn't be disturbed. '' Then they hung up again after more than two hours spent on hold with intermittent transfers.

The solution here is obvious but somehow remains elusive to Plaza : recalculate the proper escrow amount, and confirm in writing that that has been done, along with an updated mortgage balance amount and monthly bill. At first we were content to have any erroneous extra payments, that were improperly applied to escrow to date, assessed against our mortgage balance ( along with backdated interest credit ). Now we ask for formal inquiry into Plaza 's escrow calculation methods and exceedingly poor mortgagor service. We'll also want to see the accounting that the monthly payments are all showing as 'current, ' along with confirmation that no extra interest was assessed to monies held improvidently as 'pending funds. ' Please let us know what resources are available to make Plaza Home Mortgage address this issue in good faith. Please also log this complaint with any VA Loan origination lenders. We mortgagors are lucky that we have the means and knowledge to resolve an issue like this, even with an uncooperative and unprofessional servicer like Plaza. However we fear there are many other similarly exploited VA recipients who don't know what to do or where to turn.