Consumer complaint received 2023-10-05
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Escrow, taxes, or insurance
Company: PENNYMAC LOAN SERVICES, LLC. (TX)

I have a conventional mortgage that was sold from a previous lender to PennyMac in fall of XXXX. I am submitting a complaint to the CFPB because this company has underestimated my escrow account by almost {$12000.00} which has doubled my monthly payment from {$1500.00} a month to {$3000.00} a month to make up the shortage. 

When I initially took out my mortgage, I purchased a new build property in XXXX. I was advised by my first mortgage company to make extra payments into my escrow account because at the time, the property taxes estimated by the XXXX XXXX appraisal district was only accounting for the land only and not a house and land. I followed their advise from XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX. XXXX through that year, my first mortgage company sold my mortgage to PennyMac, however, I continued with the same advise to put extra into my escrow account. 

In XX/XX/XXXX PennyMac conducted an escrow analysis on my account and reimbursed me all of the extra payments I had made between XXXX XXXX- XXXX XXXX. I called to question PennyMac about their escrow analysis of that year because it did not look like they were accounting for the increase in property taxes that were to be due in XXXX of XXXX. I was told by a PennyMac representative in XXXX XXXX that their escrow analysis is accurate and advised me to trust their estimates. 

Fast forward to XX/XX/XXXX, PennyMac conducts another escrow analysis where they find that my escrow account in nearly {$12000.00} short. The options that they gave me were to either pay the shortage in XXXX payment by XX/XX/XXXX or to pay this shortage monthly doubling my monthly mortgage payment from {$1500.00} to {$3000.00} a month. 

When I called to figure out why my escrow account was nearly {$12000.00} short, I was told by PennyMac representatives that this was my fault for not monitoring my escrow account and that they instead can spread the payment shortage across 36 months lowering my new monthly payment from {$3000.00} to {$2200.00} a month or I can look into refinancing. 

I am writing this complaint because I feel as though I can not trust my mortgage lender to manage my escrow account effectively. Additionally, given the circumstances, I am being held accountable for a mistake that is not my fault. By the time this mortgage lender received my loan, they knew what my property taxes would be for the next year and completely neglected this information until a year later and held me to the fire. 

I am very thankful that I am in a position to pay either of my new monthly amounts, however I am concerned because this {$12000.00} mistake could very much happen again. While property values across the XXXX have risen exponentially mine had minor increase from XXXX to XXXX and it was not properly estimate by PennyMac and instead was blamed on me the consumer. To put into perspective, my previous monthly payment accounted for only 18 % of my monthly take home pay. This new $ 3000 monthly payment is over 35 % of my monthly take home pay. This leaves me little margin to save, pay off student loans, and cover other necessary monthly expenses when I know I didn't do anything wrong, except listen to PennyMac 's advise to their consumer.