Consumer complaint received 2024-02-22
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Escrow, taxes, or insurance
Company: OPEN MORTGAGE LLC (TX)

XXXX XXXX had an issue with their property tax calculations following the XXXX election and passing of the additional homestead exemption amounts. As such, their billing was extremely delayed, as I am sure the department is aware of. I called Open Mortgage Servicing on XX/XX/XXXX to see if they were going to pay my property taxes because XXXX XXXX had just released the bills online that day and it was also the last business day of the year. I XXXX XXXX XXXX, in fact, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXr Open Mortgage. 
On call # 1 on XX/XX/XXXX, Open Mortgage through their subservicer XXXX, told me that they would not make the payment because they don't go off online bills and would not pay it until the bill was received in the mail. XXXX XXXX didnt send bills out until the second week of XX/XX/XXXX. Not wanting to miss my tax deduction for my property tax payment on my personal taxes, I consulted with my CPA who advised to pay them myself that day ( XX/XX/XXXX ) and ask my servicer not to release my funds from my escrow and just give me a refund once they confirmed with XXXX XXXX that my taxes were paid. I called XXXX XXXX to see what happens if I paid and then OpenXXXX also paid. They told me that they would refund whoever the second party was that paid and it would be refunded in the original payment method. 
I then called Open/XXXX  back and told them if I paid it myself would they hold off on paying the escrow, they said they would. That conversation is documented in their system. I asked if there was a process or a form I needed to fill out to get that request processed ( a previous person on the earlier phone call told me there was ). I was told no, there was nothing for me to do, that they would process my request and that no payment would be made and then they would re-run my escrow analysis and issue me a full refund which should be around {$7000.00}. I went ahead based off this information and made the payment to XXXX XXXX for {$5400.00} and change. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, I checked my escrow account because I just had a bad feeling and sure enough, XXXX had paid my property taxes to XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. Because I XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  Open Mortgage, I sent a text to XXXX XXXX who is their Servicing Manager and asked him to look into everything. XXXX has been the only helpful person and even he is getting the run around by XXXX. I called XXXX XXXX to see when the refund would be returned to XXXX and was told they are extremely backlogged and it would take 3 months from the date of payment so sometime in XXXX. 
On XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX XXXX text me and said I would be getting a refund back from XXXX in XXXX business days. I hadnt seen anything in the mail, so I let XXXX know on XX/XX/XXXX that I had not yet received the refund check. He told me that XXXX was going to call me that day. They did not. I let him know on XX/XX/XXXX that they did not call. They finally called on XX/XX/XXXX and they had no information for me. They stated there was no check mailed and that they were trying to get XXXX XXXX to give me my refund directly. I said XXXX XXXX already told me they wont do that and she just kept repeating it, saying I would have my refund by XX/XX/XXXX. Then after some frustrated conversation I told her I was going to file a complaint and she transferred me to the escrow department where another employee told me I would get a refund on XX/XX/XXXX. I conveyed all the above information to her concisely and she continued to state that they would try to work harder on this. 
I want to note that in the middle of all of this, Open Mortgage sold my loan to XXXX XXXX  and XXXX kept acting like they would have no responsibility for this issue once the loan transfers. I am concerned that this will take many more months to resolve if the loan transfers prior to the refund being issued.