Consumer complaint received 2021-10-22
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: FIRST HOME MORTGAGE CORPORATION (DC)

We purchased our home in XXXX of XXXX with First Home Mortgage Corporation. The purchase process was very smooth. We paid a down payment of +30 % and voluntarily chose to escrow taxes and insurance to make our life easier ; however, the loan servicing has been a nightmare. Our tax bill for the second half of XXXX should have been approximately {$2100.00} consistent with the loan closing documents and the City property tax formula. On XX/XX/2021, the City issued a tax bill in the amount of {$12000.00}, which was erroneous as it classified the property as vacant as though no purchase had occurred and the home was not occupied, and occupancy was a condition of our loan. As soon as we saw this we contacted First Home Mortgage to make sure they noted this was an erroneous tax bill as the City had the property classified as vacant as it was before the loan transaction. They assured us they tracked the Citys actions and they received or accessed all information associated with our taxes. First Home Mortgage also informed us that our tax bill of approximately {$2000.00} would be paid on time and they did not have a tax bill from the City in the erroneous amount. We also immediately contacted the XXXX  Office of Taxes and Revenue who issued a corrected tax bill for {$1800.00} with the correct classification of occupied within a week and more than a week before tax payments were due on XX/XX/2021. On XX/XX/2021, we received an email from First Home Mortgage showing they had paid the erroneous {$12000.00} in taxes for the second half of 2021 and we had a deficiency in our account. But we contacted the Citys taxing authority several times a week and they assured us that no {$12000.00} payment had been made. To this day, the City confirms no such payment was made ( I have attached the City record of all payments made for the second half of 2021 ). We provided First Home Mortgage the correct tax bill ( 3 ) three times via email based on their requests and advised them the City had received no tax payment at all and penalties and interest were accumulating. Several weeks went by while First Home Mortgage looked for the check they said they had paid to the City and the City continued to add interest and penalties for non payment. This went on throughout XX/XX/2021. On XX/XX/2021, We escalated our concern and pressed First Mortgage to find our money and pay the taxes. It wasn't until XX/XX/2021, ( 2 ) two months later, that they " refunded '' our escrow and paid the proper tax amount ( including penalties and interest ) for late payment. Even though they knew the tax bill was erroneous, it was never paid and eventually they returned our money to our escrow, they issued a new monthly payment adjustment based on the erroneous tax bill which increased our monthly payment by more than 30 %. We have repeatedly asked them to update the analysis to reflect the actual tax bill but their response was The good news is you will get your money back in the end. Well we need our money now and cant afford to give them an extra {$1000.00} to {$1500.00} each month that is excess escrow. Since they refused to correct the analysis we notified them we would prefer to cancel or waive escrow and pay our taxes and insurance ourselves. Over a three week period we made our request verbally twice with supervisors in their escrow division and not once did they tell us this just couldnt be done. At one point they told us they would send us the request form but that never came and they told us it was not available on their website. On XX/XX/XXXX, we made our request via email and we repeated that request the next week. We contacted them on XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX and on the evening of XX/XX/2021 we received an email telling us our request was denied because First Home Mortgage Corporation does not waive or cancel escrow, period! We were confused since our loan officer made it clear that based on our down payment and credit record that escrow was not mandated and this is consistent with the loan disclosures. We were never informed that escrow was mandated and could not be waived or cancelled because that was First Mortgage Corporations stance. Just the opposite. We were told if we ever decided not to escrow, as long as our payment history was good, they would agree since it was voluntary. We trust ourselves more at this point to make our payments of taxes and insurance on time and to pay attention to obvious errors in those bills.