Consumer complaint received 2016-10-05
Product: Mortgage — Conventional fixed mortgage
Issue: Loan servicing, payments, escrow account — 
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company (CA)

My wife and I bought our home in XX/XX/XXXX. Our lender was XXXX XXXX XXXX at that time. Last year they were bought out by Freedom Mortgage, and ever since then we have had nothing but hardships and trouble. First, they kept mailing me letters and calling me non stop about refinancing, telling me they can get us a better interest rate and lower monthly payment. So we decided to try it out finally. My last job put me in a financial rut that I 've been trying to get out of, so we planned on doing a cash out refi to pay off all our debt so we only had our mortgage to worry about monthly. Well after being strung along for months assuring us the refi will work no problem, all of a sudden the " ratios would n't work ''. We needed to pay down some of our debt to make the ratios work. We had no money to pay down debt, so they told us to borrow from family and we could just pay them back with cash from our equity after the refi goes through. So I borrowed $ XXXX from my parents. A few weeks later, " oh the ratios still wont work ''. They said that my wife needs to show more income. She is a commission based hair stylist, so she is a XXXX self employed, so Freedom Mortgage said she needs to do her taxes a certain way so that it shows she made at least $ XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX. So since she used no write offs, when we filed the taxes she now owes over $ XXXX to the IRS on top of what she already owes from XX/XX/XXXX, and Freedom Mortgage said well you can just pull that $ XXXX from your cash out refi and pay it off in full ... 
Guess what? .... " Ratios still wont work, your debt is still too high ''. I finally started looking into our credit reports on my own to see what XXXX was happening. I downloaded the credit karma app on my phone and I found that somehow, mysteriously, a XXXX home loan was sitting on my credit. My wife 's credit only showed $ XXXX to Freedom Mortgage, when my personal credit report showed $ XXXX with XXXX XXXX, and another loan for $ XXXX with Freedom Mortgage. 
Its no wonder our refi fell apart, because they never paid and closed my first mortgage account and nobody could see that on my credit score??? But I was able to find it on my own? This is a perfect example of Predatory Lending Practices. Because of this, my wife and I are now over $ XXXX more in debt to the IRS and paying back family. 
On top of this, a month ago my mortgage payment increased by {$450.00} because our impound account came up negative due to shortage in impound account payments. Our mortgage payment has been the same since we bought the house in XX/XX/XXXX, NOW, Freedom mortgage is saying that payment has been wrong all along and we really should have been paying a higher mortgage payment. So why now after almost 3 years in this house do my payments not cover my taxes??? 
This is not legal and I believe that Freedom Mortgage should be paying that negative balance due to their own error in our loan. Their company are the ones who ran my loan, who bought my loan from the previous lender, and send me bills for a certain dollar amount. I pay the amount we signed for when we closed escrow. I am in a 30 year fixed conventional loan, my payment should not be going up {$450.00} because they are incompetent. I spoke to the XXXX County Accessors office and they told me my property tax has not changed at all other than the standard 2 % just like everyone else. I am being taken advantage of by Freedom Mortgage. They do n't send email confirmations when a payment is made, they do n't provide any documentation or paper trails for anything. They can not raise my fixed payment almost {$500.00}.