Consumer complaint received 2020-11-02
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — 
Company: United Shore Financial Services, LLC (DC)

Earlier this year, my husband and I refinanced our mortgage. We were required to prepay our XX/XX/XXXX property taxes as part of the refinancing. Our closing agent, XXXX XXXX, did not successfully forward these property taxes to the local government. It is possible that XXXX XXXX sent a check that got lost in the pandemic shutdown. Nonetheless, XXXX XXXX clearly did not have any processes in place to ensure that the property taxes were paid / the check cleared, because in XX/XX/XXXX, we started getting notices from our new mortgage company, United Wholesale Mortgage, subserviced by XXXX, with property taxes handled by XXXX, that the XX/XX/XXXX taxes were never paid. After intervening multiple times directly with XXXX XXXX, over the course of four to six weeks, including having our mortgage broker contact them, they finally canceled their earlier check and paid the XX/XX/XXXX taxes plus the penalties in late XX/XX/XXXX. 

In the meantime, I followed all the steps that UWM / XXXX / XXXX instructed me to take to resolve the situation. I sent emails to both the XXXX  and XXXX email addresses provided ; I sent documentation ; I called XXXX multiple times. I never got a response to any of the emails that I sent, and although the XXXX representatives were always courteous on the phone, they never were able to solve the situation or direct me to anyone who could. I told them multiple times that I had paid the XX/XX/XXXX property taxes in XX/XX/XXXX and it was inappropriate to collect them from me. 

Despite all the information that I sent UWM / XXXX  / XXXX, they paid both the XX/XX/XXXX and the XX/XX/XXXX property taxes in XX/XX/XXXX, after XXXX  XXXX  had finally paid the XX/XX/XXXX property taxes. They also then set up an escrow account -- which my mortgage explicitly did not have -- and started billing me for the XX/XX/XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX, and XX/XX/XXXX property taxes, which, as you can imagine, is a sizeable amount of money.

I have subsequently called UWM / XXXX / XXXX multiple times, explaining that ( 1 ) I do not want and did not ask for the escrow account ( 2 ) the XX/XX/XXXX property taxes have already been paid by Nations Title, and if UWM / XXXX  / XXXX  went ahead and paid them after my multiple attempts to ask them not to, it is UWM / XXXX 's responsibility to try to get that money back from the government, and not to try to collect it from me. I also reimbursed UWM / XXXX  for the XX/XX/XXXX property taxes ( again, I do not want to escrow ). 

Two calls ago, more than a week ago, I was told that if I did not want to escrow, I had to submit a written request. I submitted that written request. I never heard back. When I called on XX/XX/XXXX to confirm that the large escrow payment would not be taken from my checking account today, XX/XX/XXXX, they said it was already in the system and could not be changed. They also promised that a manager would call me back. The manager never called.

Today, a very large sum of money was taken out of my checking account that I have not authorized and have repeatedly told these companies that it is not appropriate to take from me. I have been very disappointed by their lack of responsiveness. Contacting them is like sending a letter into the void -- but I have a greater confidence that the void would actually do something. 

If anyone is reading this, I strongly recommend avoiding UWM, XXXX, and XXXX, if at all possible. 

Meanwhile, I have also escalated this matter with the taxpayer advocate in my local government.