Consumer complaint received 2016-04-15
Product: Mortgage — Home equity loan or line of credit
Issue: Loan servicing, payments, escrow account — 
Company: Onity Group Inc. (WA)

I have had a line of credit with Ocwen for several years in the amount of {$44000.00}, which is secured by my home. I carry my own homeowners policy, but because I need flood insurance also, I have let Ocwen supply a force based flood insurance policy which was around {$420.00} a year, which covered the line of credit. Other insurance companies had to insure the whole value of the property, which is about {$87000.00}, so the policies were more money, and the whole amount had to be paid upfront. Ocwen set up an escrow account and raised my payment around {$35.00} a month to pay the flood insurance policy. As you can see from the paperwork that I have sent you, as far back as XXXX the escrow payment remained constant because the force placed flood insurance was always around {$420.00}. Then in XXXX XXXX I was informed that my payment was being raised from around {$160.00} a month to {$380.00} to cover the shortfall in my escrow account. I went online and saw that on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX Ocwen put a force placed flood insurance on my property for {$2200.00}, on top of the force placed flood insurance policy that they had already placed on my property on XXXX/XXXX/XXXX for {$420.00}. I immediately called Ocwen to find out what was going on, and I was told to call back in 3 days so that they had a chance to look into the problem. This was after being on the phone with then for 45 minutes, and being put on hold 6 times while they were supposedly checking with the insurance company. I have since called back 3 times, and each time it is almost an identical scenario. The only thing that I was told was that in the XXXX XXXX raise in my flood insurance they had revalued my property for {$250000.00}. They gave me no explanation why that would be necessary, and considering that my property is only worth around {$87000.00} and the loan with them is only {$44000.00}, how can they justify raising my property value to such an exorbitant amount I have never made an insurance claim on my property, either flood or homeowners, since I have lived here, which has been almost XXXX years..Also, how can they put a force placed insurance policy on a property that is already covered by a force placed policy that they put on the property 3 months prior? It is very curious that my yearly policy amount has always remained around the {$420.00} mark as far back as XXXX, which is shown in the paperwork that I have sent you. Then for this XXXX window of time, XXXX XXXX to XXXX XXXX, I have to have this expensive flood insurance policy, and then for the renewal of my flood insurance policy for XXXX XXXX, my policy goes back down to {$420.00}. None of this makes any sense, and I personally feel that this is illegal I have done some research on Ocwen and I have discovered that they have been involved in at least XXXX class action lawsuits pertaining to this same issue, which they have lost, and have been court ordered to pay millions back to homeowners who have been defrauded. On my last call to Ocwen 3 days ago they told me that they would call me back today at XXXX to explain more about what was going on. I told the lady that I did n't want an explanation, I wanted a resolution, which would be to remove the escrow shortfall for that {$2200.00} flood policy, and change my payment back to normal. I told her that I would not be paying for that escrow shortfall, and that when I sent my XXXX payment in it would only include my regular payment and the extra for the normal flood insurance policy, like it has always been. She assured me that she would call me at XXXX today to give me more information, but it is now XXXX, and I have not received a phone call from them, nor do I anticipate that there will be XXXX.