Consumer complaint received 2025-09-18 00:00:00
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Escrow, taxes, or insurance
Company: Shellpoint Partners, LLC
State: LA

Complaint narrative:
We bought a house in XXXX, XXXX with a XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX giving us a flood zone of XXXX with a different mortgage company. Therefore, we were not required to get flood insurance and chose not to get it. Shellpoint Mortgage bought our loan in XXXX, XXXX. 

In XXXX, we received a letter from Shellpoint Mortgage stating that we were in a designated flood zone and had 45 days to show proof of insurance or they would get lender-placed insurance. The 45 days ended at approximately XX/XX/XXXX. We contacted Shellpoint Mortgage and sent them our Standard Flood Hazard Determination Letter showing that we did not need flood insurance. There was some back and forth between the Flood Service listed on my Letter and Shellpoints letter, but Shellpoint 's company stated their information from XXXX has our house in a Flood zone. ( We are currently working with XXXX because we believe that while the property is on the edge of XXXX zones, the house is high enough not to require insurance. ) Here is where the problem starts. During this time, we believed we were in good faith making our case that we did not require flood insurance. We waited for the determination from Shellpoint because we expected that we had a legitimate XXXX XXXX that would not require us to have flood insurance. After they rejected our letter, we called a land surveyor who did not return our calls. Since it clearly was going to take longer than we thought to file the XXXX with XXXX, we bought flood insurance for $ XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX and sent them the paperwork. It was after the 45 days, because we were going back and forth with them trying to show that we did not need the insurance. 

Later in XXXX, Shellpoint sent us a notice saying Lender-placed Insurance was put on the property. The same policy that we obtained for {$1200.00}, they put a $ XXXX lender policy in place and took {$6000.00} out of our escrow, claiming that we had an insurance lapse since they bought the loan in XXXX. They back-dated the lender-based insurance to a time when, as far as both us and Shellpoint knew, we were not required to have flood insurance. They bought our loan without flood insurance. Shellpoint Mortgage has a flood determination date XX/XX/XXXX which is the earliest anyone knew that flood insurance was required on the property. They claim that we are responsible for notifying them of something we had no knowledge of and had just bought the house in XXXX. I do not know why our SFHDF was different, but they bought the loan that way. We did not ask for them to buy our loan. 

When I noticed that they took {$6000.00} out of our escrow in XXXX, I called Shellpoint Mortgage Insurance Division and spoke with a supervisor, XXXX, who told me they could not rescind the lender-based policy but she would file an appeal on my behalf to change the date from XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX when we were notified that we needed flood insurance. Even though I thought that was not actually a fair compromise given that we were never told that each day we were communicating with them, they were charging us and that they were charging us for a policy XXXX times the cost XXXX sets, I figured it was a starting point. ( Please see the attached letter sent to us on XX/XX/XXXX. The cost mentioned is vague and says that policy will be put in place in 15 days. There is nothing about back-dating the policy to XXXX. Also, there is no acknoledgement of the appeals that we were making. ) However, they even denied this compromise. {$6000.00} is the cost of 5 years of the flood policy that we have. They basically stole {$6000.00} from our Escrow. 

I contacted XXXX in XXXX who advised me on completing the XXXX and recommended that I contact CFPB. Due to travel and a serious illness, I am filing this complaint now.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief