Consumer complaint received 2025-08-21 00:00:00
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Escrow, taxes, or insurance
Company: NORTHWEST BANCSHARES INC
State: NY

Complaint narrative:
On XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX my family and I lost our home in a fire. We had a beautiful two story farm house. Sadly it was a complete loss. Insurance was not going to pay us a enough to even rebuild what we could afford to build. In XXXX of XXXX we started the process of talking to Northwest Bank about a construction mortgage. We spoke to an a man named XXXX XXXX and he originally locked us in for 5.2 % on our interest rate. He also stated an estimate of our closing costs would be roughly around {$10000.00} for the construction loan. Then he told us in XXXX of XXXX that our interest rate had gone up and we would now be at 7.000 % and closing costs were now estimated to {$14000.00}. When we finally got to closing we were told that closing is now {$18000.00}. We had to have a home and we already gave the contractor {$110000.00} down to start working on the new house. Not to mention all the outside fees to have the old home demolished and removed and everything else that goes along with it. We really had no option at this point. 
On XX/XX/XXXX of XXXX my husband and I received a letter from the bank, Northwest Bank, stating our current mortgage payment of {$2100.00} ( {$210.00} principle, {$1400.00} XXXX, {$460.00} Escrow. ) Was increasing to {$2500.00} ( {$220.00} XXXX, {$1400.00} XXXX, {$870.00} Escrow ) due XX/XX/XXXX. I went to the bank the very next day. The loan lady I spoke to at the XXXX XXXX said she could not speak to me about the loan because it was in my husbands name and I was not given permission to speak to anyone about it. That was lie number one because my husband wrote a letter to the bank in XXXX while we were processing the loan. The following day my husband and I went to the XXXX XXXX to speak to one of the loan officers we spoke to during the processing of the loan originally. We sat down and explained that we could not come up with the {$400.00} dollar difference by the XXXX of XXXX. We asked her to find out why our Mortgage had gone up so much. She called the loan office headquarters to find out why. Apparently our escrow was $ XXXX because they claimed our taxes doubled from XXXX to XXXX. We asked how is that possible and they stated that we would have to call the county tax office. So we asked if they could postpone the new payment till XX/XX/XXXX so that way we had appropriate time to restructure our budget for the new payment. The loan office stated we would have to talk to the escrow department. The lady at the branch called the escrow department and explained to them what was going on and asked our request to post pone. They said no " We can not do that. The new payment is set up to build your escrow for the year and to pay back the overage ( Overdraft ) over the course of the next 12 months with {$580.00} going towards our escrow account to build it up for the 2025 year for home insurance and School taxes and to prepare for XXXX property tax season. Then {$280.00} was going to the overage ( Overdraft ) owed of {$2500.00}. We told them we understand that but we can not come up with the money in that short of a time frame and it would throw all of our other bill 's out of sink. The best offer they could provide is to drop it by {$150.00} and extend the time to repay the overage ( overdraft ). We stated that, that does not fix the problem and that they needed to be reasonable. They refused. Then they stated they could not speak to me regarding the loan because my husband had not sent in a letter giving me permission to do so. We stated that it was done at the beginning of the loan and we have a copy. They told my husband he would have to send a new letter because the other one was never put into the file. My husband then wrote an email right then and there in the office to the loan department, escrow department stated they received it and would add it to the file. Over the course of the next few months we continued to contact them and argue with them over the mortgage. We were struggling to make our bills and everything was falling behind as we took turns per bill to pay them.

Why were we having such a hard time paying the increase? Well I was working as a per-diem Nurse in XXXX, my husband and I just graduated Basic Exterior fire Opps, I then bought a new truck adding {$530.00} per month to our bill load. At the beginning of XXXX I became ill and had to put in a resignation because of my XXXX, which I put in for XX/XX/XXXX because I had another low stress job lined up on XXXX first. We then received the bill for the new mortgage amount on XX/XX/XXXX. In XXXX XXXX of our beloved horses died then we had to have our oldest dog put down in XXXX for XXXX. The job I thought I had lined up after putting in all the hiring paper work kept pushing the start date out to the beginning of XXXX then XXXX then nothing. All the while my husband and I are taking EMT classes at night. We are apart of our local volunteer fire department and so are our 2 children. We have been trying like XXXX to stay afloat but then our bills spiraled because the mortgage company would not work with us. Putting us now {$42000.00} in debt and behind. In XXXX my mom, dad and two adult disabled brothers moved in with us because their landlord sold their house without telling them till it was done and only giving them a short amount of time to move out from Tennessee. My health is now to the point where I even had to take time off from our fire department.

The modification for the loan they are giving us is not helpful at all because they have no solution to the fact that they do not and will not ever have enough money in the escrow account and we will forever be trying to Catch it up. They told me I am not aloud to negotiate the terms and forced us into accepting the modification on a trial to see if we can Afford it. Even though we are still going to end up in the same situation if not worse if they do not find a better solution.

Attached to this letter is a breakdown of everything they did. The escrow department kept assessing our escrow account off XXXX when there wasnt a house on the property. The bank has admitted to me that they have many customers that simply just shut up and pay up. Please help us. I can not lose my home for the second time. Especially after the loss of my best friend this week.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation