Consumer complaint received 2025-03-22 00:00:00
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Trouble during payment process — Escrow, taxes, or insurance
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: TX

Complaint narrative:
I received my property tax statements on XX/XX/XXXX XXXX and sent them to Chase to confirm that they were received and would be paid out of escrow. At the time, I believed that we had chosen to escrow taxes. I received the following reply from Chase the same day : " We understand the importance of ensuring your county taxes are paid on time. Your county taxes are included in escrow, and we will disburse a payment on your behalf. The bill you received is for your records only, as your local taxing authority will electronically bill us when a payment is due. We will pay the full amount of the bill upon receipt, even if it is more or less than we are projecting. Once the bill has been paid from your escrow account, it will be listed in your loan history on chase.com and on your monthly statement generated following the tax payment ''. 

With that response, I filed away the tax bill. On XX/XX/XXXX, I received a delinquent tax statement in the mail stating that the tax payment due on XX/XX/XXXX was not paid and taxes are delinquent, along with a penalty for paying late. I was incredibly surprised given I had cleared this topic with Chase in XXXX. I immediately reached out to Chase on XX/XX/XXXX asking why my taxes were delinquent despite having been assured in XX/XX/XXXX that my taxes were to be paid out of escrow. I received the following response : " Upon reviewing your account, I have confirmed that your taxes are non-escrowed, meaning they are not included in your escrow as per your closing disclosure, which I have attached for your reference. Your account is currently escrowed solely for your homeowners insurance, and you are responsible for paying your property taxes directly to XXXX XXXX ''. 

I immediately replied with the initial correspondence from XX/XX/XXXX whereby I was told taxes would be paid from escrow. I didn't receive a response despite following up multiple time and finally on XX/XX/XXXX ( 2 weeks after my response ), I get the following reply from Chase : Thank you for reaching out to us regarding your concerns about the escrow on your loan. We truly appreciate your patience and understanding as we worked to address this matter. After carefully reviewing your loan, we found that it is set up as non-escrowed for taxes. We sincerely apologize for any confusion this may have caused, especially since you received an email on XX/XX/XXXX, from one of our agents incorrectly stating that taxes were included in the escrow. We are truly sorry for this oversight and any inconvenience it may have caused you. 
Upon reviewing your mortgage statement from XX/XX/XXXX, ( attached ), we see that your escrow amount of {$330.00} was only applied to insurance, leaving you responsible for paying the taxes. Despite the information provide you were aware that taxes are paid by you. The penalty fee of {$490.00} will not be reimbursed. Our apologies ''. 

So, Chase clearly acknowledged that I was mislead and despite being " sorry '', they would not reimburse the penalty fee of {$490.00} at the time that I was subjected to because they messed up and mislead me into believing my taxes were covered by escrow. I have been trying to get them to reimburse me for the penalty fee for weeks now but have not had any success. This is ridiculous that Chase can mislead a customer and then simply apologize but not compensate the customer for the penalty being faced due to Chase 's negligence and incompetence.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief