Countrywide Home Loans ripoff, trying to force me out of my home, claims I owe taxes and additional escrow in less then a year raised my payment nearly double the original Dallas Texas

The most important thing for a homeowner to know about their mortgage with an escrow account is to KNOW what your taxes are by contacting your tax collector/township and knowing what your home owners insurance premium is.

Since you live in PA, you have township and school taxes. Most of the time, they're semi-annual so that's 2 tax payments from escrow per year. Sometimes your school tax is the same way.

Add them all up and get your annual tax amount.

Next, find out what your home owners insurance is. Make sure your carrier KNOWS that YOU want to be notified when YOUR rates change.

Add that to your taxes per year.

You now have your "Escrow" amount per year. Now, divide it by 12.

So if your taxes total $7000 and your home owners is *imaginary #* $695 that would be $7695 a year, right? And divided by 12 months is $641.25 a month escrow payment. That's your "MINIMUM Escrow Payment". Since taxes and insurances are ALWAYS subject to change you have to understand that so can your escrow payment per month/year.

Your Mortgage payment has 3 facets: Principal, Interest, and Escrow. They're bunched into ONE monthly payment but have different purposes. Your escrow is *NOT* a part of your principal and interest and it is *NOT* affect by your interest rate!

So, now you know what your minimum escrow payment should be... Look at your escrow balance. Do you have enough in there to cover the taxes and insurance based on what has been disbursed?

Escrow is based on a rolling 12 month period. Since your taxes are semi-annual and your insurance is annual, you need to know when these tax & insurance payments are due.

Even though a mortgage company offers escrow, it is still YOUR responsiblity as the home owner to KNOW what your paying for with YOUR money. IF you DON'T know, you can't really blame anyone but yourself for the negative escrow and payment increase.

The mortgage company provides the service of paying your taxes/insurance on an annual/semi-annual/quartly basis as a courtesy. Your money goes into the escrow on a monthly basis so that it can be drawn upon to pay those taxes/insurances that come due. If the money isn't there, the mortgage company will still pay whats due and pass the increase on to you in the form of an additional monthly payment. In essence, you're paying them back for making sure your taxes/insurance were paid when they were due.

Sure things happen and things get out of whack. One way to prevent a MAJOR jump is to KNOW ahead of time and always, always know what your escrow balance is.

I hope this helps understand a little better. It helped me understand when it was explained this way.