Equity One, Recently Renamed, Popular Mortgage Servicing, Warning: Some lenders are late in paying homeowners' property taxes from escrow accounts and they are passing the late fees on to the homeowners instead of absorbing the costs of their own mistakes !!! Cherry Hill New Jersey

This is new, and to be fair, the company needs a grace period to respond in writing. Using the phone and fax machine over the years has gotten me know where and cost me a fortune in fees/penalties.

I have just put together a "qualified written request" under Section 6 of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA).

Equity One, recently renamed, Popular Mortgage Servicing, claims that the 3-years of accumulated late fees and penalties from them being delinquent, regarding the paying of my school taxes on time, is completely my fault, because I did not forward the original tax bills to them on time. They also claim, they do not have access to that kind of tax information, even though they eagerly accessed that same information to set up my escrow account for a home mortgage, back in 2003.

Over the years I repeatedly called and faxed my tax bills to them as they requested.

I have received property tax lien notices, (i.e., sheriff sale notices), alerting me to the fact that they still have not paid my school taxes as far back as 2004. This is when I first became aware of the fact that they were mismanaging my escrow account for 3-years now.

I have an itemized statement of my escrow account showing account activity that does not agree with the Real Estate Tax office, or the School District.

Beginning December 1 of this year, they will be raising my mortgage payments $159.76 a month. This is to get back all the late fees and penalties they incurred from their own negligence.

Just recently they paid my school taxes for 2004, if paid on time it would have only been $2,138.76, but with penalties and late fees, they pulled $2920.43 out of my escrow account. They wasted $781.67 of my hard earned money on that single delinquent tax bill, there are 2-more years of tax bills with additional late fees and penalties.

If these tax bills would have been paid on time, as Equity One contracted to do, my escrow account would still be viable and healthy today.

I phoned Equity One on November 2, and they are adamant about this being all my fault. It appears that my escrow account has been, and continues to be, mismanaged by Equity One.

An increase of $159.76 per month will bring on financial hardship at the end of this month.

________

Hopefully, by them doing the right thing, I will have a good rebuttal, on their behalf.

This is the letter I just sent to them:

This is a "qualified written request" under Section 6 of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA).

In good faith, I paid a fee to have you, my lender, take care of paying my property taxes on time, which cost me approximately 2 to 3 percent of my purchase price.

I am requesting that you waive all late fees/penalties from my escrow account, and refund these fees/penalties back to me. Most reputable lenders do not routinely pay tax bills late, especially when the homeowner is current with his/her mortgage payments, then the escrow payments should be current also.

Over the years I repeatedly called you and faxed my tax bills to you, just as you requested. I have done everything on my part to resolve this 3-year old tax issue, reasonably and fairly. If these tax bills would have been paid on time, my escrow account would still be viable and healthy today.

A lending institution must pay the taxes in full if the escrow account balance is enough to cover the payment due. If there is enough money in the account and the lender fails to pay the taxes when due, it is liable to the customer for all penalties or fees incurred because of the failure to pay.

HUD interprets Section 6 (g) of RESPA to require lenders to pay borrowers' tax bills on time so long as the homeowners were current in their mortgage payments. If the lender pays the tax bill late and the homeowner is current in making the mortgage payment, HUD would consider the lender responsible for any penalty or late charge.

HUD has started a broad review of the practices of the largest loan servicers in the country. By my sending a copy of my complaint to HUD, will help them identify the worst offenders so that they may take appropriate action against companies that are doing the greatest harm. This will help HUD better monitor lenders for compliance with this law.

I understand that under Section 6 of RESPA you are required to acknowledge my request within 20 business days and must try to resolve the issue within 60 business days.

Brian
Lititz, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.

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