Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC Ocwen Financial Corporation Ocwen is not paying my property taxes out of my Escrow account. Really hard to contact. Responsible for me getting additional fees, taxes charged - Now my taxes have been purchased. West Palm Beach Florida

 Going on two years ago, Ocwen bought my loan from Chase.  It came as a complete surprise because I was always current on it, but I guess that's how it goes.  It's actually a rental property for me.  I lived there before remarrying and tried to sell right at the moment of the housing crisis.  So it's worth less than the mortgage.  Oh well - lots going through that right now, right?   My first trepidation was...who/what the heck is Ocwen?  

Still making payments on time / regularly.  Have an escrow account set up so they can pay my taxes and it's about 500 dollars of my bill.  Well I started noticing some weird activity on the website, where it didn't appear my taxes were being paid at the normal intervals in Cook County and there appeared to be duplicate tax payments.   I caught wind of this around Nov / Dec of 2012 and checked the Cook County Tax Portal to see that I was delinquent on my taxes.   That they hadn't been paid yet.   I started calling and although the operators couldn't specifically answer my questions, they indicated I should write the tax department by email with copies of my tax bill and it would be taken care of.  I'm thankful I at least have this documentation.  Well I checked on it and nothing.  Called back and emailed the tax department again (which has no direct number) and again asking for some sort of reply which I never received. 

Once again in the Spring of 2013 I saw that a tax payment was made on the "website", but it wasn't recorded in Cook County.   So I thought...give it a minute to register on the Cook County website right?  Well then a month or so later, the website showed that reverse payment again.    So I called again and emailed the information again.

Well this summer I get a notice from Cook County saying my taxes are being sold.  I frantically called back Ocwen, spent a long time on the phone, got connected to an actual american.  Expressed the importance.   Gathered all of the information again and emailed it per instructions from the customer service representative.  I foolishly think thought that it was taken care of.  Again I saw the payment showing on the website, but not the Cook County portal.  

At the end of August I got an escrow refund notification for over $5000.   Obviously the refund was this high because they never issued any payment on my taxes, right?   I talked to the operator on the phone and askeud sarcastically, "Why do you think I'm getting a $5000 escrow refund?"  Gosh, how annoying to keep hearing the guy explain back to me..."It's because there is an overage in your escrow account so we are issuing an escrow refund" yuk yuk right..."no...It's because your company refuses to pay my property taxes". 

So...I figured. Okay, get the escrow refund and start paying the taxes myself.   Before that could happen, In October, 2013 I received notification that my taxes had been sold.   So anyone that has gone through that knows that you have get a settlement bill from the County.    There are a lot of penalties and fees associated with it.     So my big problem is, I'm paying more on my loan to hold money in escrow, but it's not being used properly.  And...now I'm getting charged tax penalties for the last 2 and a half years.  Which I'd like to recover.

So it could be worse - at this point, I'm probably out somewhere between 600 - 1000 in penalties at this point.    But I am concerned with this company and how they operate.  For the record, my Homeowners insurance payments are being made.  That's why it's so confusing that they don't just issue the payments for the taxes.

Like many people are reporting here, calling Ocwen is a nightmare.  You have to deal with the foreign call centers and although english has been an issue, they just have no idea what is going on, cannot understand logic, and just read from the script.  It's really frustrating.  I have also experienced the hangups after long hold times.    The whole situation is depressing.  You don't really want to have to deal with it.   There is a feeling of complete powerlessness, because their whole company is PO boxes and 800 numbers and emails.   I might as well send money to that guy in Nigeria that claims to be a prince.   Part of the problem is my own problem for not dealing with this 24 hours a day until it's solved.   But you know what?  I pay the mortgage every month, I didn't ask for them to buy the mortgage, and the escrow account is set up so I shouldn't have to worry about these payments in the first place. What a hassle!!!

Oh...and here is the kicker.  So after getting my Escrow refund.  My payment went up by 10 dollars a month because I now had an escrow shortage.  Couldn't they have just kept an extra $120???

There has got to be a way out of this, but it was comforting to see that there are so many complaints about this company.  I'm sure they are warranted.   Anyone else have an issue like this?