Well the problem all started back when Citi bought out AMC, our original mortgage company. They started sending letters, calling trying to set up an escrow account which would would always say no.
On November 6 they paid our taxes claiming we hadn't paid 2006's yet. But we did so they went towards 2007's... Days before i even received the 2007 tax statement!!! Come January we get out statement in from Citi and our house payment had jumped from $578 to $1100 because of this escrow account. So my husband and i started calling trying to find out what happen. Of course they said they were paying late taxes and we had to pay them back. I contacted our county's tax office to see what I could do. They sent me proof that our taxes were in fact not late and that they did pay 2007's 3 months before they are even due (due at the end of Jan. With out interest) I was told they could request a refund and the county would refund the whole amount and then we would be able to pay them ourselves.
I called Citi and they said they would not request a refund and if i didn't pay the whole $1100 month note that they would foreclose on the house. Now our taxes for 2007 are only $1200, which i have no idea how in the world these people think that that would make our house note go up $522 a month!!!
We then tried to close the escrow account since they were never suppose to open one. At first we were told that we couldn't until the amount was paid off, then they told us we couldn't period and then someone finally told us to fax in a letter requesting that it be closed. We faxed in the first letter in early January, we were told it was closed. We got in February statement and it stated it wasn't closed. So we started calling again.
This time they said we had to pay off the remaining balance in the account before it could be closed. It took over 4 days to finally get an answer of how much. We were told numbers from $100 to over $4000!!! The amount they finally said we needed to pay to close this account was $750 so i sent that in on 2/22 on top of a $700 payment earlier that month.
On 2/26/08 I received a letter stating that the escrow account had been closed but the remaining balance of $750 would be spread out over 12 month making our house payments go up!!!
So I started calling yet again to find out what was going on. This time i was told that the $750 that i sent in for the escrow account had went to the regular payment account. But yet my payments are sent to Illinois and i sent this money to the escrow department in California!!!
We were told that if we paid the $750 then it would make our payments go back down to the $578 from here on out and for Jan and Feb. But when we sent in that money on top of our monthly payments which i had been paying over the $578, they said we were still behind because the payments went up to $1100 and that needed to be paid.
I feel like this is a losing battle. No one ever tells me the same thing and i was told that they don't have "personal" extensions so you can never talk to the same person twice.
I had contacted the BBB and Texas's attorney general. I've also contacted the tax assessor for my county and have all the letters that she had sent me on what could of been done on their part to avoid this. It looks to me like they are crooked and and trying to screw people. I will not back down!!!
Does anyone have any tips for me or is anyone going threw the same thing???
Tiffany
South of Houston, Texas
U.S.A.
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