 JulianaCaggiano
Joined: 23 Mar 2011
Posts: 1
1.49 Dollars($)
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Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:57 am Post subject: Escrow Shortage
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We close on our 1950's ranch style home in early January of 2010. We have been making our payments on time, paying what was required into our escrow account. We recently received our annual escrow analysis stating our account is -$4,452.84 for 2010 and has a projected balance of -$7984.69 for 2011. As such, our payments will jump from $1614.56/month to $2,751.72 (an additional $1,137.16/mo) starting May 1, 2011.
We have the option of paying a lump sum of $7,984.69 and then our account will be reassessed June 28th, 2011, at which point our payments drop to $2,086.33 (an increase from the current payment of $471.71).
Our school taxes went up minimally this year and our city taxes decreased. The negative balance is due to a gross miscalculation on our Lender's part. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place as my husband is active duty military and works 11 hours a day, 5-7 days a week so a second job is out of the realm of possibility. I am 6 months pregnant and cannot seek additional employment either.
Do we have any recourse? We have spoken to our lender's customer service several times but have not spoken with anyone who is willing to do anything for us. I have written to Chase asking for an explanation of the huge miscalculation and also for possible solutions. To spread the shortage out over 36 months would increase our payments to $2,308.13 (an additional $693.57/mo) , 60 months would increase our payments to $2,219.41 (an additional $604.85/mo).
We do not have $8,000 to pay on our escrow account. We also cannot afford to pay nearly $2,800/mo for our mortgage, nor can we pay any of these significant increases such as the 36 or 60 month spread. Do we have any recourse? Our lender has written back to my inquiries saying that they are "investigating" the situation. A mortgage specialist who works for our lender said that we should have anticipated an increase in payments. We did, however, anticipate our payments would mildly fluctuate coinciding with tax rates. We have a fixed rate mortgage of 5.25%, I think it is unreasonable to expect anyone to anticipate their mortgage payments increasing by nearly 50% in one year's time. Lastly, we were told that we cannot close our escrow account because the lender requires it in the state in which we reside.
We cannot sell the house as we received the $8,000 first time home buyer's tax credit which requires this house to be our main residence for 3 years or we must pay back the $8,000.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. When once we were highly anticipating the arrival of our first child, we now have this huge financial burden looming over our shoulders and consuming our thoughts. I feel as though our lender is forcing us out of our home. |
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jveenstra
Community Expert
Joined: 10 Nov 2008
Posts: 1310
Location: River Edge, New Jersey
274.62 Dollars($)
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