What Could Be Happening to the Mortgage!

It could be property taxes or a flexible interest rate. Try to be patient until you can talk to the bank people. That is a lot. However it COULD be a mistake. That happened to my sister with her mortgage, scared her silly.

If you can find your paper work, I would check for a balloon payment or note of increase, etc. Hopefully, someone just adjusted your account instead of someone elses and it can be fixed easily.

There is also a yearly adjustment that occurs. We get one every year. Last year it said that we were $500 short in our escrow and that we could make a one time payment, or we could pay increases of $100+ for five months.

I would also double check with your homeowners insurance. This year they raised the 'cost of rebuilding' amount which increase our required escrow amount.

M.

It sounds like your mortgage was only set to be at that amount for a certain number of years. After that, the bank can up the payment or your interest rate automatically goes up. You need to look into doing a refinance quickly. Don't automatically go through your bank- check with an independent mortgage broker, who will have many more options and loan packages at their disposal. Hopefully if you've built up some equity and your credit is decent, you can refinance. But look into it NOW- do not put it off!!

My initial reaction is that this is a Bank of America mortgage... They pulled this garbage with my husband. It ended in him losing his house. Thank goodness I have a house... This is a HUGE increase at one time. The mortgage company (whoever it may be) SHOULD be sending something telling you that you've had an escrow shortage and give you the option to give them the money all at once or up the payment over time. That's what has ALWAYS happened with me. I've had 3 different mortgages with 3 different companies and that has always happened if there was an escrow shortage. A water bill should never increase a mortgage like this. Not unless you've avoided paying your water bill for years... I can't imagine that happening. You can check with your city officials about tax increase. They are unbias and will be completely honest about it. My city taxes have DECREASED in this economy. Being in Michigan, you shouldn't have this issue unless the bank/mortgage holder is screwing you.

You've been in the home since 99... There shouldn't be a homestead issue either. Keep being pushy until you get an answer. If your credit is all good and well, check into getting a mortgage through a credit union. Right now would be the perfect time. And you can get a 5yr mortgage just to cover what you currently owe... Something to ponder.

I've been through just about everything financial you could imagine. Mortgage, forclosure, refinancing, bankruptcy, a nearly 780 credit score.... If you have any questions, don't hesitate to PM me. : )

is it Citimortgage? They tried to do this to us last year. They said that there was an "estimated shortfall" in the escrow. That made no sense since that year's escrow was covered and our taxes went down, so if anything it should have an excess. It took us a full year of paperwork and phone calls and irritation before it was finally fixed - they lowered our rate from 7 1/8% to 7% (whoo hooo) and kept the payment about the same. I still don't understand why they couldn't drop us down to what the rate is, about 5%.
make sure that you write down who you talk to and when, you just might need it.
it seems like since your mortgage is almost paid off, it shouldn't have any reason to go up...if it was an ARM, it would have gone up already...most of those went up about 2 yrs ago.
good luck!
D.

Do you have your original mortgage documents? What do they say about a fixed rate.? Do you pay your property taxes or does the bank? The increase in payment could be as a result of an increase in the property tax rate or an increase in the valuation of your house. It could be that there had not been enough money for taxes in the prior year, so they are requiring a "catch -up" payment and a higher amount for the new year. Ask for a full accounting from the bank next week. Also, did your original loan require PMI (private mortgage insurance for when a downpayment does not equal at least 20% of the home value)?? If it did, and you have more than a 20% equity in your house, then you can get the PMI dropped which would reduce the monthly payment. There are all kinds of great mortgage rates out there right now--what is your rate and how does that compare to the current rates? If there is a difference, try to negotiate a better rate with your bank without having to go through the process of switching companies. Good luck!

I agree with the other posters - check your original documents. Also, look at your last statement, it shuold show you how much is in your escrow account and how much of your payment goes toward your escrow account. In addition, you should have received a tax notice that would show you if there has been any increase (more likely to be a decrease) - if you can't find the one you were mailed, it is usually available online or you can call your city for the info. It is possible that the water payments have been included in which case you need to follow up with the city to find out why/how that happened. Document all communications with the lender - mail documents by certified mail and keep a rock solid papertrail. With 4 years left on your mortgage you don't want to risk losing your home for some stupid bureaucratic error.

Good luck.

Take a look at the original documents, but also call the town and county. It sounds like your escrow is depleted, but you need to find out why! It is entirely possible that your taxes did increase, but may be something that you were not aware of. Did your town have a recent referendum or increase in school taxes. It's possible that when the town or county "billed" the bank- you didn't put enough in to cover the new charges and now they are adding it to the mortgage.

Regardless, I would go to the bank and ask to speak to someone- even if it's not "your person". This way your question is noted in your file, should you elect not to pay until it's clarified! The mortgage officer should be able to answer regardless.

Could be an adjustable rate mortgage, or property taxes. Both are usually included in mortgage payments. Good luck!

My house payment increased every year for the first 5 years. It was an escrow shortage due to increasing insurance. Why State Farm didn"t send us a courtesy letter to let us know is beyond me.....

I have never heard of a mortgage increasing. We've built 2 homes and have owned others and that has never happened.

Are you sure you do not have an adjustable rate mortgage?

We've never done escrow/insurance because we prefer to let that build in our own savings account and pay when it is due. We know those payments will be due and we save for them throughtout the year and we get interest on that money instead of the bank using our funds.

Someone at your mortgage company can help you. All they have to do is check your account and tell y ou why. The fact that you specific person is on vacation is just a blow off because someone else does not want to do it.

I'd demand some answers and I would not call, I would go to the office.

I do know, mortage companies are swamped right now with people refinancing because of low rates. The rates are creeping back up now but many people locked in a lower rates, we are one of them....we went from a rate of 5 3/8 to 4 1/2% locked in, no adjustable.

This does not sound right to me..... check it out asap

Somebody at the bank should be able to look thru this and tell you. Is this information not broken down on your monthly statements??

You bought at a good time, you have never refinanced or taken out a loan. I don't think you should worry, and in a week you will have it cleared up when the guys gets back.

Did you finance on an arm? That may be the problem.

Bottom line, you need to read your docs, and see if you can find a 3rd party broker to help you re-fi or sort through what's happening.

It could be a balloon or an adjustable rate, but from what you say it doesn't sound like that. Sounds more like an escrow shortage. I used to work in customer service at a mtg company so I dealt with alot of people getting a bad surprise like this.

It must be that either the taxes or insurance went up dramatically. And it must have gone up quite alot already this year. What happens is, it goes up, you escrow payment does not (because they only review your escrow once a year to make sure enough is going in). So, they continue to pay the taxes and insurance even though there's not really enough money in there. There is a low point each year when taxes and ins have just been paid. They are required by law to keep a certain amount of cushion in the account above and beyond the amount they have to pay (also helps them for when these situations happen and payments go up but escrow payments going in don't go up until later). So now you have to replenish the escrow so that the cushion is in there, plus pay back the "extra" that they paid in the last year while you were still paying the same amount, PLUS you have to also pay whatever the new higher taxes and insurance are divided by 12 for the coming year. You CAN pay off the shortage (the cushion plus the amount you are short from the last year) in one lump sum if you are able to do that, then the payment would only go up by the amount the ins and taxes went up divided by 12, but usually it is kind of a lot. This is why I always watch really closely on my mortgage statement and tax bill to make sure that my taxes haven't gone up much from what we were paying the previous year (we don't have escrow for insurance because we live in a condo). If you ever notice that the amount has gone up then you can either dispute the tax amount or start paying to the mtg company some extra money to go into escrow so that you won't be hit with such a big problem when they do the analysis each year. Hope that makes sense to you.

If this is what has happened a statement should have been sent to you to explain it (although it can be slightly confusing). There should be someone at the company you can speak with besides this person on vacation. Unless your mtg is at a teeny tiny bank (which hardly any of them do mtg anymore) anyone in customer service should be able to do this.

An adjustable rate mortgage usually adjusts either every 3 or 5 years so I doubt from what you said that that is the case. There are balloon mortgages where the payments are set for a certain amount of time and then a very large payment is due at the end (the remainder of the mortgage) unless you refinance. If you have one of these it should be clear on the paperwork from the closing or from your mtg company that that is the case.