late fee on escrow?

[windchime]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
Florida. Made my mortgage payment on time as always, but the escrow went up ( I didn't know) so the payment was $33.55 short. They called me to make the additional payment over the phone. Which is fine, but they want to charge me $12.00 to do that. I said no to the $12.00 and the person on the line said don't dictate to me what I can take out of your bank account. Then she said if I didn't make this payment today with the $12.00 fee on monday they are going to charge me a $50.00 late fee. Needless to say I told her NOT to take anything out of my bank account. So my question is can they charge me a $50.00 late fee for the payment being short only the new escrow amount difference.

 

[Zigner]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
Florida. Made my mortgage payment on time as always, but the escrow went up ( I didn't know) so the payment was $33.55 short. They called me to make the additional payment over the phone. Which is fine, but they want to charge me $12.00 to do that. I said no to the $12.00 and the person on the line said don't dictate to me what I can take out of your bank account. Then she said if I didn't make this payment today with the $12.00 fee on monday they are going to charge me a $50.00 late fee. Needless to say I told her NOT to take anything out of my bank account. So my question is can they charge me a $50.00 late fee for the payment being short only the new escrow amount difference.

Yes -

You screwed up and ignored the notice. Pay the extra $12.

 

[windchime]

No I didn't ignore the notice, I didn't get a notice, and their statement is very hard to understand so I just pay the same thing each month. They mail the monthly statements before they credit a payment so it always looks like there are two months due. But it's not the total of 2 months. It's all broken up. 2 months escrow, 2 months pinciple, 2 months interest.

 

[Zigner]

No I didn't ignore the notice, I didn't get a notice, and their statement is very hard to understand so I just pay the same thing each month. They mail the monthly statements before they credit a payment so it always looks like there are two months due. But it's not the total of 2 months. It's all broken up. 2 months escrow, 2 months pinciple, 2 months interest.

Right. You misunderstood the statement. You made a mistake.
Pay the $12 and move on.

 

[Zigner]

The $12 fee is probably a pay-by-phone charge.

That is definitely a safe assumption, considering that the OP told us exactly that.

 

[windchime]

Well the rep from Green Tree called me back today and started yelling at me. When I asked to speak to her superviser she refused.

I went on line to look up complaints and found I am not the only one they are doing this to. They make a habit of raising escrow without tell you and then charge you a $50.00 late fee if you don't agree to pay it over the phone and pay a $12.00 vendor fee. The vendor fee they said is for western union. Then if you don't pay the fees they call it a partal payment and report it to the credit bureau.

From what I have found out today, they have more than a two month cushion in my escrow and therefor can not raise it. So I will be requesting an audit be done on green tree.

 

[STEPHAN]

Whatever you do, I would make sure nothing is reported to the credit history by keeping my payments up to date. The $12 do not justify a bad credit history.

 

[FarmerJ]

You are also free to find enough funds to pay your property taxes in person and your insurance ahead your self so that way no matter what they do re your escrow in reality you owe nothing and there is nothing to adjust unless your insurance or property tax goes up. One loan we had was doing some crappy stuff so we made a extra two payments and they have been told we wont ever allow you to get away with this again.