Chase Home Finance

Chase bought by mortgage one month after my closing. Since Sept 1, 2005 when my first payment to Chase had to be made nothing on the bill statements have been correct. I purchased a new construction in Harris County – Texas in August 2005. The first payment I made was to Market Street Mortgage for $1494.50 (this included an estimate for escrow for future taxes). Market Street forwarded that payment on to Chase once they purchased the loan. Sept 1st bill arrives from Chase – it is incorrect, asking for $1182.85. I called Chase to find out why the low payment and come to find out they took that tax cushion away as they did not obtain the correct tax information when they bought the loan. At closing I initially had approx. $1000 applied to my escrow account to get it started. After calling Chase to talk about he incorrect bill amount I told them the other mortgage company had estimated our taxes to be approx. $5500.00 a year. In turn Chase took my verbal word for this and tacked on that $5500.00 for 2005 taxes. In Texas we pay taxes accordingly: Jan 1 – homes get appraised, Mar 1 tax bills are mailed out, Apr – Tax disputes begin – Nov – Corrected tax bills mailed, Tax bills are due by Jan 31 of the next year. Our home was appraised at lot value of $24,500 for 2005 meaning the property was already appraised for that year. The next month (Oct) we received our next bill, the amount jumped to $1988.76. Chase said we were $377.00 short on escrow and that we owed some $4700.00 in taxes by Dec 31st. We were told by Chase customer service that they had received a tax bill and that Harris County estimated our taxes at $5500.00. We put in a dispute with Chase at that point. A Marion at Harris County was contacted and supposedly verbally told Chase that amount of taxes was correct. I asked Chase to send us a copy of what Harris County sent them. Well for some reason they could not do that. The reason they could not do that was because Harris County was not mailing out the tax bills until mid November. They corrected our bill back to $1182.85 until the taxes could get resolved. We what do you know. We received our Nov. statement of $1988.76. Still saying we were short on escrow. I personally called the Harris County tax office after Chase customer service told me it wasn’t their responsibility to contact the tax office. Upon calling I talked to a manager at Harris County and was informed that no one by the name of Marian worked there. Chase was called again. Chase was faxed the correct tax bill for 2005, Chase was emailed the correct tax bill for 2005. While yet another investigation/inquiry was documented at Chase they again lowered our payment to $1166.88. We have 3 taxing entities; all 3 bills have been sent to Chase, to our Builder and to us. I received my Dec statement and well it is back up to $1988.76. My escrow account was at $1811.88 with $490.00 being paid to one tax office, $170.55 to another and $171.50 to the 3rd. Does that make my escrow account short $377.00????? I think not. The customer service at Chase sucks, there is no complaint form on their website, if you call to talk to a manager they will not put you through to one unless you give them an explanation as to why you want to speak to a manager. It literally took me 24 minutes to speak to a manager when I asked for one right off the bat. Well that manager (Jennifer Wooten) was the rudest human being alive. Chase takes $765.00 a month in interest on my mortgage and all I get in return is screwed up bills – for the 4 months they have had my loan – NOTHING HAS BEEN RIGHT! The other thing I get is rude and inconsiderate customer service who half the time cannot even answer your questions. I call it predatory lending!

MAB

Houston, Texas