Escrow Accounts

[jaibird]

So I am in the middle of a very loooong, drawn out modification process with Aurora Loan Services. We are currently on our 3 or 4th modification plan.

When I called to get on this current plan they told me it was the HAMP...but to do the HAMP I would have to be willing to have an escrow account to pay my taxes and insurance. My loan was not set up with an escrow account originally...I said sure no problem.

Well it turns out that the program I am on is NOT the HAMP, I am continuing on this program because I recently got furloughed and my income does not qualify me for the HAMP after my furlough and if I use my husbands income we make to much for the HAMP. We decided to ride out the current program we are on to see if we can get modified since we just made our 4th and final payment. We figure if we get denied on this one...we will then try the HAMP as there is some child support that I can try to claim as income.....

Anyways, our situation is complicated and this process has been frustrating to say the least....but the interesting thing is they ALREADY set up the excrow account and have paid all of my taxes including the back taxes owed and have been paying my insurance????? Just seems weird considering we have not been modified as of yet and are only making our reduced payment plan payments. Has anyone experienced anything similar? Or know what is going on. ALS surprises me everyday...I swear each representative tells me something different. One guy told my husband it would be a good idea to keep making the payments after our 4th one while we were in review and another lady told me it is illegal for them to accept anymore payment after the 4th one until we are modified!!!!! LOL...this is just one example of the discrepency between representatives.

[caldwellb02]

Join the club. I haven't heard of any bank that treats any of us with respect.

[Hopefull2009]

ALS surprises me everyday...I swear each representative tells me something different.

LOL - They surprise me too. I've been attempting mod with Aurora for a LONG time now. I've been on those forebearance plans they love to offer. I'm finally in the real MHA trial period now - 2 payments down, 1 to go. My second is still in limbo with mod pending review since June.

The people at Aurora are nice enough, but each and every cust service rep has a different level of knowledge.

You can do a search for my Aurora experience if you want.

Good luck!

[nativelasvegan]

Just to be on the safe side, it might be a good idea to confirm with your tax assessor/collector office that the taxes have indeed been paid. I would contact the homeowner insurance company too to confirm it has been paid. ........... don't much trust banks these days.

[jaibird]

Thanks for your responses.

Hopeful~ I have been following your story and am in the same boat as you. We were at the same place, expcept you went on the HAMP and I did not. I hope that they stick to there deal with you. Kind of scary reading the stories of how people were denied even after making their HAMP payments. Hope yours doesn't end up that way.

I did check with my tax account that is what is telling me all my balances are at 0. I haven't even asked Aurora about it yet....just makes no sense since they haven't even committed to a modification with me yet, and I am not on the HAMP program. If they don't modify me then they are spending thousands of dollars on my taxes....just was wondering if anyone had dealt with this before.

[Hopefull2009]

Hopeful~ I have been following your story and am in the same boat as you. We were at the same place, expcept you went on the HAMP and I did not. I hope that they stick to there deal with you. Kind of scary reading the stories of how people were denied even after making their HAMP payments. Hope yours doesn't end up that way.

Jaibird - I must have been half asleep the other night when I posted this. The next morning when I saw it was actually you posting, I though - duh.... was in that same Aurora boat as me in my other thread.

Just a thought on the escrow issue - you mention back taxes? If your taxes were overdue, there's a good chance they paid them to avoid a lien on the property. Somewhere in your orig loan documents, there's probably a provision stating such - they can at their discretion advance these amounts for taxes. Do you have and do you pay your own insurance? If there's no insurance in effect, they'd definitely want to take care of that (to protect themselves).

This whole thing has been a nightmare. My 3rd official trial payment is due November 1st. I did get a call on my 2nd mortgage where the mod was pending. That was "due" to be resolved by mid September. When no answer came, they put in a request for an update. I received a call from some dept who stated that because Aurora holds both of my loans, they were waiting to see how the first one pans out. I did specifically ask about the 2nd lien program and she said she'd heard of it, but the software, etc. and additional guidelines were not in place (as you know, a typical Aurora answer when they're not sure).

So.... hopefully I'll hear something (but I won't hold my breath) by the end of this month, or next on my mod.