Escrow Surplus being kept
Hello everyone!
I have a somewhat confusing question. We are 2 years into a 3 year Chapter 13 plan. So far so good. Things are looking up more and more everyday. We received a our mortgage escrow analysis in the main the beginning of February. Good news on two counts. 1) We had a huge surplus of $1919 that should (key word should) be refunded to us since the escrow was grossly over estimated for 2012. 2) our escrow payments for 2013 have been reduced by nearly $100 a month. The bad news however, we were 2 months behind in our mortgage payments due to an illness and subsequent surgery for my husband. He's all better now. Since we were 2 months behind for January and February and the escrow analysis runs March thru February of each year I contacted the mortgage company and told them that if I include the escrow portion with both payments we would contribute to the overage by $562 so I was only going to pay principal and interest for Jan and Feb. They told me to send in a letter stating that and include a copy of the analysis so that they would be forced to look into it. The analysis did say that if we were delinquent then the surplus would be retained until we became current. So I sent in the letter and 2 principal and interest payments.
I called on February 28th and confirmed that the payments posted and we were current. I called everyday last week for a status on the surplus refund and each time they confirmed we were current. When I called again on Friday I was told that because our account was delinquent they were going to hold the funds. I asked again if we were current and she said yes but no. As a whole our account was delinquent but as far as our payments we were current. I didn't understand what she meant so she said it could be because of prior missed payments. I assume they mean the mortgage arrears that were included in the Chapter 13 trustee payments that they received. I explained that the arrears had been pain in full as of December 2012 so at this point we were literally current in all aspects. She said that there was nothing that could be done and that they would hold the funds until the bankruptcy is completed....which is for another year!!! So if they are going to hold my surplus can I adjust my escrow payments myself throughout 2013? It's not like there will be a huge shortage at the beginning of the analysis since they are sitting on nearly $2000 worth of escrow right now. That $1919 was the equivalent of 8 months of escrow payments!!!
I have a somewhat confusing question. We are 2 years into a 3 year Chapter 13 plan. So far so good. Things are looking up more and more everyday. We received a our mortgage escrow analysis in the main the beginning of February. Good news on two counts. 1) We had a huge surplus of $1919 that should (key word should) be refunded to us since the escrow was grossly over estimated for 2012. 2) our escrow payments for 2013 have been reduced by nearly $100 a month. The bad news however, we were 2 months behind in our mortgage payments due to an illness and subsequent surgery for my husband. He's all better now. Since we were 2 months behind for January and February and the escrow analysis runs March thru February of each year I contacted the mortgage company and told them that if I include the escrow portion with both payments we would contribute to the overage by $562 so I was only going to pay principal and interest for Jan and Feb. They told me to send in a letter stating that and include a copy of the analysis so that they would be forced to look into it. The analysis did say that if we were delinquent then the surplus would be retained until we became current. So I sent in the letter and 2 principal and interest payments.
I called on February 28th and confirmed that the payments posted and we were current. I called everyday last week for a status on the surplus refund and each time they confirmed we were current. When I called again on Friday I was told that because our account was delinquent they were going to hold the funds. I asked again if we were current and she said yes but no. As a whole our account was delinquent but as far as our payments we were current. I didn't understand what she meant so she said it could be because of prior missed payments. I assume they mean the mortgage arrears that were included in the Chapter 13 trustee payments that they received. I explained that the arrears had been pain in full as of December 2012 so at this point we were literally current in all aspects. She said that there was nothing that could be done and that they would hold the funds until the bankruptcy is completed....which is for another year!!! So if they are going to hold my surplus can I adjust my escrow payments myself throughout 2013? It's not like there will be a huge shortage at the beginning of the analysis since they are sitting on nearly $2000 worth of escrow right now. That $1919 was the equivalent of 8 months of escrow payments!!!
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