04/14/2008
On the <a href="http://www.bankersonline.com/lending/guru2005/gurus_ldng022105j.html">"Late Charges and Escrow Analysis"</a> Q & A, you responded that an escrow fund cannot be used to pay off late charges, however, a very prominent lending institution includes the statement in their payoff quotes that "if the payoff remittance is insufficient to pay the total amount secured by the mortgage, we will withdraw funds from the borrower's escrow account, if available, to complete such payoff." If the payoff amount included late payment charges can the escrow funds still be withdrawn and applied to the payoff amount without having to get the borrower's permission?
03/17/2008
A borrower pays off all of their VA mortgage principal, but has some late charges remaining and the escrow account still has money in it that would have been designated for taxes. Since the loan principal is paid off, can that escrow money be used to pay those late charges without violating RESPA or any other rules regarding escrow handling?
03/03/2008
The following notice is enclosed with annual escrow analysis statements which show a shortage to be repaid over a 12 month period: "Your escrow analysis statement for 2007 has a "shortage" that you can pay by September 14th. This remittance would reduce the new monthly escrow payment to a lesser amount, which would be the required projected monthly escrow payment. Please forward this statement along with your payment to the Loan Servicing Department". Is this a violation of RESPA?
06/11/2007
I have a customer that is stating it is now against the law to place a Reg CC hold on an escrow check, regardless of amount and locality, is this true?
05/21/2007
We were recently informed during a RESPA escrow rules seminar that escrows cannot be netted out on a payoff of a mortgage loan. We must send the customer a check for any overages. It was not only a surprise to us, but seemed to be a surprise to a lot of others listening. Is this correct? How do we handle escrow shortages on payoffs then?
06/19/2006
If the sellers are paying the borrower's escrows for hazard insurance and taxes, does it matter who gets the aggregate adjustment?
04/10/2006
What are the requirements for sending annual mortgage history statements to customers? We send the 1098 as required, but we are also sending a mortgage history statement to every account secured by real estate. Is this necessary?
04/03/2006
We have a customer with a mortgage loan who did not want to have the bank escrow for taxes and insurance when the loan was originated. The customer now wants the bank to escrow these items. Can the bank provide the customer with an initial escrow disclosure, and a HUD-1 indicating the cushioned amount without having to provide any other additional disclosures, and still be in compliance with all of the other regulatory disclosures (i.e. Reg Z)?
03/13/2006
Do we need a document in the loan file when a customer does not want to escrow? We had an outside vendor do loan review, and they said we are violating RESPA by not having a signed affidavit stating they did not want to escrow.
03/13/2006
We have a customer in Chapter 7. The bank holds the mortgage, and also has escrow. The mortgage is late pay, but is being paid most often just under one month late. My question is, there was an overage when the escrow analysis was completed, and we are not sure if we are to send that overage to the customer? If not, what should we do we be doing with the overage?