Mortage payments

Due to unforseen cirmsumstances we had to make our mortage payment a couple of weeks late this month, yesterday I called the mortage company and told them of the situation. I told them that I would be making our mortage payment on the Nov 3. I was told they could not except any payments after the 1st of the month. Our usual due date is the 20th of the month. So I explained to them that we would not have the funds available until Nov 3, to which they replied once again they could not take a payment after the first. I was then told my the company to borrow the money, use a credit card or get a cash advance somewhere, this is just not an option. They then told me to do a check over the phone and that it probably wouldn't clear for a couple of days and if the bank did return it, they would just keep putting it through until it was paid. We are not behind on any mortage payments and I even offered to send more than our usual mortage payment but they insisted that they could not take a payment after the 1st of month. If I do this checkover the phone thing, it's going to get me in trouble with my bank and of course they are going to charge me a bunch of fees. Why can't they excet payments after the 1st of month? What should we do?

There's most likely a clause in your mortgage between you and the lender which sets out the conditions regarding late payments. It probably also makes a difference to the lender how many times you have been late in the past (different rules might apply in this situation; again see specific language in mortgage). In my experience, lender's accept late mortgage fees but 1) they exact high penalty payment and 2) they report them to credit bureaus because 3) after a certain number of late payments they begin foreclosure proceedings.