bank forgets to escrow our taxes????????

[loreli8]

we just recieved notification from our bank that our house payments have gone up 4oo dollars. help!our taxes and inusrance are escrowed. it took the bank 2 weeks to find out why, and their answer was that a mistake was made and our taxes from last year never got escrowed, therefore our escrowed amount is now for last year and this year taxes!!!! please help, we may be near losing our home, as we are on a tight budget the way it is. any answers? we live in indana. is this legal?

 

[cbg]

First and most important, get a copy of the paperwork if you don't have copies already from the closing. When this happened to us, it was found that through some error the box that told the bank we wanted the taxes escrowed had never been checked off. I don't remember specifically what form it was on.

If this is what happened, your chances of getting any kind of damages are considerably less than if the paperwork was completed correctly and the error was on the bank's part.

Our mortgage company paid the past due taxes and we had to make higher payments for a while to reimburse them, which is what appears to be happening here. You may be able to work something out with them to pay less of an increase for a longer period of time, but regardless of whose fault this turns out to be, you have to pay the taxes.