OK!!!
So, I just wrote to Shellpoint through their website portal requesting that my escrow account be dropped, given that my equity is greater than 20% and my loan is conventional, which is what is required under federal guidelines. I'll follow up by phone on Tuesday (since tomorrow is a banking holiday). To
ixtap's point, here's the law, which is new information to me and maybe other people:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1639dDuration of mandatory escrow or impound account: An escrow or impound account established pursuant to subsection (b) shall remain in existence for a minimum period of 5 years, beginning with the date of the consummation of the loan, unless and until—
(1) such borrower has sufficient equity in the dwelling securing the consumer credit transaction so as to no longer be required to maintain private mortgage insurance;
(2) such borrower is delinquent;
(3) such borrower otherwise has not complied with the legal obligation, as established by rule; or
(4) the underlying mortgage establishing the account is terminated.
The current escrow balance is $1155; the new taxes will be ~$6000/yr (I'm calling the tax office on Tuesday to get a precise number). The prorated amount of $~$1000 was from August through the end of 2019.
I don't know if $260/month increase is so out of line; I think it was the rep's inability to answer my questions about it that infuriated me. The issue wasn't that the $260 was too high; I wanted to know why,
exactly, I couldn't keep my mortgage payment the same and pay the difference to my escrow account on my own, and she kept saying that it was "against the law", which just didn't sound right to me.
As a side note, I wrote to Ditech a few years ago (when they still had my loan) asking to drop PMI when my apartment's appraisal indicated that I had more than $100K in equity (today, it's worth ~$254K). Ditech said yes, but never mentioned that I could also drop the escrow account. And when I was having that argument with the Shellpoint rep a few days ago, she also never told me that I could drop it.
Is there some financial incentive for mortgage companies to maintain control over escrow accounts?Anyway,
Villanelle, thank you for this suggestion; I hope it's that simple! If so, I'd
still have to deal with Shellpoint as the loan servicer but they'd only have to auto-debit the P&I every month - how hard could that be?? (#eyeroll #famouslastwords)
Fingers crossed, and thank you to everyone who chimed in to help - you are very much appreciated!!!