Not sure why I should talk about it here, but I need to vent and it would be nice to keep a record. Hopefully this is something that I will be able to look back on and laugh, several months or years from now.

Day one of the escrow mortgage crisis. Yesterday's mail included our latest statement from our mortgage co, including the annual escrow review. Although our monthly payments on principal and interest should remain fairly stable, the escrow amount can go up or down depending on taxes and insurance costs. So this month they said there has been a shortage in the escrow account over the last year, and we'll need to pay $118 more per month (apparently for at least the next year). That's a 21% increase over what we've been paying every month up to this point.

Our escrow payment appears to have doubled, although it's hard to tell because they're listing one amount to make up for the shortage ($70+ per month?) and another figure for the new increased escrow amount ($180+ per month). If I'm remembering and calculating correctly, it appears that their original projections for our escrow costs fell short by 32%.

I would have thought that the amount of detailed analysis they do of one's finances and credit history would show them where one's breaking point is, but apparently not. If we had known that we would have to pay this much every month, we might not have agreed to buy the house. For that matter, if they had known that we would have to pay this much, would they have allowed us to buy the house? I don't want to spend money for legal advice, but I need to find out how wrong an estimate is allowed to be before it constitutes incompetence or fraud.

Can someone hold you to a thirty year contract based on an estimate with a margin of error give-or-take 32% ? Am I responsible for the shortfall instead of the person who made drastically inaccurate projections of our costs?

Tune in next week when our hero says, "STICK A FISCAL TRISCUIT IN YOUR FIDUCIARY PITUITARY!"