SunTrust Banks, Inc. Mortgage Complaint

SunTrust Banks, Inc. Mortgage department,

Conventional fixed mortgage Loan servicing, payments, escrow account California

We mortgaged our - condo with SunTrust Bank in -/-/-. We recently sold our condo on -/-/- and during our closing proceedings it came to light that we owed the - - $2600.00 in penalties and fees. This is money that we had no idea that we owed. We have always escrowed our taxes since mortgaging with SunTrust. We opened up an inquiry with SunTrust who told us that our Homestead Exemption expired and it was n't reflected in our tax bill - only in a supplemental bill that was sent directly to us-the homeowners-and therefore they are n't responsible. We never received a bill and therefore have been accruing late payments and interest since -/-/-. I can not fathom how, when SunTrust assumed responsibility for paying our taxes and then failed to pay them in full, they can not take responsibility for the penalties owed. If they have faulty reporting on their end, why is it our responsibility to pay what we do n't know we owe especially when we believe they are paying our taxes each year? I am totally astounded at the inability of the system whereby a huge bank and the government tax department can not maintain a system to keep things running smoothly. Why is the consumer being penalized for something that they were totally unaware of and something they thought was being handled by the bank they were paying to pay their mortgage? We are hoping to recover these fees since we do not feel we are responsible for them given SunTrust took over responsibility to pay our taxes when we escrowed them. They will not help us and only insist we were responsible. Additionally they keep telling us that they would have no way of knowing we owed more in taxes when the Homestead Exemption expired but should n't that have just been an increase on our tax bill that they would see whereby they could just pay more in taxes as they needed to on our behalf?