They warned the servicer the tax bill was in court. It paid anyway, the suit says
A Texas couple has sued Rocket Mortgage, alleging the servicer paid property taxes they were still contesting in court, then more than doubled their monthly mortgage payment to recover the money.
The suit, filed June 29, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, does not ask a judge to decide whether the taxes are owed. That dispute, according to the filing, is already underway in Texas state court. The federal case zeroes in on a servicing question with wide reach: when a borrower says a tax bill is disputed and in litigation, what can - and can't - the servicer do?
The plaintiffs, a married couple who are representing themselves, lay out their account in court papers. Supplemental property tax assessments on their Plano home for 2022 through 2025 came under dispute, the filing says, after the Collin Central Appraisal District removed homestead and disabled-veteran exemptions. The couple says they fought the assessments, pursued judicial review, and secured an abatement in a related collection case on or about December 30, 2025 - an order they say paused collection while the tax dispute continued.
The homeowners say they gave Rocket Mortgage clear notice, beginning around June or July 2025 and repeatedly afterward, that the taxes were contested, that the matter was in court, and that the servicer should check the records before paying anything.
Rocket paid the taxes regardless, according to the lawsuit. The filing says the servicer contacted the tax office, confirmed the exemptions were gone, found the taxes listed as delinquent, and paid them to bring the loan current, pointing to its reading of the deed of trust as requiring payment to protect its lien.
The escrow fallout is the heart of the case. A May 19, 2026 Annual Escrow Account Disclosure Statement showed a shortage of $19,525.50, the suit says, and lifted the monthly payment to $3,880.56, effective July 1, 2026, from a later interim figure of $3,337.45. The couple says their payment had run near $1,740 a month before any of this. Spreading the shortage over twelve months added about $1,627.13 to each payment. Rocket offered to stretch the repayment over twenty-four months, according to the filing, but the plaintiffs say that missed the point.
The lawsuit also says Rocket Mortgage acknowledged a separate error on the 2025 taxes - stating, in the filing's account, that those taxes were updated incorrectly in the servicer's own system, went unpaid as a result, and that the company covered the related penalties and interest.
The claims include breach of contract, violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and Regulation X, a demand for a full escrow accounting, and declaratory and injunctive relief. The filing says the higher payment threatens default and foreclosure on a home where one of the plaintiffs lives with two children with disabilities.
For loan servicers, the lesson is operational. The case is a live test of how you treat a borrower's warning that a tax bill is disputed and abated, and how carefully you document the decision to advance escrow funds when the borrower has told you not to.
The allegations remain unproven. No court has ruled on any of the claims.
