May 6, 2011. Supposed Closing Date
Bank Of America, shortened to BOA has turned what should have been a joyous occasion into a nightmare. I thought the selling bank, GMAC, was bad, and it is, but BOA is much worse. They draw customers in with low mortgage rates and closing costs but as the loan process continues they become all but impossible to work with. I found only a few people there competent. The monster in my dream was sleeping in the beginning. I had just confessed to my real estate agent, Michael, there was no way I could afford the closing costs Guaranteed Rate was asking. I emailed him and told him how much money I had and how discouraged I was. Admittedly, I didn't have a whole lot of money; and I expected not to hear from him again. I just knew I was going to find my earnest money check in the mail one day. Instead I received an email from Michael saying he had talked to a friend at BOA. His friend had run some numbers and the figures were much lower than those from Guaranteed Rate. I won't mention his name because it is not a common name.
I was having a good dream, pure bliss. Michael sent information about the property to BOA guy. BOA guy tells me which documents he needs and I fax them over. BOA guy emails both Michael and me that he got the documents. Bim, Bam, Boom, sweet dreams. Next BOA guy emails us both the pre-approval letter. We're talking hours not days. The next thing I knew the sellers accepted another offer. I was heartbroken, but then I got angry. I determined to find a house I liked even better. When I found another wonderful house BOA guy ran numbers again. Negations went back and forth between me and the selling bank with our agents doing all the work. BOA guy promptly ran numbers when asked. All good things must come to an end.
My file got escalated. The dream began to change. I got an email from three different people, each telling me name and position. I had no idea who I was supposed to contact for what. I actually got a mass email from one of these people telling a group of us our files had be forwarded to underwriting.
Dream gets bad. I started getting email from one or another of these three people asking for all sort of random papers to be faxed to them. Then they started asking for different versions of the same thing. For example I sent the 1099s from Social Security because they tell how much money we got last year. As everyone knows there was no cost of living increase so the amount would be the same. Still, they wanted the award letters sent out by Social Security about the same time as the 1099s. Next they wanted to know how long my disability would last because this wasn't on any of the papers they already had. Social Security swore up and down they don't give out medical information; that would have to come from a doctor. I got creative. I dug out a letter I had from an eye doctor that first saw me in 1965, a letter from a doctor that saw me in 2010, and sent a picture of me so they could see my eyes for themselves. I'm hoping they will logically conclude that nothing will change after all this time. Someone would ask and I would send.
BOA guy called to ask for money for the credit report and appraisal. Silly me, I thought I was on the home stretch. Only in my wildest dreams, the nightmare had just begun. FHA inspector wanted the siding fixed, sellers didn't want to pay, negotiations again. Michael tells sellers if they don't fix the siding we'll be forced to cancel the contract. they agree to fix the siding and the inspector passes it.
Now I'm told they have everything and papers are going to processing. I breathed a great sigh of relief. I start packing setting up utilities, looking at paint colors, making plans, enjoying myself. This euphoria didn't last long.
I start getting more random emails from the unnamed three. Some want papers I've already sent them, while others want papers that don't make any sense or don't exist. An example of a paper that doesn't make sense is a breakdown of the mortgage payment for the house in Pine Bluff. They want to know how much for principle, how much for interest, how much for taxes, and how much for insurance. Who cares, it all adds up to the same total. An explanation of the dispute with Citimortgage on my credit report doesn't exist. I've never had a dispute with Citimortgage ever. Do they believe me? No they don't. "but your credit report says there's a dispute." I ask for a clue, when, about what. This impossible person says the credit report doesn't tell any of that, it just says there's a dispute. She keeps asking me about this clueless dispute. They were so tenacious they contacted Citimortgage for documentation about this alleged dispute. There's confusion about whether they're waiting for a response from Citi or if they got documentation saying there's no dispute. Their right hand doesn't know what their left is doing. One will say we have everything while another is still asking for stuff. One will say we got it while another will say we're still waiting. Which is it?
Here is an email I got from a member of the trio.
It looks like it will be a few days, we are waiting on the documentation on the dispute from credit. We will not be able to get this probably until around Tuesday. Please understand that we are trying our best to get this to closing table. I did not copy your agent on this because I did not know if you had discussed this issue with him.
This is another example of what I mentioned before. Another of the trio said they had the document from Citi and the package had gone to processing, again. If this is their best I'd hate to see what would happen when they screw up.
Looks like I'll have to tell Michael about things I have no knowledge of that don't exist so the BOA trio can copy him about them. This person must not know who recommended BOA to me.
This person obviously doesn't realize most people will be loyal to their real estate agent over their pain in the butt loan person. Think about it, your real estate agent listed that first house you wanted to look inside so he is given extra credit in your mind for having good taste in houses. Even though you didn't buy it he showed you more houses. He listened to you think aloud about the houses you were seeing. He wrote up one, then another offer and helped negotiate with the sellers. And in my case he picked me up for each appointment. He's frustrated too, I want my house and Michael wants his pay. We're both fed up with BOA. Michael said he called one of the trio and expressed his frustration and said closing in another week is unacceptable. We don't know what if anything will come of it.
I'm under extra stress because there is a penalty clause in the sales contract with GMAC. There is a per Diem charge for every day after May sixth that we don't close. I agreed to this because I was under the impression from BOA had everything they needed and GMAC had stretched closing out another week from April twenty-ninth. Both Michael and I have made BOA aware of this penalty from the beginning and ongoing. Michael has contacted GMAC's agent to negotiate an extension. I pray it happens. I'm not too happy with GMAC either.
The FHA inspector required the damaged siding be fixed in order for the house to appraise properly. GMAC reluctantly agreed to fix it if we raised the sales price by five hundred dollars. I felt gypped and insulted when I saw the "fix". Somebody had put a few pieces of orange siding on a house with tan siding. Some pieces were about a foot long while others may have been eight feet. Orange siding lengths were place wherever needed. I realize labor is expensive but most of the work could be done without standing on a ladder. I feel I could have called Metro Board Up or Construction, got some scrap tan siding, and had them install it for much less. It's insulting because if they had used tan siding I would have looked at the work, said something like oh they fixed it and gotten on with life. Now I'm blogging about being ripped off.
"They're all crooks," my mother is fond of saying, "They're probably not going to let you have it. I'd tell them to kiss the bottom of my foot."
I told Mom, "I don't think I could be that nice."
We did a walk through Thursday before we knew we weren't closing the next day. Seeing the house again was a big morale booster. This is my house, the house I'm buying all by myself. When the closing is over one of these days and all documents are recorded I will plaster the Internet with this blog post.
May 29, 2011.
I did close on May thirteenth. I started working with a higher up at BOA and he moved things along like crazy. He also discovered that GMAC was merely servicing the loan on the house for BOA. That meant there would be no penalties for closing late. He called me the morning of the thirteenth saying, "Can you close at four?" Even though I was a Kroger and had a gillion things to do, I said, "Yes." I called Michael, finished grocery shopping, put the perishables in the fridge, showered, went to the bank a got a cashier's check, and met Michael by 3:30. The closing attorney brought in a sheath of papers. She'd rifle through them, before presenting one for me to sign. Then she would shuffle the papers again and come up with another. I don't know how she kept them straight. there were many, many papers, some the same thing. She shuffled and gave papers, I signed or initialed, Michael witnessed when needed, she took them back and randomly put them back in the pile, it seemed, and the process started again. It took about an hour altogether.
this process is like having a baby. You go through the pain of labor, and it is terrible; After the baby is born you don't remember the pain as being so bad. We're in the house now and the frustrations I went through to get hear don't seem to have been so bad now. The nightmare has been replaced with a dream come true.
The Ward members moved most of our things on May 21st. Andrea and I spent that night here. We reluctantly went back to the apartment the next evening because Andrea had another week of school. Our last week in the apartment was spent quite Spartan. I kept the computer there and we slept on an air mattress. Yesterday morning a couple from church came and drove us and the rest of our stuff over here.
Dream realized!
I'm under extra stress because there is a penalty clause in the sales contract with GMAC. There is a per Diem charge for every day after May sixth that we don't close. I agreed to this because I was under the impression from BOA had everything they needed and GMAC had stretched closing out another week from April twenty-ninth. Both Michael and I have made BOA aware of this penalty from the beginning and ongoing. Michael has contacted GMAC's agent to negotiate an extension. I pray it happens. I'm not too happy with GMAC either.
The FHA inspector required the damaged siding be fixed in order for the house to appraise properly. GMAC reluctantly agreed to fix it if we raised the sales price by five hundred dollars. I felt gypped and insulted when I saw the "fix". Somebody had put a few pieces of orange siding on a house with tan siding. Some pieces were about a foot long while others may have been eight feet. Orange siding lengths were place wherever needed. I realize labor is expensive but most of the work could be done without standing on a ladder. I feel I could have called Metro Board Up or Construction, got some scrap tan siding, and had them install it for much less. It's insulting because if they had used tan siding I would have looked at the work, said something like oh they fixed it and gotten on with life. Now I'm blogging about being ripped off.
"They're all crooks," my mother is fond of saying, "They're probably not going to let you have it. I'd tell them to kiss the bottom of my foot."
I told Mom, "I don't think I could be that nice."
We did a walk through Thursday before we knew we weren't closing the next day. Seeing the house again was a big morale booster. This is my house, the house I'm buying all by myself. When the closing is over one of these days and all documents are recorded I will plaster the Internet with this blog post.
May 29, 2011.
I did close on May thirteenth. I started working with a higher up at BOA and he moved things along like crazy. He also discovered that GMAC was merely servicing the loan on the house for BOA. That meant there would be no penalties for closing late. He called me the morning of the thirteenth saying, "Can you close at four?" Even though I was a Kroger and had a gillion things to do, I said, "Yes." I called Michael, finished grocery shopping, put the perishables in the fridge, showered, went to the bank a got a cashier's check, and met Michael by 3:30. The closing attorney brought in a sheath of papers. She'd rifle through them, before presenting one for me to sign. Then she would shuffle the papers again and come up with another. I don't know how she kept them straight. there were many, many papers, some the same thing. She shuffled and gave papers, I signed or initialed, Michael witnessed when needed, she took them back and randomly put them back in the pile, it seemed, and the process started again. It took about an hour altogether.
this process is like having a baby. You go through the pain of labor, and it is terrible; After the baby is born you don't remember the pain as being so bad. We're in the house now and the frustrations I went through to get hear don't seem to have been so bad now. The nightmare has been replaced with a dream come true.
The Ward members moved most of our things on May 21st. Andrea and I spent that night here. We reluctantly went back to the apartment the next evening because Andrea had another week of school. Our last week in the apartment was spent quite Spartan. I kept the computer there and we slept on an air mattress. Yesterday morning a couple from church came and drove us and the rest of our stuff over here.
Dream realized!
