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Mortgage refinancing - scam or stupidity?

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tellafriend

Junior Member
California

8 months ago we refinanced our mortgage for a much lower rate (from 8% to 5.7%) and shorter term (from 30yr to 15 yr.). We basically had no problems qualifying except that the bank wanted us to have at least $3000 in the bank. I guess that made us look better or something. No problem although $3000 to us is alot of money we scraped it up and put it in our account.

We were promised from the get go that there would only be 1 out of pocket expense and that was for the appraiser ($300). We were glad because we had a sick kid on our hands and the money in the bank was all we had.

Everything was fine until the appraiser left our home. I estimated he came in about $3000 under what I was expecting our home to be worth. A realestate friend couldn't figure out how he came in so low either.

When the final papers arrived for us to sign the total was short what we needed to close the deal. We figured out they shorted us on the second, which defineatly had to be paid. The amount they shorted us? $3000.

Is there a pattern here yet?

We called our lender, told them what happened and they said no problem, sign and we'll take care of it.

We did, they didn't and we got sued by the title company who, we found out, didn't know us from Adam and went ahead and made up the $3000 for us by paying the second in full. Gee! How nice of them! or was it?

We worked out a payment plan with them and that was that. What we found out in the end was that we only qualified up to a certain amount and that we had gone over by $3000. The mortgage guy, who didn't want to lose his commission, sent it through anyway when we should have been denied.

Now we have a mortgage that we can't afford and our savings account is empty. During this whole process we kept being told that our payment, with tax and insurance, would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1100 - it wound up being over $1500 and threatens to go higher next year!

I think I've been taken for a ride here. I think I've been lied to by more than one person during this transaction and I think there is a scam going on here.

Is it a scam or my own stupidity? What recourse do I have?
 


HomeGuru

Senior Member
tellafriend said:
California

8 months ago we refinanced our mortgage for a much lower rate (from 8% to 5.7%) and shorter term (from 30yr to 15 yr.). We basically had no problems qualifying except that the bank wanted us to have at least $3000 in the bank. I guess that made us look better or something. No problem although $3000 to us is alot of money we scraped it up and put it in our account.

We were promised from the get go that there would only be 1 out of pocket expense and that was for the appraiser ($300). We were glad because we had a sick kid on our hands and the money in the bank was all we had.

Everything was fine until the appraiser left our home. I estimated he came in about $3000 under what I was expecting our home to be worth. A realestate friend couldn't figure out how he came in so low either.

When the final papers arrived for us to sign the total was short what we needed to close the deal. We figured out they shorted us on the second, which defineatly had to be paid. The amount they shorted us? $3000.

Is there a pattern here yet?

We called our lender, told them what happened and they said no problem, sign and we'll take care of it.

We did, they didn't and we got sued by the title company who, we found out, didn't know us from Adam and went ahead and made up the $3000 for us by paying the second in full. Gee! How nice of them! or was it?

We worked out a payment plan with them and that was that. What we found out in the end was that we only qualified up to a certain amount and that we had gone over by $3000. The mortgage guy, who didn't want to lose his commission, sent it through anyway when we should have been denied.

Now we have a mortgage that we can't afford and our savings account is empty. During this whole process we kept being told that our payment, with tax and insurance, would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1100 - it wound up being over $1500 and threatens to go higher next year!

I think I've been taken for a ride here. I think I've been lied to by more than one person during this transaction and I think there is a scam going on here.

Is it a scam or my own stupidity? What recourse do I have?

**A: if you indeed got a mortgage loan at 5.7% fixed for 15 years, even after paying $1000 out of pocket, consider yourself lucky.
If you could not afford the lower refi rate, you must have been in financial trouble long before your actual refi application was made.
 

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