Background: My wife and I are both self-employed. We have 800 plus credit and except for a car lease of $300 a month, have no other debt. Our net worth is more than a quarter million dollars and during the last two years our income exceeded $100,000. We have lived in the house since 2001 and have paid each and every bill on time. We also have more than one third equity in the house.
Bank: From the moment we bought out house our mortgage has been with Wells Fargo. I am no fan but it works for us so we have even refinanced it with them twice. This was our third time refinancing but first time since the banks tightened their standards after the 2008 financial meltdown. The first person we talked to convinced us that we were better off just using HARP to keep things simple. Not that we were afraid of property valuation but this was going to keep things simple.
Interaction with Wells Fargo: I am a well organized guy so all my paperwork was in order. When the first set of documents arrived from Wells Fargo, I completed them (there are documents to sign that say that we have read the disclosures but also there is a form that releases them to get our tax transcripts from the IRS) and mailed them the same day. Guess what? The bank told me that we had not sent anything and then they said not to worry but just email them the taxes. Thankfully, I had the TurboTax pdf and I sent it to them via secure email. I thought this was it. After all this giant bank will know their stuff and would know what to get from each applicant. Oh, I was so wrong. 10 days letter they said that my taxes were not signed (of course they were not; IRS does not need you to sign them if you e-file) and sent me a fax with the 2011 form 1040 signature page. I promptly signed it and faxed. Another week later, they sent another fax saying that they just found out that our 2010 taxes were also not signed and if I could sign it and fax it back to them. I got a little upset that such a large financial institution did not have a professional system and a checklist. I was happy to give them whatever they want but could they not just ask for everything that they could possibly think of in one package so that I could get this done fast and save money. I told them that I was very disappointed that they had no system for something that should be standard. After all this was not the first refinancing they were processing.
Apparently, my complaints had no effect whatsoever. I got another email asking why our income in 2011 was about 10% lower than 2010 and if we could send them a letter explaining it. I almost felt like shaking them up and telling them that all businesses have fluctuations. Well, that is exactly what I wrote in polite language and explained that America is in the midst of an economic downturn (I almost felt like telling them that mostly because of poorly managed banks like Wells Fargo) and that explains the fluctuations. I added that we are making some changes in our business and hopefully we will start growing again in the near future.
I was almost ready to hear back with a closing date but at the back of my mind I started to worry that maybe they will deny refinancing to us, despite our excellent financial situation. No surprise then that I got yet another request. Could I fax them a copy of our liability insurance policy?
After doing that, I got a closing date. The whole process took almost three months. The attorney came to our home to get our signatures on the documents and since I rolled the closing costs into the mortgage (I would have happily paid some $3,000 but interest rates are so low at 3.6% that I would rather invest in the stock market than give it to them), I only needed to pay $60 at closing.
Bank: From the moment we bought out house our mortgage has been with Wells Fargo. I am no fan but it works for us so we have even refinanced it with them twice. This was our third time refinancing but first time since the banks tightened their standards after the 2008 financial meltdown. The first person we talked to convinced us that we were better off just using HARP to keep things simple. Not that we were afraid of property valuation but this was going to keep things simple.
Interaction with Wells Fargo: I am a well organized guy so all my paperwork was in order. When the first set of documents arrived from Wells Fargo, I completed them (there are documents to sign that say that we have read the disclosures but also there is a form that releases them to get our tax transcripts from the IRS) and mailed them the same day. Guess what? The bank told me that we had not sent anything and then they said not to worry but just email them the taxes. Thankfully, I had the TurboTax pdf and I sent it to them via secure email. I thought this was it. After all this giant bank will know their stuff and would know what to get from each applicant. Oh, I was so wrong. 10 days letter they said that my taxes were not signed (of course they were not; IRS does not need you to sign them if you e-file) and sent me a fax with the 2011 form 1040 signature page. I promptly signed it and faxed. Another week later, they sent another fax saying that they just found out that our 2010 taxes were also not signed and if I could sign it and fax it back to them. I got a little upset that such a large financial institution did not have a professional system and a checklist. I was happy to give them whatever they want but could they not just ask for everything that they could possibly think of in one package so that I could get this done fast and save money. I told them that I was very disappointed that they had no system for something that should be standard. After all this was not the first refinancing they were processing.
Apparently, my complaints had no effect whatsoever. I got another email asking why our income in 2011 was about 10% lower than 2010 and if we could send them a letter explaining it. I almost felt like shaking them up and telling them that all businesses have fluctuations. Well, that is exactly what I wrote in polite language and explained that America is in the midst of an economic downturn (I almost felt like telling them that mostly because of poorly managed banks like Wells Fargo) and that explains the fluctuations. I added that we are making some changes in our business and hopefully we will start growing again in the near future.
I was almost ready to hear back with a closing date but at the back of my mind I started to worry that maybe they will deny refinancing to us, despite our excellent financial situation. No surprise then that I got yet another request. Could I fax them a copy of our liability insurance policy?
After doing that, I got a closing date. The whole process took almost three months. The attorney came to our home to get our signatures on the documents and since I rolled the closing costs into the mortgage (I would have happily paid some $3,000 but interest rates are so low at 3.6% that I would rather invest in the stock market than give it to them), I only needed to pay $60 at closing.