The Refi- the final chapter

So when last we saw our weary homeowners, they were yelling at MG.

I probably spent a good 45 minutes going off about the last minute documents and that we were at Tuesday at 4pm at this point.  And how disappointed I was that MG's BOSS, didn't know what documents underwriting needed.  I told them that I could send them a print out from online, but wasn't sure about the official statements.  I would have to dig those out.  He said the online stuff was fine.  We set closing up for 3pm on Wednesday.

I had to print it all, and then scan it and e-mail.  See, if they had wanted this stuff earlier, I could have faxed it all.  But by that point, I was home and no fax machine.  I left MG a message that I was going out, and to please call G-man at home to confirm we were all set. I went out and didn't bring my phone.  He called my phone because he didn't actually listen to the message completely.

So G-man told him that I was out and to please call the house.  They talked, and underwriting wanted a statement that had our name and account number on it.  GRRRR.  So the time I spent printing, scanning, and e-mailing was wasted because I still had to get the statements.  G-man was able to find one for him and he sent that over.

Wednesday morning I found the other one and sent it.  But I had not heard from the closing attorney.  I called MG at 10:00 and he said he signed off on everything and he was sure that the attorney would be calling soon.  But if I didn't hear from them by 1pm (remember...that would be 2 hrs before closing....), to call him.

Meanwhile, it started snowing again (which if you remember, I already had told him was going to happen).  I left work a little early to make sure I would get home in time.  I still hadn't heard anything, so I called MG and left him a message. 

About 15 minutes later, I get a call from the President of the company, who was on a three-way call with G-man.  Ut oh....

So yeah....the attorney didn't want to drive in the snow, and wasn't coming.

Are you freaking kidding me??????????  This was the last day we could close, and the attorney didn't want to come?  Actually, the attorney wanted us to go to their office.   Oh, and in our state, you need a third party witness, so we would have had the two of us, our witness, and the kids. 

Luckily the President was smart enough to know that wouldn't fly.  So he told the attorney no, and that we weren't going anywhere.  It was arranged that the attorney would come to us on Thursday, and bring the witness for us.  And as long as we were ok with it, they would take care of the problem on the closing date.  And they knocked off a few fees and 1 day of interest because of the huge amount of problems we had at the end.

G-man and I weren't surprised.  Nothing can ever just go according to plan for us.   The attorney called around 8:30pm and confirmed the address and said she would see us at 1pm.  Uh....we agreed to 9:30.  *sigh*  So she had to work that out.  We also had a discussion about the taxes and the problem that could happen if the old lender paid them and then we also paid them.

Thursday morning, G-man had to get up and shovel the 18 inches of snow we got overnight (here in CT....we have gotten over 80 inches of snow so far!!!) so the attorney could park.  Nothing but fun here.

I called the old lender about the taxes (which we had been monitoring to see if they had been paid).  Well guess what....they paid them the day before!  As a bulk check.  So it would take about 2 weeks for the city to credit our account.  Isn't that special?  I called MG to see if we didn't have to pay the taxes now at closing and he said because they aren't recorded yet, it didn't count and we would have to pay them, but that the city couldn't accept a double payment and would have to reimburse us.  

The attorney finally got to our house and we started with the "real" paperwork....the note.  All of the numbers were right, except the amount we had to pay.  It was a little off (not by much....maybe $30).  Put in another call to MG but it went to voice mail.  So we moved on to the "fluff" paperwork, and G-man's middle initial was wrong.  She said it didn't matter.  Um, this is a legal document....shouldn't it matter if his name is wrong?  So we had to cross out all the wrong stuff and initial it.

Then she didn't have the wiring instructions.  So she called her office and they emailed it to us (aka, they forgot to give it to her).

MG called back and confirmed the correct pay off amount.  $2087.  In the end, it came out almost $500 cheaper than we thought because of all the problems.

But wait...let's go back to the taxes for a minute.  I called the tax collector's office and they said that they had to cash the check from the old lender if it was on it's way.  AND they would have to cash the check from the new lender (which legally they had to send because the taxes weren't paid at the time of closing).  And then they would have to return the funds, which would be returned to us.  This process would probably take 6-8 weeks.



Meanwhile, I went to the bank to take care of the wire transfer.  That took almost 45 minutes because the directions weren't clear, and the teller didn't know how to do it.

This whole thing was exhausting!!!!  In the end, our mortgage decreased by $190 a month.  We will be able to deduct the origination fee from closing, interest, and mortgage insurance from our taxes.  And we plan to do a biweekly mortgage, which will shave 7 years off the mortgage right from the start.  Once the mortgage insurance drops off, that will shave another 3 years off.  So our 30 year will be come a 20 year....and hopefully even sooner.

I am really disappointed that it will take so long to get our money back from the taxes.  I will have to keep on top of that.  That money, plus the money we will get from the remainder of our escrow account, plus what we had put aside for closing that we didn't need will all go directly to debt. Specifically, CC1 and Student Loan 2, oh, and off course replenishing the emergency fund.

This had better be worth all the aggravation!