It’s done. We’re done. We’re not getting the refinance.
When the new appraisal came back at $2,000 less, we were told we’d have to bring $1,900 to closing to secure the refinance. This wasn’t going to happen. First, because even with the refi, this extra $1,900 on top of all the other closing costs would mean we’d need approximately 4-5 years in this house at the new rate to even break even versus staying pat and keeping the old rate. So financially it made little sense to continue.
But second, the entire delay was their fault and fuck 'em if we were going to reward them to the tune of almost 2 grand because they couldn’t get off their asses and do the deal in a timely manner.
And they did delay. I finally managed to squeeze some numbers out of one of the loan officers and calculated that we
had all the necessary funds in our bank account in January and
had all the necessary documents in our file in January.
I pointed this out again and again, to be ignored. But the bottom line is that they could have closed this in January and I’m almost 100% certain they were delaying our closing so as to not honor our rate. We’ve now got enough evidence on our side to prove at least our delay. But I’m willing to bet a class action suit where attorneys start looking at all similar files will reveal a systematic, bank-wide delay of all potential refinancers in similar situations.
Just read this again from the Should I refinance my house? thread, and wondered if you had any updates on your saga? I hate BofA personally, and am not-so-secretly hoping you managed to squeeze something out of them as a result of this.
Love to say that something happened, but, as of yet. Nothing. I’d originally played phone tag with an attorney who specializes in class action lawsuits for financial institutions but never had the opportunity to speak with him. Other than that…well, I’m keeping my options open.
Was the 1900 in extra fees? or to pay down your principal? It should have been to pay down your principal in which case Bank of America gets diddly squat. When we refinanced (not with BoA) we chose to pay down our principal to get a better interest rate. But all that meant is a smaller loan, it isn’t lost money.
Why can’t you refinance with some other bank? Get a mortgage broker or something. It shouldn’t be hard and rates are low right now.
Were you out any up-front money? e.g. appraisal fees and sometimes application fees are often paid by you at the time you applied. If so, try going after them in small claims court.
You’re right that they weren’t extra fees and that it wasn’t going to BoA. But it was 2000 out of pocket that we’d have had to spend to get this home refinanced. It was money we could ill afford to just plunk out of our bank account at the time and shouldn’t have had to anyway. The entire point is that BoA’s dragging this process out when it knew 1) interest rates were rising and 2) our neighborhood’s property values were decreasing, was that it could stall and eventually reach an value we wouldn’t want to match.
We’re exploring other lenders now that rates have dropped down to the 3s. But the market values in our neighborhood has crashed as well and we’re assuming it won’t go anywhere.
We were out $425 for an appraisal. Other than that, I think the only costs to us were time and blood pressure medication.
I am having the same experience with BoA. They’ve had my mortgage for 10 years, always pay on time. I make a lot of money and have very good credit. They are asking about payments to my electric company, my kids’ doctors, etc. This is unfathomable given my situation and invasive and insulting.
I’ve been doing this BS dance with them for a month now and the last round of asinine questions like this about deposits and bill payments is so aggravating that I just wrote them a letter rescinding my application. I don’t need the refi or the headache and I am pretty sure that I don’t want to do business with BoA any longer. In my opinion it should be simple for existing customers; they lock us in and we get a better rate. They then take what was our 30 mortgage and fundamentally turn it into a 40 year mortgage so they get good paying customers for a longer period of time. Win-win. We already make our payments without fail, so its a no brainer for them to extend us, but they choose to turn it into a colonoscopy. F them. Good luck.