Titling Blog Posts Is Hard

That man got a job.  Then he got a paycheck.  So, I'm trying to pay the mortgage company.  I'm trying to give them money.  That's not working so far today.

When last we spoke, I had had problems with the mortgage company trying to vacuum money out of my account without permission or approval.  So, I put a stop payment style thing on my account, so that they couldn't do that again.  I only did this after having been assured, by THREE different people at my credit union, that I'd still be able to *SEND* them money via the Bill Pay portion of their website, they just would not be able to *TAKE* money out, willy-nilly.

Turns out those three people were wrong.  I tried to send money to the mortgage company, and it did not go, because of the stop payment thing.  Actually: precisely; at this very moment, the mortgage people think they have the money, and my credit union assures me that they do not.  I don't know who to believe, so I'm choosing to come down on the side of what has the capacity to cause me the most grief, which would be that the credit union is correct.  Eventually, the mortgage company will figure it out.  And then, they'll be pissed.  In a faux dignified, "We Are The Bank and You are a Lying, Deadbeat Peon Who is Obviously Hiding Resources" sort of way, but still, pissed.  There will be consequences.

I've spent the morning on the phone, back and forth between the two financial entities.  The bottom line is that I'm about to write a check, place it in an envelope, and mail it to the mortgage company.  This is a risky choice, in that if somehow the electronic payment goes through after all, the paper check will end up bouncing.  But if I don't send the paper check, and the electronic payment really does not go through, then I'll be an extra month late on my mortgage, which will trigger further unpleasantries over at the mortgage company.

Apparently, I will be not using the Bill Pay thing to pay my mortgage any more.  There's no way in hell I'm taking that stop payment thing off.


I'd very much like to start banking out of an old coffee can now, please.  Because my efforts to do the right thing have garnered me nothing but heartburn.

On Hold

Things have progressed a bit.  By not moving much, apparently.

We have continued to locate and provide information to Keep Your Home California, but have not made it to "accepted" or whatever yet.  It's a slow dang process, I guess.

In the meantime, the new mortgage company has been pretty damn unhelpful.  One of the pieces of information I needed for KYHC was a statement from NationStar Mortgage, which they just could NOT expedite for me.  That took almost 3 weeks to arrive.  We also get robo-calls from them, but no live human beings.  "Please contact us at your earliest opportunity" style things.  So, as I type, I'm on hold with the damn machines. 

Another thing happened that got my hair on fire about is that NationStar attempted to go into my bank account and scoop out money.  I have NEVER authorised them to do that, That Man never did any such thing, we never did that with the last mortgage holder, I hate that sort of thing.  Luckily(?), we did not have the money in the account and so they didn't get anything and we also got a Non Sufficient Funds charge.  Wheee.

(time passes)

They answered the phone.  I'm currently on hold for the third time, as I'm transferred back and forth between departments.

I have spoken to three people about everything, I heard them typing like mad to note down what I was saying.  I only wish they'd read what earlier people typed, because they HAVE all this information.  Sigh.

And, they claim that someone authorised them to go into our bank account.  I *know* that's not the case, but how do you prove you didn't do something?  I have, however, made a permanent stop payment with the credit union to refuse ANY such behaviour from that company again.  I can still send them money, if I ever get any, but they cannot come in and do the scoop it up thing again.

So, there seems to be a job in the offing for that man, the KYHC people might come through eventually and Hell Might Just Freeze Over.  It's amazing to me that things might actually be improving and yet I'm still so Bloody ANGRY.

Mortgage Assistance Hurdle #1

Well, employment has not happened yet.  Neither has foreclosure, but we've only just this month stopped making payments, so that's down the road quite a ways.

We are applying with Keep Your Home California for mortgage assistance, because neither BofA or Nationstar appeared to be interested in any form of loan modification or other assistance, ostensibly because of the confusion of the mortgage transfer.  I'll admit to not wanting to work with BofA anyway, for personal historical reasons as well as political and philosophical ones.  Frankly, I don't imagine Nationstar would be any better.  I'm just suspicious of banks in general these days.

I've done a couple of loooong eligibility phone calls with this agency, and just this afternoon, we cleared the first hurdle.  The next one involves waiting for a list of financial documents, and then collecting and returning those documents to them.  Guess what I'm doing next week?

The deal is this; we have to sign a deed of trust and a promissory note saying we'll pay *back* any aid they give us if we sell the house within three years of the end of their help, out of any cash proceeds.  After three years, the note is forgiven.  Now that I'm off the phone with them, the questions I could not think of are starting to pop up in my head.  That's okay, nothing is set in stone yet, so I'll just start a list of questions for our next loooong phone call.

Oh yeah, and the music they played while I was on hold was highly repetitive.  I think my brain has melted.  I just wish places would say something like, "we hate hold music, too, so, every 60 seconds, you'll hear this announcement again, in between times, it will be silent".  Ah well, when I'm Queen of the Universe, there will be some changes made.

Loan Modification

Today I learned more things.

First and most important, when looking for loan modification help, you cannot apply for more than one program at a time.  If you do so, any other previous applications you have made will be automatically made null and void.  So, if you're doing this, *be careful*.  Do your research, ask your questions, but don't formally apply until you have chosen which program you want and you are ready to do so.

We have an FHA loan, which is not serviced by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.  This sends us down one particular path.  All the FHA programs will want the same data on the same forms, which you can print out off the internet.  I got mine from a BofA website that their representative on the phone told me to check out.

I was also advised to google "FHA mortgage assistance" and "FHA waterfall" for more information on how all this works.  I have quite a bit of reading to do.

I have a particular case manager now, one person who I need to talk to to ask questions and such.  That's a nice thing, in theory, I don't have to explain things over and over again.  She said we'd talk again in 7 to 10 days.  Which seems like a long time to me, but, oh well.  It also brings us right up against the date the loan transfers from BofA to Nationstar.  I did ask her about the loan being sold and how the timing of it will impact this process.  And, the bottom line is that she didn't know what that was going to do.  So we will proceed, doing the necessary, and wait and see.  The loan will remain FHA and everything, so in theory most of this work will not need to be done over again.

I really don't want to read up on all this, I'd rather zone out and watch escapist TV.  Ah well.

Mortgage Sold, Water Muddied

I waited all day today for the BofA loan modification team to call.  They didn't.  I'll call them on Friday.

I did, however, get a letter in the mail from them today, informing me that they have sold our mortgage to another bank.  So I'm guessing I'll be calling *two* mortgage providers on Friday.  I'm also guessing that they'll each defer to the other, only muddying the waters more.

I also wonder why, when I talked to the first guy at BofA on Monday, he didn't mention this fabulous fact.  Todays letter is dated 11/14/2012, a week ago.

Now, I've never been thrilled to have to send money to BofA with this mortgage.  But this house was bank owned when we bought it, so we had no choice.  We dumped them years and years ago as our personal bank, because their customer service stank.  We have been credit union members ever since.  So, this change is, on one level, a good thing, I guess.  However, I've never heard of Nationstar Mortgage, LLC before.  So, call me suspicious and paranoid, and possibly radically liberal, but I can't imagine that they are any better or different than BofA.  For all I know they *are* BofA, just with a new coat of paint.

Actually, we got two letters from BofA today.  The other one offered a "pre-approved" credit card.  I just tear those up.

Emotional Fallout, Some Background

Isn't this fun?

When I was about 11, my father's business partner screwed him over and the business went bust.  My father then sat on our living room sofa for about 3 or 4 years, watching the 700 Club.  He got religion.  He also refused to go bankrupt, and eventually prided himself on having paid off all the creditors.  My family was very broke for a very long time.  We ate, and I think my grandmother paid the mortgage, but it was shoes-were-an-issue kind of broke.

One ripple effect result of that, was that when I was looking at college and they talked about loans and debt, I balked.  I didn't go to college, I went to work.  Secretarial type stuff.  I never made much, but I paid my bills.

30 years of history, blah, blah, blah.  Married, stay at home mom, autistic kids, house, credit cards, etc.

So, here I am, 50+ years old, with all the American Dream stuff piled up in my head.  And I'm absolutely mortified that I can't pay my bills.  It feels a moral, personal failure, as well as a financial one.  I feel like a *bad person*, like I'm *guilty* of some heinous deed.

Intellectually, I know, that is just not right.  I'm realizing that my take on reality is somewhat skewed.  I don't know what reality actually is, all I've discovered is that, as one of the blind men examining the elephant, it's bigger than I thought.

It's very easy to slip into anger right now.  There's guilt or anger.  Anger is certainly more entertaining and invigorating than guilt.  I can blame politicians or the 1%, easy enough.  But that doesn't solve my problems, any more than guilt does.

Oh hey, and I notice I'm not mentioning Fear.  Funny, that, because it's a major player these days.  Avoidance, much?

Financials

Okay, here's the deal.

My family and I have been pushed to the pointy end of fiscal disaster.  During the Dot.Com bust, we lost all our savings and racked up a pile of unsecured debt.  We managed to keep the house, though.  After that, we spent several years paying off the debt.  In the spring of 2009, we were down to only a couple of thousand dollars of debt.  Then, more shit happened, which resulted in us moving from Oregon to California to find work.  We sold the house in Oregon, bought a house in California and kept slugging on.  That was the major mistake, I think.  The cost of living in California is remarkably *more* than it was in Oregon.

However.  Here we are.  In all the various job issues over the last 2 years, we have had to slowly whittle away at what little savings we had.  Medical insurance went away, and we've had to buy privately, at the cost of over $2K a month.

We've spent the last year, every time something goes wrong, trimming expenses and recalculating that we should be okay, "if nothing else goes wrong".  Well, things keep going wrong and I don't imagine that process is going to change much.

Today, we are unemployed, with less than one months expenses in financial cushion.  If a job doesn't come, and right soon, we're facing foreclosure, probably some time in the spring.  We can't sell the house, because we have no where to go, we don't have enough money to put down first/last/deposit on a rental somewhere.  We might be underwater anyway.  Oh, yeah, and it needs a new roof, to the tune of maybe $18K.  Gah.

Yesterday, I called the mortgage company (BofA) to discuss this mess.  They will have a "modification" team contact me soon.  We have spoken to some programs that should offer help; Green Path Debt Solutions and KeepYourHomeCalifornia.Org are the two biggies, among others.  The first one advised my husband to look for a job.  Du-oh.  The second one can't help us until *after* the unemployment checks start arriving.  We won't qualify until we have *more* income than we do today.  Eh?  So those things are out there.  We're doing all the right and responsible things.

So, the focus of this blog is changing.  I intend to publicly record the process of foreclosure, if and when it comes down to that.  People don't talk about these things.  I am inspired in this by my friend, Jay Lake, who blogs very thoroughly about his experience with cancer and chemo.