So armed with this new knowledge, I called them again yesterday. The girl told me, yes it can be 80%, but you have to have an appraisal done. I told her we already had an appraisal done. But I was told it had to be through their "approved" appraisal company (Land Safe). Frustration, again.
After I got it together, I called again today, this time asking to talk to a supervisor. She was helpful and kind, but I was beyond frustrated now, plus pregnant emotions... So I cried. On the phone.
How embarassing.
I explained our situation, and asked why this appraisal wasn't good enough. She said she had questioned this herself when she ran into this situation recently with another customer, so she looked into it herself. She said that Fannie Mae, who owns/backs Bank of America, requires any of their loans to use Land Safe appraisers. Basically, they don't trust us (the customer) not to rig an appraisal. And we should trust them??
But does this not sound suspicious to you? They know how much we owe, how much we need our house to appraise for to get rid of this totally pointless fee. They're the ones who order the appraisal from their "approved" company......
If I knew using the "approved" company, that our house would appraise for the same amount, I'd do it in an instant. But if it doesn't, we're out $400 more, and we'd still be stuck paying $75 a month for the next 4,000 years or however long they keep changing the rules on us.
And if $75 a month doesn't sound like a huge deal to you, that I'm blowing this out of proportion, consider this: this fall we'll have lived here 4 years, and have paid almost $3500 in this "fee". That's $3500 we'll never get back, that doesn't benefit us in any way. It's solely to "protect" them if we quit making payments. You know, because they can't seize your house or anything like that if you quit paying on it. (sarcasm) And since they keep changing the rules on us, we don't know when we'll get to quit paying it.
Grr.
And I've heard from my sister that using them as your bank, they suck as well.
3 comments:
The appraisal company is not required to be Landsafe - that's the company your lender has chosen. There are a LOT of new laws governing the mortgage industry and every one of them harms the home owner in some way. The HVCC is the law that is hurting you on your appraisal and your Congressman needs to know about it. They need to know because they thought this was a good idea and didn't think it would harm you. They were warned but they did not listen. Please tell them. There are petitions if you just search HVCC petition.
I looked into using them as a Bank once and I couldn't believe all the fees they have for everything! I've known they are lousy. $75 a month extra would be HUGE in our budget...so I can understand your frustration. Good Luck, I hope that you get something worked out.
I don't care where you have your home loan, the PMI is a crock that should be called the "WE ROB YOU JUST BECAUSE WE CAN" portion of your monthly payment.
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