Another sunny, warm day in Streeterville. The pleasure craft have begun gathering in Streeterville Bay, as is their habit when the temperature rises. The National Weather Service tells me that it's 91 degrees, but with light Easterly winds off Lake Michigan it feels more like, say, 85 degrees in the immediate vicinity of the lake. Can't complain. It's summer. The view is lovely. The temperature is right. Looking forward to a Happy Hour at the Museum of Contemporary Art. On Tuesdays in the summer, they have live jazz and a wet bar out back of the MCA. Should be quite pleasant.
On the other hand, my experience with refinancing my co-op has been anything but pleasant. As interest rates fell, and the banking industry went to hell (in a handcart), Babs and I decided that having a stellar credit rating and all, maybe it was time to reconsider our current interest rate and length of loan. Perhaps we should refinance at a lower interest rate and for 15 years instead of the current 30 years. This was in April. Take note that it is currently late June, almost July.
Initially I called Bank of America, who holds our current mortgage and asked them about refinancing. The rates they quoted were not quite as low as I had been led to believe was possible at that time, and they were asking that I pay points (a percentage of the overall loan) as a fee for refinancing. Apparently Bank of America was not that hot on helping us save money. They were after all the holders of our mortgage and were making money hand over fist by keeping us in that mortgage. Hmmm.
At this point, Babs and I elected to call a mortgage broker whom we had worked with when we bought a house in Andersonville back in the 1990's. He had kept sending us promotional mail and little refrigerator magnets over the years, so we thought we would give him a shot. Dave, the Mortgage Broker, not to be confused with Dave the Doorman, assured me that while co-ops have a few legal oddities, he could handle it and he thought he could find us a rate much lower than the 6+% rate that we had with Bank of America. He called me back and told me that he could get us a 4.85% rate on a 15 year fixed-rate mortgage, and he didn't think we would have to pay any points. Cool!
As the process went on, we had to provide proof of employment, proof of income, proof of the amount of assessment fees, how much our payments were with Bank of America, how much we still owed on our loan, and just about everything you can imagine but height, weight, and current blood pressure. All went swimmingly, and we were given a date to close on the refinance loan, but then at the last minute the mortgage company called and said we couldn't close because Bank of America had failed to provide documents pertinent to the mortgage that are specific to co-ops. We'd have to wait.
We waited and waited and waited. Then at about 4;30 on a Friday at the end of May I received a call from Dave the Mortgage Broker and he told me that the mortgage rate was about to expire (at 5 PM that day and this was at 4:30), and we would have to pay 1.25 points, or about $2700 to hang onto that rate for another month, until all the necessary paperwork was in hand, organized, and ready to go. I was annoyed. Babs went ballistic. In the end we acceded.
Phone calls followed to Bank of America complaining that their diddling around had cost us $2700 and we still hadn't received the necessary documents. Phone calls ensued to Dave the Mortgage Broker telling him what I had found out from the office of the building where I live regarding what documents we were talking about. There is a whole customer service department at Bank of America and whole departments that deal with mortgages. There is a whole company that deals with nothing but getting people mortgages, and yet Babs and I seemed to be doing all the work and getting nothing for it but headaches.
We waited and waited some more. Finally, this week, a lackey of Dave the Mortgage Broker called to schedule the closing once again. Then this morning Babs and I went to the closing at a downtown Title Company, only to find that Dave the Mortgage Broker still had not gotten the Recognition Agreement that needed to be signed by the new mortgager and the mortgagees and members of the trust that runs our co-op. The Title Company Lady calls Dave the Mortgage Broker and tells him to get his butt in gear and take care of it. Dave the Mortgage Broker calls the office at the Trust that runs our building and she faxed him the documents which he is supposed to send back to us via messenger to get more appropriate signatures and eventually get to the Title Company by 5 PM on Friday, or the deal is kaput.
Then there was the problem of the liens against our building because the co-op is having some work done and the contractor did a very bad job and the trust refused to pay them until they fixed the crap that is wrong with the work they already done. The contractor is refusing to do any more work and is suing the trust. Babs and I have to get a letter certifying that the Title Insurance Company will not be liable for anything arising from this little disagreement, and in the meantime I'm running around trying to get letters assuring the Title Company of their lack of liability and signatures on the Recognition Agreement and trying to get all of this back to the Title Company by 5 PM Friday or the deal is kaput, as will be a lot of wasted hours over the last 2 months.
The question comes up, at this point, what have all of these so-called professionals been doing all of this time that I am scurrying around at the last moment trying to get crap done. Why did they not do their jobs in the first place so I would not have to do this? Why did the contractor do a half-assed job in the first place, so that people have issues with paying them? Why was I not warned of the liens before arriving at the closing? For that matter, what does a Title Insurance Company really do in the first place? You never see them until you need to close on a housing purchase. You never see them or hear from them again after that. They seem to be the only ones on the face of the planet who know precisely how to plow through the mountains of legal documents necessary to facilitate the purchase of a home. They are the only ones who seem to know precisely what signatures are needed, where all the paper has to go, and when it has to be done.
Isn't there something wrong with a legal system that has gotten so complex that no one really understands it all and experts are needed in every little area to see that all the i's are dotted and all the t's are crossed. Furthermore, all of these people make a lot of money doing things that are supposed to be a service for you and I, the public. Yet none of them seem to give a damn about doing their jobs well. None of them get it that their doing their jobs badly are just cause for someone to lose a temper now and again, especially when they are paying through the nose for the service.
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