treatment by Wells Fargo
We have a loan on a lot in the Hill Country of Texas with Wells Fargo. Initially, the lot was made with Wachovia but it was purchased by Wells after the real estate bubble burst and WF acquired Wachovia. We have been on time with every payment, repayment was never a problem. The loan was a five year interest-only loan and it matured Jan. 1 2012. I began trying to refinance it in September of 2011. Prior to all this, back in the summer, Wells Fargo sent an appraiser to the lot for an appraisal without my knowledge or approval. Fortunately, the gate code precluded the appraiser entry. When he called me, I asked who had hired him and he said, your bank. Since I had not granted him permission, I told him to tell whoever hired him to call me and tell me why they were doing this appraisal. I never heard from them or anyone. I called WF to begin the modification process. What I assumed we were doing was modifying the loan for a longer term, and I asked if we could pay some towards principal rather than interest only. Because the lot has no home on it, it was very difficult finding lenders who would loan on it. The process with WF was extremely cumbersome and I was told of all the paperwork and financials I had to produce. "You get just 4 phone calls, " I was told. I ended up overnight-ing a box to the processor in Arizona full of financial information.
I want you to know the amount we owed was about $280, 000. We have over $1.5 million equity in our primary home.
I next applied for a mortgage to use the equity in our home to pay off the lot loan and not have to deal with Wells Fargo, but on the advice of mortgage brokers, I kept up the application process with them "just in case". We were told our loan went through and on Jan 26, the bank requested a payoff from Wells Fargo, which they never received. Note: since we were running late with the financing approval, I sent in a payment for more than $3000. WF did not accept that against the lot loan but rather plunked it into our WF savings account.
Then the new loan got stalled. WF knew full well we were in the process of obtaining financing and had in fact been asked for a payoff. At the same time, they began sending me material asking if I was sure I wanted to leave them. Then they sent us notice of right to cure default -- foreclosure. I pulled away from the undecided bank and obtained a loan with another in the course of two weeks. One week before we were to close, I emailed the attorney -- oh yes, we were told our loan was now in foreclosure, not in the system, and all communication had to go through an attorney -- and asked for the payoff balance. I was told it would include attorney's fees. Today is the day before we are set to close on our new loan and pay off Wells Fargo 100%. They have not given us a payoff balance and in fact, told us I did not give them enough time to obtain one. We cannot close tomorrow without this information.
This is stunning. First of all, we were good, solid paying customers they blew off completely. I want their shareholders to know about this. They could have refinanced us and had a good loan on their books, just as the one maturing was a good loan. Secondly, I feel like they want us to go into foreclosure. Fortunately, my children are attorneys and I am a journalist. I intend to take this story as far as I can and would love input/feedback. Any cases action lawsuits out there? I don't know if Wells Fargo got taxpayer money in the bail out, but this is surreal. The regional banks I am dealing with have been very helpful and tell me this is why you never, ever want to deal with a large bank. Too big to fail? I think they should all be chopped down.
