Complicating The Already Complicated
Long ago, I chronicled the drama of trying to get a FEMA check following Hurricane Rita, which put a 100-foot-tall pine tree on our Beaumont home.
Part of it was my fault, thanks to juxtaposing the routing number with the checking account number on the FEMA form. My application then made a hilarious journey that took it through the U.S. Treasury Department and then right back to Square 1 - the FEMA office in Austin.
After Hurricane Ike, which put a 60-foot oak tree on our Pinewood home, the folly had nothing to do with FEMA, which was far more tight-fisted with its funds, although I did get $160 for a chain saw.
No, this time the problem was with the mortgage company, whom I'll call Lender X, whose name was on the insurance check.
Lender X has a threshold for these kinds of checks. Exceeding the threshold means having to send the check off to Lender X never-never land, where it is held in escrow and doled it out in burps as repairs progress. It also involves scheduling Lender X-hired inspectors, and that takes five days a pop.
The work was only supposed to take a week, so going the never-never land route meant extending the construction time by weeks while inspectors were scheduled.
Looking at the total damage, it was clear that if the destruction to the yard, fence and outdoor shed were subtracted from the insurance check amount, the amount for repairs to the main structure were far below the Lender X threshold. The tree mostly just clipped the roof over an outdoor storage closet.
With the move to Tyler looming, I made the fateful decision to go for an "exception," which a Lender X representative told me would only take five days to process.
That was Nov. 13, and I'm still waiting to put some insurance money in the bank so I can repair my slightly damaged home and get repaid for the money and effort I've already put into repairs and cleanup, some of it thanks to that $160 chain saw.
First, Lender X lost the worksheet detailing the insurance adjustor's notes on damages. Lender X found the worksheet and then sent it off to another department, which was to decide whether to grant the exception.
Weeks went by before I learned that the hangup was the shed, which I destroyed and burned myself. The question was whether the shed was part of the property's appraised value, which it was not, but those kinds of things take a long time to figure out at a lumbering, bureaucratically constipated behemoth such as Lender X.
Today, I called Lender X again, only to be told that the hangup was that they were waiting on me to send the worksheet. After I did some yapping, they determined that the first person who took the call back in November simply failed to make a notation on the computerized form. They claimed that they'll have a check in the mail within 48 hours, but I wouldn't bet my overworked chain saw on it.
So here it is, more than three months after Hurricane Ike, and the house, which we need to put on the market because we've moved to Tyler, remains as slightly damaged as it was then, with no money in the bank to pay for the repairs.
I would have been better off going through the long, tedious escrow process in the first place.
No wonder why our lending system is so messed up.
Part of it was my fault, thanks to juxtaposing the routing number with the checking account number on the FEMA form. My application then made a hilarious journey that took it through the U.S. Treasury Department and then right back to Square 1 - the FEMA office in Austin.
After Hurricane Ike, which put a 60-foot oak tree on our Pinewood home, the folly had nothing to do with FEMA, which was far more tight-fisted with its funds, although I did get $160 for a chain saw.
No, this time the problem was with the mortgage company, whom I'll call Lender X, whose name was on the insurance check.
Lender X has a threshold for these kinds of checks. Exceeding the threshold means having to send the check off to Lender X never-never land, where it is held in escrow and doled it out in burps as repairs progress. It also involves scheduling Lender X-hired inspectors, and that takes five days a pop.
The work was only supposed to take a week, so going the never-never land route meant extending the construction time by weeks while inspectors were scheduled.
Looking at the total damage, it was clear that if the destruction to the yard, fence and outdoor shed were subtracted from the insurance check amount, the amount for repairs to the main structure were far below the Lender X threshold. The tree mostly just clipped the roof over an outdoor storage closet.
With the move to Tyler looming, I made the fateful decision to go for an "exception," which a Lender X representative told me would only take five days to process.
That was Nov. 13, and I'm still waiting to put some insurance money in the bank so I can repair my slightly damaged home and get repaid for the money and effort I've already put into repairs and cleanup, some of it thanks to that $160 chain saw.
First, Lender X lost the worksheet detailing the insurance adjustor's notes on damages. Lender X found the worksheet and then sent it off to another department, which was to decide whether to grant the exception.
Weeks went by before I learned that the hangup was the shed, which I destroyed and burned myself. The question was whether the shed was part of the property's appraised value, which it was not, but those kinds of things take a long time to figure out at a lumbering, bureaucratically constipated behemoth such as Lender X.
Today, I called Lender X again, only to be told that the hangup was that they were waiting on me to send the worksheet. After I did some yapping, they determined that the first person who took the call back in November simply failed to make a notation on the computerized form. They claimed that they'll have a check in the mail within 48 hours, but I wouldn't bet my overworked chain saw on it.
So here it is, more than three months after Hurricane Ike, and the house, which we need to put on the market because we've moved to Tyler, remains as slightly damaged as it was then, with no money in the bank to pay for the repairs.
I would have been better off going through the long, tedious escrow process in the first place.
No wonder why our lending system is so messed up.
posted by Brian Pearson at 4:34 PM
2 Comments:
Not so certain the escrow route would have been any better. Much of my Rita repair was via volunteers and yours truly. From start to finish, the repairs took about 2 years. From first insurance/mortgage check to last from my tight-fisted Lender X (or Y or Z), it took almost 3 years. Hope you've gotten your check.
I've gotten part of it.
Of course, with my wife and kids planning to leave Pinewood for Tyler about midday last Friday, Lender X decided to OVERNIGHT the check last Thursday to a house that was fixin' to be empty. I specifically asked several times that it be snail-mailed so that it would be forwarded to me. Luckily, the package arrived before my wife and kids left, and I got it into the bank as fast as I could. I still have to play games with Lender X and the contractor over the amount they're holding, but at least I can get started on repairs.
Post a Comment
<< Home