roflmao!!! Are you trying to buy OUR DREAM HOUSE??? Seriously, we're having the same problem. "Our" dream house was foreclosed early summer '07. There a recorded foreclosure deed. The financial institution on the deed, however, swears that they do NOT own the property. Well, OK. The original lender is BK. Even the BK Court won't fess up to having the house on their property list. Things you can try... Bankruptcy filings are public information. So, in theory, you can wade through your district's filings & pour through the pages & pages of documents attempting to trace the property's movements. It's not an easy task. Stuff is available online. You can phone the tax assessor's office & ask who's paying the taxes. Call that institution. You can hire an attorney to trace ownership. You can also phone a title insurance company & ask if they offer such a service. Also, try a few appraisers...they may be willing to give it a go. And, for Heaven's sake...if you figure out how to do it simply please let me know!!! /tricia

"My loan has been sold once in 5 years. I thought my credit was better than that..." It has nothing to do with your credit. If you had lousy credit it would actually be harder to sell the loan. In some cses it would need to be packaged with some loans wth better credit and the whole lot sold off. Sertvicing mortgages is not a small industry. It takes equipment to open envelopes, credit payments, either send monthly statements or produce coupon books, etc. Some places with a lot of automated equipment make money on servicing alone, they donot even own the underlying note. Notes can be packaged into bonds and sold into teh secondary market, while another entity provides servicing. There are federal standards governing the notifications required by both the selling and buying agents. The secondary market is what allows the home loan industry to even exist. Original lenders can sell the note, get the money it represents, and make new loans. Invetors looking for a solid (but lower return) can buy the bonds backed by the mortgages.

I'm attaching a link that might help you out in getting started. Easiest thing to do is contact your nearest Federal Reserve Bank - people who answer the phone (and they all have 800 numbers) are very competent and helpful. They can tell you what you need and send you the correct paper forms a bond as a gift. Ask for multiple forms in case this is something you intend to repeat periodically. You fill it out and send with your payment directly to the Federal Reserve. And you don't have to bother doing anything online. You don't say where you are, but there are 12 Federal Reserves, one of which serves your area: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco. I had bought 2 year Treasury Notes through Treasury Direct for years, but now they've done away with those for 13 week notes, and online only. No way I'm going to be tied to the computer every 13 weeks! Too bad, it was such a great program when the interest rates were decent. Now they're not so I'm just letting the whole pile of them redeem themselves as they come due. Here is a link that might be useful: Federal Reserve

I picked up some tuna from Fiji yesterday at the market, and it was extremely good, and so I am looking forward to having some of that when I visit. I wonder how much of their tuna they export. I'm pretty sure that there will be plenty left for visitors, however. Tomorrow I am going to try to prepay my hotel via bank transfer, as the hotels charge 3% service charge when paying by credit card. I should save some money by doing a bank transfer instead, and once that is done, I will buy travel insurance (which I've never done before) because we will be going during cyclone season. I also found out that the island we are visiting will close to visitors the day we leave because a film crew will be taking over the day we leave. Earlier this year, they filmed the latest season of Survivor on that island, and they closed the island for several months for that last spring/summer. I've started watching that show to see what the island will look like, and it appears not to have much in the way of hiking trails, and so we will have to take boats to get around the island or else do some island hopping. I got a lot of excellent advice from the Mana Island forum on TripAdvisor, and I have to thank Colleen for that link. That was by far the best source for info for my trip. I think there are about three restaurant on the island that we can visit, and I was concerned about having to go to the same restaurants over and over, but I think the chefs vary the meals daily, and so that should not be a problem. I might get tired of coconuts before we leave, but I do love coconuts!