I thought of this article when I read your post. Don't know all the details, but it might be worth checking into this RESPA thing. I agree...when they hold YOUR money, it's on their terms when they'll get it back to you, but boy, the SECOND you're late with them, bam...fees up the wazoo. I had a similar situation with my auto loan. I changed insurance companies and the bank hadn't gotten the info (or hadn't applied it) so they put their own insurance on my account. I didn't catch it for a couple of months because I always pay more than the car payment, so I thought the bill was just catching up to my overpayments. Finally when I got a notice that I was actually SHORT on my payments, I called them and found out about this forced insurance. We got it straightened out, and I got them to retract the 'late payment' fees, but it took them almost a year of hounding them to get that money I paid for their duplicate insurance applied to my balance! Here is a link that might be useful: Man forecloses on bank!

"Just received an offer from Chase to refi my 110k mtg (currently at 5%/15years/7years left to pay)to a new 15 yr mtg @ 4.625% (no costs to me at all)." There certainly is a cost. They just rolled it into the interest you will pay. 4.625% is a high rate for anyone with good credit right now. Overall, it sounds like you have a good idea of how the numbers work, so I think you should just expand your search a little before picking the option that is best for you. Call around and see if you can get a better deal elsewhere. Also ask about a traditional 15yr with closing costs and 5/1 ARMS (you will have most of the house paid for in 5 years anyway, so there isn't a real risk there of rates increasing.) You may find that for a few thousand up front, you can recoup another 20k in interest payments. As for saving vs paying down mortgage - that really depends on the rest of your financial picture. If you don't have a big emergency fund, have other debts, or aren't saving enough for retirement, then you might need to do those instead of paying down the house. If you have everything else in your financial life on track, paying off the house could be the final piece.

There are many states that are coming out with regulations pertaining to reduced document loans, qualifying ARMs, prudent underwriting of loans, etc. These regulations are often vague and open to all kinds of interpretation. Because the regulations are so vague, many lenders legal counsel advice them to discontine doing business in those states until the states provide more specific guidance. Unfortunately for borrowers, it limits their choices of lenders. I'm not sure about what's going on in Colorado, but I know Mass. just came out with some restrictive legistlation.

Things may vary from state to state but potential borrowers back out of closings all the time. If you were not rediclosed to with a different rate & fees, that's a big problem. As far as the credit card payoff - this may have been a condition of loan approval then you don't have a choice other than not going thru with the loan. Seems like your loan officer/broker didn't do a very good job of figuring your loan amount to include loan payoffs and closing costs. Where I am, when a buyer walks, they are only responsible for the appraisal fee which is often collected from them up front for this reason. Good luck.