I wish we had time! Supposed to close in 2 weeks now.

They sent us a customer satisfaction questionnaire... we're waiting till we're done with all this before filling that out! I sure will never recommend them to anyone ever.

I agree about finding another lender except if the bank falls through with the loan. Most major banks do not do mortgages on this small amount so ask the real estate agent to find one. You could also depending on the value of your current home ask for a mortgage on it. Pay that money on the new home. If the old home is sold use the proceeds to pay off the mortgage on it. One thing to think about is insurance. Of course it was some time ago and things have changed but our insurance company did not want to cover our first home for more than a month without someone living there.

The person with the money gets to decide which hoops they want people to jump through.

Find another lender or pay cash.

Smaller lenders are usually easier to work with, that's for sure. But if you switch banks right now, I don't see any way for it to clear underwriting in two weeks.

jn3344, yes I realize that... I was just wondering if this was a question bankers want to know from everyone or is this just a quirk of Chase? I just found it odd and totally irrelevant to a loan application. If we had a huge mortgage on our current house, then maybe justified to be sure we could make 2 payments.

Maifleur insurance is still the same... we have I believe a 3 month temporary coverage on the new house while it's being renovated. I forget what they call that policy. I've known of people who's insurance has dropped them completely once they found out their house was empty.

Yes cooper8828, that is the problem, no time. HUD is by the book - close in 45 days. I'm not sure what they would do if we requested an extension but I don't want to find out!

I can think of several reasons that the bank wanted to see your divorce papers but most of them would be if you previously lived in a community property state while married. Some of the questions on identity are required by the Patriot Act that established Homeland Security. Which is the reason why if you are a woman you must furnish any marriage documents, license or divorce papers when you apply for a drivers license.

"Which is the reason why if you are a woman you must furnish any marriage documents, license or divorce papers when you apply for a drivers license."

??? Certainly did not need to show these when I got one! Nor when I applied for a new passport about 3 years ago.

I had to show mine about ten years ago when I renewed. The requirement to prove who you have been since birth via records is not a new requirement. If you use the name you were born with the birth certificate is all that is needed. Why did you think some states are now threatened to have their residents drivers licenses not be valid for use in air travel. Look it up since you have apparently not read about the controversy.

Mortgages for a second home usually have higher interest rates (they have higher risk because might not be occupied full time; people are less concerned about a vacation or investment home going into default; and it could be rented out which carries higher risk of damage). So I’d expect any mortgage lender to ask about another house owned.

He does sound difficult! Just wanted to mention that asking about the other house probably is part of the underwriting due diligence.

No need to get snarky!! It is NOT a requirement in my state nor is it a requirement for a US passport! And I do not have the same name I was born with.

So it seems more than a little unnecessary documentation for applying for a mortage. The divorce decree I can understand as that is often associated with income from alimony or child support and would need to be verified. The rest.....nah, and I know of no lenders that require them.

It is part of what is called REAL ID. Which is supposed to be implemented by 2020. Part of establishing your identity is proving who you are from birth. This proof from birth until current requires proof of names that you may have used during that time. Since most women change their names when married marriage licenses are needed to prove the name change. If the original poster remarried she would need to show proof that her old name was invalid, divorce degree plus most recent marriage license if remarried.

The REAL ID is one of the reasons that some people are also loosing the ability to vote when they can not locate the needed documents but that is a different issue.

By the way if you do live in the Northwest your state is not in compliance which may be why you have not been asked for the documents. Map showing where the REAL ID has happened and states that have problems. https://www.dhs.gov/real-id

You may want to do some further research. According to Homeland Security, REAL ID is not required for voting or registering to vote nor is it required to receive a mortgage or any other type of loan. And a valid US passport is a perfectly acceptable substitute for a REAL ID card in those situations where that may be required.

You realize that when you applied for your passport you supplied most of these documents. Now being snarky if you drive most likely your drivers license expires in 2020 let us hope that the drivers license bureau in your state accepts your passport.

"The poster did not seem "snarky" and seemingly was trying to help."

Well that's a matter of opinion...the statement "Look it up since you have apparently not read about the controversy" is not exactly a gracious one and seems to imply that I am woefully uninformed. And think it is rather the opposite.......the poster was implying requirements for a mortgage loan that simply do not exist.

New means new - not a renewal. My previous passport was deemed lost so the entire application process had to be redone. None of the marriage/divorce documentation was required. Nor is it a current requirement. And I copped no attitude - I was a banker my entire professional career and I am very familiar with mortgage documentation requirements.

"By getting your underwear in a wad, you have destroyed an otherwise helpful and informative thread.

Incredible."

Geeze - get over yourself!! I actually clarified information that was incorrect. If anything was 'destroyed' - and that seems to be taking things to extremes - then it was due the dismissive and patronizing tone introduced by the poster in question.

Since your home is paid off, the easiest & the fastest way to buy a HUD home is to get a home equity loan. If you only need $50,000, it would be so easy to get it. I think you can borrow 70% of your home value that assessed by your bank.

I refinanced my house two years ago. I used the same bank where I do my banking and which held my present mortgage and the previous one I had refinanced. I could not believe the hoops I had to jump through! I've been their customer (and living in the same house!) since 1984!!! The problem is that the bank is now part of a bank whose headquarters is in another state/city. Since the housing debacle of a few years ago, mortgage officers are now nothing more than mortgage salesmen. They no longer have the authority to approve anything or wave anything. The bank headquarters makes all these decisions and also decides what documents must be provided. I had to provide my marriage license (from 1978!), and my husband's death certificate, even though it was owned with right of survivor. It ended up taking 4 months and interest rates went up from when I started the entire process. I guess this is what happens when people put down that they have a part-time job at McDonalds but that they also earn $150,000 a year and no one verified their income. Now we all suffer.

Chase and the other big box banks make getting a mortgage much more difficult than if you go to a non-bank type lender that only originates, underwrites and funds mortgages as opposed to doing all banking type functions. The non-bank originators are very efficient. I bet they could close you in two weeks (the LO's I use can). And as summersrhythm points out above - a HELOC on your present home would work much more quickly - just don't get it at Chase. A decade or more ago Chase was okay for mortgages....not now and not in the last ten years.

BTW, it's not because of the required paperwork - its because their entire processing is bottle-necked. Their front end employees that take the application are completely untrained (most of them). Once in a while you get someone from the old days that understands mortgages, but that is a rarity. Don't continue with Chase - they have a tendency to deny the week before closing. As an agent I have seen this numerous times. And then the customer denied by Chase gets a mortgage elsewhere (immediately). It is just their process.

Curious Anglophilia only because my time in this house is growing to a close. Expecting to move after my husband dies to something with less yardwork. Did the bank not accept the previous years 1099's as proof of income or was the purchase too close to the end of the year and they wanted this years information?

Little background. When we purchased this house the price was below the $100K that most banks wanted in 1993. We asked the real estate person for suggestions. She actually checked around or knew who was accepting applications. She told us which companies, of which only one I had not seen in the news as having problems. We filled out the paperwork provided 1099's and W 2's and that was it. She was old school and from comments I have seen in this forum real estate people do not offer the service that she did.

Probably should post this as a separate thread but with your comment about the documents you needed I hope you will answer.

^Yes we do. But it is us "old school" Realtors that offer that type of service. Only now, we are using non-bank type lenders rather than big box banks because of the major shift in mortgage underwriting since the meltdown.

I had to provide 5 years previous tax returns. There was a question about how much of my income was trust income - had to have a letter from my trust officer assuring them that this income would continue throughout my life. And this was all for a $140,000 refinance on a $550,000 house!

/maifleur01, if you want to stay in the current house for a long time have you thought about a reverse mortgage? .I only know a little about it because my previous backyard neighbors and a few current senior neighbors had/have that. They got a lot of medical bills and didn’t want to leave the neighborhood ( property taxes are pretty high here, their property taxes are about $6500-7000 per year), so they did reverse mortgages to stay in their houses, and I think they can stay there forever. You’d need to do more research though, I am not sure about the details.......

That would be a reverse mortgage :-))

We are debt free and just closed on a modest property. We chose to get a low interest 75/25 loan instead of cashing out our high performing investments or taking out equity loans on our other, paid off, real estate. We intend to have this loan paid off in less than two years from regular cash flow. The lender not only wanted all payroll info and tax returns, but they checked our credit 3x (always in the 800+ range) in the month between application and closing, AND required proof of all our investments (including all account numbers) directly from the IRS. It was ridiculous! Through-out the process, I wondered how so many buyers in lesser circumstances (but still qualified) are even approved for loans given this level of financial interrogation?

I am glad to see the pendulum swing to opposite extreme from where it was in 2007. The bank making absolutely sure that you will be able to repay their loan will insure we do not have another crisis with people unable to pay their existing loan.

Thanks gardengal! :-)

Yes, the pendulum has swung away from the 2007 era debacle, but now it's at the opposite end where lenders are failing by frustrating the crap out of well qualified buyers. How about a happy medium?!

Having seen the problems that our former Mayor and others have I would never consider a reverse mortgage. This house is paid for. My only debt is from a flood back in August. The nursing home charges for my husband are taken care of by his income and savings. The reason I am thinking about moving is that I have realized that taking care of almost 300 peonies along with the other normal yardwork is starting to be beyond me. Finding competent people that will follow instructions is becoming harder to find.

I was more interested in what kind of things Anglophilia needed or if there was a timing issue with things like 1099's.

maifleur, they wanted EVERYTHING! They had to see not only ALL forms submitted to the IRS, but the original 1099's etc that were sent to me. That was a HUGE problem as my son in CT does my taxes for me and I send him the originals and keep a COPY for myself. He had to dig into boxes in storage (he divorced and moved 3 years ago), to find all this. Big inconvenience for him. I can see their concern if I was someone who just walked in off the street, but I've had two previous mortages with them, including the one that I had at that time, and I'd been a customer of that bank since 1984. Surely, one knows if I bounce checks or not (NOT!) and my credit rating has been in the high 800's now for at least a decade.

I later learned that banks today are looking for any tiny little thing that they might use to up the interest rate initially quoted. I had already discovered that when I applied through the Navy Federal Credit Union. They gave me a quote on the phone, and then when they received my application, they upped it by 1%. I insisted on knowing why, and they said it was due to my having trust income. Huh? If the trust goes belly up, we'll all be in a whole lot more trouble than just that! It was a classic "bait and switch" job and I took it as far up the food chain as I could, and then went to my bank. In the meantime, I had missed a good opportunity through USAA - not as good as Navy Federal but better than the bank.

A friend had his interest rate raised a full point as his bank said he had not owned a car outright in over 20 years -- he leased every 3 years - and that made him a "higher credit risk". They will look for any possible thing to raise the interest rate, usually at the very last minute before closing. They're all crooks... One can only wonder how the loan sharks operate today!

I will have a problem if I do have to apply for a mortgage or home improvement loan as although I can now receive a copy of my tax forms from the IRS, My copy was in the basement and went out with the trash along with the associated paperwork. The last company to purchase our mortgage was Chase. Chase because they were the bank the car dealership worked with financed my last two cars. With having to put part of the basement clearing on my charge card I dropped from the mid 800's to upper 700's. Your experience does point out a difficulty with having everything in a trust rather than your name. On paper you owned nothing the trust had all or most of your assets. I do wonder if the trust rather than you had purchased the property would it have made a difference. Since the assets are in a trust and this will depend partially on your state laws your creditors may not be able to force the trust to repay them.

You have given me several things to think about and start researching. Thank you for taking the time and courage to explain happened when you had problems securing your loan. Many people would not have been open about what happened.

In my experience, the lenders just want you to upload your copy of the docs to the designated, private, encrypted, password protected portion of the lenders website designed for that purpose. All the documents are electronic. No requests for "original" documents because it is accepted that you have an accurate copy of your financial documents already stored on your hard drive. I haven't seen anything weird. In fact, I haven't seen anyone provide physical documents in years. Part of the processing and underwriting process is the verification of the documents accuracy including obtaining tax transcripts from the IRS to compare to the tax returns you supply. There are other document verifications too.

Naturally if there was a divorce, divorce papers are required. Those that are self employed do have a few more hoops to jump through, usually in proving their income. I have seen that obtaining a loan if the property is in a trust is much more difficult than if the property is in the name of the individual or couple that own it (for a refi) or the people purchasing it rather than a purchase through the trust. Providing a complete copy of the trust documents is normal and customary. Most of the time my buyers buy in their own name and transfer the property to the trust after closing.

All I can say, is if a lender is still requiring you to shelp original docs to them to make a mortgage application, find another lender.

I did not say that everything was in a trust and that I owned nothing! I have income from a trust fund, but also have various pension income and SS. I own my house and its contents. The trust is one set up by my late husband's parents to provide income to him and to me after his death. It does provide about 50% of my income.

Someone wants to give you $50,000, and you gripe because you do not want to spend 10 minutes preparing the required documents?

Get a new lender or pay cash.

As stated, I don't have time to get a new lender. Now the latest is they pulled a deposit check and wanted to know what it was for! How is that their business?? It's one ridiculous thing after another.

We were doing the mortgage for the tax benefits per our accountant's advice.

Believe me, we're not high risk for them - they can see our assets and they can see our credit scores are over 800. That's why I figured using the bank we bank with for most of our money would be a piece of cake.

Share_oh dear, let the hot air go. How much do you want that house? If you really love the house just do what they asked, you are running out of time my friend. How many days do you have left?

All borrower deposits have to be accounted for during the mortgage process. The stated reason, from the lenders POV, is they track funds in and out of the borrowers accounts to make sure the funds are from a legitimate source. This is for all borrowers no matter how small the amount you are borrowing. Look up sourcing funds for a more detailed explanation.

This deposit was before we started the loan process.

Summersrhythm, you're right... just have to let it go! Jump thru their hoops and be done with them. We can easily double our money with some remodeling and it's a great deal so we do really want this house. Otherwise, I think I would've walked away when this process started!

Closing is supposed to happen Dec. 15.

Glad to hear that. Good luck! :-)

I'm sorry, I should have mentioned that the lender usually looks at 60 days of bank statements prior to your loan application date. So if you applied Nov 1, for example, the lender will want to see Sept and Oct bank statements + Nov when it comes out and potentially will want to see the transactions for Dec up to your proposed closing date. That is normal in today's lending environment from what I see. Self employed borrowers have to supply more than 60 days (usually).