problem with house closing
 

My fiancee and I just bought a house in Northern Virginia and ran into
a small but extremely annoying problem in the closing process. It seems like
I've heard others complain about this, but I forget where. I'd like to write a
letter to whoever regulates the real estate or mortgage industry just to add
another voice and maybe get this fixed. Can anyone here advise me on who to
write to? Attorney General?
Here's what happened: we got a HUD-1 statement with estimates of our
closing costs and everything. We know that they are estimates. We know that
if there are discrepancies at the closing table we'd either need to write an
additional check or recieve a small refund for the difference. We're not
complaining about that.
It seems that here in Virginia, the title companies all but refuse to
get a more accurate estimate of the cash amount the buyer needs to bring to the
table. Despite our realtor and our mortgage broker making repeated calls on
our behalf, we couldn't get the number. So a few hours before closing, we went
to the bank and got our cashier's check made out for $1000 more than the HUD-1
total. We were told that they won't accept a personal check for more than
$1000 so we thought this would cover us and prevent delaying closing if we
guessed wrong.
An hour before our closing time, and 15 minutes *after* the banks closed
for the day (around 2:30pmish) they finally called our realtor and told her the
amount we needed to bring to the table. They ended up writing a refund check
for over $6,000 because our final estimated cash-on-table amount was that much
different from our HUD-1 total.
We were lucky. What if the difference went the other way? We would
have had to delay closing by a day so we could go back to the bank the next
morning to get another cashier's check. Or worse, what if we were cash-poor
and didn't *have* an additional $6000 on top of what the original HUD-1 said?
There's no excuse in the world why they couldn't have told us a closer
estimate the day before closing, yet they refused to. This isn't a
fly-by-night title company, either. It's one of the big ones in this area with
offices all over the region. How in the world do they think we can trust them
to manage a huge monetary transaction like this (ours was a half-million dollar
home purchase, which in this area is on the low end!) when they can't estimate
the taxes and fees closer than $6000? Sheesh

Sharon

In article ,
(Lurker at Large) wrote:

An hour before our closing time, and 15 minutes *after* the banks closed
for the day (around 2:30pmish) they finally called our realtor and told her
the
amount we needed to bring to the table.

That doesn't seem likely in a modern city. Grocery store banks are
open until 7:30PM here in the twin cities, and all day Sunday at many
stores.

We were lucky. What if the difference went the other way? We would
have had to delay closing by a day so we could go back to the bank the next
morning to get another cashier's check.

I have never had a problem with not getting a relatively accurate
HUD statement well before closing. I am normally able to come up
with the numbers myself, so I usually know what the HUD statement
will say. I have had problems with last minute fees that pop up,
and with banks that give incorrect payoff amounts (especially
Wash Mutual, which always holds back a few thousand). My reaction
would be to tell all parties that I will show up for closing 24
hours after I get the HUD statement FAX'ed to me, and not a minute
before. I want to check the numbers if nothing else.

-john-

--
================================================== ====================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ====================

Lurker at Large wrote:

There's no excuse in the world why they couldn't have told us a closer
estimate the day before closing, yet they refused to. This isn't a
fly-by-night title company, either. It's one of the big ones in this
area with
offices all over the region. How in the world do they think we can
trust them
to manage a huge monetary transaction like this (ours was a
half-million dollar
home purchase, which in this area is on the low end!) when they can't
estimate
the taxes and fees closer than $6000? Sheesh

Sharon

There must have been something wrong with the title company. I got my
estimate about 48 hours before the closing and it was 19 cents off!


Cheers!
D.
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On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 19:01:45 -0500, someone wrote:

.....My reaction
would be to tell all parties that I will show up for closing 24
hours after I get the HUD statement FAX'ed to me, and not a minute
before.

Hmmm. That's what you "would" do? Sounds suspiciously like big talk
and nothing more. How often have you been able to get your way by
doing this? In particular, since OP thinks it would have been awful
if she had to delay closing by a day, would she be able to use such a
tactic?



Reply to NG only - this e.mail address goes to a kill file.

In article ,
(v) wrote:

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 19:01:45 -0500, someone wrote:

.....My reaction
would be to tell all parties that I will show up for closing 24
hours after I get the HUD statement FAX'ed to me, and not a minute
before.

Hmmm. That's what you "would" do? Sounds suspiciously like big talk
and nothing more. How often have you been able to get your way by
doing this? In particular, since OP thinks it would have been awful
if she had to delay closing by a day, would she be able to use such a
tactic?

You have to avoid getting yourself in a spot where you have
no options. I have seen ruthless buyers go into a closing
knowing that the sellers had a 2nd closing to buy their new
place, and then they started demanding changes in the deal.
They knew they at least had a chance since the seller had
to sell to make the 2nd closing work.

I like to make sure that I always know what is going on at
a closing, and I make sure I don't get caught with my back
to the wall. I have still had people try to pull stuff on
me at the closing table. One that I recall is a party that
hadn't moved out of the house, so I couldn't take possession.
They had a 2nd closing, and had to sell. I wouldn't close
unless they were fully moved out--I didn't want to take the
risk of something happening after closing but before I
could take possession. The two realtors ended up posting
a bond that we could use as insurance, so with that protection,
I did go ahead and close. Everything did turn out OK, but
the movers did put a pretty big gouge in the drywall. That
was OK since I always touch up the drywall and repaint when
I take possession of a property.

-john-

--
================================================== ====================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ====================

In article , (v) writes:
On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 19:01:45 -0500, someone wrote:

.....My reaction
would be to tell all parties that I will show up for closing 24
hours after I get the HUD statement FAX'ed to me, and not a minute
before.

Hmmm. That's what you "would" do? Sounds suspiciously like big talk
and nothing more. How often have you been able to get your way by
doing this? In particular, since OP thinks it would have been awful
if she had to delay closing by a day, would she be able to use such a
tactic?

I'm the OP, and I wouldn't have thought delaying closing was "awful", I just
didn't think of it. I know I should have, since we didn't have any kind of
deadline or time pressure. I do think that's a little harsh now, although at
the time I was annoyed enough to try it.

As a sort of resolution, our closing turned out ok despite the fact that our
cashier's check was more than $6000 more than we needed. The next day I
compared the final HUD-1 to the preliminary and saw so many discrepancies that
I can't pin the problem on any particular item. I can only summarize by saying
that our mortgage broker guessed VERY wildly on the prelim.

I also now see that we might have gotten a response from the title company if
we'd used different language. Instead of asking what the exact dollar figure
was, we should have asked for their best estimate at the time (the day before
closing). It still would have been off, but probably by a few hundred dollars
instead of thousands. I mean, just imagine if the final total was off by 6000
in the other direction...? That WOULD have delayed closing or possibly even
cancelled the sale if we were stretched to our limits in liquid assets.

Sharon