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This is a blog that I decided to start so people can benefit from the wisdom of my experience.....ENJOY!

Friday, August 13, 2010

The Paper Trail

I have always known that when you apply for a mortgage there was some paperwork involved. However, I didn't realize that the paperwork could clear a small forest. I warn all my friends who read this and have never been through the mortgage process.....SAVE EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF PAPER!!! 

The mortgage broker wanted taxes, pay stubs, bank statements from every single bank you have money in, and retirement account statements! It seemed that every day I was printing, scanning, or emailing the mortgage broker some piece of my financial information.  I gave him everything was current.....then he wanted everything from the past....the past 2 years taxes, the last 2 months of bank statements, and the last few months of pay stubs. Now, like most people, I NEVER keep my pay stubs. AND now since the Dept. of Ed stopped giving us copies of them, I definitely didn't have them saved. Well, luckily, the Dept was smart enough to have all of our pay stubs saved online (I LOVE THE INTERNET), it was just a matter of printing them up.

What about those people who don't have access to their pay stubs? Well...I would run to your HR department and demand copies of them. YOU ARE GOING TO NEED THEM! 

To top things off, my mother-in-law was giving us a down payment as a wedding present (YAY FOR THE MOTHER-IN-LAW!).  Seems like a nice way to say congratulations? WELL YOU ARE WRONG!  Ever since 9/11 money has to be tracked and all the original money sources need to be known.  Here's a little mortgage tidbit that I recently learned: if  you receive a gift from a relative/friend, person giving the gift is taxed on it, not to mention the person receiving the money.  AND if the money has been in your account for less than 2 months, technically it's not yours yet. Sounds fun right?

My mother-in-law gave some money to my husband about 3 months ago.  The money in his account was officially his.  Since we didn't think that we were going to buy a place, we all agreed that she would give me the money later.  Once we started looking for a house, she gave me my portion of the money. When we went through all the paperwork with the mortgage broker, he said that we needed to get a gift letter from my mother-in-law. We gave them the gift letter and a copy of the check to show that it was signed by me and already in the process of being in my account. Was this good enough for them? NO! We needed her bank statements as well showing that she had the money in her account and showing the money left her account.  I have to show the money was deposited into my account (which prints on the 12th).

I feel like a common criminal.  I can understand with terrorism and all, that everything needs to be accounted for.  But I can't understand that with all the paperwork and constant paper trail maneuvering how do we hear about people and their "potentially terrorist related out-sourced money." Meanwhile, everyday hard-working Americans, with NO criminal background or suspicious activity are made to feel like they have to justify themselves because they had a generous family member.  Something is wrong with that picture! I will stop here, that ranting is for some other political blog lol!

Needless to say, this experience has taught me that I need to save everything, account for everything, and make sure that nothing looks "suspicious."

1 comment:

  1. LOL This reminds me of being in the hospital, having our lawyer draw up a power of attorney so Adam could deal with the closing in case I wasn't able to be there and that wasn't good enough. I actually told the realtor and the bank "unless you want to have the closing at my bedside at Methodist hospital, the power of attorney will have to be good enough!!" It's just insane. P.S. I'm still not sure how to get my pay stubs off that website.

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