We’re good with Wells Fargo

For any of you that were following the story… we’re now post-foreclosure panic, post-Making Home Affordable, post-waiting for the end of the story.

As of this moment, we are back into a mortgage routine, making payments, having a distinct mortgage balance (well, ok albeit daily amortization. At least I can log into their website and look at a number). We have no foreclosure on our records. We are still in our home.

Gracious, that was a tedious process. Our first call to Wells Fargo alerting them that we could no longer make our payments was in October of 2008. Sixteen months (and skyrocketing blood pressure) later, we’re all set.

Let me take on a lot of responsibility, lest we make any assumptions. Wells Fargo had no what-if-we-lose-our-job clauses when we first committed to the loan. They did not have to reorganize our payment schedule, and let us add our missed payments to the balance.

Neither one of us came through it gracefully. Wells Fargo hopefully has the headache it deserves for having to work within its own astonishingly convoluted, cobwebby network of various disparate departments multiply duplicated and unmotivated not merely to share information, but even to be aware of each other.

…and for my part, I’m bitter, even though I’m still in my home. It’s a guilt-ridden bitterness because of this voice telling me I should be grateful to my mortgage-holder. Our loan amount went up ten thousand dollars (no principle reduction like you’ve heard on the news), and our monthly amount went down 88 dollars (practically no payment reduction).  In the meantime, the value of our property dropped 40 thousand, so equity is a pipe dream.

But my family is under a roof. Even though it’s a tired old building that loses more chunks of white vinyl siding every time the wind blows, exposing the avocado paint beneath, and every time we accidentally touch the disintegrating foundation walls a cascading shower of ancient concrete pebbles builds higher piles of gravel on the floor, and even though the rain running through the moss on the roof doesn’t hit the gutters any more because they’ve sagged too far away from the building…

….this is OUR HOUSE! It’s really big, and has a basement. And Tara gets the whole upstairs to herself with her own bathroom. And there’s a lawn, and magic soil out front where I am dying to put in this year’s crop of vegetables. We have a fireplace, a guest room, a big country kitchen, and lots of places for our two silly cats to live whole lives and not get too close to each other (because they fight like demons when they do). We’ve got friends and relatives that just stop by, and neighbors that care about us. There’s a mailbox on the porch, and camellias up to the second floor that are bursting, BURSTING with blooms right now.

whew! I feel better.  ;o)