Refinancing a mortgage with SunTrust – Done

Continuing with my mortgage saga, I went in yesterday morning and *finally* got this done. There was one nasty surprise waiting for me there. ANOTHER copy of that dreaded 4506-T “Request for Transcript of Tax Return” form. As before it was completely blank. I asked the lawyer (he represents the lender, like I have a choice) if I can just remove it from the package. His response was that the package needs to be signed and initialed as-is or the mortgage can’t go through. So I said, “What if I fill in the values so this isn’t just a blank check to my entire IRS history?”. Again, he said he sympathized but no changes can be made or the mortgage has to wait.

I am Joe, ordinary citizen, and this is is typical of what we all face when borrowing from our lending institutions. For this transaction I had 34 documents on 75 pages of which all but 3 needed to be either initialed or signed.  The document letting me know that I have a right to my own lawyer was probably about number 20 in the pile…  Do the folks who legislate this crap really think it actually helps the lay person? It sure didn’t help any of the folks losing their houses to foreclosure. All I’m doing is signing away more and more rights. Even the stuff that I slowed down to read (I had to take a fair amount of the information on faith that the lawyer wasn’t trying to screw me over) was the kind of stuff that would take a good hour or so to really sink in or understand. And if I found any of it objectionable it’s not like I can NOT sign away all my rights if I want to complete the deal.

My credit rating is excellent, but that still gives me NOTHING in negotiating with these institutions. And I actually have a day job, so battling it out with them in court would be idiotically expensive and unproductive for me to say the least.

Anyway, I’m so glad it’s over. As with buying a car, you grit your teeth, hope you don’t get raped too badly and then try to recover from the disappointment, humiliation and dissatisfaction with the process and convince yourself that it wasn’t so bad so you will be able to bear it every time you make a payment without feeling you got taken to the cleaners.

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