This is a duplicate of my original post. Cyrus didn't like me using boss-man's name so I fixed her up a little...
Let me tell you a story. Two stories really. It all started when we bought this house. Before we bought it, we did some research and were assured we could get a loan to do some major FIXING that was necessary to get it livable (the water that came out of the sink in the kitchen was odd colored, the cabinets all water damaged and moldy etc). In fact, we were approved for a loan. But when we came here, the credit market froze up and they told us the loan was not available any longer.
So we used our credit card to remodel the kitchen so we could feed our kids. Then we missed a bill that came late because we forgot to tell Chase our new address so since we paid one day late, they raised our interest rate to 29%. So we did a balance transfer to 0% even though in a few short months it would be paid off. Unfortunately, I accidentally did the balance transfer twice...so we closed our account with Chase and asked them to send us check after the card was paid off. They sent us our check and we thought the case was closed.
Jump ahead nine months. Cyrus is really unhappy with his job. His boss is very difficult and Cyrus has a hard time just letting it roll off his back.
Then Cyrus reads about a practice in Idaho. It is successful, priced right and in a beautiful place. We are curious and he goes out there. The Idaho doctor is perfect--and even willing to work within the six months of notice in Cyrus' contract. We decide to just see if we can get financing.
That week, Cyrus has a lunch with his boss where his boss asks if they can make sure the assistants are cleaning up the lab better. Cyrus tells the assistants that boss-man wants them to clean up better than kind of jokingly says, "Lookin' great in here!" when they make the lab look like no one ever used it. Then another staff asked what the meeting was about and Cyrus told her. Unfortunately, the boss didn't want Cyrus to tell anyone that he wanted the lab clean, he just wanted him to say, "clean it up." So, he confronted Cyrus about the whole thing. Cyrus said he didn't know it was confidential and apologized. Then, boss-man asked if Cyrus was looking for a new job. Cyrus was honest but assured boss-man we would give proper notice. This all happened on Monday. By Thursday, boss-man called Cyrus into his office and strongly implied that if he didn't quit, he would be fired, so Cyrus quit.
That same day, Cyrus gets a call from the lender that we have been denied credit for the practice because of his bad credit score. We are both shocked. When we bought the house my score was 820 and his was 780. The minimum for a dental loan was 640. It turns out Chase (remember we payed them twice and they sent us a check) says we owed them $60.00 that was 90 days late. They never sent us a paper bill or a letter or anything. Just email that went to junk mail. We got a big check and never got a bill and this little bill cost us a dental practice.
So now, Cyrus will be out of a job and is unable to get a loan. We are rushing to finish this house project and find work. It has been a tough month.
Luckily we have been very blessed too...we fixed this house up with cash and paid off any that we put on the credit cards so we have a lot of wiggle room in our price which is a good thing in this economy. We bought a fabulous house with an amazing view so that is good, too. Cyrus has a good skill and is a great dentist--two people have approached me in Costco and one at the hardware store and said Cyrus was the best and nicest dentist they had ever been to (and those were just patients who knew who I was). I feel sad to leave this old house but as my dad says, there will be more houses.
So, we'll keep you posted on where we go and what we do...Texas is looking good right now. I'm gearing up for my NEXT ADVENTURE!!!
8 comments:
Oh, Annie! I am so sorry! How super stressful! Have you tried going to a loan institution that does manual underwriting? (rather then just plugging in your credit score and spitting out a yes or no, a real life person looks at your situation and judges your ability to repay) I don't know what the details are as far as getting a loan specific to buying a dental practice, but "my" financial guy, Dave Ramsey, recomends manual underwriting for traditional mortgages. Good luck, we'll keep you in our prayers.
That certainly Sucks, with a capital S!!! Good luck wherever you go. You have a great perspective and will be blessed for it, I'm sure.
Oh Annie. My heart just aches for you guys! Sounds like you are really turning these lemons into lemonade though. You know I back you up 200% about your Texas decision; as they say, "It's God's country" and I can totally see your family thriving there. Although I can totally see you guys as Idahoans too. Oh man. Know that we're thinking of you and hope things turn around for you soon!
Holy cow guys. That is just the pits. However, I am here to solve your problems with a plan B if you are up for it. Ever since Flying J was forced into bankruptcy, making my life crazy and very uncertain, I have been contemplating a T-shirt business with this eminently marketable theme:
HANG ALL THE BANKERS!
I despise them, and am convinced they are the root of all evil, and Old Testament punishments for USURY are more than appropriate these days. The only problem is that depending on how widely you define it, the term Bankers could include both my wife and my brother in law, at past, much darker times in their respective lives. So I wouldn't want anyone to take me literally. Well, let me know if you are interested . . . .In the meantime, we will keep you in our prayers.
I'm so sorry that you have to go through all this. It's never any fun, but I also know that everything always turns out in the end. You'll be in my prayers.
Brett, we'd be in on the T-shirts but can't get a loan because the BANKERS SCREWED OUR CREDIT.......
Oh Becca, we used up a whole month of minutes trying to work through this with Chase and the other bank. One of the loans we tried to get was manual underwriting but the only bank that does dental loans with manual underwriting also holds our mortgage and they were overly concerned that we owned a house in another state and due to Cyrus' credit problem they thought we would walk away from our home. We were 90 days past due and the score went from 780 to around 600 we saw the first score and were told the second by the bank). We have never been late on ANYTHING in 10 years. We have heavy student loan debt but so does every dentist in America. My score is still in the 800s but I am not a dentist so I cannot buy a dental practice.
We hired a consumer advocate (lawyer) to take care of the credit. Banks treat you like crap when you make a mistake but when they make the mistake they still treat you like crap. They just talk in circles and will never explain how they could send us $5000 in the mail when our account closed but then charge our closed account $60. The lawyer we hired has a 100% success rate right now because she only takes good cases when the bank is obviously in the wrong but it will take a month and the practice will be gone by then. Chase screwed us. Period.
Oh and my Flying J buddy is a lawyer married to an investment analyst. He knows what is up with his company. He's helping work through it. He left a million dollar home in one of the most beautiful towns in the SF bay (Tiburon) to work for Flying J so the uncertainty bred by the bankruptcy is hard to swallow.
Becca, I am not mad we didn't get the loan. I understand B of A's choice--we have a $200,000 home loan with them, people are walking away from homes with no regard for what they committed to do. We have a low credit score and want to borrow $400,000. I understand not giving us the loan.
I am mad a CHASE BANK for sending us 25 million "we want you back" letters and a huge check in the mail but never a bill. Should everyone have to search their junk email box for letters about closed accounts? Do we need to make sure every bank we have ever dealt with has our current email lest they should charge us a sudden fee on a closed account. The craziest part was when we called them and told them we had paid twice they said they had to hold on to our money for a month to make sure all the interest was covered. Wouldn't you assume when you got a check in the mail and the account is closed that is paid in full? We did. Bad assumption.
The truth is if we had a good credit score we would have gotten the loan. Dentists are a very good risk. The banks both told us that. All of our friends who started their own shops are doing fabulously. Matsco will give any dentist with a year's experience and a credit score of 640 up to a million bucks, no questions asked. It is Chase Bank's fault we didn't get a loan. We paid them twice, closed the account. After the account was closed they sent us a refund check of over $5000 and on the same day, after cutting the check charged us $60.00. They then sent notifications to an old email account where in went to junk and didn't send paper notification of a credit ding as they are required to by law. I blame Chase.
In the end our credit will get fixed and MUCH of the country has an extreme shortage of dentists. We'll come out older and wiser and certainly less trusting of credit card companies.
As for Brett, my Flying J buddy, he is lawyer with years of experience married to a woman who has worked for at least 20 years in finance. They are brilliant. He knows what is going on. HE MADE A JOKE. A funny one too.
It gets difficult to feel sorry for banks when you pay $1000 every few weeks in tax and realize that these people who are being so rude to you on the phone are being subsidized by your tax dollars. It gets old.
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