Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Adventures at the Credit Union

I paid off my home mortgage early this summer, but had a small home equity loan still in place. A month later I got a letter from the credit union specifying my new payment. Well, I began to worry. Good thing. I went there today and learn after the primary mortgage is paid no longer is there an escrow fund for taxes and insurance. Thus even though I had been paying a large payment, none of it was going to escrow.

We looked up on the web and found out that I was 6 days behind on my property taxes. Due to the theft of my purse, I didn't have any checks to use for the payment. (Getting new checks at a high enough number that they will be honored was another task completed today.) I paid the taxes online, but through a private bank that the county uses for this service which, of course, charges a convenience fee. The troubles compounded upon themselves resulted in a penalty payment of $30 some dollars as well as a "convenience fee" of $30 some dollars. I guess any day one gets out of trouble with only $60, that's not a bad day.

I also arranged to start participating in the preferred Realtor plan through the credit union, to start getting the show on the road for selling the house and getting somewhere else. All in all not how I like to spend my time, but adventures in banking were a real lesson today.

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