On the House: Unsolicited - and odd - refi offer

Jeanne Drake didn't start out thinking that the unsolicited offer from her lender to refinance the mortgage on her condo at the Delaware shore was too good to be true.

Subsequent events began pushing her in that direction, though.

Drake and her partner, Linda Miniscala, have a primary home in Philadelphia as well as the condo in Rehoboth Beach. The lender, CitiMortgage, contacted them about refinancing to a lower rate.

The appraisal came in at $354,000, which was good for a mortgage balance of just $247,500. What's important to this story is that only the exterior was appraised.

"We were not looking to increase our mortgage, only to refinance for a shorter term at the lower rate" offered by their lender, Drake says.

She and Miniscala completed the application over the phone, and CitiMortgage followed up with the required documentation: the W-2 forms, driver's licenses, pay stubs, passports, and the permission necessary for it to acquire tax returns filed in the last two years.

A credit-card payment of $500 was mandatory to cover processing fees, Drake says.

Remember, refinancing was not the couple's idea, but the lender's. You might reason that CitiMortgage would not even have made the offer if something had been amiss with their finances. So what happened next was, at best, rather odd.

CitiMortgage began questioning Drake and Miniscala "constantly" about their Philadelphia house as well as the Rehoboth Beach condo, even though their primary residence wasn't part of the package.

"We needed to show proof of insurance to document that it was adequate for the property and proof we were paying our taxes," Drake says. "They wanted to be sure we were not shirking our duties in Philadelphia to pay for Rehoboth."

The kicker was CitiMortgage's request for an interior appraisal of the Rehoboth property, explaining, according to Drake, that "sometimes people with low credit ratings don't maintain the interior."

But both she and Miniscala have credit scores in the 800s, and CitiMortgage had to know that before offering to refinance. The new appraisal was even higher: $377,000.

Yet endless requests for more information followed. Finally, they said, enough was enough.

"We felt they were being antagonistic, and I can only surmise the underwriter had a problem with the 'two-women' part of the loan process," Drake says. "I asked to speak with the underwriter and was told that 'was not possible at this time.' "

I'm still not sure what the problem was - it probably had more to do with the systemic "mess" now common to all lenders than with bias - and Citi didn't forward an explanation when I presented the case to a local representative.

I can tell you, however, that the same day, Drake and Miniscala heard from Citi, wanting to reinstate the application and asking for just two more things - proof the couple had $450 in the bank and a completed questionnaire from the condo association.

Settlement was supposed to be Oct. 26, but Citi arrived with closing documents with wrong addresses, Drake says. It happened Oct. 27 instead.

Inquirer real estate writer Alan J. Heavens is the author of "Remodeling on the Money" (Kaplan Publishing). His columns appear Fridays in Home & Design. Contact him at 215-854-2472 or aheavens@phillynews.com.