Wells Fargo Home Equity - Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Wells Fargo Home Equity Solutions Wells Fargo wants your retirement Des Moines , Iowa

I am a service member on orders to leave the area in December.   I, like many others were drawn into the big housing boom and financed a condo in San Diego in 2005.  Thinking that the value of my investment couldn't possibly go below the $40,000.00 down payment, my wife and I signed an agreement for an 80/20 interest only loan with the 20 being a HELOC loan.  Both liens are with Wells Fargo.  Fast forward 4 years later and I am in receipt of orders.  I could rent it out, but my first becomes adjustable in July of 2010 and I can't afford to risk the loss.  I am in a panic and franticly looking for a solution. After speaking with our financial adviser, we learn that a short sale is what we may need to do.

We list the house in April 2009 after compiling all of our paperwork (W-2's, bank statements, hardship letter, financial work sheet, etc).  We get an offer in May but they back out for an undisclosed reason.  No big deal though, there is plenty of time for us to get this done.  Another offer comes in June.  It's a pretty solid offer so our Realtor takes it and submits all the forms and releases.  Roughly 40 days later we get approval on the first, now we work on the second.

This is where it gets sticky.  I receive non taxable supplemental money for my housing allowance also known as BAH which will vary based on the location I am at, and the cost of living there.  Because BAH is on my pay stub or Leave /Earnings Statement (LES), I report it to them as supplemental income with an explanation of its purpose.  The hardship lies in the fact that when we move, my wife will not have a job, which is a huge monthly loss toward our income. The loss of her income, a mortgage here, and rent in our new duty station will put us in a bad financial situation in which our debt will exceed our income by about $2000.00 per month.

My Realtor receives a call from the negotiator asking us to send more recent copies of our 403B and ROTH IRA's.  I don't understand why this is until we are told that we need to come up with $20,000.00 to settle a $36,000.00, purchase money HELOC.  The First lien is offering $3,000.00 to the HELOC and The negotiator knows that all we have in savings is about $6,000.00.  This is the money we have put aside to help with having to move twice within a six month period and sustainment while my wife tries to find a new job at our future location. So how can the negotiator expect us to work with that. We counter with $500.00 knowing full well that the negotiator will immediately scoff at that offer, but that offer is as ridiculous to her, as her's was to us.  Her explanation to my Realtor is that we need to come up with a "reasonable" counter and that we do have the money available through our retirement funds.  I am being led to believe that our retirement funds are off limits and that the only ones who can touch that money is the IRS. Not only that, but even if we could get the money out, due to penalties and taxes we would only net about $12,000.00 from them.  The First lien is offering $3,000.00 to pay toward the HELOC. 

So, here we are, my approval letter on the first expired 4 days ago. The HELOC has had a negotiator assigned to it since July 17th and all we have established that my retirement funds are not enough to cover what she is asking for.  We have put in an offer of settling for $2000.00 borrowed from a relative and $3000.00 from the first totaling $5000.00, that is all we have can feasably afford to give. Both loans are purchase money loans, so according to the state of California, they are non-recourse, and I believe I qualify for the California anti-deficiency laws so I have that working for me.  She will not explain what a reasonable offer is and will not return my calls.