Somewhere in the confusion of the last month I decided to pay off my mortgage. It's been within reach of my available cash for a while, but I was content to let inertia hold and keep on taking the tax deduction on the interest. Then came the annual letter about the rate adjustment (down, of course), and how they were adjusting the payment down as well. Previous times this happened I was able to go online, find the well-hidden links to the automatic debit system, and adjust the amount of extra payment on the principal to keep the overall payment level.
This time, however, the automatic payment system link demanded a separate login, and no information I threw at it would let me in. A call to Chase's customer assistance (cough) yielded the information that the automatic payment section of their web site was outsourced, that Chase could offer no help with it, and that the outsourcer had no help system either. My only option was to print out a paper form and mail it in. I decided to pay off the mortgage. And to write a letter to some high muckety-muck about how they clearly didn't want my business, and how as a shareholder I found this distressing...but I write lots of those letters in my head and only mail about 1% of them.
So, I did call and get a payoff quote, navigated my broker's web site to the wire transfer section to attempt to set up the transfer, then called said broker and they did it for me. Got the letter from Chase verifying the payoff, etc., etc. And then yesterday came another letter from Chase, this time about that automatic debit. Seems like they can't manage to cancel that without an explicit request--I really can't figure out what they'd do with a payment they withdrew for a closed loan account, but nonetheless I had to call them this evening and tell them to cancel it.
(OK, the letter is very confusing and perhaps they wouldn't have actually debited my account since the payoff went through a couple of weeks before the debit date...but the customer service person certainly felt she had to cancel something when I called.)
Oh, yay me! The house is all mine! And the cats', of course.
This time, however, the automatic payment system link demanded a separate login, and no information I threw at it would let me in. A call to Chase's customer assistance (cough) yielded the information that the automatic payment section of their web site was outsourced, that Chase could offer no help with it, and that the outsourcer had no help system either. My only option was to print out a paper form and mail it in. I decided to pay off the mortgage. And to write a letter to some high muckety-muck about how they clearly didn't want my business, and how as a shareholder I found this distressing...but I write lots of those letters in my head and only mail about 1% of them.
So, I did call and get a payoff quote, navigated my broker's web site to the wire transfer section to attempt to set up the transfer, then called said broker and they did it for me. Got the letter from Chase verifying the payoff, etc., etc. And then yesterday came another letter from Chase, this time about that automatic debit. Seems like they can't manage to cancel that without an explicit request--I really can't figure out what they'd do with a payment they withdrew for a closed loan account, but nonetheless I had to call them this evening and tell them to cancel it.
(OK, the letter is very confusing and perhaps they wouldn't have actually debited my account since the payoff went through a couple of weeks before the debit date...but the customer service person certainly felt she had to cancel something when I called.)
Oh, yay me! The house is all mine! And the cats', of course.
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Then I traded up to a bigger house, so now I have a mortgage again. *wry g*
Just be sure not to burn tbe original mortgage papers. Use photocopies.
Congrats on paying off your mortgage. I'm still chugging along with 21 years to go (I'm making extra principal payments, so I've cut off almost 3 years so far), but you both are great examples for me.
I wish I could attend another mortgage burning party, especially since it's local, but I'm still non-weight-bearing and housebound. Stupid ankle...
I go see the orthopedist on Tuesday, at which point I'm hoping (masochistically) that he'll say I'm okay to start putting weight on it *and* start PT. (Which may also mean coming off disability. Yay!)
But I will have paid off a 30 yr mortgage in 20 yrs roughly, and Im pretty happy about that!
Huge CONGRATS!
What's your schedule looking like, to get together for something celebratory?