I heard an awful report about Citi Mortgage freezing home equity credit lines. A mortgage lender recently reported that one of his clients heloc was frozen without notice. Here are the facts according to mortgage banker Bryan Dornan, “The borrower was a 781, full doc borrower under 40% DTI and under 75% CLTV. The borrower lives in San Diego county and reported that they had always made their mortgage payment on time and they have even made a principal paydown on the credit line that paid off over $100,000 of the outstanding balance.”
One day they received a letter in the mail that CITI was freezing their credit line effective immdiately. The borrower had the option to appeal the decision and when they followed that path, they had to pay for a new URAR appraisal from an appraiser that Citi Mortgage selected. I don’t know about you, but when a 780 fico, full doc borrower under 75% CLTV gets their credit line frozen, I start to wonder… Is this the state of mortgage brokering and lending in 2008? With banks freezing 2nd mortgages on borrowers like this I start to believe that the mortgage crisis has just begun. Please share your recent lending stories.
