Home Loan Blues: Refinancing Isn't So Easy

Pennsylvania resident Jeff Marsico has been with the same lender for 15 years. He's had two houses and has never missed a payment. With equity in his house, a solid income and credit score, he figured refinancing with his existing lender would be fairly simple. It wasn't.

It took 90 days to get the loan — and along the way the lender inundated him with requests for documents: every page — even the blank ones — of his brokerage statements, and every page and schedule of his two most recent tax returns.

"Many of you who use accountants probably know that accountants staple the top of the tax return," Marsico explains. "So, in order for me to scan those documents I was pressing the paper up against the scanner and it left a black mark at the top."

But it wasn't pristine enough for the lender who wanted blotch-free pages. Marsico undid the staples and rescanned the pages.

There were lots of other frustrations too. But in the end, he got a 4.375 percent loan that will save him about $1,000 a year on his mortgage payment.

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