The closing

Settlement meetings for one's mortgage are, by and large, considered to be about as exciting as cleaning toilets. But this is a great misconception, as our recent experience illustrates. Such meetings can be filled with drama and excitement, particularly when hypothetical demise is involved.

The woman acting as our notary for our refinancing called on her way to the house. "You don't have any questions, do you?" she asked Joe. "Because I'm not allowed to answer any questions. I'm just coming to make sure you sign."

Joe assured her that although we did have some questions, we absolutely planned on signing, so she had nothing to worry about.

Once she was settled in our kitchen, having successfully navigated our steep, narrow stairway ("I feel like I'm climbing into a treehouse," she said), she promptly informed us that she would, in fact, be happy to answer any questions we might have. "I just have to say that I won't, because your lender doesn't want me answering any questions."

This must be part of the truth-in-lending thing, I thought.

And so we proceeded to ask her our questions. Her answers included enthusiastic retellings of horror stories of other clients, which made us want to stop asking questions, and finally it was time to sign everything. She looked at the mortgage note.

"Just his name is on here?" she questioned.

We looked. Although my name was on the other documents, it was conspicuously absent from the note.

"No, mine should be too," I said.

All signing ground to a halt while we debated our options. Joe was all for going ahead and getting it done right then, and leaving my name off, but the notary and I immediately came up with several scenarios that might result from this, all of which might be detrimental to me and involved Joe's hypothetical demise, which might also be considered detrimental to him.

"What if something happens to him" -- I looked apologetically at Joe -- "and I'm not on the mortgage?"

"Or if something happens to him" -- the woman said, looking apologetically at Joe -- "and you try to get another loan but then you have no credit history."

"That would not be good," I said.

"Thanks a lot," Joe said, in a distinctly unthankful voice. "I'm the one who's dead here."

"We're not necessarily talking about death," I said reassuringly. "Maybe just, you know, severe incapacitation."

This did not improve his unthankfulness.

It was decided to call our lender, in the hopes that he could provide some answers, and possibly contribute another scenario that included Joe's severe incapacitation. The lender, however, declared that there was nothing unusual about having just Joe's name on the note ("My wife's name is not on OUR mortgage," he said), and reassured us that none of the contingencies we had brought up would result in any great loss or harm, except of course hypothetically to Joe.

But the woman in our kitchen was not so easily satisfied with his assurances. As the lender talked, she motioned for Joe to mute the phone, and so began several minutes of the lender talking on the phone, having no idea that everything he said was being refuted by the notary, who kept up a constant chatter over him, accompanied by liberal rolling of her eyes and shaking of her head.

Lender: I'm pretty sure that the mortgage would revert to Holly anyway, were something to happen, heaven forbid, to Joe.

Notary: He's pretty sure? (snorts)

Joe: Why does everything have to happen to me?

Lender: But I can check with my manager to make sure.

Notary: (looking sternly at the phone) Yeah, you do that.

Me: (whispering frantically) Are you SURE he can't hear us?

I was terrified that the phone wasn't actually muted, and that the agent on the line would realize we were talking about him, and would have some uncanny ability to listen to someone else while talking at the same time. But his voice kept on chattering, although none of us were listening. If he had been paying attention, he would have gotten a big clue when Joe, instead of saying that the man was on speakerphone, told him he was on mute. But he seemed to think nothing was amiss.

In the end it was decided that it was too risky for me to not have my name also on the mortgage (Joe: "What about me? I'm the one who's dead!"), and we postponed the closing. We are fervently hoping that the next closing will be as exciting as cleaning toilets.