mortgage bank won't take my money

[Westernskies]

I went thru the same hassle with C21 Mortgage. I tried to pay off my mortgage via electonic transfer pay-by-phone, but they insisted that I needed to formally request a payoff statement that they would MAIL me, then pay with a certified check, send the final payment via FEDEX by a certain date, etc. They did everything possible to make it impossible to send a check to pay off the account. I did not need an immediate lien release, nor did I care if they sent me the lien release a month later. I wasn't selling or refinancing. Didn't matter. I talked to three supervisors and wasted two hours of my life with those people.

Anyway, I happened to have a a HELOC with a $100 balance as well as the mortgage- so I just sent full payment with the monthly coupon for the mortgage with a personal check, (added about ten bucks to the amount the electronic customer service voice told me I would owe for payoff a week after I sent the check...)which then put the HELOC in first position. That threw them for a loop. Then I paid off the $100 HELOC a month later when I received my usual statement.

Never requested a payoff , never asked to close the account, but they did it for me, since they no longer had any financial interest in the house. I got a refund of about six bucks three months later, with the lien release... Along with a letter of congratulations for paying off a 30 year mortgage in six years. (It should have been a letter of congratulations for figuring out HOW to pay off the mortage in spite of their system... And a stupid Customer Service Questionnaire , which I gleefully completed and returned via certified mail )

[Maurice]

This is a very useful thread, I'll be paying off my mortgage in July (maybe August). I'll probably write a personal check to get the balance down to a couple of hundred dollars, then call them and see what hoops I need to jump through for the last bit, when the interest riding on it will be negligible.

[2good]

Flagstar Bank requested certified check when paying off my mortgage. I just send them the money via the AutoPay feature from my checking account (different bank). The accepted the money without problems.

[Bestwifeever]

Deposited a cashiers check from Chase Bank into our Chase Bank checking account when we refinanced. Got a letter a few days later from Chase Bank saying they were freezing the funds for a week in case the check (that they issued) was a forgery....

[REWahoo]

Hey, these days you can't be too careful...

[tryan]

... Walk into a branch office and pay with CASH ... should get some funny looks.

[Sarah in SC]

Local bank did not require certified funds, but I did call for the payoff.
They sent the release of lien within a month.

[free4now]

I say pay in pennies.

[Rustward]

My recollection is that I entered a request for payoff amount on the mortgage company's web site and they let me download a document to send with payment. Wouldn't accept a personal check or bank draft, so I had my credit union wire them the funds and I faxed them the completed document.

They accepted our personal checks for 15 years, but not for the final payment.

[bssc]

We had Chase, asked for a payoff statement and paid it off completely as additional principal on our mortage payment. We called, the CSR confirmed that there was no balance and started the process to take the lien off the house. No certified check needed.