Can I recover the money from these uncashed checks?
April 24, 2012 9:09 PM Subscribe
What to do with these checks? Spring cleaning turned up 2 old checks made from lendor to creditors. We never sent them because they were wrong, and now, 5 years later, where is the money and can we get it back?
Short story long. In 2007, I took out a home equity loan to do some work on the house as well as pay some overdue debts. Previously, my credit history wasn't so great because of a stint where my husband and I were both unemployed, and we barely made it through, in part by stopping paying our credit card debts. Which means a the time we went for the home equity loan I had some outstanding credit card debts floating around from years earlier. Now, being before the housing bubble crash we were still able to qualify even with bad credit - weren't those the days? The company handing the loan (Country Wide) said that we had a lien against the house, and they'd have to pay that before they could approve us.
Fast forward to getting the approval and the money. They sent us a check for our portion of the loan, paid the creditor with the lien directly (deducting from the loan amount), but also included two checks to creditors on my husband's credit report (also deducted from the loan amount), which is something we hadn't talked about with Country Wide. They weren't the right creditors or the right amounts. We were in one of those situations where the debt had been sold several times over and had a couple of creditors collecting on the wrong things. Actually one was wrong, the other I wasn't sure of.
I was kind of miffed because we were going to try to negotiate all the debt down. We paid off the ones we knew after negotiating down, and put these aside to try and figure out what we should do with them. Unfortunately, it was one of those things where I put it off until I 'had time to deal with it' and managed to forget about it amidst dealing with the other creditors and getting some remodeling projects done. A few weeks ago, cleaning up some old files trying to decide what stays and goes I stumble across these two checks.
So where has this money gone? And is there anyway to reclaim it? As it happens, I'm also in a tight financial pinch, so the money would be very useful right now. The credit card debts they might have been for are long off the credit record and are outside the statute of limitations (they were from before 2002-2003 I believe). I'm not actually entirely sure the two checks aren't even for the same balance since the amounts are so similar.
The checks themselves are not from Country Wide, they're from the company that cut the check, a New Millenium Title Group. Additionally, Country Wide doesn't exist anymore. It's now Bank Of America. I'm a little afraid to just directly call up BOA, in case our loan was contingent on paying those amounts. As I said, they never told us they were going to cut these checks, but in retrospect, the whole Country Wide experience was kind of shady and it wasn't until after we had the loan that we learned of all the problems they had.
I would hope the money is somewhere, being that we still owe it as part of our loan but no one has ever received it.
Short story long. In 2007, I took out a home equity loan to do some work on the house as well as pay some overdue debts. Previously, my credit history wasn't so great because of a stint where my husband and I were both unemployed, and we barely made it through, in part by stopping paying our credit card debts. Which means a the time we went for the home equity loan I had some outstanding credit card debts floating around from years earlier. Now, being before the housing bubble crash we were still able to qualify even with bad credit - weren't those the days? The company handing the loan (Country Wide) said that we had a lien against the house, and they'd have to pay that before they could approve us.
Fast forward to getting the approval and the money. They sent us a check for our portion of the loan, paid the creditor with the lien directly (deducting from the loan amount), but also included two checks to creditors on my husband's credit report (also deducted from the loan amount), which is something we hadn't talked about with Country Wide. They weren't the right creditors or the right amounts. We were in one of those situations where the debt had been sold several times over and had a couple of creditors collecting on the wrong things. Actually one was wrong, the other I wasn't sure of.
I was kind of miffed because we were going to try to negotiate all the debt down. We paid off the ones we knew after negotiating down, and put these aside to try and figure out what we should do with them. Unfortunately, it was one of those things where I put it off until I 'had time to deal with it' and managed to forget about it amidst dealing with the other creditors and getting some remodeling projects done. A few weeks ago, cleaning up some old files trying to decide what stays and goes I stumble across these two checks.
So where has this money gone? And is there anyway to reclaim it? As it happens, I'm also in a tight financial pinch, so the money would be very useful right now. The credit card debts they might have been for are long off the credit record and are outside the statute of limitations (they were from before 2002-2003 I believe). I'm not actually entirely sure the two checks aren't even for the same balance since the amounts are so similar.
The checks themselves are not from Country Wide, they're from the company that cut the check, a New Millenium Title Group. Additionally, Country Wide doesn't exist anymore. It's now Bank Of America. I'm a little afraid to just directly call up BOA, in case our loan was contingent on paying those amounts. As I said, they never told us they were going to cut these checks, but in retrospect, the whole Country Wide experience was kind of shady and it wasn't until after we had the loan that we learned of all the problems they had.
I would hope the money is somewhere, being that we still owe it as part of our loan but no one has ever received it.
Assuming you are in the US, check your state's unclaimed property list.
posted by lalala1234 at 4:52 AM on April 25, 2012
posted by lalala1234 at 4:52 AM on April 25, 2012
Double check the balance of the loan to make sure you really are paying for the loaned money on the check. With some loans, (like those credit card checks you get) the balance of the loan doesn't go up until the check is cashed.
But yeah, just call the title company, that's what they are there for. I did a mortgage refinance where I had to put some money in escrow with them to cover a property tax payment, which I was to get back once the tax showed up as paid. I never got the check. I called them, they assured me I had gotten the check, I assured them I hadn't, and they said "oh yeah, here it is, we will reissue it."
posted by gjc at 6:09 AM on April 25, 2012
But yeah, just call the title company, that's what they are there for. I did a mortgage refinance where I had to put some money in escrow with them to cover a property tax payment, which I was to get back once the tax showed up as paid. I never got the check. I called them, they assured me I had gotten the check, I assured them I hadn't, and they said "oh yeah, here it is, we will reissue it."
posted by gjc at 6:09 AM on April 25, 2012
Step one is definitely call the bank that cut the check and see if they can track down the records of what happened to it. If it was more than 7 years ago there is a chance that they've purged the record of it but it can't hurt to ask.
You might also see if you can dig up the records from your loan. They might have itemized those amounts on your HUD-1a so you'll be able to figure out if those amounts were/are included in the loan amount.
Lastly, you can probably call BoA and see what they'll send you from the original loan file. If the amounts that those checks were for have been paid off (whether they ended up cutting the correct checks or you're paid them since) you're certainly in the clear. If not and you're still obligated to pay them and paying them off was indeed a condition of the approval on the original loan, I highly doubt that BoA would have a problem helping you to rectify the situation.
posted by VTX at 6:17 AM on April 25, 2012
You might also see if you can dig up the records from your loan. They might have itemized those amounts on your HUD-1a so you'll be able to figure out if those amounts were/are included in the loan amount.
Lastly, you can probably call BoA and see what they'll send you from the original loan file. If the amounts that those checks were for have been paid off (whether they ended up cutting the correct checks or you're paid them since) you're certainly in the clear. If not and you're still obligated to pay them and paying them off was indeed a condition of the approval on the original loan, I highly doubt that BoA would have a problem helping you to rectify the situation.
posted by VTX at 6:17 AM on April 25, 2012
Deposit into an ATM and see what happens!
posted by bensherman at 12:59 PM on April 25, 2012
posted by bensherman at 12:59 PM on April 25, 2012
@bensherman
The checks aren't made out to the OP, they are made out to some some company that, at one time, they owed money.
posted by VTX at 1:07 PM on April 25, 2012
The checks aren't made out to the OP, they are made out to some some company that, at one time, they owed money.
posted by VTX at 1:07 PM on April 25, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by brownrd at 9:27 PM on April 24, 2012