One of the big things still hanging over my head from the divorce is the mortgage. My ex left me the house, but without her income I can’t afford it.

Wells Fargo has a slogan along the lines of “We’re Here To Help You.” Well, I’m not sure that’s true. A month after the divorce, I applied for a “loan modification” (a government program where they radically lower your monthly payment by doing things like extending 30-years to 40 and reducing rates to as low as 2%).

Four months, 25 phone calls and 155 pages of paperwork later (see above), I’m getting nowhere and still not able to afford the mortgage. Cash reserves are running low and I’m going to go into foreclosure for sure in early 2011. It’s a shame that I couldn’t have been trying to sell the house this whole time but they insisted that they could help me keep it.

They’ve requested the same paperwork over and over, and additions to the paperwork, and corrections to the paperwork. The last stalling point was that they said they couldn’t submit it because the gov. required the Divorce Decree. I sent them that on November 26, and haven’t heard anything since then, despite leaving several messages each week for the person assigned to my account.

Friday I called the main number asking if they could get me a status. They said they would send her an email and I should give her a couple days. They said on the call “I see your account is in good standing and you are not in foreclosure.” I replied “Well I’m going to be if you guys don’t hurry it up. :)” Not sure I spoke the smiley correctly. I think Wednesday I’m going to call in and ask to speak to a manager.

If they don’t get back to me I won’t have enough time to sell the house and will have to foreclose. I don’t want to get behind on my payments though, because I’m sure they’d take that opportunity to disqualify me.

I shouldn’t be surprised because of what you hear on the news about the big banks trying to shaft people on mortgages, foreclosures, refinances and modifications. But I thought that Wells Fargo was one of the better companies – the lesser of several evils, because I don’t hear their name as much. Maybe not.