Hazard Pay for the Banker Visiting the Projects

Three straight serious, contemplative posts in a row... time for a funny story.

First, a little back story. I had been working on Mrs White's (name changed) loan for a few weeks. Mrs White is an old lady who owns an SFR in San Francisco, free and clear. Her and her daughter decided to put a relatively small mortgage on it to help them out in Mom's sunset years. Perfectly reasonable. I had been dealing exclusively with the daughter as old Mrs White had suffered a stroke and could barely sign her name. For anyone whose signed a stack of loan documents, you will understand that it's quite a challenge even for the able wristed. Daughter had a power of attorney (POA), and we even had made them go and get another power of attorney specific to the transaction and property we were mortgaging. At the last minute, out underwriters in their infinite wisdom (read: fussiness) decided that they wanted to know why we needed the POA for this transaction. Why couldn't Mom sign her own loan documents? They wanted a notarized letter from the borrower explaining the reason why the daughter was signing the loan docs. I know they were doing this to protect Mrs White from a possibly opportunistic child taking advantage of her POA abilities, but there was nothing in our guidelines that required this. We fought it, lost, and I called the daughter to make it happen. Problem is that the daughter just left for a 2 week trip to the Southeast to move her daughter into her freshman college dorm (awww) and visit family. She wasn't around to help us.

I started making phone calls. The notary who had notarized their POA refused to help us. Her doctor, who obviously knew of the stroke, worked at Kaiser Permanente. I called them, and of course, they would need a written request to get any letter from a doctor. The Kaiser bureaucrat at first it would take "about a week". When I pressed further, a week turned into 7 to 10 working days. Ten working days? That's two weeks. If you're not familiar with mortgages, we're very time sensitive. Everything is about getting it done this month. Ten days would push it into next month. No good.

The only choice we had left was to get the letter directly from Mrs White. I know a notary, Pablo, who would come along and notarize something I would write for Mrs White. Problem is that in the house where Mrs White lives, there were other family members who they didn't want knowing that Mom and daughter were pulling a very large chunk of money out of what I'm sure they felt were the family assets. I never once called the house where they lived, and from what I understood, if they knew, it would have been a bad situation. Daughter assured me that if we showed up about 11 AM, Mrs White would be home alone, and I wouldn't have to deal with anyone else. Pablo and I set an appointment, and daughter assured me that only Mrs White would be home. I asked what I should do is someone else was home, and she said don't worry, no one else will be home. For sure.

The evening prior, I told my wonderful wife where I was going the next day. The Sunnydale Projects, about a half mile from where she grew up in The City. I had heard about these projects; they were allegedly some of the worst, scarcity, crime infested public housing places in all the Bay Area. File pic.

"You're not going there," she told me flatly.

"But I'm going to have someone else with me," I replied. She didn't know Pablo was all of 5'7", and stopped protesting. Hey, we gotta do what we gotta do to close these loans!

We were a little late getting out, and then got a little lost finding the place. Getting lost was interesting because I got to see the whole of the Sunnydale Projects district. Frankly, it looked like something out of the Third World. The majority of the units were converted military barracks from WWII. Block after block of long attached homes. No divisions. It was like Gomer Pyle meets college dorms meets Boyz in the Hood.

Finally, we found the place, knocked on the door, and old Mrs White let us in, cane in hand, barely able to speak due to her disability. We had just settled down, pulled out the docs she needed to sign when the front door opened and the son had come home. Very large dude, a bit menacing, and he wanted to know what we were doing in his home with his Mom with these official looking documents laid out in front of her. Oh shit.

"What is this all about?!" he demanded.

On the way over, I had filled Pablo in about not talking to anyone in case someone else was home. "Well, what would we tell them?" Pablo asked quite reasonably.

"I'll handle it," I assured him confidently. Really, I had no idea what I would say.

I was freaking out. As a mortgage banker, I can not reveal aspects of someone's loan to a third party without their authorization. It's a violation of their right to privacy, but somehow I couldn't verbalize that. When the son asked again what the hell we were having his mother sign, I had no answer.

"Hang on," I told him and frantically called the daughter in Georgia. Fortunately, she picked up. "Your brother is here," I told her, "Please talk to him." I handed the phone to the brother who went off into another room. I can't speak for Pablo, but I know I was shitting bricks at that point. If some banker was in my home, possibly taking advantage of my Mom, I would be very defensive. In my head, I said headlines on SF Chronicle the next day, "Countrywide loan officer killed in Sunnydale Projects".

Son came back, apparently satisfied with what big sis had told him. The rest of the transaction went smoothly, except for when Pablo had to physically grab Mrs White's wrist to allow him to take her thumbprint. She wanted to move her hands that way, but her disability prevented it.

I never thought that as a loan officer, I would ever fear for my safety as part of my duties, but today was such a day. Hazard pay!