August 22, 2016 By

Q&A: Getting a new mortgage after a foreclosure

Dear Liz: Is it true that we can’t refinance our home until seven years after a foreclosure? We lost a rental property six years ago. Our credit scores now are in the 740 range, and we are anxious to take advantage of lower rates since our mortgage rate is 5.75%. Other than the foreclosure, our credit is perfect.

Answer: As foreclosures surged, the agencies that buy most mortgages increased the amount of time troubled borrowers had to spend in the “penalty box” before being allowed another mortgage.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac still have a seven-year waiting period after foreclosures. But that has been shortened to three years when borrowers can prove “extenuating circumstances,” such as a prolonged job loss or big medical expenses. Waiting times for other negative events, such as bankruptcy or short sale, have been reduced to two years with extenuating circumstances. Otherwise, it’s four years.

There are other loan programs that are even more forgiving. For example, the FHA has a three-year waiting period that can be shortened to one year if borrowers participate in its “Back to Work” program, which requires they document a significant loss of household income, that their finances have fully recovered from the event and that they’ve completed housing counseling. The Veterans Administration, meanwhile, makes loans available one to two years after foreclosure.

Filed Under: Q&A, Real Estate Tagged With: , , ,
August 22, 2016 By

Q&A: Could new job affect credit rating?

Dear Liz: I have been employed at a small business, a sole proprietorship, for 34 years. My boss is going to just shut down the business, with no plan for succession. I have a job offer from a rival firm, so I don’t plan on being out of work for very long. How will this affect my credit rating? If I apply for a loan after being employed for, say, six months at the new firm, will the short time at that job be a negative mark against me? Should I hurry to apply for a loan before the business shuts down? Would that be illegal or unethical, since I know that I won’t be there much longer?

Answer: Few people know with any certainty how long they’ll remain in their current jobs. If only those who planned to stick with their employers indefinitely were allowed to apply for credit, lenders would go out of business.

That said, a recent job change can complicate the process for getting some loans, such as a mortgage. If you’re planning to borrow the money anyway and can complete the loan process before changing jobs, you’ll likely have an easier time getting approved.

While some lenders take job stability into account, your credit scores do not. Credit scoring formulas don’t include any information about employment or income. You get and keep good scores by using credit responsibly. But part of responsible credit management is not applying for loans you don’t need, so don’t rush out to borrow money just because you can.

Filed Under: Credit Scoring, Q&A Tagged With: , ,
August 22, 2016 By

Q&A: Survivor benefits for divorcees

Dear Liz: I am 76 and widowed. I’ve been collecting half of my ex-husband’s Social Security payment for the last nine years. We were married for 20 years. He remarried in 1987 and his wife is still living. He is now terminally ill with cancer. Am I eligible for survivor benefits?

Answer: You will be. If you qualify for divorced spousal benefits while your ex is alive, you will qualify for divorced survivor benefits when he dies. Instead of collecting an amount equal to half his benefit, your check will increase to 100% of the amount he was receiving.

Survivor benefits differ from spousal benefits in another key way. If you remarry, divorced spousal benefits end. Survivor benefits can continue after marriage, as long as you’re 60 or over when you re-tie the knot.

By the way, your benefits don’t take any money away from his current wife. She, too, will be eligible for a survivor benefit equal to what he was getting, unless her own retirement benefit is greater. One primary earner’s work record can support a number of divorced spouses in addition to a current spouse, as long as the previous marriages lasted at least 10 years each.

Filed Under: Q&A, Retirement Tagged With: , , ,
August 15, 2016 By

Q&A: Factors to consider for refinancing into a 15-year mortgage

Dear Liz: I am considering refinancing my home from a 30-year mortgage to a 15-year loan and wondered if it would be a wise decision. I am 57, divorced and make a little over $100,000 a year as a high school teacher (and I plan to keep working until at least age 65). Other than a car loan, I have no debts and an excellent credit rating. I will receive a pretty decent teacher’s pension and I have about $150,000 in mutual funds in retirement accounts. I can afford the larger payment on a shorter loan. Do you think this would be a good move for me?

Answer: For most people, a 30-year mortgage is a good option. People can always make extra principal payments to pay down the loan faster, but the lower monthly payment is easier to handle if they face financial setbacks such as a job loss.

Your employment situation seems pretty stable, though, and you’re in good shape with a pension plus savings. If you can swing the payments, you’d be building equity much faster and while paying less interest. You’ll still have home debt into your 70s, which isn’t ideal, but it’s certainly better than having a mortgage in your 80s.

Filed Under: Q&A, Real Estate Tagged With: , ,
August 15, 2016 By

Q&A: Where to find FICO scores

Dear Liz: I’m looking to buy a car and I’d like to see the FICO scores that lenders use. I already visited MyFico.com, but I want another site that shows my real FICO scores for auto lending. If you could point me in the right direction, that would be great.

Answer: You were at the right site. When you buy one credit score for $19.95 from MyFico.com, you actually get several scores from the same credit bureau. Those include FICO 8, the most commonly-used score, as well as the FICOs that bureau typically supplies to mortgage, auto and credit card lenders. If you want to see FICOs from all three bureaus, you can buy them for $59.85 and get a total of 25 different scores.

The scores lenders actually use to price your loan may be somewhat higher or lower from the ones you’ll see because credit scores change all the time. But if you apply for a loan shortly after buying your scores, they should be pretty close to the ones you see.

Filed Under: Credit Scoring, Q&A Tagged With: , , ,
August 15, 2016 By

Q&A: Accessing Social Security account data

Dear Liz: I read your answer to the gentleman trying to locate his W-2 forms to add missing years to his Social Security account. I wonder why, even as you give advice about keeping old W-2 forms indefinitely, you didn’t mention that the Social Security Administration allows everyone who has paid into the system to receive an annual report showing the income, year-by-year, that was subject to Social Security taxes. I have been receiving that report for most of my adult life (I’m 60 now) and I don’t find the need to keep old W-2’s past seven years if I’ve already compared their totals against the annual SSA report. I wonder why this gentleman didn’t do likewise over the years.

Answer: You may not have noticed, but those annual statements went missing for a few years.

Social Security began mailing annual reports to workers 25 and over starting in 1999 but suspended those as a cost-saving measure in 2011. The suspension saved the government about $70 million each year in printing and mailing costs, but workers lost easy access to information about their future benefits and their earnings.

People with access to the Internet could create online accounts to check their earnings records, and about 26 million have done so. But that still left the majority of workers in the dark about whether their earnings were being properly credited to their accounts.

In 2014, mailings resumed but only for workers reaching ages 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 and 60 and over.

Filed Under: Q&A, Taxes Tagged With: , ,
August 15, 2016 By

Q&A: When to take Social Security benefits

Dear Liz: I’m about to turn 66 and my wife is 60. I plan to delay Social Security benefits until I’m 70. My benefit will be large enough that whenever she starts benefits, her spousal benefit will be larger than what she earned on her own. Here’s the question: I think that the time for her to start taking benefits will be immediately upon reaching her full retirement age, not waiting until 70, as I am doing. Correct?

Answer: Correct. You will earn delayed retirement credits that will boost your benefit by 8% for each year you put off applying. Spousal benefits don’t get those credits. The maximum spousal benefit is 50% of your primary insurance amount, or the amount you would get if you applied at age 66. She’ll receive that maximum if she applies for spousal benefits at her own full retirement age.

Filed Under: Q&A, Retirement Tagged With: ,
August 8, 2016 By

Q&A: How to improve your credit scores

Dear Liz: I don’t have a credit score. I have one item on my credit report that’s a court judgment. What can I do to get a score? If I pay the balance due for the judgment, would it be removed?

Answer: Paying a judgment doesn’t remove it from your credit reports, but it does limit the amount of time that the judgment can hurt you.

By federal law, an unpaid judgment can remain on your reports for seven years after it was entered against you. But creditors often have 10 to 20 years, depending on the state, to use the judgment to garnish your paycheck or put a levy on your bank account. Some states allow creditors to renew a judgment that hasn’t been paid, which means that it could pop back up on your credit reports after the initial seven-year period has expired.

To answer your other question, you get credit scores by having and using credit. The leading FICO formula needs six months’ of credit history to generate scores. One way to get credit if you don’t have any is with a secured credit card. These cards typically give you a line of credit equal to the deposit you make at the bank that issues the card. Use the card lightly but regularly and pay the balance on time and in full each month. You don’t need to pay credit card interest or carry debt to create good scores.

Another option is a “credit builder” loan, sometimes offered by member-owned credit unions. One form of credit builder loan puts your payments, minus interest, into a certificate of deposit that’s yours to keep once you’ve made the final payment. With one loan, in other words, you build your credit and your savings.

You can build credit either way, but having both types of credit — revolving accounts such as credit cards and installment loans such as a credit-builder loan — can help you build it faster.

Filed Under: Credit Scoring, Q&A Tagged With: , ,
August 8, 2016 By

Q&A: Amending a living trust

Dear Liz: My husband and I had a lawyer draw up a revocable living trust and a pour-over will six years ago. We need to amend a couple of areas, and I found it could be done with a form from a self-help legal site. Also, we need to add our home into the trust. My husband doesn’t want to use a lawyer. Can we legally do the amendment and addition of the home without a lawyer?

Answer: Sure. But your heirs may pay for any mistakes you make.

The big red flag is that you haven’t transferred your home to the living trust, even though you’ve had six years to do so. If it’s not in the trust, it will be subject to probate, the court process that the trust is meant to avoid. You need to be extremely diligent if you’re going to try to create a do-it-yourself estate plan, and you’ve already proved that you aren’t. All you’ve done is undermine the estate plan you paid for years ago.

Amending the trust, and having a lawyer help you transfer your home into it, probably will cost a fraction of what you paid originally. It also would give your attorney an opportunity a chance to review the documents in case other changes need to be addressed. A relatively small investment could pay off in peace of mind that the job has finally been done right.

Filed Under: Estate planning, Q&A Tagged With: , , ,
August 8, 2016 By

Q&A: How to retrieve old W-2 forms

Dear Liz: I have several years missing from my Social Security earnings history, dating back to 1999. I have been filing income taxes jointly with my wife but we only kept our files for five years. How do I go about retrieving past income documents like my W-2s? I contacted Social Security and the IRS but can only get tax transcripts dating back to 2009.

Answer: Social Security says you ordinarily have three years to report mistakes. (Actually, being Social Security, it’s “three years, three months and 15 days.”) But you can correct mistakes further back if you have sufficient proof, such as tax forms, W-2s or pay stubs.

You can try contacting old employers to see if they can produce the W-2s you’re missing. Otherwise, write down as much as you can remember about where you worked, including the name of the employer, the dates you worked there and how much you earned. Then contact Social Security again, provide the information you’ve gathered and ask for help in filling in those missing years.

This is one reason why it’s smart to hang onto tax returns indefinitely. Even though you can (and probably should) shred backup documentation after seven years or so, you should keep copies of anything filed with the IRS, including W-2 forms.

Filed Under: Q&A, Taxes Tagged With: , ,