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Mortgage Tips

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• Mortgages typically have many different owners over the years and many different servicing bureaus, so it's not difficult for a mixup to occur over your loan balance. To protect yourself, run an amoritization schedule and check the loan balance reported by your lender against it.

• Keep a copy of every check you ever write for your loan.

• If you call a mortgage servicing bureau about your loan, make sure you get the full name of the person with whom you speak.

• If you find yourself in a dispute with a lender about a payment or another issue, don't send correspondence to the same address you send your payment.

• Keep an eye on how much money your bank collects to cover your annual property taxes and insurance. Lenders are allowed to collect your annual escrow needs plus one-sixth of this figure, but many over collect.

• One of the smartest things someone can do with a mortgage is to prepay on the loan. All you need to do is contact your lender and ask for its prepayment procedure. Then, once a year, check the loan balance the lender sends you to make sure the additional payments have been applied properly.

• Fee-based plans that charge $300 to $500 for administering a prepayment system are a bad idea; you can do it better and cheaper by yourself.

• If you reach 20 percent equity in your home, you can save a substantial of money by asking your lender to drop private mortgage insurance.

• Avoid paying private mortgage insurance by taking an 80 percent first mortgage and a 10 or 15 percent second mortgage.

Source: ClarkHoward.com