Bill Ellzey: Mortgage company puts up another hurdle to roof repairs
Early last Wednesday (or late last Tuesday), while you were busy moving from November into December, hurricane season 2021 ended.
About time. Ida was all the storm season I needed; much more than most of us needed.
Anyway, local hurricane hunters beware; any storm you find henceforward will be out of season, possibly illegal.
Meanwhile: We are renewing our focus on Christmas. Commercial Xmas has been under way since Halloween. And homeowners across our region have begun decorating their yards with at least three sorts of colorful items. We see strings of lights, season-themed painted cut-outs, and plump “fluffy” inflatables. Sometimes, a yard has a combination of all three.
By night, displays can be spectacular; houses with twinkling icicles lining their eaves, or herds of inflatable reindeer, fat Santas, snowmen, trees and such, often lighted from within somehow.
By day, the strings of lights disappear, leaving the décor job to inflatables and staked-down painted cutouts.
But early mornings are something else. Thrifty homeowners usually unplug their displays about midnight, then reconnect them after the sun is well up.
Early risers, out and driving in the half-light see what appear to be corpses in the yards decorated by inflatables. Power off, the plump figures collapse into heaps of dark crumpled fabric. Depressing.
Help spread the word! If you have run across displays of special note; a single spectacular yard or several clustered on a street or in a neighborhood, let me know so that we can share a highlight of the season. Call or write.
Reptiles? Cautious homeowners attempt to protect themselves from disasters like Hurricane Ida with insurance aimed at repairing any damage without destroying the family budget. We fell for a “bundle” offered by the GEICO “lizard,” and have paid hundreds of dollars in monthly premiums since, to a subsidiary of a subsidiary of the cute green reptile.
Soon after we returned from our mandatory evacuation to family property in north Louisiana, we filed our first Ida damage claim and were sent a handsome check to cover the losses that we knew of. Great? Not really.
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The check was made out to me, my wife and to Quicken Loans, the company we shared ownership with. We had borrowed money which was secured by a mortgage on our property. Presumably to keep us from taking the money and absquatulating (fancy for absconding or leaving town) the mortgage holder had to endorse the check with us.
Somehow, the owners of Quicken decided that “quick” was not quick enough. They renamed themselves “Rocket Mortgage,” to make it seem that their operations were faster than quick.
Instead, the result was confusion and delay. Rocket, instead of sending us the check we needed to pay our roof and interior repair contractor, Joey Russ, put the full sum, thousands of dollars, in “escrow,” out of our reach. Two problems there; Russ seems to be overextended and financially constrained himself.
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Keep in mind that the repairs will restore the property to full value. Since Rocket, as mortgage holder, is part owner of our residence, it should be obvious that their delay is preventing us from making our house livable, even marketable, and we must continue to reside with relatives.
Some contractors, I understand, get the work done first, paying the subcontractors themselves, then submitting the bill and waiting for the insurance company. Russ wants the money in advance of setting the roofers or drywallers to work. And we have to fight with Rocket to get the money released.
In short, the roofing that was supposed to begin Monday is still on hold, and we are still blue-tarped. And Russ is so busy with other projects that he has not been available to provide rescheduling information. Disappointing.
Otherwise we are well, and hoping that our stuff, which Russ insisted on putting in storage weeks ago, will be back in our finished house in time to retrieve the Christmas gifts from the scores of packing boxes. If you don't get anything from us this Christmas, blame Rocket and Russ.
Responding? Contact Bill Ellzey at 985 381-6256, at ellzey@viscom.net, billellzey312@gmail.com, or c/o The Courier, P.O. Box 2717, Houma, LA 70361.
This article originally appeared on The Courier: Bill Ellzey: Mortgage company puts up another hurdle to Hurricane Ida roof repairs
