Heloc Underwriter is the Devil

[Ty Smith]

Hello fellow IRL monopoly players

Am looking for a little advice as I am currently in HELOC Hell. I am on day 30 of trying to open a HELOC with a particular bank. I own this property that I live in outright so this would be a first position lean. My credit score pulled low 700s. Due to some credit card debt (non interest bearing) the bank underwriter wanted me to roll those balances into the HELOC loan. They offered me a credit line of $163k upon doing so. I told them I would pay off the credit cards rather than roll them in and have done so.

The hang up is every time I try to close this thing there is always "one more thing" or "another issue". For 30 days now I have scurried around getting the bank whatever it wants. I took out additional insurance costing me over $2k at their request. Now after having done everything I am being told by the loan officer that the underwriting can only offer me $143k CL after I've paid off thousands of interest free debt and spent over $2k on additional insurance costs with the explicit understanding and offer of a $163 HELOC line.

I am of course furious and have asked to speak with management on this. I do not understand this. The only explanation the loan officer could provide me is it’s due to the “banks algorithm needing me to reach a certain score that I can only reach via a $143k CL”. To me this sounds like a retrade. I’d also argue the property is worth about $50k more than the appraisal but kept my mouth shut to just try to close the loan. 

Bank advertises 90% LTV on a first position heloc.

please any wisdom to help redeem my soul from heloc hell would be much appreciated