All Forum Posts by: Gary Fritz

I did!  Picked it up last Monday, drove it (slowly) straight to the detailers, where I paid a stupid amount of $$ to cover it in PPF.  Got it back on Friday.  :-)

I looked closer at the stupid letter and decided I was panicking over nothing.  As @JD Martin mentioned, it doesn't say I could never buy the car.  It says "I do not have any plans to buy a car, I have decided not to move forward with this."  Well that wasn't true when I walked into the closing, but with that gun to my head, I had to change my plans.  So it was true when I signed it.  But gee, then my plans changed again!  I don't think it violates the signed agreement at all.

Part of the problem was that our loan application was complicated for a variety of reasons, and they omitted some of my assets to prevent it from dragging out forever.  That brought us much closer to the edge, apparently close enough that the car purchase made the underwriters twitchy.  Unfortunate, maybe not the right decision, but hopefully water under the bridge.

Well, that's VERY interesting.

I just got a call that reassured me that this isn't a problem.  Won't go into details, but I trust the source.

And I had been thinking about titling it under my LLC anyway. :-)

Thanks y'all for your help!

Hah!  That's funny you had the exact same situation, even with a Tesla.  But yours worked out a lot better.

The letter was just an added-in one-pager, exactly word-for-word what I posted in the OP:  "To whom it may concern, I do not have any plans purchasing (sic) a Tesla. I have decided not to move forward with this. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, (signed) Gary Fritz."  Oh and "06/22/2022" at the top.  Period.  Not even any letterhead.

Yes I agree the last-minute shenanigans was unethical, what what ya gonna do?  They had a gun to my head.

Oh I will NEVER do business with these ***holes again.  Trying to figure out how I can lodge a really effective complaint / black mark.

That's... a very interesting idea!  Sure wish I'd thought of it before we went through all the braindamage with the lenders, paying the loan & points costs, etc.  But they dropped the damn letter on me at the last second, during the closing -- didn't NEED to self-finance before that.

I'll go read through the 91-page closing docs and verify my rescission rights.  I'm not sure I could pull it off in time, since it's already more than 24 hours past the closing.  

What does that do to the already-closed sale?  I'm not sure what happens when you cancel a loan.

It may not be fair to drag my son through this...

Thank you!!  That's very kind of you.

I found your number in your profile.  I don't want to presume -- is it OK if I call you tonight?  Or tomorrow?

Can't figure out how to quote part of a post without hosing the format...

@Caroline Gerardo, I definitely agree with the second part of your first line (take the loan officer out back).

My son qualified for a smaller house, but that range is hyper-competitive and he'd been making offers for months. So I co-signed so he could get into a slightly higher but far-less-crowded price range, and it worked very well. But then the underwriters bent me over.

I think it's ludicrous that they put that restriction on me, especially in such a coercive manner. In the unlikely event my son can't honor his commitment, I can. I have enough liquid assets to write a check for the car AND another to buy my son's house outright, AND I'd still have a 7-figure net worth and a reliable income!! The car does not endanger the loan in any way. The restriction is entirely unnecessary.

I can't stall the car purchase. We already stalled it 10 days for the (twice-delayed by underwriters) closing. They have to deliver it to SOMEbody by end-of-quarter (next week), so they won't give me any more time past Monday.

I already talked to a lawyer who supposedly specializes in real estate -- she's doing some other work for us.  She squirmed out of it, saying "I'm not much help on this type of financing issue, don't know anyone who could take it on such short notice."  I even signed up for one of those ask-a-lawyer websites, which is supposed to match you up with someone who specializes in your issue.  He didn't answer my question but answered something else.  It wouldn't work to randomly pick somebody out of the Yellow Pages.  

It's tough when I signed the closing Thursday afternoon and I'll lose the car on Monday. (Tesla has to deliver the car to SOMEbody by end-of-quarter, next Thursday, and they need time to find another buyer.) Not much time to work.

My son just (yesterday) bought his first house. It turned out I had to co-sign with him. I was honest and told the loan underwriters that I was picking up a new Tesla this week. They said I couldn't get a new loan, as it would push us over the level of qualifying. Fine, I said, I'll write a damn check! They weren't even satisfied with that. They said they would cancel the loan if I bought the car before closing. Finally we got the message that buying the car with cash AFTER the loan funded was OK, as their requirements wouldn't have any force after that.

Then yesterday, at the closing table, I discovered they had slipped an extra letter into the closing documents: "To whom it may concern, I do not have any plans purchasing (sic) a Tesla. I have decided not to move forward with this. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, (signed) Gary Fritz."

I said "I can't sign this, it's not true." They said if you don't sign, you don't close. The deal blows up, my son loses his house and his earnest money, the sellers lose their new house, probably other penalties. I also couldn't delay the closing (again) without breaking the deal. With a gun to my head, I had no choice but to sign.

I'm supposed to pick up my new car on Monday. If I do, I think I risk bank-fraud charges. So after anticipating it for years, I'm going to lose the car I ordered NINE MONTHS ago. If I order another one, it will cost me $9000 more at current prices. But given that overly-broad and vague letter, I'm not sure I can EVER buy a Tesla without them claiming fraud.

It's especially stupid because the car wouldn't put the loan at risk.  My son can handle his mortgage, but if he can't, I have more than enough cash/stock in my accounts to buy my Tesla AND buy his house outright! Plus over $1M in real estate equity that provides $3500/mo rental income (which pays my $3200/mo mortgage), plus a decent-but-declining income that will be supplemented by $2500/mo Social Security in a few months. I think their demand is unreasonable.

So: Does that letter have any validity? Is it enforceable, even signed under duress? Does it apply after loan funding? Am I gonna lose my car? :-(