The second borrower is my husband’s sister. I thought the woman had read it wrong because his sister has never lived with us and has owned her own place since 1987. I asked for a copy of the 2019 refinance package. It came by email while I was still on the phone. There are two signatures on every page. My husband’s is real. The other one is my sister-in-law’s. Mine isn’t anywhere. Then I got to the occupancy affidavit. Both borrowers signed saying this house would be their primary residence.
I called my sister-in-law and asked one question: why is your name on my mortgage? She didn’t deny it. She said my husband had asked her to sign because I “couldn’t be on the loan,” and he’d made her promise not to tell me. I said I’d sat beside him at the closing table in 2019. I remembered signing papers. She went quiet and asked what papers I’d signed. I pulled my folder from the cabinet and compared it to the mortgage company’s copy. Mine has a completely different loan number. The papers I signed were for a home-equity application that was never completed.
Then I asked the mortgage company to tell me who owns the house, not who owes the money. She pulled the county record and said the deed had changed the same day as the refinance. My husband had transferred his interest to himself and his sister as joint tenants with right of survivorship. I asked what that meant if he died. The woman was careful and said I needed an attorney, but I already understood enough. My husband died fourteen months ago. I called my sister-in-law back and told her what I’d found.
She started crying and said, “He told me you knew the house wasn’t going to you.”
