Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The trials of acquiring potential money.....
Ok, I've officially lowered the price on my house. Talked with the realtor yesterday, and she told me that NONE of her properties got any showings over the weekend, and that the market is as bad as she's ever seen. She has been in the business 20 years.
She called me this afternoon after doing some research on my neighborhood. There are 38 properties currently for sale priced within $10,000 of my home. In the past six months, 35 properties in my price range have sold. What's really a shock is that 30 of them paid the buyer's closing costs! And two properties that are identical to mine for sale are listed for $5000 less than what I'm asking. So we agreed to both drop my price $5000 AND offer to pay up to $3000 on closing costs.
I found out that, contrary to what I had thought, the seller does NOT have to come up with any extra cash when they pay a buyer's closing costs. That actually just comes out of the profit the seller would have gotten. So financially, it's exactly the same to the seller as if they had dropped their price. The advantage is that a first-time home buyer who might be stuck in an overpriced apartment with no chance to save up any cash could still buy my house as long as their loan was approved. I hadn't thought of it that way. I'm hoping that the combo of lower price and money toward closing will do the trick. I need to get the hell out of here before my savings account shrivels up and blows away.
FINALLY got a hold of my LTD lawyer yesterday after weeks of trying. I got him to explain the very complicated fee system on the contract I was to sign. The fee system is government mandated because my LTD insurance company falls under ERISA juridsiction. It's still contingency, thank goodness, but because LTD insurance companies can offer a settlement at any point, the percentage of the settlement that goes to the lawyer varies according to how much work they had to put into my case. In other words, if the LTD insurance company decides to settle prior to my case going to court, the percentage that I owe the lawyer will be far less than if it went before a judge. So I signed the contract and a medical release form and have made an appointment with him for a week from Wednesday so we can figure out a strategy.
At this point, I am still receiving LTD benefits, but the insurance company has informed me that they will stop payment next year as they claim I have a mental rather than a physical illness that disables me, and my policy limits coverage for mental illness. What I am attempting to do is get the company to lift the benefit limitation as the tests they used to determine my disability were completely bogus. The only mental illness I have is depression about not being able to work.
The lawyer found out a few weeks ago that the company that did my functional capacity exam is using non-qualified individuals to conduct the tests. Some of this company's staff aren't physical therapists and have no degree at all! The physical therapist I had been told would be doing the testing did only a brief neurological exam, and someone else did the rest of the testing. As for the neuropsych exam, that was a joke because the evaluator dismissed the results as invalid, claiming lack of effort on my part. I was trying as hard as I could, but I was so exhausted that I fell asleep during the tests! The evaluator claims I have somatoform disorder, which is defined as symptoms of a physical ailment caused by mental illness in the absence of any actual disease. Because I have Sjogren's syndrome, a known autoimmune disorder, I cannot therefore have somatoform disorder.
Luckily, I have been keeping a log of phone calls made to the LTD insurance company since July 2005. I also typed up detailed accounts of my functional capacity exam and the neuropsych exam which state what truly occurred. I will be giving these to the lawyer. I think these plus the testimony of my doctors that I am indeed disabled should be sufficient to convince the LTD company to reconsider their benefit limitation, or if necessary, perhaps it will be sufficient to convince a judge. I have been warned that these cases are usually long and drag out over multiple years, so I need to dig in my heels and be prepared for a fight.
Believe it or not, the disability pension I was supposed to start receiving this month has STILL not materialized, despite me being eligible for it since May. The plan administrator is grossly incompetent, and that's actually an understatement. I first called her in late May or early June when I had some questions about the request for benefits form. At that time, I made it clear I was applying for a disability pension and that I had a notice of award from Social Security (required in order for me to be eligible for the pension). She told me that form was outdated and said she'd send me a new one. It took over a month and a few reminder calls from me before I got the new form. What I received was Part 1, where I request a calculation of benefits. It has a place to state whether you are requesting a disability pension, which I checked. It also requires you to choose a date for the pension to start which must be at least 30 days after the date you received the form and on the first day of the following month. I got the form on July 2nd, which meant the earliest I could start getting the pension would be September 1st. Part 1 states that as soon as the benefits are calculated, you will be sent Part 2, which has to be filled out prior to any benefits being paid. I got the benefit calculation the third week of July, but I never got the Part 2 form. I called the administrator a few times and left messages, and each time I emphasized that I was applying for a disability pension. I finally got a message on my voicemail on September 1st from the administrator. She said she had no idea that I was trying to get a disability pension, that she had missed where I'd checked that section of the Part 1 form! And she wanted to know whether I'd ever gotten a Notice of Award from Social Security! Uh, HELLO? I can't apply for the pension without it! So I left a message that afternoon saying that I did have the notice and the date I was found disabled. I've heard nothing back since.
By yesterday, I'd decided that I wasn't gonna get anything productive out of the pension administrator on my own, so I called the union headquarters to tell the president to light a fire under her butt. Well, the voice mail connected to someone I didn't know, and a recording said the mailbox was full and that I couldn't leave a message! So I guess the union must have voted out the president they had this summer? And the new guy doesn't even check voice mail? I was then gonna call my old department to see if they had a home number for the new president, but then I remembered that the whole company moved into a new building a month ago, and I have no idea how to reach them. So I guess I will go back to bugging the pension administrator until she either sends me the proper form or tells me what the hell is taking so long. Hmph.
My life was soooooo much easier when I was able to work for a living.
She called me this afternoon after doing some research on my neighborhood. There are 38 properties currently for sale priced within $10,000 of my home. In the past six months, 35 properties in my price range have sold. What's really a shock is that 30 of them paid the buyer's closing costs! And two properties that are identical to mine for sale are listed for $5000 less than what I'm asking. So we agreed to both drop my price $5000 AND offer to pay up to $3000 on closing costs.
I found out that, contrary to what I had thought, the seller does NOT have to come up with any extra cash when they pay a buyer's closing costs. That actually just comes out of the profit the seller would have gotten. So financially, it's exactly the same to the seller as if they had dropped their price. The advantage is that a first-time home buyer who might be stuck in an overpriced apartment with no chance to save up any cash could still buy my house as long as their loan was approved. I hadn't thought of it that way. I'm hoping that the combo of lower price and money toward closing will do the trick. I need to get the hell out of here before my savings account shrivels up and blows away.
FINALLY got a hold of my LTD lawyer yesterday after weeks of trying. I got him to explain the very complicated fee system on the contract I was to sign. The fee system is government mandated because my LTD insurance company falls under ERISA juridsiction. It's still contingency, thank goodness, but because LTD insurance companies can offer a settlement at any point, the percentage of the settlement that goes to the lawyer varies according to how much work they had to put into my case. In other words, if the LTD insurance company decides to settle prior to my case going to court, the percentage that I owe the lawyer will be far less than if it went before a judge. So I signed the contract and a medical release form and have made an appointment with him for a week from Wednesday so we can figure out a strategy.
At this point, I am still receiving LTD benefits, but the insurance company has informed me that they will stop payment next year as they claim I have a mental rather than a physical illness that disables me, and my policy limits coverage for mental illness. What I am attempting to do is get the company to lift the benefit limitation as the tests they used to determine my disability were completely bogus. The only mental illness I have is depression about not being able to work.
The lawyer found out a few weeks ago that the company that did my functional capacity exam is using non-qualified individuals to conduct the tests. Some of this company's staff aren't physical therapists and have no degree at all! The physical therapist I had been told would be doing the testing did only a brief neurological exam, and someone else did the rest of the testing. As for the neuropsych exam, that was a joke because the evaluator dismissed the results as invalid, claiming lack of effort on my part. I was trying as hard as I could, but I was so exhausted that I fell asleep during the tests! The evaluator claims I have somatoform disorder, which is defined as symptoms of a physical ailment caused by mental illness in the absence of any actual disease. Because I have Sjogren's syndrome, a known autoimmune disorder, I cannot therefore have somatoform disorder.
Luckily, I have been keeping a log of phone calls made to the LTD insurance company since July 2005. I also typed up detailed accounts of my functional capacity exam and the neuropsych exam which state what truly occurred. I will be giving these to the lawyer. I think these plus the testimony of my doctors that I am indeed disabled should be sufficient to convince the LTD company to reconsider their benefit limitation, or if necessary, perhaps it will be sufficient to convince a judge. I have been warned that these cases are usually long and drag out over multiple years, so I need to dig in my heels and be prepared for a fight.
Believe it or not, the disability pension I was supposed to start receiving this month has STILL not materialized, despite me being eligible for it since May. The plan administrator is grossly incompetent, and that's actually an understatement. I first called her in late May or early June when I had some questions about the request for benefits form. At that time, I made it clear I was applying for a disability pension and that I had a notice of award from Social Security (required in order for me to be eligible for the pension). She told me that form was outdated and said she'd send me a new one. It took over a month and a few reminder calls from me before I got the new form. What I received was Part 1, where I request a calculation of benefits. It has a place to state whether you are requesting a disability pension, which I checked. It also requires you to choose a date for the pension to start which must be at least 30 days after the date you received the form and on the first day of the following month. I got the form on July 2nd, which meant the earliest I could start getting the pension would be September 1st. Part 1 states that as soon as the benefits are calculated, you will be sent Part 2, which has to be filled out prior to any benefits being paid. I got the benefit calculation the third week of July, but I never got the Part 2 form. I called the administrator a few times and left messages, and each time I emphasized that I was applying for a disability pension. I finally got a message on my voicemail on September 1st from the administrator. She said she had no idea that I was trying to get a disability pension, that she had missed where I'd checked that section of the Part 1 form! And she wanted to know whether I'd ever gotten a Notice of Award from Social Security! Uh, HELLO? I can't apply for the pension without it! So I left a message that afternoon saying that I did have the notice and the date I was found disabled. I've heard nothing back since.
By yesterday, I'd decided that I wasn't gonna get anything productive out of the pension administrator on my own, so I called the union headquarters to tell the president to light a fire under her butt. Well, the voice mail connected to someone I didn't know, and a recording said the mailbox was full and that I couldn't leave a message! So I guess the union must have voted out the president they had this summer? And the new guy doesn't even check voice mail? I was then gonna call my old department to see if they had a home number for the new president, but then I remembered that the whole company moved into a new building a month ago, and I have no idea how to reach them. So I guess I will go back to bugging the pension administrator until she either sends me the proper form or tells me what the hell is taking so long. Hmph.
My life was soooooo much easier when I was able to work for a living.
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