the bank always strikes twice.

Just got a letter in the mail from the bank that holds our Home Equity Line of Credit--our account has been frozen (no longer able to draw money out) due to a decrease in housing values in our area. Um, yeah. Aren't home values decreasing just about everywhere? And how does this impact my ability to pay on a loan that is owed?

This has happened to us before, believe it or not. Last year, when we were just about to pull the trigger on the kitchen project, we were informed that the HELOC we had for 5 years (and never used, I might add), was being closed due to home value decreasing. Okay, fine. We just went and got another one without a problem.

Fast forward to now. We haven't used the entire HELOC amount we were approved for and had no intention of doing so. We didn't ever use it like an ATM--we used it for the remodeling of our home only, figuring that we would get the value out someday (like 20 years from now). I needed to get a little more out of it to pay a no interest for one year purchase at Lowe's--a bill I hadn't been paying (because it isn't due until November) because I had been sinking all I had into paying off the HELOC. Now I have no way of getting the money I needed to pay that Lowe's purchase off and I haven't even made headway on it because I figured that I should pay the loan with interest first.

And to top it off, the freeze was effective on July 17. Yep, got the letter today. Would've been nice to know on the 17th. This is such a wimpy way out for these banks--they force us to go electronic on everything but if there is something negative to report (canceled account, bounced check), they send it snail mail thus ensuring they have at least 5 days in between the event and you finding out about it.

Jerks.