Whilst applying for a mortgage, the mortgage company was unable to retrieve my "Return Transcript" for 2013. I managed to log on myself and indeed it's showing as N/A, yet the "Account Transcript" and "Wages & Income Transcript" are both available for 2013.

The taxes were all e-filed together on March 7th and I believe it may take a couple of weeks to appear. Yet it's now over 7 weeks later! Should I be concerned or just be a bit more patient?

I think it can take several months before the current years transcripts are available. Can you not just give the mortgage company a copy of your 1040?

ETA: Give the IRS a call and see why it isn't available. I've also ordered ours over the phone in the past.

They have a copy already. Not sure why they're asking - I guess they want to verify the actual received documents at the IRS rather than what we said we sent.

Calling is the next option. I can see you can order by mail but it won't let me select any shown as N/A.

Thanks.

You haven't updated us on whether your wife's expected job fell through and whether she is now looking for a new job.

Can't remember what I said before. She was offered a job at one hospital, signed an employment contract, then resigned from her previous job (2 week notice period) and rejected the other job offers. Then a few days later got a call to say the job never existed and she was wrong to apply for it (what?! How was she supposed to know that?!).

Phoned the hospital that she rejected the offer from, they were quite happy to give her a job - and apologised for it taking so long (which is why she went for the other job). She now has an employment contract with them but no start date yet until they check her references and do a background check. She was initially offered a salary 1/3 lower than currently but after a few phone calls it was discovered that HR only saw her 1 year US experience and basically gave her a "new nurse" salary. The ICU manager got involved and told them to credit her 18 years of Philippines, UK, and US experience. So she will now earn the top pay grade for her position, which is about 8% more than her current job.

She unresigned from her current job and will hang on until she gets a start date for the new one.

It's been a hell of a rollercoaster week! Still not over as we're waiting for the underwriters to extract blood (as we've nothing else to give them), hopefully know by tomorrow (Friday).

You only told us about the first paragraph before.

That's promising

Well they can't, only the undertakers can do that - so keep them at a distance. for tomorrow and rollercoaster release.

They could certainly try. After all they've:
- Asked for W-2 forms from the (British) NHS, even after we told them they don't exist: "We'll try anyway"
- Couldn't find an 800 number for Swindon Great Western Hospital (in the UK) to verify employment
- Wondered why the figure amounts differed from my mum's bank statement (UK) and my statement (US) - and yes they wanted my mum's statement to prove she had the funds to gift us
- Been concerned that the UK dedit date was different from the US credit date: "It's hard for us to tally when the dates and amounts are different" (they differed by a day)

I don't think it is so much the underwriters but the lenders are making sure that their mortgages are Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac compliant so they can sell them to Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac. Due of the lack of trust in Wall Street, they can no longer issue Mortgage Backed Securities and Fannie and Freddy are primarily the only one's that can. Since the mortgage meltdown, several large banks have been fined over $10 billion each for liars loans, illegal foreclosures, and other irregularities and over 200 small fries have been sent to prison.

Ok, I admit beyond our loan officer I have no idea what goes on! I understand they have to be sure - it's just some of the things they've asked for demonstrate a lack of understanding of anything non-US. I don't expect them to know other countries' affairs, just to recognise that it may well be different from the US.

Still whatever we did must have worked because we have loan approval! It's subject to some conditions which sound fairly minor and clarifications to certain points rather than chunks of evidence missing - things like why my income was lower in 2013 than in 2012 (because we became a joint income family so I cut back on hours), statements of the exchange rate on the transfer dates (I have copies of the XE receipts) - stuff like that.

Escrow may be extended by a few days but I understand that's common enough that it shouldn't be a problem, and is written into the paperwork we all signed anyway.

I had this issue 5 years ago. It is more to do with showing the funds come from a legitimate source, than if Mum can afford it. My dad had to write a letter stating the gift was one off, only for use for the down payment on the specific property-or words to that effect.

eta the lender gave us a "gift letter" template to fill in!

Congrats.

A few days won't have any adverse effects on closing since the purchase was likely contingent on you acquiring the loan and until the loan is acquired, closing can't happen.

Great! That's all that matters. I'm so happy for you Geoff

I've found out a bit more about the original topic. Seems if you owe the IRS some money, as in underpayment because you earned more than expected, then it can take 7-14 days for the return transcript to appear after you have paid - and I'm right on the 14 day mark.

However, the friendly rep at the IRS said there had been a coding error on my payment - a fault of the IRS he said - which meant it credited as a regular tax payment rather than an estimated payment, so my return transcript was withheld for non-payment.

Ok, so they've identified the error, how long to fix? A day or two? No, six to eight weeks. They've faxed me a "temporary" copy which I hope the loan people will accept.

We're supposed to close on Wednesday...

They accepted the temporary transcript, thankfully. Now they're asking for original SS cards (that's fine) and I suspect it's because my number is what some people say is unusual because it doesn't fit the issuance pattern. There IS no pattern: that was abandoned years ago but it seems some people didn't get the memo.

Still... "how high" is obviously the answer.

Anyway, I think we close tomorrow. I'm a bit confused but we're going to the escrow office to sign a ton of paperwork. They extended the escrow/closing due to this SNAFU but then I think it got cancelled because it was overcome, and then something about the end of the month and having to issue new paperwork if it was in May... hopefully it'll all come together tomorrow.