Need help to add a refinanced mortgage I took over to Quicken

Bob Carlson

I apologize if this has already been answered, and I missed it. Here is my problem:

Sometime in 1996, I believe, my parents got a mortgage for our current house. I have no idea of the date, original amount or who it was with. It was refinanced multiple times, not sure when or by who, nor the amount was that remortgaged. The current mortgage is through Wells Fargo. My dad passed away in 2013, my mom last nov 2023. I called Wells Fargo and let them know she passed, that I am the heir trustee, and I am taking over the mortgage. Until my legal proof of this, however, they locked the mortgage account. I still get a monthly statement that I can pay by check. However, I can’t go in and see info like original amount or date. The statement shows the interest rate, the unpaid principal, amount of payment broken down into principal and interest, and maturity date. There are no branches or offices anywhere near me to see if they will give me more info, although I’m guessing I need the proof before I would get anywhere.

They had an old quicken, just for their checking account, but the mortgage was never put into it. My question is how do I enter the refinanced loan since I took over into quicken without beginning information. When I try to create a loan it requires an original date and amount, neither of which I have. I made up a simple spreadsheet in Excel to help me keep track, but I’d like to put it in Quicken. Should I just put the unpaid principal as the original amount and current date or date of last statement?

Thanks for any help or direction you can provide. 😁

Tom Young

There's no need at all to enter "original" information (i.e., date of original funding, interest rate at time of original funding, length of loan at original funding) you can simply enter a new loan using the parameters at the time you assumed the original loan, and go from there. There's no need or utility to somehow go about gathering that "original" information for your purposes. Since you are getting those statements you should be easily able to enter that loan information.

So with that very first statement, (let's say it specified a December 15th due date), you use the outstanding loan balance prior to the December 15th payment, tell Quicken that loan originated November 15th, tell Quicken the interest rate at that time, and tell Quicken the number of payments (months) remaining on that "new to you" loan. That will give you a complete history of the loan and a future amortization schedule that's relevant to you.

NotACPA

In that spreadsheet, can you work backwards to get the missing info? Or, perhaps using Q's "Loan Calculator" and some experimentation to get the missing info?

With the payment amount and the rate you should be able to calculate the missing info for the current loan.

Yeah, it's a bit of work … but probably your best bet. I'd start by guessing that it was a 30 year loan.

Also, even if the mortgage itself wasn't in Q … do you have data going back far enough that you can see when the current payment amount started in checking?

Bob Carlson

Quicken wasn't used that long and I haven't been able to find any check registers going back far, but I'll play with the spreadsheet and try back to a 30 year loan and see what happens.

Tom Young

There's no need at all to enter "original" information (i.e., date of original funding, interest rate at time of original funding, length of loan at original funding) you can simply enter a new loan using the parameters at the time you assumed the original loan, and go from there. There's no need or utility to somehow go about gathering that "original" information for your purposes. Since you are getting those statements you should be easily able to enter that loan information.

So with that very first statement, (let's say it specified a December 15th due date), you use the outstanding loan balance prior to the December 15th payment, tell Quicken that loan originated November 15th, tell Quicken the interest rate at that time, and tell Quicken the number of payments (months) remaining on that "new to you" loan. That will give you a complete history of the loan and a future amortization schedule that's relevant to you.

NotACPA

And, I'm assuming, they didn't keep the checking acct bank stmts.

Using Q's Loan Calculator, I'd start with the current balance & Add, say $100K, and see how close that comes to the payment on a 30 year loan. You can then play around with the loan initial amount to narrow down to the actual payment made.

If it wasn't a 30 year loan, try 20 years (or 25). Those are the most likely terms of the loan. Once you get the payment calc worked out, the Wizard can provide you with the Amortization Schedule, and you can look down that to where the current balance is found. Working backward from that will give you the origination month (if not the actual day). On a fixed interest, monthly interest loan (i.e., on the vast majority of Real estate loans), the Wizard is VERY accurate.