an FYI for those with frozen HELOC lines

My HELOC with Chase has been frozen for two years now.

The lovely thing about a frozen HELOC (for the bank) is the fact that even though you can't borrow any money against it/the bank, the bank still has a nice fat lien on your house. So if you foreclose, they are entitled to a percentage of the foreclosure. Talk about a convenient way for them to have a ZERO liability stake on your assets.

Anyways I probably should have done this sooner, but I finally started the process of getting their name off the deed to my house. I am looking for a second house and there is no reason to have them listed on my credit report as an active, yet frozen account.

They tried to charge me a "lien release fee" that they claim Nassau County charges, but I told them to waive it since it wasn't my decision to have the account frozen. They waived it so I am starting the process of getting them off.

If you have a frozen HELOC, you should do the same! Don't let a bank have a zero risk claim to your assets! If you ever need to re-open an HELOC, plenty of banks will allow you to apply for an HELOC with no closing costs and no application fees.

Re: an FYI for those with frozen HELOC lines

My HELOC is frozen too for about 2 years with Citibank and it was hell getting them to suborindinate for my re-fi. It took them forever.

Can you do this if you have a balance on your HELOC or only if your balance is 0?

Re: an FYI for those with frozen HELOC lines

You would need to have a 0 balance in order for them to remove the lien.

I forgot to mention that. I had the line opened and used it for a few weeks, but I never used it after that.

Re: an FYI for those with frozen HELOC lines

I just went through a battle with Chase to get them to unfreeze our HELOC. They had an incorrect amount remaining on the primary mortgage (higher) and they also have grossly undervalued the house. I was able to get them to unfreeze it by proving we owed a lot less on the primary mortgage than they said we did. I would have had to pay to have the house appraised if I'd wanted to prove the higher value but that wasn't necessary. It's worth looking into options to unfreeze it if you need it too.