Comments on: Puerto Rico Bank Banco Popular is Stealing From Us

By: Rosa

Rosa — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 17:40:35 +0000

I’ve been reading everyone’s post and I’m glad to know there are others who can relate. I live in NY and own a vacation/eventful retirement home in PR. I too am pissed at BPPR. I hate to call because I get upset just at the thought. You call and the phone rings with no answer and then drops. You leave e-mails and when they reply, they say they don’t have your phone number (somehow they have someone else’s number despite the fact that you have given them the number everytime. I started with them several years back with a loan for construction. Back then they were the only bank that had this. I know ’cause I checked. From construction it went to a mortgage which they then increased by 1 point. I currently have a high interest rate which I tried to refinance when the market dropped last year in 2011. It took a few months of having me run around to get them all the paper work in hopes of expediting the process (if I waited for them it would take several more weeks and the interest might change according to them) then they tell me that I would have to make some additions to my property for the lender to approve the refinancing. They estimated it (from the “tasacion” that I paid for)to be $32,000 to consider my refinancing. I have excellent credit and collateral but that did’nt matter. I believe they want to stick it to me to keep me with the high interest rate I currently have. I told them FU and to send me the documents I paid for, I’m taking my business elsewhere. I’m still waiting for the documents. There are many people complaining about this issue. I think that we can all make a petition or something and involve the US media (they love this sort of thing of going after big corporations that are screwing many hard working folks). Any thougts?

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By: Fran and Steve

Fran and Steve — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:17:32 +0000

@Pam. No. US banks are prohibited from issuing PR mortgages. BPPR in San Juan will give you bilingual documents if you ask; perhaps other lenders as well. Aside from the solution your Aguada friend used, there’s no way to avoid those closing costs. Only refi if interest rates are at least 1% lower than your existing mortgage. — Fran

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By: Pam

Pam — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:41:41 +0000

Luis-
try clasificadosonline.com and also craigslist

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By: Pam

Pam — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:37:09 +0000

Hi-
First, great site! Thanks for all the fantastic info!
Does anyone know of a bank / CU / mortgage company in the mainland that writes mortgages in PR? I have a condo here I’d like to refi, but if I can use a mainland company, I’d be much happier. Closing costs alone are beyond rediculous! Also, I have friends who bought a vacation home in Aguada. In order to avoid using PR banks they took a second mortgage on their home here in NJ and paid cash in PR. They got a better interest rate, paid far less in fees and they get all their bank correspondence in English. (Something that I still have been unable to accomplish after 6 yrs and 2 banks.) I hope this helps, and if anyone has info on a US company writing mortgages on PR properties please post it.

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By: Luis

Luis — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:39:27 +0000

I was born in PR and left when I was young. I live in Texas and plan to retire in Rincon. I vacation there a couple times a year and I love the place. I plan on buying a house or land to build but Im going to pay cash. Should I expect problems? Also I plan on bringing my 2007 silverado 4 wheel drive pick up truck. Im I better off buying a vehicle there rather than transporting one. I just see the fun side of Rincon when Im there so Im I going to be in for a shock? People in Rincon seem to be really nice and I havent had any bad experiences yet. I would like to avoid going thru a Real Estate office and paying a bunch of fees. Are there any websites with local listings where you can deal directly with the owners of the property? Any info would help.

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By: Edgar Rios

Edgar Rios — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 18:28:59 +0000

Here in orlando fl. even tho, the building have the same logos and paint, they are not the official
BPPr, is more like a franchise, for any transactions they took more than 3 days, even is i want to send money to PR, the late fees and charges on a secure credit card are insane. My advice find a better deal.

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By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:53:50 +0000

Thanks for your blob post. And I’m very sorry for your experience. We’re about to finance an investment property in Fajardo with BPPR, and I already can appreciate the lack of organization and sense of customer service. Everything takes 5 to 7 business days, which by the way consist of 10am to 4pm local time, minus lunch, breaks, meetings and probably some a$$ scratching. I’ll let you know how the rest of process goes. I must add that I have business accounts with BPPR and BBVA. They are both ok banks for the normal checking, savings and credit card POS systems. The problem is that there is no transparency and flow of communications between departments (mortgage, investing, trusts, credit card, etc).

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By: Joe Castro

Joe Castro — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 05:39:10 +0000

By the way, I should add that the house I bought is located in California!

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By: Joe Castro

Joe Castro — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 05:38:07 +0000

Wow! Sorry to read about such a bad experience. I just refi my house which I bought 1 year ago at 5.75% on a 30 yr loan and a monthly payment of $1,324.78. The new rate is 3% and mo payment dropped down to 834.84saving me about $90,000.00 off the original cost of my house and it took 8 days to refi. Just yesterday I did the closing right here in my dinning room. Bco Popular has been taking people’s money for the longest. They are actually holding you hostage due to their dis organized structure and I believe it is illegal. It’s like a “Pagaré”, the bank doesn’t care if you loose it. Then why should you suffer if they can’t find your papers?

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By: ms.ann thorp

ms.ann thorp — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 23:54:18 +0000

banco pop is INSANE! I bought a condo here 16 months ago. it’s my primary residence. after 6 months, as instructed, i applied for the homeowners property tax exemption. i hired a lawyer to do it because dealing with any beurocracy in PR is enuf to make anyone go postal. the lawyer told me it would take a week to get the exemption approval from CRIM. it took 3 months, which is fast for anything in PR. i sent the approval to the bank 8 months ago. not only didnt i receive a property tax reduction and a reimbursement for the overpayment, i got a substantial property tax INCREASE. banco pop keeps saying they are working on it.
why does it take forever to get a homeowners prop tax exemption in PR when anywhere in the states it is immediate and automatic?
also, in getting the mortgage, banco pop broke several disclosure laws and when i asked for info about the APR, they outright lied to me.
my advice is no one from the states should buy property in PR. they have a huge, cumbersome, inconvenient, incompetent beurocracy here that is impossible to deal with. working with a bank in the states is effortless compared with PR. i just dont know why they are so incompetent here. and that is not just banks.

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