RV Finance : A tale of two banks

For reasons that are not needed to complete this story, when I first met Sheri, her Puma trailer was not actually in her name. It was in her step mothers name.

Since we wanted a CLEAN transfer and we are not experts, we thought we would simply finance the RV via Bank of America who does do RV loans. What is good to know about BOA is that they actually have a dedicated RV department. Maybe that doesn't sound like much, but when you call them, they really know what they are talking about. By the way, if you remember, I wrote that Geico has its own RV insurance department, once you got hold of their actual RV insurance department.

True to form, we worked with the bank and they really came through with lots of forms and legal protections that we would not known how to do.

We bought the RV in May. It is October 4 2010 today. So if you must know, ONLY TODAY is the title clearly in our names.

Here is why : All of the paperwork is completely finished. When BOA sent it to TXDOT (where titles get processed in the state of Texas), TXDOT had a simple request of the other bank (the original lienholder) and the request was to simply fax a business card showing that the signatory on the the banks paperwork (Bank of the West) was truly a BoW employee. BoW would not do it. They thumbed their nose at the state of Texas and because of this we could not get our trailer titled in our names.

Keep in mind, this might have been a problem if we didn't use a bank and their paperwork engine. But because of this, I do think we had our i's dotted and t's crossed and we were able to work with TXDOT and BOA to get our title and get our trailer paid off finally.

So, if you are financing an RV, you might consider Bank of America because they have an RV department, you can get to know them, and even though BOA is huge, the department provides a very personal touch. The TXDOT people were impressed with how BOA treated Sheri and I as customers.

If you are financing an RV, you might consider AVOIDING Bank of the West - based solely in the information that I've provided in this article. This is all I know and quite frankly, it is enough. Apparently, once they have your money, you can go jump off a cliff.

I hope this helps you if you are thinking about selecting a bank for the purchase of your RV. Good luck everyone!