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Q: I was going to refinance the loan on my house. The day I was going to go to the office to sign the closing papers, I asked again what the loan amount and monthly payment would be. Well, it had changed and was higher than what I was told originally. So, I cancelled the refinance.

My appraisal fee was going to be free, but now they're saying I have to pay it because the loan was not closed. But the only reason I did not close was because the figures changed. Do I have to pay it?

A: You may have to. Often, when you sign an application to do a loan, you agree (in the fine print) to pay any out-of-pocket costs associated with underwriting the loan if you don't wind up closing.

Typically, an out-of-pocket appraisal fee would fall under the category of "out-of-pocket costs," as might the cost of pulling your credit history and credit score. Please go back and look at your application to see what it says about out-of-pocket costs.

However, I'm troubled by the fact that your numbers were different at the closing table than what you had been promised. Do you have the Truth in Lending statement that the lender should have given you when you applied for the loan or within a couple of days from that date? Did you lock in your interest rate when you applied for the loan or sometime after you applied for the loan?

Did your monthly payment change or did the closing fees change? If your closing fees changed, do you know why those fees changed? If your monthly payment changed, do you know why the payment changed?

If you have answers to these questions, you are better able to determine whether you should or should not pay for the lender expenses.

If you failed to lock in the interest rate for your loan and interest rates went up, your lender would not have done anything wrong, and you would have been entitled to not close but might be responsible for the lender's out-of-pocket expenses.

But if you locked in your interest rate, did everything you were supposed to do, and the lender changed the loan amount, interest rate or added fees, you might not have to pay those fees and in addition may have a claim against the lender for violating the terms of your loan and the terms given to you under the Good Faith Estimate of fees.

If nothing changed on your end and you did what you were supposed to do, and the lender increased your interest rate without disclosing it to you well in advance of your closing, your lender might have been trying to pull a classic bait-and-switch on you. This occurs when you apply for a loan at an advertised rate only to find out at the closing that the lender offers you a higher rate to close.

If you know for certain that the lender has not been honest with you, you can file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau or with the agency that regulates mortgage lenders in your state. Depending if the lender is a mortgage broker or mortgage banker, there are national organizations with which you can file other complaints. They are the Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Association of Mortgage Brokers.

But if the loan or the interest rate changed because your credit changed at the last minute, or because you hadn't locked in your loan, or you failed to close before the rate lock expired, then you may have to pony up for these out-of-pocket costs and fees.

If you aren't sure of what your application says, a real estate attorney may be able to help you parse the legalese. Good luck.

Q: I am currently in default on the first mortgage for my condo. I bought a one-bedroom condo for $220,000 in 2005, and recently married and moved out of state.

The decision to allow the condo to go into foreclosure was not one that was made lightly, but was the only option for me. There's another unit in the building that was foreclosed on last October. It is listed for $89,000 and has not yet sold.

In my ZIP code, there are multiple foreclosures for sale at rock-bottom prices and excess new inventory that has been sitting vacant for more than three years. The developers are offering no homeowners association fees for the first year. My monthly homeowners association fee is $364.

My question is this: What will the ramifications be if I choose to default on my home equity line of credit (HELOC)? I'm already taking the credit hit for the foreclosure. How much worse can it be if I default on the HELOC?

A: It sounds as though you're in quite a difficult situation. To buy a condominium for $220,000 and have it be worth less than $89,000 now (I'm assuming less than that since the other condo at that price hasn't sold) is an extremely tough blow.

I suppose the silver lining is that if you also default on your HELOC, your credit history and score won't be much worse than where they are right now. You will probably have to wait another five years to buy something new, due to the new rules from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about people who have had a foreclosure.

The concern I have for you now is how you wind down your relationship with the lenders. You must make certain that your primary lender takes back the house as the sum total of what you owe. Once you do that, you will have to negotiate with the home equity lender to make sure that this debt is forgiven.

What you don't want is for these lenders, or perhaps the private mortgage insurance company that insured the top 20 percent of your loan (if you didn't have a 20 percent down payment), to come after you several years from now demanding repayment.

In some states the lender can't go after the borrower for the difference between the loan amount and what the lender got paid, while in others the lender can.

If you lived in a state that allows the lender to come after you for the money the lender lost in connection with the loan on your home, you might then decide to pay off the equity lender, if you can afford to do that.

If both lenders decide that you are gone for good and have decided against pursuing any action against you for the losses on the condominium, the foreclosure on the primary loan on your home and, thereafter, the foreclosure or write-off of the value of the equity line of credit, might hurt your credit to an equal degree.

These are possible complications you would be well-served to settle now. I suggest strongly that you hire a real estate attorney to make sure that all of your loose ends are tied up, so that you can begin your new life without worrying about them.

To get even more valuable advice from Ilyce, visit her Personal Finance and Real Estate Center.