IT IS MINE. The bank has responded to the letter I bragged about recently.

The principal balance on the above referenced loan is lower than your required monthly principal and interest payment.

Enclosed is a payoff statement itemizing the amount necessary to pay your loan in full. Please remit this amount for your final loan payment.

Gee, you'd think they could be a bit more positive than that, don't you. Then I look at the statement, which has this bold warning:

ONLY VALID FUNDS WILL BE ACCEPTED FOR THE PAYOFF SHOWN BELOW

So I took some currency to the bank ... I didn't have enough loose pennies to make the fractional dollar part all pennies ... does that mean I paid cash for my house?

One of the entries on the statement is a "recording fee" of $18. Whether the marginal cost of sending a boilerplate statement to the county registrar of deeds is $18 is something I'd just as soon not investigate, but it's probably another of the strange one-off exactions the real estate industry specializes in. David Hapgood's The Screwing of the Average Man (details or compare prices) has a whole chapter on the weird world of real estate.