Drew Kozel
Biographical Info Drew Kozel, CDLP®, is a Certified Divorce Lending Professional and Branch Manager at Go Rascal Inc. in Gilbert, Arizona, licensed in Arizona, Illinois, and Texas (NMLS #1595185). He has originated mortgages since 2017, and he brings that experience into collaborative and mediated divorces as the team’s housing neutral — the person who answers the mortgage questions before they turn into settlement problems. Why the team needs a housing neutral. The marital home is often the largest asset in a divorce and the hardest one to divide, because the answer depends on things nobody at the table controls: whether the spouse keeping the home can qualify for a refinance on one income, how a lender will count spousal and child support, and whether the existing loan can be assumed at all. When the team answers those questions after the agreement is signed, it can discover that the buyout everyone negotiated can’t be financed, and the case reopens at the point where the parties have the least patience left. Drew moves those answers to the front of the process, so the team negotiates around numbers a lender will accept. The Divorce Mortgage Plan. Drew’s core work product is the Divorce Mortgage Planning & Real Property Detail Report, which he prepares during financial disclosure and carries through negotiation. The report documents the equity in each property, models buyout and refinance scenarios, reads employment and support income the way an underwriter will read it, analyzes rental property cash flow, and tests whether assuming the existing mortgage is an option. Attorneys, financial neutrals, and mediators get one documented picture of what each spouse can afford, which lets the parties write housing terms into the agreement with the financing already tested — including the timing and paperwork a lender will need once the court enters the decree. How he works with the team. Drew serves both spouses equally and advocates for neither. He works alongside the financial neutral rather than in place of one, keeping his role focused on the mortgage and real property questions that sit outside a CPA’s or CDFA’s day-to-day work. When a matter requires it, he provides expert witness reports and testimony, and after the decree he stays with the client through closing, so the plan the team built becomes the loan that funds. drew@gorascal.com
Email Address drew@kozelteam.com
Company: Kozel Mortgage Team powered by Gorascal
Practice Area: financial, practitioner-member, other
Phone: 312-802-0794