The Story Began May, 2007. At that time I reported that relatives in their mid 80’s were facing a mortgage they couldn’t possibly pay. Here is what happened in that year, the human side -- the aftermath of a foreclosure.Since I wrote the post in May, my aunt died in November '07 (maybe it was partly the financial stress) and took her pension with her. The husband, Paul, was left holding the bag on the impossible to pay for mortgage (even with the pension it was more than they could afford).
I was wondering what had happened to this uncle by marriage so I searched the Public Records of Hernando County, Florida.
In a hearing on February 27, 2008 all hell broke loose for Paul. He was foreclosed on prior because he was appointed a Guardian on that February date. There was also a petition granted for emergency shelter for him. All fees were ordered deferred as he was declared indigent by the court. Indigent in an emergency shelter!
I hope you are happy mortgage lenders scum for giving people in their mid 80’s almost 100% financing and a balloon to boot. One bright side: The foreclosure hurts the bank that did this bad loan. This man Paul is destitute, not even left the dignity to die in his home of 20 years. The mortgage broker should be shot for taking advantage of very old people. Granted, I didn’t like this uncle by marriage, but he didn’t deserve this.
In case it is too much trouble to press the link to read the first companion post, here it is below:
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Mortgage Lender Scum. by Geniusofdespair
This is a very sad tale indeed.
An aunt and her husband lives on the West Coast of Florida in a house valued at about $146,000 or less (they bought it for about $40,000).
In February ‘05 she got an interest only adjustable rate mortgage prepared by American Lending Corp. from MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration System) for $140,000. Lender is Greenpoint Mortgage Funding, Inc. of Novato, Ca. The loan's interest rate goes up to 7.850% in January 2008. The interest will never be greater than 14% and never less than 7.850%. She also signed a waiver of escrow account.
My aunt was also given a balloon mortgage prepared by the same American Lending doing business as U.S. Guarantee Mortgage Corp. This balloon is in the amount of $35,000. So she has 2 mortgages for probably more than the house is worth and she can't afford the payments.
HERE IS THE BAD PART:
She is 85 years old and lives on a pension of $25,000 a year and gets a few thousand from social security. she has no savings. She also has a car payment of $457 a month (looks like the car guy saw her coming).
How could someone write such risky mortgages to an 85 year old woman without an income? She isn't the sharpest tack. They should have sent her home and told her to write a tight budget.
She is now pretty much destitute and will probably lose her home and car in short order as she asked me for a $25,000 loan (which is not going to happen because I am blogging too much). She wouldn’t tell me what was going on but I found all of this information on line much to her dismay.
How many more retirees in Florida were exploited like this poor X kindergarten teacher?
15 comments:
Don't forget who egged on those scum: the politicians who are incumbents and need to be held accountable. It was their campaign contributors from the development industry who pocketed their millions and are now cruising the Bahamas in their Bertrams, the local bankers who thumbed their noses at citizens and waved the flag of property rights at anyone who stood in their way of knocking down barriers to more, and more and more growth. They are the ones who wrecked lives. Hold them accountable!
What about: Why were two people in their eighties even getting a mortgage:?
If they had been in that house 20 years, they must have had hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity.
So they got another mortgage, had the equity in cash, in their hands.
What did they do with it?
It's not all the lenders' fault.
Of course it is the lenders fault, the people had no income!! You could compute that they could not afford the payments.
The equity in the house was the amount of the mortgage. They were living beyond their means, of course, but you don't write these kinds of mortages for older people...you write reverse mortgages, and you give them credit advice, not exploit them. Have you ever dealt with a person in their mid 80's. Many don't think that straight -- i mentioned that my aunt was not a sharp tack. Anyone could have figured that out within 5 minutes. This was exploitation pure and simple.
When asked where the money went, they said bills.
Anonymous 2:
Why do you think the court made the man a ward of the court (appointment of a guardian)? Because he wasn't lucid enough to manage his affairs. I agree, the lender is responsible, they should have looked at the loans more broadly and taken into account the age and mental capacity of the couple.
The lender's agents are the responsible people. In order to earn high commissions they qualified borrowers regardless of income. Most of the mortgage lenders had connections to the developers, which profitted not only from the sale of their houses but also from the closing costs and commissions derived from the transaction. The big lenders then bought those mortgages believing the originating parties had done a legitimate and well researched loan. Still I don't believe they deserve the bailout the government is giving them at taxpayers' expense.
This is really a Gordian knot. Should we make it illegal for someone over the age of 80 to get a mortgage? Should we require parental signature? In a country (and a state) where we can't make people over 80 get retested for their driver's license I don't think it is practical to imply that additional laws should be instituted to limit the freedom of old folks to screw up.
We are talking about common decency. Exploiting old people is not sport, it is a crime against...well, old people.
Typical Democrats. No one wants to take personal responsibility for the problems that they create for themselves.
It must be the evil "man" who pulled one over on me.
What ever happened to caveat emptur?
Where were these peoples' children and relatives?
m
I work in the securities industry, and can tell you that if I were to exploit a mentally-confused senior in this fashion- say, by taking every dollar he had to buy high-risks stocks, I would be sanctioned and fined heavily, and would have to pay restitution....... as should the lender who suckered this confused elder into this transaction.
I have no sympathy for most people who bought houses they knew they couldn't afford, and/or borrowed hundreds of thousands against them, and who wouldn't even be bothered to find out what kind of mortgage they got. Count me as absolutely opposed to the bailouts for Wall Street, lenders, and borrowers that are being proposed.
However, it has never been considered ethical, or even legal, to financially exploit ill, weak, confused elders. As for their children, they cannot know everything an elderly parent is doing.
Asking where the children were is like asking where were the parents when an 8-year old gets molested and murdered on her way home from school. You have to be able to trust the system to ensure a civilized environment, and ours really fell down on the job.
Thank you North Coast. Well said. This couple had no children and the only way I found out what was going on was to snoop in their public records when we got an inkling that something was awry. We tried to help but it was too far along.
That M makes me so angry sometimes...always the devil's advocate it is just soooo very annoying...Always sees the world without a shade of grey. Must be a lobbyist punk.
to echo north coast's point: the problem at bottom is that we have-ourselves-destroyed our own system of governance by pretending it doesn't matter. it will take a long time to dig out from this mountain of poisonous thinking. but we have to start sometime....
Now you're comparing some elderly couple getting into a bad mortgage to 8 year-olds gettin murdered and molested?
Right.
Let your uncle move in with you GoD.
Remember...It takes a village.
m "the punk"
and by the way...how did your aunt & uncle go from being "not so sharp" to all of the sudden being mentally retarded?
their condition gets worth with every thread.
m
IS THERE ANY PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY LEFT IN THIS WORLD? People's homes went up in value over the years - did they sell them and make a profit? NO! - they went and KNOWINGLY sucked every last penny of equity out of there house - then blew it with nothing to show under the 4th grade mentality that their house had to continue to increase in value every day for the rest of their lives - guess what? - my house is not in foreclosure because I never borrowed more than I could afford to pay! - greedy people get what greedy people get when they have zero responsibility.
I didn't write the post comment you are attributing to me, M, someone else did. Read again. I hate most of my relatives so why on earth should I take them in? Your State tax dollars are paying for this man to live now...that makes me happy. He is a ward of the State not me. So because he was taken of advantage of by greedy mortgage people, YOU ARE PAYING FOR HIM TO LIVE for the rest of his life.
Last anon: The simple thing is: If people are older, they should be getting a reverse mortgage, that is how they should remove equity from their home.
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