A Daughter’s Plea for Help of a Needed Mortgage Crisis Intervention.

A Daughter’s Plea for Help of a Needed Mortgage Crisis Intervention. Time is Running Out!

This letter entitled “A Daughter’s Plea for Help of a Needed Mortgage Crisis Intervention. Time is Running Out” is from a client that needs help. As a Reverse Mortgage Professional I see this situation almost every day. My client and her daughter want their story told so please take a look. The greatest generation has been caught up in the mortgage meltdown and not everyone knows how bad it is.

“The Greatest Generation” Caught Up In The Mortgage Meltdown

My 86 year old mother who has worked all her life as a professional R.N. needs help. She has been written about in newspapers and was known as, “The Nurse!” & “The nurse that was so tough she could eat nails and melt them with her teeth, but was a great teacher and role model” as previously written in 2001 article in the Daily News. She worked for 43 years at the well known Sherman Oaks Hospital and the Grossman Burn Center located in Sherman Oaks CA until 2001. In 2001 she was forced to retire due to having a stroke that affected her speech at the age of 78. She also served our country in the United States Armed Forces during World War II. She has dedicated her life to the service of others who are in need, but now she is at the opposite end where she is the one in need of help from others for the first time in her life.

Mom’s Present Situation:

My Mother is at risk of loosing her home due to foreclosure as she slowly goes into default. Her home was built in 1926 and has been in the family for 83 years. This home is all she has left and she is now fearful of loosing it! Up to this point there has been no one able to help her find a solution to her problem.

Her current mortgage is with Chase and is an adjustable rate loan. For the last 4 years the payment structure has had 4 different payment options where she has been paying the minimum payment since that is what she could afford. The loan is scheduled to reset to a much higher interest rate and monthly payments of which she cannot afford in December 2009. My Mother and I have worked nonstop to get help since May of 2009. We have tried to get the loan modified to be able to continue to afford the payments under the recently pasted federal loan modification programs past by the Obama Administration.

We first went to the Chase Home Ownership Assistance Center in Glendale, California that was featured on the Channel 7 Eyewitness News in February 2009 when it was newly opened. This location is for customers to go to if they have a troubled mortgage they could no longer afford. Since we felt this was going to be us very soon we went to see about getting help. We had no luck. This center was only setup for mortgages that were at least 30 days or more behind and the other mortgages that are at risk of default are dealt with out of state in their Loss Mitigation Department. Why aren’t all troubled mortgages handled in the same location locally in California? At this point my mother was not behind because she always has made the effort to stay current with her mortgage as a responsible person should. She wanted to start this process early so she would never get behind risking her credit and her home that she loves. What she was told was to fill out the loan modification package and a letter of hardship and to send it to their Florida office which was helping everyone else in doing loan modifications. We filled out the package and after countless calls and requests for additional information she was denied after 90 days. The reason for denial was because she has equity in the home and her assets were not sufficient enough according to Chase and the Home Affordability Housing Plan in the Obama Program.

After hearing this we went back to the Glendale Center to try and obtain a traditional loan modification. After talking to the Loan Center personnel we were told that we would be denied for the same reason as we were previously and were told “a home owner has to be in trouble before the lender would be willing to help”. This troubled us greatly… How crazy it is that someone has to have their credit ruined before anyone would help! Being responsible and starting early to try and prevent a foreclosure or getting behind on payments and being told to come back when you are in trouble seems ridiculous. It seemed that a lot of stalling tactics were issued more than any help. A comment was made to my mother by a staff member such as, “How did you get involved in this mess?” Implying that this senior citizen should have known what she was doing.

Our next step was to try and get her loan refinanced into a new 30 year fixed rate mortgage after receiving the loan modification denial letter informing her to try and refinance. She started this process but was told that she wouldn’t qualify due to not having sufficient income and not enough liquid assets due to the tightening of the loan qualification standards by all lending institutions.

At this point my mother has exhausted all avenues with Chase. The bank is being non-cooperative in helping this senior citizen in staying in her home. Chase advertises they are there to help customers and their motto is “Your house is your home…We want to keep it that way.”

After seeing they were not going to get anywhere with Chase my mother and I went to try and get help at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and were told there was nothing they could do since there was no predatory loan fraud involved. They left disappointed but continued on by going to the L.A. Neighborhood Housing Services only to receive no help at all. This center made copies of the file and we were assigned to a Certified HUD Counselor only to be disappointed since calls were not returned and a lot of stalling tactics were seen and a total lack of interest was shown. It was a waste of time! Even after filing complaints with the Director of Operations at LANHS nothing was done to help us. He too never followed through on what he said he would do to help us. It was a waste of time.

Wanting to find help we then went to the Legal Aid Foundation only to get the same answer as they were given before. No fraud or Predatory Lending was done! As a senior citizen on a fixed income my mother cannot afford to hire her own Real Estate Attorney thus for this reason she is trying everything she can. We even tried other banks and smaller mortgage companies to have more doors closed in our face based on the same reasons previously mentioned. This seems hopeless! Now we are fearing the worst.

A few weeks pass by and we saw an article in a local newspaper by a reverse mortgage company called Generation Mortgage located in Glendora CA. Generation is a direct lender of FHA Reverse Mortgages. A call was placed and a Reverse Mortgage Professional made an appointment with us and came to the house for a visit. He was told what my mother faced with her loan and he said he may have a loan that should work for her as long as the appraisal could come in at least $500,000. The loan is the FHA Home Equity Conversion Mortgage; a very popular FHA insured reverse mortgage product. After a long discussion we thought finally someone is willing to try and help us. The paperwork was started and after the mandatory counseling was done and appraisal was completed. Unfortunately due to the declining home values a couple homes were sold between the application and the appraisal for less causing the appraisal to come in at $465,000. Again another roadblock! Due to the lower value she would now be about $45,000 short to completely pay off the existing mortgage. We thought we found an answer to our prayers only to have another door closed in our face caused by Banks putting people in Subprime Adjustable Rate loans that no one can now afford. Banks should be held accountable for getting individuals in these dangerous types of loans to begin with.

At this point we are out of options and need help! The Generation Mortgage representative is willing to help and is trying everything he can to help my mother save her home including talking to Chase directly.

To solve my Mother’s problem one of 2 things needs to happen. Chase needs to forgive some of the existing loan balance or someone needs to help with the shortfall. The representative has explained that many seniors he talks to are in this same situation and is grateful that we are willing to say something and go publicly and take a stand. This will most likely help other seniors in this same situation. Banks are getting away with not helping seniors’ stay in their homes.

Our Plea for Help!

Please, my mother needs help! We do not have the funds to save her home and have run out of options. We are desperately pleading for help through charitable contributions to help my mother save her home from foreclosure and or help getting this issue out into the media. We understand we are not the only one in this situation but we thought this information can also help others and get this problem seniors are facing in the general public.

If you are reading this please pass it along to as many people you can. Senior citizens are in the same boat everyone else is in by losing their homes because of bad loans that were previously offered. The only thing is they, unlike younger Americans, can not work due to age even if they wanted to. “Our Greatest Generation” have very few options.

If you wish to contact my mother and or family members to get more information please contact Joseph Cina and he will get you in contact with us. Joseph can be contacted at (909) 816-7874 or helpasenior2009@gmail.com. He will be happy to help you. My Mother does not have the ability to be the main contact due to her health situation and Joseph is willing to assist in the facilitation of information gathering. Please call or email Joseph today.

 If you cannot help please pass this to someone who possibly can. Please help us get the word out.

 Thank you for reading this, Shawn