A FAMILY of six could be out of their home after falling victim to what is known as a “zombie mortgage”.
Sean and Martie Howard bought their California home in the 1980s and have managed to stay afloat despite a series of financial and health problems.
3
3
3
Sean, who is a disabled Marine veteran, was diagnosed with ALS in 2016 and is now in a wheelchair.
The couple also have an autistic daughter who Martie cares for.
Things got so busy that her three adult children also moved into the house to help, making a total of six people living there.
After refinancing their home loan to pay off debt, including a second mortgage, they received a call from Specialized Loan Servicing LLC saying that they did, in fact, still owe money on that mortgage.
It turns out that the second mortgage was sold from bank to bank for over ten years, without the Howards making any payments, as they thought it was paid off.
They told the local Fox affiliate KTTV-TV who have never been notified of any balance due in almost 12 years.
Now, when you add in late fees and other charges, the Howards owe about half a million dollars.
And SLS says they will take your home if you don’t take steps to pay off the outstanding balance, including an initial $63,000 loan payment before the end of 2023.
“They told us our house would be up for auction by January 6th,” Martie said, if they didn’t come up with that big one-time payment.
“We have nowhere to go, there are six of us living here.”
Richard Szerman, a real estate agent who works with the Howards and others fighting foreclosures, says what they are going through is unfortunately all too normal.
“It’s a scam and it’s legal,” he said.
He explained that banks sell people loans, like Howard’s mortgage, for pennies after declaring them a “loss” to the IRS.
The banks that buy the rights to these loans wait years, more than a decade in Howard’s case, during which time they continued to pay what they thought was their mortgage.
“This loan would never have amounted to half a million dollars in debt if the Howards had known it existed,” Szerman said.
“If the banks had done something responsible, either the bank before this one, or the bank before that one,” he continued.
Szerman has been fighting for homeowners against these types of loans for years, especially because he says banks don’t legally have to prove they notified homeowners about the loans.
This means that as they are sold between banks, most are not notified and many people don’t even know they exist.
He says this because these banks and other companies like SLS are making a lot of money, at the expense of people like the Howards.
And until politicians start demanding that banks prove they are notifying customers and submit official documents for these loans as they are sold and purchased, the situation will never change, he says.
Szerman told the US Sun that he and the Howards were successful in fighting the case, saying they got a much better deal on the loan repayment.
“They may have other challenges to face, but at least they have a roof over their heads,” Szerman said.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
