Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Citations related to struggling homeowners

IF THE DAY EVER COMES WHEN AN ACTUAL STRUGGLING HOMEOWNER COMES ACROSS MY LITTLE BLOG HERE - PROBABLY SOMETIME IN 2014 - HERE ARE SOME CITES YOU MIGHT WANT TO EXAMINE, IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY:


The great American foreclosure story: The struggle for justice and a place to call home.
http://www.propublica.org/search/search.php?q=Ramos+story&x=0&y=0

Freddie Mac betting against struggling homeowners
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/30/145995636/freddie-mac-betting-against-struggling-homeowners

Arizona failed to distribute federal aid to struggling homeowners
http://www.azcentral.com/business/realestate/articles/20130713arizona-homeowners-federal-funds-denied.html?nclick_check=1

Bailout help for struggling homeowners:
www.bankrate.com/finance/real-estate/bailout-includes-help-for-struggling-homeowners-1.aspx

Atlanta event aimed at helping struggling homeowners
www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/atlanta-event-aimed-helping-struggling-homeowners/nZ8Hk/

Occupy homes wins crucial victories for struggling hmeowners against big banks
www.alternet.org/story/155964/occupy_homes_wins_crucial_victories_for_struggling_homeowners_against_big_banks

Occupy homes: new coalition links homeowners, activists in direct action to half foreclosures
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/11/occupy_ohmes_new_coalition

IF AFTER READING  THE FIRST 10 POSTS YOU AGREE THAT THE HOUSING AND UNEMPLOYMENT CRISES ARE DUE TO STRUCTUAL DEFECTS IN OUR SOCIETY (NOT SOMETHING CAUSES BY ANY ONE INDIVIDUAL), YOU MIGHT WANT TO READ THE FOLLOWING CITES WHICH ANALYZE OUR SOCIAL PROBLEMS (TO BE EXPANDED ON AT SOME FUTURE TIME): 

www.crightmills.org/

www.stanleyaronowitz.org/new/facing-the-economic-crisis

Discussion of Obama's philosophy
www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/books/28klopp.html?_r=0

www.philosophicalsociety.com/political philosophy.htm#polphil-def

www.amphilsoc.org/

wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_for_the_Study_of_Social_Problems

www.thefreedictionary.com/philosophy

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/philosophy


Other Struggling Homeowners' Stories - The Silversteins

Near Philadelphia, the situation of Jay and Bonnie Silverstein [  www.npr.org/2012/30/145995636/freddie-mac-betting-against . . . ] exemplifies the problems millions of us homeowners are facing.  Their story of hardship is similar to mine.

To summarize, the NPR story explains how the Silversteins had to "short sell" a home long after purchasing a newer home around the time of the economic crash that began in 2007.  Their mistake, they admit  [i.e., buying a second home before their first one was sold] cost them most of their retirement savings when they had to drain their 401(k) to make two mortgage payments for over two years.  But their other mistake, which so many of us are guilty of, was in having an overbundance of confidence in our financial institutions and the real estate market - obviously highly manipulated by the insiders.

Like me, the Silversteins have a modest pension and have been making timely mortgage payments despite being squeezed hard.  They, as I, have been unable to secure a re-fi which would lower their interest rate and, thereby, save them about $500 a month.  This is the amount I need and would receive if I were successful in securing a re-fi or modification of my mortgage through a lower rate of interest.  For me, it would mean paying only half of my income toward housing, not two-thirds, as I am doing now.

The Silversteins are in financial limbo because of a Freddie Mac rule that restricts people with a short sale in their history from refinancing for up to four years (after the short sale).

In my case, a Fannie Mae underwriting rule prevents them from considering income I receive from renting out rooms from time to time.  But this is the only income source available to me for supplementing my pension and social security benefits - which together total less than $3,000 a month.  My mortgage payment is slightly under $2,000 a month.

All of these struggles are continuing for us while the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae CEOs are earning millions of dollars a year in compensation.  Aren't you outrageous?  Isn't it time to do something?




Some Thoughts on What Struggling Homeowners Should Consider

                   


 I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil,   and I believe that in the end good will triumph.
       – Margaret Thatcher

 ______________________________________

                                         
                                                     Introductory Statement

Stories such as mine recently entered on my blog, and that of Sheila Ramos [http://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-american foreclosure-story-the-struggle-for-justice-and-a-place-to-call-home/] - which inspired me to write my own story  -  as well as the untold stories of millions of other men and woman undergoing the same experience - need to understand the dynamics that have been working against us for so long.  We all need to know for certain what our country's political philosophy is or should be with regard to the policies and beliefs of our elected leaders that affect our well-being, including in the area of housing and property rights.  We at least deserve an explanation - understood and accepted by all - as to who and what specifically is responsible for our societal woes, including the ongoing threat to the millions of us who are in jeopardy of losing our homes.   The answer isn't just one political party.   It is the system by which they arrive in their positions.

Although my corpus callosum is of average size and my IQ isn’t extraordinarily high, I still have strong opinions that I do not hesitate to share.  (This propensity for forthright bluntness doesn’t increase my popularity, but that doesn’t matter to me.  I’ve never been popular.)  So I am going to take a giant leap of faith and hope someone will agree with the idea and help generate more discussion:

I feel that someone (actually, a group of our country’s greatest minds) should get together and define the type of political philosophy that governs – or should govern - our policies that so greatly affect all of us.  This imaginary group would set out to define a set of principles and values as guidelines (not simply “conservative” or “liberal” beliefs in a general sense, but lay out specifics) that our leaders would use to govern their actions.  This (imaginary) document or “contract with America” should be viewed by everyone who cares to participate in our democracy; those who care about the direction our country is headed.  Then the contract - no longer imaginary - would be used as part of the electoral process: i.e., a political candidate either agrees with it, or part of it, or not.  But he or she would be able to assure the voters, in a concrete way (not abstract) that their values, articulated honestly, are in line with the majority populace or at least their individual constituencies. 
 
As a voter, I don't want to have someone representing me who doesn't represent my values.  Today as I try to articulate something way above my head, I can't help but question why we as a country should continue with a two-party system with ideological battles that result in obstruction and gamesmanship.  I'm referring of course to our current government shutdown, debt ceiling debate, and other crises (our bailout of corporations, as well as the auto industry; the high unemployment rate, and other structural elements that have so many of us in limbo).  There has to be change.  Why is the minority calling the shots?
To start the conversation as to whether this idea has merit, let’s talk a little about political philosophy.  Wikipedia’s definition of this particular discipline of social science is as follows:

Political philosophy is the study of such topics as politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever. In a vernacular sense, the term "political philosophy" often refers to a general view, or specific ethic, political belief or attitude, about politics that does not necessarily belong to the technical discipline of philosophy. In short, political philosophy is the activity, as with all philosophy, whereby the conceptual apparatus behind such concepts as aforementioned are analyzed, in their history, intent, evolution and the like.[1]
In the mid-1950s, I wasn’t even an adolescent, but I was already aware, in an unknown, inexplicable sense, that something wasn't quite right in my world  I suppose it was an acute awareness of my particular place in society (at the lower, working class end).  That “subtle awareness” became more prominent as I matured, of course, but I seldom felt empowered to do much about it.  Yet, I  tried to find that power.  I thought it would help if I worked as had as I could as a white collar wage earner.  I had other aspirations, too:  I wanted to go to college.  I wanted to be appreciated and respected.  

I fell for the myth that if you work hard you will succeed.  That only applies to some people and under the right circumstances.  By the way, I finally got that sought-after college degree – but not until I was sixty!  So far it hasn’t done much good.
 
As I sit here now in my "golden years" and as I read what I should  have read and studied decades ago, I marvel how a particular sociologist – the one I am about to quote – saw the truth of what was going on and how our society was failing so many of us.  He was able to see and articulate  this failure so clearly, and it still applies today - especially today, October 16, 2013.  Here is an excerpt of a speech that sociologist C. Wright Mills delivered in Canada in 1954. The passages have been taken from The Politics of Truth: Selected Writings of C. Wright Mills, ed. by John Summers (Oxford University Press, 2008), pp.90-91.

 …between the state and the economy on the one hand, and the family and the small community on the other, we find no intermediate associations in which we feel secure and with which we feel powerful. There is little live political struggle. Instead, there is administration above, and the political vacuum below.
The effective units of power are now the huge corporation, the inaccessible government, the grim military establishment. These centers of power have become larger to the extent that they are effective; and to the extent that they are effective, they have become inaccessible to individuals like us, who would shape by discussion the policies of the organizations to which we belong.
 It is because of the ineffectiveness of the smaller human associations, that the classic liberal public has waned, and is in fact being replaced by a mass society. We feel that we do not belong because we are not – not yet at least, and not entirely – mass men.
 We are losing our sense of belonging because we think that the fabulous techniques of mass communication are not enlarging and animating face-to-face public discussion, but are helping to kill it off. These media – radio and mass magazines, television and the movies – as they now generally prevail, increasingly destroy the reasonable and leisurely human interchange of opinion. They do not often enable the listener or the viewer truly to connect his daily life with the larger realities of the world, nor do they often connect with his troubles. On the contrary, they distract and obscure his chance to understand himself or his world, by fastening his attention span upon artificial frenzies.
 We are losing our sense of belonging because more and more we live in metropolitan areas that are not communities in any real sense of the word, but unplanned monstrosities in which as men and women we are segregated into narrowed routines and mileux. We do not meet one another as persons in the several aspects of our total life, but know one another only fractionally, as the man who fixes the car, or as that girl who serves our lunch, or as the woman who takes care of our child at school. Pre-judgment and prejudice flourish when people meet people only in this segmental manner. The humanistic reality of others does not, cannot, come through.
 In this metropolitan society, we develop, in our defense, a blasé manner that reaches deeper than a manner. We do not, accordingly, experience genuine clash of viewpoint. And when we do, we tend to consider it merely rude. We are sunk in our routines, we do not transcend them, even in discussion, much less by action. We do not gain a view of the structure of our community as a whole and of our role within it. Our cities are composed of narrow slots, and we, as the people in these slots, are more and more confined to our own rather narrow ranges. As we reach for each other, we do so only by stereotype. Each is trapped by his confining circle, each is split from easily identifiable groups. It is for people in such narrow mileux that the mass media can create a pseudo-world beyond, and a pseudo-world within themselves as well. 1/
[Cited from www.philosophicalsociety.com/political philosophy.htm#polphil-def . . .  Retrieved Oct. 11, 2013]

Most of us don't feel secure and we don't  feel powerful.  The power remains in corporations (primarily banking, insurance, and other financial institutions), government, and the military establishment.  They are getting most of their money right out of our pockets.  And we feel powerless to change the system.  We feel alienated.

As Mills said almost 50 years go, we are losing our sense of belonging "because we think that the fabulous techniques of mass communication are not enlarging and animating face-to-face public discussion . . .", we do not meet each other as persons [but know one another only fractionally, as the man who fixes the car, or as that girl who serves our lunch, or as the woman who takes care of our child at school.]
(Of course back then we didn't even have the Internet.  Mills must be rolling over in his grave about now.)
 

 It is necessary that we achieve consensus.  We the people - not those who are appointed or elected to govern, set policy, and so forth - need to collaboratively delineate the values and goals we want to see in the behavior of our leaders.  This can be done, but not the way most elections are conducted (traveling all over the state or country, espousing general, nonspecific goals of bringing everyone together, having a true, working democracy, blah, blah, blah.  There needs to be a written contract, something in black and white, that our elected leaders agree to abide by once they are in power.  And this contract should be drafted by us - we the people.

Fifty years ago we didn’t have the World Wide Web.  Now we do.  Let’s use it for the good of everyone.   Do you have the courage to go to your legislative representatives, present them with a written set of values, goals, and standards you would want them to abide by while they are in office?  I don’t know whether I myself have enough courage to approach each one of my legislators – state and federal.  There is one in particular that I know would not even listen to me as he has refused in the past to engage in conversation with me in any form (but his staff knows me very well).  A little encouragement would help.  Who said it first - There's power in numbers!


                                                                             * * *








______________
1/  By the early 1950s C. Wright Mills had given up hope that the labour movement ‘was capable of stemming the tide of almost complete corporate capitalist domination of economic, political and cultural life’ (Aronowitz 2003). He had turned more strongly to theories of mass culture and mass society, and became more pessimistic about the possibility of effecting significant political change. This judgement was strengthened by his analysis of the new middle class in White Collar (1951).
 [Cited from www.InFed.org; retrieved October 12, 2013.]

My Struggle - Part 4

Since the mortgage company wasn't going to help me and I failed to find gainful employment, what other recourse was there than to rent rooms?  (Yes, I could have sold the house at a loss, but I couldn't for several reasons.)   My new occupation as a landlord came with the resolve to never again turn the house completely over to another party.

I placed an ad on Craigslist.org in December of 2012.   (This was eight months after evicting the disastrous tenants who trashed my place, inside and out, costing me thousands of dollars in trash removal and cleanup fees.)  The first (and only) response was from Tyler N.  He had returned from Afghanistan a year previous after serving two years, had enrolled in college, had family lived in the area, and I thought he was an honorable person.  He looked normal; sounded normal.  I even met his mother and sister before he moved in.  They seemed normal, too.  But he revealed himself to be a landlord's nightmare.

Tyler paid December's rent, but when it came time for the second month's rent, he refused.  He told me he had the money but wasn't going to pay me.  He turned out to be a junkie.  After several confrontations and threats, calling the police, and so forth, he left and never returned.  I had to pay to have his furniture removed.  I should file a judgment against him for the rent he owes me and other expenses, but I haven't had the time (or money) to do that.

Then I rented a room to Sue F., a 65-year old registered nurse who earned $50.00 an hour at the local hospital.  She was fine - at first.  In February, another renter 55-year old Cathy W. moved in with her two Golden Setters.  Cathy insisted on a six-month lease, which I told her I would draw up.  Meanwhile, I was still paying a contractor to install a fence that had been damaged and torn down because of the former tenant (the one who cost me thousands of dollars, the same one who stole $30,000 worth of furniture, etc.).  This fence was also temporary (as was the former damaged fence); nevertheless it had to be built and installed.  But I paid for it so she would be assured her two dogs would not be able to get out of the yard.   I am a long-time dog lover.  And yes, they are so much nicer to deal with than people.  Which reminds me of former U.S. president Truman's quote:  "If you want a friend in Washington [D.C.], get a dog."

I typed up the rental agreement for Cathy and was about to interview a third renter (Pat C.) when I came down with the flu.  Sue volunteered to help out while I was bedridden for a few days.  She ended up interviewing Pat, and recommended her.  I said okay.  She also brought up to my bed Cathy's signed lease with amendments for me to approve and sign.  I was still ill at that point, running a fever and having problems with energy.

But at last I finally had three women paying rent for a while  My life would be somewhat stable.  I thought.

Within a short time, Cathy and Sue developed animosity toward Pat.  They badgered me to evict her as some of her habits were annoying to them.  I was well aware of the principles of group dynamics, and could see what was happening.  When you have a group of three, often two will "gang up" on one.  This is what was occurring amongst the three women.  Pat paid her rent on time, was courteous, and there was no reason to evict her just because the other two women didn't like her.  I  told them so, but the atmosphere just got worse.  They were acting like kindergartners.

One day it culminated in Pat distributing a scathing letter* addressed to Kathy but distributed to everyone in the house.  I begged her not to do it, but she did so anyway.  She then spent the night with a friend.  The next day - sometime around the second week of February - Kathy was gone, furniture and all.  No notice and no rent paid for February.  Also Sue didn't pay her rent for February.  They both had been holding back paying the rent to see whether I would evict Pat.  I told them I would not evict Pat.

After many confrontations with Sue, I told her she needed to find another place to live.  She refused to leave and refused to pay rent.  So I gave her a 30-day notice of a $200.00 rent increase.  After ranting and raving and delaying, Sue finally left while I was away for the weekend.  No notice and owing me two months' rent.  She also stole my watch I had just received as a birthday present from Rolf.  And she took a meat cleaver which had been in my family for decades - probably valued at $200.00 - and a couple of other things.

I need to file a small claims complaint against Tyler, Sue and Kathy, but because of computer problems, and other real-life problems (maintenance on the house and so forth), I haven't gotten around to it.  [I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is.  The court clerks refuse to tell me as they "cannot provide legal advice"!]  Pat finally found another place to live.  I was finally free of all the negative energy they had created.

The next tenant was a lawyer.  I'll call her BK.  She worked for the state's office of attorney general.  She brought in two other friends over the next few months - one a young woman who needed a place until she could find an apartment, and the other a 50-year old woman who also needed a temporary place to stay while she made arrangements to separate/divorce her husband who she said was abusive.  All three of them worked in the same office and were friends.  So I knew I wouldn't have the same problem with the former three tenants in not getting along with each other.  But there were other problems - too detailed and cumbersome to discuss here at this time.

Thinking of becoming a landlord?  Be careful.  Whether you do a background check or not, there is no way to know a person's real character.



*  Here is exact wording of Pat's letter Cathy:

I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU AND SUE HAVE ATTEMPTED TO COERCE SAUNDRA INTO FORCING ME TO VACATE BECAUSE YOU DON'T "LIKE" ME.  I UNDERSTAND YOU HAVE INTERROGATED SAUNDRA ABOUT HER PERSONAL BUSINESS AND PRIED INTO HER PERSONAL BACKGROUND WITH REGARD TO PREVIOUS TENANTS, ETC.

BOTH YOU AND SUE ARE IN COLLUSION, AND ATTEMPTING TO FINANCIALLY MANIPULATE AND INTIMIDATE SAUNDRA BY COLLECTIVELY WITHHOLDING YOUR RENT.  BY THIS ACT (AND  THOSE OUTLINED BELOW), YOU HAVE EFFECTIVELY BREACHED YOUR RENTAL AGREEMENT, AND IT IS NULL AND VOID, EXCEPT FOR THE MONEY YOU STILL LEGALLY OWE, ENFORCEABLE IN A COURT OF LAW.

I UNDERSTAND ALSO THAT THIS AFTERNOON YOU THREATENED SAUNDRA THAT YOU WOULD NOT PAY YOUR RENT UNLESS SHE MADE ME VACATE.  YOU ATTEMPTED TO INTIMATE HER IN THE KITCHEN, AND WHEN SHE TRIED TO ESCAPE FROM YOU TO HER ROOM, THAT YOU FOLLOWED HER AND HARASSED HER EVEN MORE.  SHE WAS FORCED TO LOCK HER DOOR TO STOP YOU.

ON FRIDAY NIGHT, YOU LITERALLY SHOVED ME AWAY FROM THE FRONT OF SAUNDRA'S ROOM SO YOU COULD STAND OVER HER BED AND SCREAM DOWN AT HER BECAUSE SHE WAS DOING HOUSE MAINTENANCE AND HAD TO CHANGE A LIGHT BULB OUTSIDE YOUR ROOM.  YOU ACCUSED HER OF ENTERING YOUR ROOM.

I HAVE NOTICED THAT YOU HAVE A DRINKING PROBLEM.  IN LIGHT OF THIS, AS WELL AS YOUR PROPENSITY TO BULLY, INTIMIDATE, AND THREATEN THE LANDLORD, AND YOUR ATTEMPTS TO SHOVE ME AROUND, I HAVE MADE A DECISION.

YOU ARE HEREBY GIVEN NOTICE THAT IF YOUR THREATS, BULLYING, AND INTIMIDATION DO NOT IMMEDIATELY CEASE, I WILL FILE A POLICE REPORT WITH THE COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE.  THEY WILL, OF COURSE, INTERVIEW SAUNDRA TO FIND OUT THE TRUTH OF MY STATEMENTS.  IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THE COUNTY PROSECUTOR COULD FILE CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST YOU.

I SUGGEST THAT YOU PROMPTLY PAY UP ALL MONIES OWED TO SAUNDRA.  ALTHOUGH I WAS CONSIDERING MOVING, I HAVE NOW CHANGED MY MIND, AND I WILL BE STAYING INDEFINITELY.  (Pat)

My Struggle - Part 3

On April 5, 2012, the day after regaining entry to my house after evicting the tenant for nonpayment of rent, I was granted a $15,000 judgment against him.  But I acted too soon in filing for that judgment.   As I walked throughout the house taking notes on damage and missing items, I discovered he had taken over $30,000 in furniture and other belongings from my home.  (At  some point I will have to figure out how to get the $15,000 judgment order changed or amended to include the extra amount.)

For the 15 years I paid premiums, I had never filed a claim against my homeowner insurance policy - not even auto insurance (40 years).  I had obtained homeowners insurance with American Commerce Insurance Company through AAA.  But that April, I filed my first claim ever.  It was for $30,000, and I provided receipts and a list of all the items missing.  A week later I received a letter canceling my insurance coverage because I had failed to tell them I had rented out the house (which would have raised the premiums even more).  I was so busy and distraught over the mess I had to clean up - which costs me thousands of dollars - I wasn't able to get another insurance policy for five months.  And of course it cost me more than what I had been paying.  A short time later CitiMortgage informed me I owed them $1200 for the period of time I didn't have insurance.  They made me pay $100.00 extra every month, which I am still paying.  The mortgage payment is now $2,080 monthly.

At my husband's death, my income decreased immediately with the loss of almost half his pension and all of his Social Security benefits, which combined amounted to about $1,000 a month.  Then it cost even more ($500 monthly) when I refinanced the mortgage shortly before his death (i.e., the federal government allows a spouse to file for life insurance benefits if the dying spouse's death is expected within nine months or less of the filing and is so certified by a licensed physician). At that point in time, CitiMortgage, Inc. was the servicer and FannieMae was the owner of the loan.  It  remains that way today.  [Note:  the mortgage at that was negatively amortized and I wanted to get out from under that burden.  The so-called "closing costs" of $10,000 took up most of the $16,000 I received from my husband's life insurance payout.]

My job search has been a failure, and very frustrating.  I thought a BA degree would help open doors, but not, I suppose, if you are middle-aged.  But I continue to seek employment although I don't hold out much hope.  Meanwhile, I am in the process of filing a complaint with the Office of the Insurance Commissioner.  I have filed complaints with other agencies, and will provide details on those efforts in another, future posting.  It's just a matter of getting all the documents together and focusing on the task.  Not easy.

Once I finally got the house back in presentable condition, I rented out rooms.  More problems there, which I will discuss in my next post.

My Struggle - Part 2

I NEVER wanted to borrow on our home.  But there would be forces working against me.  My spouse was one.


One day in early 2000, John came home with a brand new vehicle!  He had purchased a 2000 Ford Ranger for $23,000.  I asked how we were going to pay for it.  He looked a little sheepish,and didn't answer.  I asked how much the payments were.  He replied, "$495 a month.  We were on a tight budget at that point and I wondered he he could do that without discussing it with me first.  I told him we no longer had the income to support those payments.  His pension and Social Security payments were used to pay our mortgage and living expenses and weren't enough to make payments on a vehicle.  I wasn't old enough at the time to file for benefits myself on my 35+ years of comparatively low earnings, mostly in the clerical arena.


John would have to come out of retirement and get a job.  A menial job.  No executive position for him.  He had had enough of that during his career in Washington, D.C.  Despite his executive level job back in D.C., John had always loved boats and even worked for a while in 1990 as a deck hand at a yacht club in D.C.  I admired him - a man earning $27.00 hourly as a professional, wanting to work at a menial job just because of his love of the water and boating  Unfortunately, realities set in (the weather was difficult to contend with, for one.  He resigned after about eight months. 

But what to do about his extravagant purchase of a pickup truck?  John ended up with a $10.00 an hour job in a nursing home.  In  the meantime, I looked into a second mortgage.  After three weeks at his nursing home job, he came down with a severe cold and had to be off work.  When it was time for him to return to work, he wouldn't.  So I proceeded with our first refinance.  If he was going to get $25,000 for himself, then I wanted $25,000 to put into further remodeling of our home.  So we received our second mortgage in the amount of $50,000.  That was the first of four times we were forced to borrow money on our home over the next six years.


In 2001, John had relapsed.  He tried hard for several  years to control his alcoholism, but could  no longer sustain sobriety.  There were multiple hospitalizations as well as trouble with the law.  For a while, we were forced to pay $625.00 a week for a breathalyzer and camera while he was on probation for a DUI (one of several).   It was either come up with the money or go to jail.  My limited income and his small pension and social security payments weren't enough to pay for these expenses.  But the economy was growing, real estate prices were on the rise, we had equity in our home, and we felt we could handle the larger payments, especially if I returned to work - which I had planned to do in the summer of 2003, when I had my BA degree. 

In July of 2005, John's gastroenterologist informed us that with the three symptoms he was exhibiting, he would probably die within three years.  He suffered from esophageal varicies, ascites, and mild encephalopathy due to his chronic alcoholism.  He also had contracted cirrhosis of the liver.

John died on July 5, 2008.  By then the house was negatively amortized and I set out to refinance it to get out from under the negative amortization.  I received only $16,000 from John's life insurance policy (he had made arrangements to reduce it by 75 percent when he turned 65).   I had to pay $10,000 in "closing costs" - the third time I had paid that amount during other re-financings.  This last re-fi meant an additional increase of $500 a month in mortgage payments.  This meant that two thirds of the mortgage payments went toward interest, and the other third toward principal.  It was a financial strain, and the following year I asked my mortgage company for a modification of the loan under the Making Home Affordable Program.  Around that time I filed for bankruptcy protection.  This all came about in 2009.  I ended up signing a contract that specified the interest would be 2-1/2 percent for two yeas, and would increase to 4.5 percent for the remainder of the 30-mortgage.


I struggled along for another year, continuing to seek employment and bearing witness to the economic freefall.  Then on my 67th birthday, I met Rolf, a retired physician who lived half an hour away.  After dating for a while, we agreed that I would rent out my house and move in with him while applying for a mortgage re-modification a second time.  Within a short period of time, CitiMortgage employees told me my income was too low, that if I could get a job or acquire some other means of income, I would probably qualify for a re-modification.  [I had hoped for some loan "forgiveness" because 1) my income was comparatively low, and 2) $30,000 of the mortgage represented closing costs related to three separate re-financings.  But that wasn't even considered.]  That's when I decided to place an ad in the local newspaper to rent out the house for at least a year at $1800 monthly.  Maybe then Citi would lower the interest rate, at least for a while longer.

After only two responses from the ad, I decided to rent to Gary B. despite red flags waving all around.  He signed a lease agreement and I mailed a copy to CitiMortgage.  They then informed me my income was too high!  I'm still angry at the way I was jerked around by them.

It looked I could never get ahead of the game.  And I think it was a game for the bankers; something like "Lets see if we can wear him/her down." 

The tenant stopped paying rent after a few months, and I filed eviction papers.  At the last minute he came up with $8,000 in back rent and begged me to let him and his family stay.  Reluctantly, I said yes.  A few months later, he stopped making payments again, and I filed for eviction a second time.  It took four months, a lot of stress, and money I didn't have to get him and his family out of the house.  I couldn't afford a lawyer and had to do all the legal work myself - filing the initial complaint and subsequent motions and orders.  My legal secretarial background helped as well as my knowledge (albeit somewhat limited) of the court system.  I found out later Gary had been in prison for possession of stolen property - and other crimes.

On April 4, 2012, the county deputy sheriffs and I entered my house.  Everyone was gone and so was a lot of my furniture, including all five of my beds.  I was surprised he didn't take the light fixtures.  The place was a mess!




My Struggle - Part 1

During the summer of 1998, my husband John and I were finally able to go house hunting.  Although apartment living had served us well for the first five years I had lived in the Pacific Northwest, we wanted to experience the American Dream - to own our own home.  John was told he would be receiving an inheritance soon, and we decided immediately to invest the money into real estate.  We contacted a realtor and scheduled four homes to look at that June day.

The first two houses were newly built or under construction, but lacked something we couldn't quite define - maybe charm or character.  We found what we wanted in the third house.  The 1977 Colonial was on a small slope about 200 feet from the street and it the treed setting was almost breathtaking.  I fell in love with the yard first, and said to John, "If the house is half-way decent, we have to buy it; this is the one."

It was my first home, but John's third or fourth.  We were in our fifties and had been together for a decade and half.  We met in the mid-eighties in northern Virginia, where I was born.  He had transferred there from Seattle where he had a job with the federal Civil Service Commission (now Office of Personnel Management) in Washington, D.C.  After 15 years of civil service and issues with his health, he decided to opt for an early retirement and return to the beautiful Pacific Northwest where he was born.

The home buying process was at times nerve wracking: over $300,000 was to be electronically deposited into our bank account on a certain date - July 30, 1998, as I recall.  We weren't sophisticated with regard to money transfers.  What if something went wrong?  While waiting for that important day to arrive, we were asked to pay the seller's agent $3,000 in earnest money.  That was money we didn't  have.  We ended up scrambling to do that, borrowing money from relatives and selling what little jewelry we had.  We looked at each other and asked, How can we be buying a home for $270,000 and have so much trouble coming up with $3,000?  It took us two weeks and a few trips to the pawn shop, but we finally were successful.

We went to closing as scheduled the end of July, and were handed the keys to our new home.  Our plan was to have it paid off in 20 years.  But many obstacles were presented over which we had only partial control.  My intention was to never refinance or borrow on our home.  John had other ideas.