MORTGAGE FRAUD: THROUGH THE EYES OF A VICTIM

Open Letter to the United States Government:

All we wanted was a fair shake and an honest transaction; what we received was deliverance into hell. We wanted to live the American dream and we, now, like millions of other Americans are suffering from the greed that has enveloped our mortgage industry over the past decade.

In our case we were coming out of a bankruptcy that could not be seen to fruition due to a job loss stemming from revenue sharing cuts within the state. We had just suffered a horrific year ranging from job loss; to a son in Baghdad; to the death of our beloved son-in-law and three year old grandson.

Upon discharge of our bankruptcy we discovered that we owed $10,000 more on our home than we did when we first went into the bankruptcy seven years prior; we also discovered that the $75,000 we had paid into bankruptcy had went mostly to interest and administrative costs. The only way to save our home at this point was to get a new mortgage. Due to the fact that we were coming out of bankruptcy we ended up in a four month run-a-round to obtain a mortgage with a company that ended up receiving a Cease and Desist Order from the State of Michigan less than five months later, due to unscrupulous acts. We would not discover this for another two years.

A year after obtaining the mortgage, that had been sold twice by this point, we fell a month behind on our monthly payment. To ensure that we would get no further behind we made sure to pay all late fees associated with each month’s payment so that we would never get further behind than the actual one month payment. At one point the mortgage company sent back the late payment check(s) and stated that they did not accept partial payment, so the following month we mad sure that we paid the additional fees that they had shown, still keeping us owing only one months payment. In September of that year my son was getting married so we had to go out of town; when we came home we discovered that the current mortgage company had begun foreclosure proceedings against us.

Our only option at that time, albeit against our better judgment, was to file, again, for bankruptcy. This was devastating to us; especially over a bill that should have been less than $1,000.

When the current mortgage company sent their Proof of Claim, attached to it was our mortgage contract. We had recalled that we did not remember seeing this document so we began to peruse the contract. When we came to the signature page we were both horrified to see that it was quite evident that the signatures were not ours. We turned the page to discover that the document had been notarized in Oakland County on the same day that we had signed our mortgage documents in Sacramento, California.

It is now two and a half years later. We have been through bankruptcy court hell; embroiled against the US Bank who, despite our prevailing in a judgment against the notary and the avoidance of the mortgage contract; have fought for and won an equitable mortgage. We are now in the US District Appeals court. For reporting this crime, we are over three times more in debt than what we were two and a half years ago when we discovered this transgression.
By allowing the mortgage company to assign an equitable mortgage (or should we say forced mortgage) the federal bankruptcy court is basically saying to the mortgage companies and banks that they have free reign to do whatever they deem necessary and we, as homeowners, have no way to fight.
The mortgage company had us sign a document when we closed this loan that stated that should it be discovered that a document was unsigned that we were legally responsible, with notice, to come in and sign all necessary documents. This is one of the banks major points; however, they do not take into account the fact that nowhere on that document does it say to Go ahead and sign our names and notarize and record the documents. The fact that the bankruptcy judge even allowed this to happen is a severe travesty of justice. The notary hasn’t gone to jail; the original broker company and mortgage company are both protected by federal bankruptcy and here we sit; paying almost a quarter of a million dollars to fight this. The problem with that is we don’t have a quarter of a million dollars; at times we are lucky to have a dollar.
The bank uses everything they can to make us look like we were the irresponsible ones and the ones that are seeking, in their words, a windfall. Excuse me, but we don’t consider two and a half years of not knowing if you are going to have a roof over your head as a good lead-in for a windfall. If we had known what we know now we would have never reported the crime. Granted, we would have lost our home, but we would have moved on in our lives. We have fought this, struggling through unemployment and bad economical conditions; still healing from deep emotional wounds that come from the losses that we have experienced in the past five years only to have this hanging over our heads, like a Sword of Damocles (there can be nothing happy for the person over whom some fear always looms).
The bank states that we have lost nothing and would gain everything; we have lost years of our lives; we have lost our faith in the judicial system; and we have lost trust in our federal government. Besides our lives, what else can we lose?

Sheryl L Sutter
727 N Monroe St
Lapeer MI 48446
sherylsutter@hotmail.com