The Virginian-Pilot
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Hope was beginning to fade last week that Michele McBeth could save her Bayview home from foreclosure.
The Norfolk elementary school teacher had been working for weeks with a foreclosure-prevention counselor, and spent hours going through financial documents, filling out paperwork and pleading with her mortgage company to cancel the auction.
But Wells Fargo Home Mortgage offered no help, and the Aug. 27 sale date loomed.
McBeth, whose story was highlighted in an Aug. 16 article in The Virginian-Pilot, called her lender more than a year ago to try to find a way to bring down her monthly mortgage payment. The company placed her on the U.S. Treasury Department's Making Home Affordable loan modification program.
But instead of helping her, the process brought McBeth, 42, to the brink of foreclosure.
In the days following the article, numerous individuals who read her story reached out to help.
"Their generosity was overwhelming," she said. "I was so grateful."
But McBeth wanted to exhaust all options with her lender. By last week, she and her counselor at The Up Center had hit a brick wall.
"They didn't even offer anything," said John Allen, who is in charge of the foreclosure-prevention services at The Up Center. "I found that to be very unusual, especially when a person has proven they have the means to make a legitimate payment arrangement."
Her counselor informed her that filing for bankruptcy could be a last-ditch effort to save the property.
McBeth contacted Newport News attorney and state Del. Robin Abbott, who had offered to help for no charge after reading the article.
Abbott, who specializes in consumer and mortgage law, scheduled an emergency hearing with a judge to stop the foreclosure. She also called the Richmond attorney hired to handle the foreclosure to point out what Abbott believed were several missteps in the process.
"We had some conversations - that I didn't believe he had standing to bring the foreclosure," Abbott said.
Among the problems, she said, was that the attorneys had not been hired by McBeth's current mortgage company, Wells Fargo. The attorneys, instead, had been hired by EverHome Mortgage Co., which had transferred the servicing of the loan to Wells Fargo before foreclosure proceedings began.
On Aug. 25, the attorney handling the foreclosure agreed to postpone the sale. A new date has not been set.
In the meantime, Abbott is preparing to file a lawsuit alleging mishandling of McBeth's case.
Josh Brown, (757) 446-2318, josh.brown@pilotonline.com
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wells fargo
I know a few folks that are with Wells Fargo and are going through the same issue. After researching on the internet, I found many of wells fargo customers complaining that there was no help from them. I am a wells fargo customer and have spoke with them on many occassions about modifiying my loan. I have never been late and always made my paymetns. My wife was laid off last year and has been working temp jobs. She was making great money and her earnings contributed to our mortgage. Since then we have been paycheck to paycheck. We wanted to sell, but as we all know, our house like others are under water. We were told we did not qualify for any of the programs as our loan was not backed by the 2 fannies and also we havent been late on any payments. I was told that if we were to refi then of course we would have to come up with 60K! What to do? I spoke with other friends who had excellent credit but were in the same boat as us. They decided not to pay so they could qualify for the programs. They as many others found no help. Months later they are in forclosure. Both were with other banks and sold to Wells Fargo. I think Wells Fargo buys these high risk loans, knowing
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that these cutomers will most likely forclose.
Wells Fargo is the largest mortgage lender in the nation
So it should be no surprise that they have lots of foreclosures. It's also no surprise that many people who lose their homes to foreclosures are unhappy about it. You can't run a bank by appeasing every hard luck case out there. They are going to figure out which is the least bad of their options (foreclose, lower payments, sell the loan for pennies on the dollar, etc) and go with it.
I wish you the best in you situation, but being underwater and your wife losing her job aren't the fault of the lender. They have to protect their interests. If they tried to make every underwater homeowner happy with their situation, we'd have another giant bailout by the gov't on our hands.