I'm writing this report on behalf of my mother. She is a 50 year-old restaurant owner in Bowling Green, Ohio. She's lived in her trailer since 1998. It isn't much, but it's very well-kept with a beautiful garden and exhaustive decorating (and constant redecorating thanks to my mother's perfectionist personality).
Her original mortgage lender was a company called Comerica. Anybody familiar with the Detroit Tigers would recognize the name, as it's the stadium's sponsor. Hence, Comerica Park.
Since 1998, my mother has never been late on a single mortgage payment. Her total loan was for about $31,000. She has about $8,000 left after almost 10 years. Since she acquired the mortgage, Comerica has been taking payments directly out of her bank account.
On Friday, January 26th my mother received a notice saying that her mortage was going to be bought out by a company called 21st Mortgage Corporation. The letter said that her mortgage would technically be switched by February 15th, and that "if your payments are drafted by Comerica please note that future payments will be automatically drafted and applied to your account".
The letter also specified the need to update her insurance coverage to avoid insurance penalties or fees.in order to do that she needed to have her insurance policy reflect 21st Mortgage as the lean holder.in order to do that, she needed to have her loan number for 21st Mortgage, which was not included in the letter.instead, her Comerica loan number was included. When contacting 21st, she could not get her loan number as quote, "they didn't have one created for her yet".
Now, while all of this pesky insurance business seems like it's adding up to something, it hasn't yet actually.instead, they pulled another maneuver, possibly leaving the invalid insurance claim as a contingency.
Their move was altogether more gray than that. On February 2nd, my mother's mortgage payment was due and automatically withdrawn from her account under the Comerica loan since the switch wasn't official until the 15th. Her payments were due every two weeks, so the next was due on the 16th. On the 16th, her payment was not drafted from her account by her new lean holder, 21st Mortgage, as they said that it would be.instead, it was considered a late payment. Because of this, 21st has the ability to demand the entire loan as a payment or face eviction. And that's what they did. They told my mother to pay the remaining balance on the lean or get evicted. They even sent people to take pictures of her house because it was "being foreclosed".
In the letter that 21st sent to my mother, it stated clearly "that the transfer does not effect the Comerica contract terms". However, by transferring the loan to 21st alone, the loan became sub-prime and subjective to this kind of unchecked abuse.
Unfortunately, 21st Mortgage is ultimately owned by Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world. When talking to the customer service at 21st, my mother was even told "if you fight me, you fight Warren Buffett". That's not exactly friendly customer service.
Maybe it's the war, maybe it's everything else that has to do with the war. Maybe it's the dueling congress and executive branch, I'm not sure what exactly it is but something tells me our attention is not focused at home, and because of this the most important part of this country, the foundation and the heart of the United States is being victimized by the corporations and nobody seems to care, or at least nobody is listening.
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