Thread: MD - "Immigrant," making $13/hr got home loan for

Eric Hartley: A year later, foreclosure still a mystery
Published 04/25/10

Want to know how to stop paying the mortgage on a $530,000 home and (apparently) still be living there two years later? Ask Raul Hernandez.

Hernandez still owns an 1,800-square-foot home in Annapolis, state property records confirm, and as far as neighbors can tell, he still lives there.

It's hard to tell whether Hernandez, 31, has resumed monthly payments on 15 Landings Court, which sits on a small cul-de-sac near Forest Drive.

Regardless, he likely owes tens of thousands of dollars in back payments. Yet, the foreclosure case against him soon will be dismissed for lack of prosecution, according to a notice in the court file. (That's routine when nothing happens in a court case for a year.)

Hernandez, a native of El Salvador who came to the United States illegally in 2000 but "claims" to have since gotten a permit to work legally, has been a cake decorator and construction worker.

He told me last year he was making $13 an hour when he got two loans to buy the house in 2006, one for $424,000 and one for $106,000.

Sound crazy? It is.

I've read the entire foreclosure court case, more than 50 pages of bankruptcy filings and Hernandez's deed. I've called everyone I could who's involved. And I can assure you, none of it makes sense.

Exhibit A: Stephen Myers, a legal assistant at Rosenberg & Associates, the Bethesda firm that sued Hernandez for foreclosure, said the case was suspended last year when Hernandez declared bankruptcy.

Even though a judge threw out the bankruptcy case in July because Hernandez didn't show up for required meetings, the foreclosure didn't resume. Why? Um, well …

"With the situation being what it is, it's not always a 'put down the bankruptcy, pick up the foreclosure' situation," Myers said.

When asked why, he explained, "A lot of times a bank won't know what properties it holds for foreclosure. … Basically, they don't know what cards they're holding all the time because cards are changing hands all the time."

Translation: Nobody really knows what's going on. A $530,000 house has been lost in the shuffle.

Myers apologized for not being more helpful, but in fact he was extremely helpful. Hearing about this case, can anyone seriously question the need for regulation of the opaque securities the Wall Street wonder boys dreamed up?

As Congress and President Barack Obama kicked off that debate in earnest last week, 15 Landings Court is as good a symbol as any of the insanity that led to the mortgage crisis and nearly sent us into a depression.

My favorite passage in the foreclosure court filings was "EMC Mortgage Corporation as Attorney in Fact for Citibank, N.A., as Trustee for Structured Asset Mortgage Investments II Inc., Bear Sterns Alt-A Trust, Mortgage Pass-Through Certificates Series 2007-1, party of the first part …"

If you can explain that to me, I owe you a beer.

I could not reach Hernandez last week. No one answered the door on my visits. Once, a woman pulled up in the driveway with two small children, but she did not speak English.

When I mentioned "Raul Hernandez," she first shook her head. But when I held out my notepad, asking "Telephone number?" she showed me a number in her cell phone for "Raul."

I called it and left messages, but they were not returned. Was it really Hernandez? Another mystery.

Hernandez filed for bankruptcy March 17, 2009, the day before a foreclosure auction was scheduled. He listed assets including $800 in a checking account and a Lincoln Continental worth $5,000. His total debt on the house was $573,000, including a second mortgage.

He reported income of $2,236 a month, obviously nowhere near enough to make monthly mortgage payments once estimated at $4,600.

The corporate counsel for 1st Mariner Bank, Eugene Friedman, told me last year his bank and others just made the loans investors wanted to buy up for what became mortgage-backed securities. Friedman said the bank counted on brokers and applicants like Hernandez to be truthful.

Sure, what reason would people have to lie? Other than, you know, to get a really nice house you can't afford or to make tens of millions of dollars by trading securities.

Myers said his firm's client and the one-time holder of the mortgage, EMC Mortgage Corp., is "undergoing a transition." No kidding. The Lewisville, Texas, company explains on its Web site, "It is 100% owned by The Bear Stearns Companies LLC, a Delaware LLC. The Bear Stearns Companies LLC is 100% owned by JPMorgan Chase & Co."

Call EMC's 800 number and you hear that the company is "now backed by the power of Chase!" The recording apologizes that EMC no longer offers operator service, but suggests you call Chase.

I did, and Michael Fusco, a Chase spokesman in New York, called back to say the company generally does not comment on pending court cases.

Well, that completed the circle. Nobody knows anything and nobody can say anything.

On Landings Court, life goes on. At one time, Hernandez's house had been a problem, with drinking, loud music and trash. But Julie Davis, who lives a couple doors down, said it's been quiet for about nine months.

"If he's living there, how is he doing it without paying anything?" Davis wondered as we stood in her yard. "I really don't know how you get around that."

Another neighbor, who didn't want his name printed, said he lost his home in Hillsmere last year after he loaned money to a friend and the economy tanked, hitting both of their incomes. He's now renting.

"It's kind of funny how some people can hold on to their houses and others they just take," he said. "They just took my house. There was no negotiation."

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/c ... stery.html

multiply this bs by 15 million, and shazamm, you have the bulk of the USA's forclosure crisis cause. makes me queezy, that this crap was allowed to go on, and still does to the second.

I knew something had gone very wrong back in 2006, when I was trying to move back to the mountain town we used to live in, so my mother could have some happy time there before her disease took her. I told my mortgage broker how much I made and owed, and asked how much of a loan I would qualify for. His answer: it all depends on your comfort level.

Originally Posted by HippieChick

Myers said his firm's client and the one-time holder of the mortgage, EMC Mortgage Corp., is "undergoing a transition." No kidding. The Lewisville, Texas, company explains on its Web site, "It is 100% owned by The Bear Stearns Companies LLC, a Delaware LLC. The Bear Stearns Companies LLC is 100% owned by JPMorgan Chase & Co."

The National Homeownership Strategy: Partners in the American Dream

In 1994, the Clinton administration went to ridiculous lengths to increase the national home ownership rate. Clinton Administration went directly to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and promoted this initiative which pushed for looser and more creative lending guidelines from both the public (FHA & Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac) and private sector's lending institutions.

Clinton for some strange reason thought home ownership is a God given right under the U.S. Constitution. The National home ownership Strategy promoted paper-thin down payments and pushed for ways to get lenders to give mortgage loans to first-time buyers with shaky financing and incomes (eg. zero down, no fianance charges). This erosion of lending standards eventually pushed prices up by increasing demand, and later led to waves of defaults by people who never should have bought a home in the first place. Bush knew this policy was in effect and did nothing to stop it.

I am just so pissed off because so many people I know, (hard-working, legal, taxpaying American citizens) are struggling to pay their mortgage, and illegal aliens are getting home loans they cannot pay, then skipping out on the loans altogether.

On Landings Court, life goes on. At one time, Hernandez's house had been a problem, with drinking, loud music and trash. But Julie Davis, who lives a couple doors down, said it's been quiet for about nine months.

"If he's living there, how is he doing it without paying anything?" Davis wondered as we stood in her yard. "I really don't know how you get around that."

Imagine that! Who would of thought!