'I'm not being treated fairly at all': Man risks losing home
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SNOHOMISH, Wash. - Dave Power says he'll barricade his home before he'll let the bank take it.
Power said he can't understand why the bank turned down a cash offer to buy the house and instead wants to evict him.
The place is Power's dream home that he built himself. His once-booming business was based solely on residential construction.
"So when everything fell apart, so did my business," he said.
What used to be rolling lawns and rose bushes have been replaced by a field of weeds.
"Why should I keep the place looking good for them?" said Power. "Them" refers to Wells Fargo, which serviced the loan for another bank, acting as the middle man.
Though Power owed about $360,000 on the house, fees and penalties pushed the total to well over $400,000.
Power's father offered $165,000 cash to buy the house, but Wells Fargo turned down the offer even though Power doesn't believe the bank could sell the house for a higher price.
"They really have no incentive to offload it if they're continuing to make money," said attorney Melissa Huelsman, who specializes in mortgage and foreclosure law. "There's actually been some court decisions where Wells Fargo in particular was found to have been making a lot of money on keeping somebody in default."
Wells Fargo said it has worked with Power for four years to help him keep in his home. In a written statement, the bank added, "We're continuing to work with him to ease his transition from the home. And while we will consider purchase offers from relatives after a foreclosure, the offers must meet the investor's requirements."
"When you work hard and you play by the rules, you expect to be treated fairly. And I'm not," said Power. "I'm not being treated fairly at all."
Power has until Sept. 7 to respond to this notice of eviction. He hopes to have an agreement that will save his home before then. He is getting a new appraisal for his home, and has hired an attorney.
If nothing else works, Power says he'll use his heavy machinery to block the driveway before he lets the bank kick him out.
Power said he can't understand why the bank turned down a cash offer to buy the house and instead wants to evict him.
The place is Power's dream home that he built himself. His once-booming business was based solely on residential construction.
"So when everything fell apart, so did my business," he said.
What used to be rolling lawns and rose bushes have been replaced by a field of weeds.
"Why should I keep the place looking good for them?" said Power. "Them" refers to Wells Fargo, which serviced the loan for another bank, acting as the middle man.
Though Power owed about $360,000 on the house, fees and penalties pushed the total to well over $400,000.
Power's father offered $165,000 cash to buy the house, but Wells Fargo turned down the offer even though Power doesn't believe the bank could sell the house for a higher price.
"They really have no incentive to offload it if they're continuing to make money," said attorney Melissa Huelsman, who specializes in mortgage and foreclosure law. "There's actually been some court decisions where Wells Fargo in particular was found to have been making a lot of money on keeping somebody in default."
Wells Fargo said it has worked with Power for four years to help him keep in his home. In a written statement, the bank added, "We're continuing to work with him to ease his transition from the home. And while we will consider purchase offers from relatives after a foreclosure, the offers must meet the investor's requirements."
"When you work hard and you play by the rules, you expect to be treated fairly. And I'm not," said Power. "I'm not being treated fairly at all."
Power has until Sept. 7 to respond to this notice of eviction. He hopes to have an agreement that will save his home before then. He is getting a new appraisal for his home, and has hired an attorney.
If nothing else works, Power says he'll use his heavy machinery to block the driveway before he lets the bank kick him out.
I understand banks wanting to hold people to their contracts, but what exactly can they hope to gain, when they already have so many foreclosed properties on their books, by having abother one go into foreclosure? It's not like people are rushing in to buy up all those forclosed homes - no, they sit empty & neglected instead, which means nobody wins. To me it would make much more sense to try to work something out with the home owners, even if it was perhaps loengthening the term of their contracts, to make it an affordable payment so the home stays occupied & thus maintained, and the bank continues to get payments, as opposed to evicting the homeowner, foreclosing on the property, and the=n the bank gets nothing but an empty house to add tho their supply of hundreds of thousands of empty houses.
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It's too bad that with all the empty foreclosed houses & all the homeless in this coutnry, a "match" of some sort cannot be made to house those who are homeless in those foreclosed properties..
I process foreclosures for my bank. I've done a few, maybe 10 in our 3 county area because we were pretty conservative in our lending practices. No, we didn't get TARP money, or any bailouts, just had some folks who were hit bad by the economy. This bank has worked with this guy for 4 years. They've tried to avoid foreclosure. We've done the same on a number of these. Banks don't want to own the property. We have worked out more loans than we foreclosed on, but at some point a failed loan is just that, regardless of any modification. As to the offer by the family member, it isn't an arm's length transaction, and it would reward the delinquent debtor. If the family paid his note current, and then made sure mortgage payments were kept current, the guy would retain his house. Doing anything else would allow the debtor to profit from this situation. He got himself into this. The bank didn't make him get the mortgage. Play by the rules? If he paid his mortgage, the primary rule, he wouldn't be in this situation. He also let the condition of the property deteriorate, another rule broken. Out of 10 properties I've sold, exactly zero have been sold for a profit. When a client claims bankruptcy, the banks incur legal expenses of $5-15,000. This is over and above the $6-12,000 in legal expenses to perform the foreclosure. Also, the bnank has to pay employees to perform this work, which I can tell you, is not a money maker for the bank. Sure, there may be the rare exception, but overall, foreclosures almost always leave the note holder with a large loss.
While I agree that this guy took out such a monstrous loan (monstrous to me,maybe not to some people) and then when times get tough, he wants a bail out from the bank, what is he thinking? Oh, we bailed the banks out and now we expect 'them' to help us? What a fairy tale land he's dreaming of... <sarcasm>  But I do have a friend who went through the same thing with WF, they got an attorney and the attorney got them their house back although they didn't get as far as an eviction notice. That's why we have attorney's because nobody works with anybody anymore, nobody knows how to communicate face-to-face and community member to community member - we all communicate through lawyers - it's the new way of 'communication'. Sad but true.
I would just tear the home apart, sell all the materials and move on. Leave the crooked mortgage company with next to nothing. See how much money they recover then.
Won't be long though,especially if Romney gets in, that  we will have debtors prisons just like the good old days.
In the world of capitalism, everyone loses except those at the top.
 @blindman:Â
Actually, we already have "debtors prison". All you have to do is google it. There was a law passed in Washigton State this past legislative session to try to protect people from being locked up for debts as small as $200.
i feel for the guy a bit, but announcing to the world that you plan on blocking your driveway with yer trucks rather than give up your home isn't a great idea.
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i also noticed all the chemicals and (likely) oil all over the ground that others have mentioned.
"When you work hard and you play by the rules" You pay your mortgage every month. There are no victims in the housing bust just a bunch of dead beats that thought their house should fund their retirement.
"When you work hard and you play by the rules, you expect to be treated fairly. And I'm not," said Power. "I'm not being treated fairly at all."
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How is he playing by the rules? He is no longer paying on the loan he took out. He expects the bank to take $165k when he owes $350k-400k. He is threatening to try and block the bank foreclosing on him by using heavy equipment.Â
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Doesn't sound like he's playing by the rules to me. I feel sorry for the guy but he either needs to pay up or move out.Â
 @Scott I agree. If he has 165K in CASH to buy the place, he can continue to make the mortgage payments, probably for several years.
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My family went through a similar thing after my aunt passed away, except in our case it was Bank of America. Â They'd call my mom (she was named the administrator of the estate by the court) Â 3-5 times/day telling her that they didn't believe her that they had a legal sale of the house pending and that they were going to foreclose on the house before the sale went through, which by the way is extremely illegal. Â I had to give my verbal permission to my loan officer to talk to my mom and Bank of America to go and get things settled with Bank of America to get them to stop calling my mom and harassing her over the phone. Â That only stopped for a short while, and then B of A started calling her up again, but this time they kept asking her when the house was going to close. Â One day my dad got pissed when he answered the phone and told them that if they called the house one more time that he would turn matters over to their attorney and take them to court, needless to say after that they didn't call back again. Â It took us 4 months to complete the loan on the house, but my husband and I were finally able to sign the documents and close on our loan. Â B of A said they could sell the house we live in for $350,000; there's no way in hell they could have sold it for that much since the house only appraised at $205,000! Â They should have a neutral third party come go an appraise the value of the house and property for the guy in this story, and come up with a compromise for payments that are realistic based on current home market values. Â I also wonder why this guy hasn't applied for a modified home loan. Â I think the cash offer on the house was more than reasonable considering where it's located.
$165,000 for $360,000 I understand why they turned it down! Just white trash!
The market may have taken a hit but it looks like the guy has assisted with the drop in that home's value. Check out the oil he spilled all over the place in the front yard. A few more years of this redneck draining his oil into buckets to be later run over and spilled in the yard and the house will be its own little superfund site draining into the local streams. No wonder the place isn't worth near what he owes, look how he's taken care of it.Â
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Normally I'd say eff the bank and they need to lower their price to the value of the house. In this case I see someone who's intentionally neglected and/or damaged the property for years to further lower the value beyond the current market rate. If the threat to blockade the driveway with his front loader is any indication of his thought process I'm sure he's been less than rational when dealing with the bank's employees.
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I can see how someone at the bank decided to stick it to him. That said, I've dealt with Wells Fargo credit departments and I can attest that they are the scum of the earth...Â
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What do you know, idiots dealing with morons.Â
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Murica!!
This pretty much clinches it right? Â
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The banks are putting homes into foreclosure to keep them off the market and keep the prices around here artificially high.
@blobux The home is probably only worth $160K, not the inflated $350 PLUS penalties. If the bank resells the home and can't get more than that amount, why not sell it back to the homeowner? Their answer: moral hazard. And who are THEY to be lecturing anybody about moral hazard or anything having to do wtih morality. They created the economic meltdown. How dare they.
@Seattle voter I understand that, and I am in no way taking the bank's side in this.  My point is that this guy bought this house back when the prices were way up, and now that he is upside down in the thing, he wants the bank to forgive the borrowed amount and sell him the same house for $160K.  The penalties are just a part of doing business on the bank's part, just like consumers paying late fees and such on their credit cards.  Heck I'm sure there are a lot of people out there in the same situation who would love to get a sweet deal like that. Borrow a boat load of money to buy a house and then let it go to foreclosure and offer the bank half of what they owe.   Â
 @blobux:Â
actually, according to the story, he BUILT this house, from the ground up.
@LocalLady @blobux: either way he took out a loan to do it.Â
I feel for the guy, but on the flip side of that if you don't pay your bills on time or not at all what is the lender to do? He owes 360K on this house and wants to offer the bank 160K? Seriously??? The bank loaned him that money on good faith, and it seems he too is taking advantage of them. Â
Both bank and consumer are acting just as greedy... Â
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The banks got a bailout but when it comes to the consumer it appears banks ere not playing ball. Â It should have tried to refi this loan some time ago, but like many banks it had no reason to offer to make less and give Joe consumer a break. Â So much for trickle down, eh? Â
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So now the bank has a bad loan...what will it do?
If the loan is federally insured why not let the loan default if the insurance will repay the loss? Â Why work with anyone to make less if it can get it's due from the mortgage insurance. Â From this perspective it appears that the bank would be best served to do what it appears to be doing...start pushing penalties, etc to force the foreclosure.
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If the loan is not insured then the bank will probably do the following: Â
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If the consumer can qualify for a refi (read federal program there) then it would get it done. Â It will then have an insured loan. Â
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If the consumer can't quality then they will let the consumer default on the loan and put the house up for auction getting what they can (nothing preventing the consumer's dad from bidding btw). You'd think it would end there but the truth is that the bank will then try to go after the defaulter for the difference plus any of the penalties and maybe even costs of doing so.  This ain't 1929, just a bit worse.Â
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If I were Solomon I would remove the penalties the bank tried to extort and make the bank work with the homeowner to re-fi or let the consumer default and make them both take the loss. Â The consumer either pays up what can be renegotiated (sounds like 160K isn't enough but maybe the appraised value is and they could qualify for the difference) or they lose the home and move on to rebuild financially (aka 1929).
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 @BLEEPIT Well said.  Also, there is no way he is more than 165k behind on the home.  Why couldn't the father put that money towards the missed payments and fees?
With all due respect, Bleep it, you dont know what you are talking about. Yes Wells is no doubt the servicer but they actually benefit from leveraging or accelerating a default. Additionally, I would bet that this is a MERS loan and so the party foreclosing MAY not even have authority to do so (SEE Bain v MERS). This loan has probably been securitized and perhaps even paid off (remember the bail out you are on the hook for?) These banks have been paid and were oblized to work with homeowners but they are not. Additionally, and here is a radical thought....I would aregue that via the MBS, crdit default swaps and coinsequential bank bail outs that we the tax payers are on the hook for, there has been a premeditated implosion of our economy. I would bet that if the economy had not imploded, Mr Powers would not be in default. BTW this is not just a default homeowner issue...anyone who owns property, pays taxes or ......rents a home should be VERY concerned. Bleep it, what do you think happens to rental rates as available inventory decreases because banks are sitting on millions of empty REO properties and folks who once owned those homes are now competing with YOU for shelter? WAKE UP! Again anyone interested in knowing the truth see propertydefensenetwork.com. We love to educate because knowlege is power and Americans have been asleep long enough!
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Well what do you know......My husband & I are going through the exact same thing with the exact same bank. I hate Wells Fargo and the people who work for them. May they all rot in hell.
@Gigi Wells Fargo is an effing joke and one of the WORST banks out there. They allowed a thief to cash my stepdad's $10,750 L&I severance check and refused to reimburse my stepdad after they were called out on their error. Told him he better hire a lawyer (which he doesn't have the money for).
So, if he doesn't pay his mortgage, it doesn't seem he is playing by the rules, does it? Â He signed the mortgage papers, knowing what his payments would be, I know it's really hard when suddenly he has much less income, but why does he expect the bank to allow him to live there for free? Or sell the house to his father for peanuts?Â
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What would he do if the situation were reversed, and the people he had built homes or did construction for refused to pay him?
 @Gnirk Exactly what I was thinking. While I have a lot of sympathy for the guy, he didn't pay his bills per his contract with the bank. What other outcome do you expect?
There is little new about a standard foreclosure...however alot of Banks are using what is referred to as MERS to facilitate this process.Our WA ST Supreme Court voted 9-0 that MERS is illegal, The Bank`s are required to" Prove" they actually own a property,a Deed of Trust ie . The Bank`s were packing mortages,and re-selling them to other Bank`s during the Great Bubble.Some of these deeds have been re-sold so many times that they cannot be found.Alot of Financial Institutions that were the last holder`s have long gone out of business during this Recession.So Bank`s are using photo copies of the Deed that was at one time in their possession.This Does Not Mean they own that deed NOW!! This is a huge Nation wide fraud that KOMO featured on their Website a couple of day`s ago.Wall Street has pulled another scheme..do your homework if they come for your house one day.FYI
In my situation, similar, to the above. Northwest Trustee Services had one of their employees sign as a vice president of MERS, transferring the benificiary to them.
Since MERS is not licensed to do business in this state, is this legal.
Since state law requires trustees to be neutral third parties, does someone signing as an exectutive for another company show a that they are not a neutral third party?
Since Northwest Trustee Services advertises the foreclosure homes on Foreclosure USA, and notes what homes are "hot", are they really a neutral third party?
Since the minimum acceptable bid was 220,000 on my home, why can't the bank work with me on the value of the home, and the balance of the loan to meet in the middle?Â
Oh,.. the investors you say,.. I loose the money I put down in the home, (130K) because the banking industry took down the economy because of their greed, and they want to make sure their investors get their money back.. I understand that, however when a proposed payment was refused by the bank, and action was delayed for over two years, loan modification payments refused, or not applied as agreed to... What do you do?
Who holds the banks accountable?
Can't beat them in court, they have all the money.. (that was given to them to bail them out)
MERS was created so the banks would not have to pay filing fees when they sell off the loans they made to other banks. So this affects the counties, cities, and state because they are not getting the money that they should when loan ownership changes.
well thats wells fargo for you,all of the people i hear have had W/F charging money after money on a home they are trying to keep or get out of,they are worst bank in the northwest.why are they still in operation?washington mutual was better than this. Â
What a slob. Garbage all over and that black stuff on the gravel looks like spilled waste oil.
And no I don't like banks and bankers, there are a bunch of them that should be in prison.
Nice of you to judge someone that you dont even know. It costs a lot of money to landscape and maintain it. It very well could be that he is barley scraping by and is having to work more to make ends meet and doesnt have time to maintain his landscaping.
 @Lord Farquad It doesn't take a lot of money to throw your trash in the garbage instead of on the ground.
Americans need to wake up and follow Iceland's example. During the meltdown they were pressured by big international banks to bail them out, and they told the banks to go to hell. They laughed when the banks claimed they were "too big to fail" and instead acted to protect their citizens first. Now the IMF has come out and admitted that what Iceland did was right and led to a better recovery there.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11665082/1/iceland-was-right-we-were-wrong-the-imf.html
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Big banks are evil and create money out of nothing, then they stole from us in the bailout.
@NorthwestEconomist Obama's failure to prosecute bankers has been my biggest disappointment in him, more than anything else, and there's quite a bit else. Thanks for the link.
we too have been having problems with wells fargo. they forclosed on our home and said we were ten payments behind,we have never been behind , so my wife had to take 17,000 from her retirement to keep fromlosing the house. wells fargo refused to lower the 8% interest and says we cannot  refince our loan with anyone until the loan is payed in full.they harrass us every day ,calling ect. never deal with them again. if they try to forclose again, i will burn it down....
@dave mondy Like Gigi said, you should contact the AG's office. Seriously. They've helped me out twice, on smaller matters than a foreclosure, but they do help.
@dave mondy I e-mailed the Attorney General on them & the AG's office is checking it out for us. They were calling 7 times a day.
Hmmm.. No one is going to come out on top of this one but...I am in favor of the homeowner. Correct. No one held a gun to his head to sign the loan. However.....The big banks hold a major responsibility in the crash of our entire economy which in turn caused millions of people to lose thier jobs which made it difficult to pay mortgages. If WF took the cash, they do save money on foreclosure and eviction and time the house sits vacant and he could keep his home. But that would almost be too simple. I wish people would stop looking at these cases as "the bank forgiving the debt" Yes we signed an agreement to pay it. But the banks irresponsible actions created a situation that a lot of people just couldn't survive through.
@PNWgrown There's a thing called predatory lending and the banks engaged in it frequently. They don't care if you default; they make money anyway. They make even more when there's a default. I don't know how they sleep at night.
Unfortunately for him the bank does have every right to foreclose on the house and what they are doing is in no way unfair. However, he is also right that under the circumstances, Wells Fargo would be better off taking the cash offer than foreclosing on it. They will lose WAY more money foreclosing than if they just take the $165K. And that's the problem right now with the housing market still in the tank (though it is improving a little). I don't really believe it's right to just write off a lot of these debts for people who signed on things they couldn't afford, but at the same time it really would be in the best interest of the banks to do just that in many of these cases. Or at least work with the owners to come up with easier payment plans.
@chuckh0308Â I don't think this guy caused the economy to crash like it did. It was the banking industry that caused the problem in the first place. They should be held accountable, and they should be making it right.
The banks don't loose on a foreclosure. All their securities are insured. So, the only people that lose, are people like you and me, when we lose our jobs due to actions we have no control over. What was once affordable, is now not, due to the change in income, and then, you cannot refinance it, because the value plummeted.. so, this benefits the banks, because they can collect the insurance money, and still take your home away from you.. instead of working with you..
and the so called modifications, they write off thousands, but they do it once a year, for three, when they could ammortize the reduction throughout the life of the loan, and keep the homeowner in their home.. they don't/won't do that...
I understand this poor guys predicament, but I the offer of $165k is a tad low. Â That said, I have to wonder if the bank is negotiating in good faith or if they're just shining the guy on in hopes of a big score on a foreclosure. Â
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Whatever the case is - I'm glad these cases are getting some publicity to at least bring these situations to light.
Umm... Â Why would the bank forgive that guy's debt? What sort of precedent would that set? Â Frankly, you have to wonder if he let it go, in order to devalue it in hopes they'd take his low ball offer. Â
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And btw KOMO.. Really? Â the guy says he'll "barricade" inside the home if they try to take it? Â Does this remind you of the horrific shooting in Texas recently when the police came to a home to evict someone? Â Are you condoning that attitude by publicizing someone is clearly planning to break the law?Â
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@Gigi Maybe not a witch. Maybe just woefully uninformed and oblivious to the realities of life in America today. She's bought into the "moral hazard" BS the banks spread. Propaganda is a powerful thing.
He owes the bank $400,000 but he wants the bank to forgive all of that debt. That is hardly "working hard and playing by the rules" as he proclaims.Â
 @Cunny Funt He has a point. The banks and their greed made bad loans on our backs, mostly to illegals and anyone that could breath. We bailed them out, now they give us the finger. The bad banks like Fargo and B of A should have been allowed to fail, as should have G.M. The entire market would have corrected itself by now.Â
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Instead, we enabled horrid banks, rotten compaines to get cash for .001% interest from the Feds, then the banks decline loans and take homes. He is right, the bank will not get diddly for the place but they do not care. It will be a dead asset, go to auction and sell for nothing.
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We have bailed the lousy banks out. So they could care less. You are nothing to them.
 @pbs7mm Nobody forced this guy to get the load. He made a loan to buy the house, now he doesn't want to pay back his debt because the house is worth less than it's really worth. It's fair that the bank wants the house back.
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While banks are greedy, don't forget this home owner was just as greedy when he took out the loan expecting the home to keep appreciating each year.
 @Cunny Funt  @pbs7mm You both are right. Isn't that sad? People used to be willing to pay their debts.....and banks used to work with people instead of fleecing them at every opportunity. Neither side has the moral high ground in this fight, but the guy did sign a contract saying he would pay the listed amount for the house, so they have him legally.