Do You Know the Agony of Being Foreclosed On?
Article about: cancer treatment, court proceedings, debts, legal aid, ovarian cancer, payday loans, unemployment, waterloo ia, workman
First hand experience of being foreclosed on can be not only embarrassing but can rip your world apart. In a neighborhood in Waterloo, IA three neighbors all moved out of the area on the same weekend and all lived within a block of each other. One elderly man had been tricked into signing a paper to his ex-wife so she would help him pay off some payday loans he had made. The man was disabled and didn’t understand that he didn’t have to risk his house to pay the loans back but had believed the clerk who told him that he would go to jail if he didn’t. The elderly man had signed a note he thought as a loan for paying off these debts. Instead he had signed the deed over to his ex-wife. He went to a legal aid attorney who lost his case in court and the elderly man was foreclosed on and evicted with very little notice. One neighbor gone.
Another couple and her elderly mother lived in a home on the corner of the same block as the elderly man and they to lost their home with no warning. The elderly woman had been making payments on the home for years to her own brother who she thought was selling her the house on a contract. He found a buyer who offered him more money and sold the home right out from under her and her daughter and son-in-law. They had no where to go and the family ended up splitting up. The elderly woman moved into an apartment in another town and her daughter and son-in-law ended up moving out of state. Two neighbors gone.
A married couple had lived in their home for seven years as the proud owners of family property going back three generations. They had cleaned up the yard, repainted the house and life was good until the husband got hurt on the job. His employer had no Workman’s Comprehensive insurance and his wife was just going through ovarian cancer treatment. He went to an attorney and started the court proceedings for a lawsuit but in the mean time they had no income to live on. His employer didn’t care. He tried for unemployment but since he needed surgery to fix his knee injury sustained on the job and wasn’t able to work he couldn’t get unemployment. He couldn’t get Workman’s Comp while he waited because his employer didn’t have the right insurance. It could take years to go to court and that was no guarantee that he would ever get paid. The mortgage company told him that they could work out a payment plan with him but instead they sold the house to Wells Fargo Bank for under $30,000 and it had cost them $70,000. With no warning they were given a seven day eviction notice by the new deed holder, Wells Fargo. They had to borrow money just to rent a storage unit to move their things into. If they weren’t out in seven days the police would be authorized to place their belongings in the street. The husband was still in a knee brace awaiting surgery. Neighbor number three in the same neighborhood is now evicted.
In just one week an entire neighborhood lost three neighbors that were all neighbors and knew each other. Now the houses stand deserted and empty waiting for the next people to move in. The elderly man’s home has been taken over by new people with little yappy dogs. The well tended flower beds, wooden privacy fence and lily pond in the backyard the elderly man had spent so much attention on lost to him forever and falling into disrepair.
The elderly lady and her daughter and son-in-law are split apart by their forced eviction. The elderly woman to an apartment in another town and her daughter and son-in-law moved to another state for work. Who is looking out for the elderly woman now with her daughter states away? Their old home sat empty for months when the man who bought it decided it wasn’t what he wanted after all and tried to resell it again.
The married couple who were evicted with a seven day notice ended up staying in a kitchenette for months while the man recovered. They lived on their savings while he paid for his own knee surgery awaiting court. They are still waiting. When they had went through their savings they stayed with their daughter while the wife tried to work landing in the hospital three times with heart problems from a weakened condition due to cancer treatment. They ended up buying an old mobile home and moving into a trailer park. Their old home is not to far away and were sick when they drove by it. It had been in the family for three generations and now it was being gutted, floors ripped out, doors boarded up and the lawn was knee high. A cousin had told them not to let it get them down it was just real estate. He was wrong it was home.
Waterloo, Iowa alone has over 125 foreclosed homes. The horrific flooding of 2008 has left many homes unlivable and now the tannery in Waterloo is closing and moving to Mexico putting over 100 people out of work. Many of the seasonal jobs that were available last year during the holiday season are not there this year. Many retailers such as Sears are only hiring about half the seasonal staff they did last year and many are not hiring added workers at all. Jobs are getting tougher to find, competition for jobs is growing, housing is harder to find and expenses keep going up. If you have a mortgage you may want to consider taking out mortgage insurance to protect yourself should you lose your job or income like the couple above did. Don’t think this could never happen to you because everyone is just a few short paychecks away from being homeless.
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