Reservist struggles to stop mortgage company from foreclosing

[UpInArms]

http://www.onnnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=2232281



COLUMBUS, Ohio -- An Army reservist who tends to critically wounded soldiers in Iraq is desperately trying to keep a mortgage company from taking her house away while she's gone.

Sgt. Yyvette Nicole Curry was working with the 629th Forward Surgical Team last spring when she began receiving worrisome reports from friends.

<snip>

But Curry is now back on another emergency leave, after the mortgage company, ABN Amro Mortgage Group, continued its foreclosure proceedings. "I have to fight for this house," she said sitting in the two-story house in west Columbus. "It's the only stability that my kids have."

<snip>

"She's not a deadbeat who didn't pay. It was impossible for her to pay," he said. No one could be reached for comment on Sunday at the Chicago offices of ABN Amro North America, and no listing for the mortgage company could be found in Ohio. A spokeswoman for ABN Amro told The Columbus Dispatch that the company wouldn't comment on pending legal matters.

...more...

supporting those troops! /sarcasm

[Cleopatra2a]

1. Soldiers and Sailors Act

She can't be sued while she is deployed.

[Kimber Scott]

2. She should be able to get help through JAG. But, she really needs to

set up some way to pay her house payment. Auto-pay, payroll deduction, or even a family member. Who's taking care of the kids that they can't write a check on her checking account every month? BUT... if she can't pay it because she's not making the money she was at her civilian job... that's an interesting legal scenario. And, is foreclosure considered a lawsuit?

[salin]

12. ding ding ding ding ding

that would be my guess... that the problem is that the pay she is now receiving is less than her civilian pay, and thus she can't keep making the payment. Given the longer terms 'on duty' of reservists - sometimes unprecedented lengths - it would be hard to blame the reservists for not budgeting accordingly.

Regardless of the situation, I wish her, and her family the best of luck. However if the hardship is due to prolonged duty and lower pay - which is beyond her control - than I hope that some relief is made available - to her family and others in this situation.

[babylon_system]

3. Was she Lyndie England?

No sympathy for the Devils here.

[BiggJawn]

4. Uh, no....

Rather feeble attempt to stir some shit, dontcha think?

Oh! (slaps forehead) I get it!

You think they're ALL as rotten as Lyndie, dontcha?

You funny! :7

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[UpInArms]

7. hmmm.....

babylon_system, me thinks you don't know of what you speak.

Many people have been unwitting pawns in a much larger game.

They are now placed in positions that are untenable.

Please temper your remarks to understand that which seems impossible for your head.

There are many honorable people doing a very hard thing - to attempt to justify your anger at a person in the medical profession who has been attempting to raise her children and provide them with a home does not justify your remarks.

Also, please apologize to Big Jawn, he did not deserve your animosity either.

[BiggJawn]

9. Save your breath...

Like I would have if I had looked more closely at his/her/it's sig line.

Babylon will likely reply that if they were truly honourable, they would have refused to go, preferring prison over following orders.

I don't expect an apology, nor would I consider it geniune.

[UpInArms]

11. I understand, my friend

yet I always seem to try to believe that everyone has goodness somewhere inside.

You are and have been a pillar of strength and knowledge to me.

[BiggJawn]

13. Oh, Gosh....

That's embarassing!
Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day...

thanks...

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[liberalhistorian]

8. Especially when it's YOUR "big arrogant head"

that needs to have a thought wrapped around it, huh? Don't even try that "the troops are war criminals" shit here. It's Shrub and the politicians who've made the policies and who've sent them there and insist on keeping them there to further their own political agenda and ambitions, despite the illegality of it, who are to blame, NOT the soldiers. And if we didn't have soldiers or a military, we'd really be screwed. Try running a country without a military and see how far you get with it.

[babylon_system]

20. US soldiers in Iraq are war criminals

The whole world knows it except for the patriotic fascists in the USA. Hitler wasn;t the only war criminal in Nazi Germany. The good Germans who followed orders made it possible. "Just following orders" did not suffice a defense at Nuremberg and neither should it suffice as defense for US stormtroopers in Iraq.

[Bridget Burke]

24. Were you old enough for Vietnam?

Were you a conscientious objector? Or did you go to jail rather than become a "war criminal"? Were you one of those who served, realized the war was wrong, and protested when you got home?

If you just kept up your student deferment or used another legal way out, I'd certainly understand; I was around back then. But your comments indicate a certain ideological purity. Please, let us know what you, personally, did in those days.

[babylon_system]

25. I registered for the draft but was not drafted

And would not have served in a blatantly illegal war like the war for oil in Iraq.

[TOhioLiberal]

21. Hummm....

I smell something.

[liberalhistorian]

6. Well, as a paralegal who used to

work for a real estate attorney and who dealt fairly regularly with foreclosures, I can tell you that ABN Amro SUCKS BIG UGLY DICKS BIGTIME!!!! And that's an understatement! We had one case of a client who'd been making his payments, who could PROVE that he'd been making his payments by producing the checks from his bank, and who was still foreclosed on because the fucking ABN Amro had been depositing his payments in the wrong damned account in their corporate headquarters. They were really nasty and uncooperative about it, too, when it was their fucking fault to begin with. We finally got it straightened out when our client produced every single check that he'd written for payments and his bank showed that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM HAD BEEN CASHED by ABN Amro. They went slinking away with their tail between their legs, and each and every person that we dealt with there was a total, complete, nasty, uncooperative, rude, ASSHOLE! And that was just our worst experience with them, there were a lot of other similar ones as well.

People, don't EVER deal with a mortgage company, particularly a newer one. If you think banks are bad, they are five hundred times worse and they're the nastiest most ruthless fuckers on the face of the planet. Most banks will at least try to work with you for a long time and won't file foreclosures until everything else has been exhausted. Miss even one payment with a mortgage company, OTOH, and they run straight to court after tacking on thousands of dollars worth of fees and charges. And most of the time their mortgages, particularly the subprime ones, are horribly overcharged to begin with.

[BiggJawn]

10. ABN deal mostly in Sub-Prime?

My mortgage was with a sub-prime. You can't talk to these people. the only thing they want to hear is "I'll Western Union $3,000 before 3PM TODAY".

[liberalhistorian]

14. Less than a third of ABN's

business is subprime, but they're just as bad with their prime customers as they are with the subprime ones. Doesn't matter if you've paid faithfully for years, miss one payment and you're out of there. Doesn't matter if they're the ones who fucked up, either, just like in the case I told you about in my earlier post. Had our client not had the money to hire an attorney to get it straightened out, he would have been screwed even though he could prove he'd made the payments.

[BiggJawn]

16. Mortgage companies are no fun.

The one my Girlfriend deals wih is the 3rd outfit to own her paper. Now that she's at the end of it and they're making only $10 a month in interest off of her, the new game is "Escrow Impound Bingo", where they told her she needed to put 2 month's impound payment on account with them "just in case". she's never even been 5 days late with a payment in 30 years. when pressed for a reason why, they replied "Because the Federal Government allows us to charge you this extra money..."

Now they want to jump her impound payment an extra $200 a month, jumping her payment from $300 to $500...Hmmmmm...So what do they DO with all this extra money? I bet they INVEST it! So they can make even MORE money!

Everybody is telling her to tell them to go Cheney themselves and pay off the $2000 balance left on the note...

[liberalhistorian]

17. That is exactly what I would do if I were

her. And there wouldn't be a goddamn thing those predatory greedy bastards could do about it, either.

[Kimber Scott]

15. Most banks will begin foreclosure proceedings 60 days after the first

missed payment. I agree many smaller companies can be quite predatory, but so can banks. Give them a reason, they will take your stuff.

I hope this lady can get this straightened out.

[NorthernSpy]

27. well, looky here! found a profile of ABN AMRO's charming CEO...

And a right smug looking bastard he is, too. Fortunately, he seems to belong to a nearly endless list of civic organizations -- which may provide some good opportunities to embarrass the little fucker with the ugly truth behind his Mister Charitable act. The people who gave him his "Human Rights Medallion", for instance, might conceivably be interested in the story of how his bank is trying to squeeze blood out of a deployed soldier, while threatening to pitch her children out into the street...


http://www.cps.k12.il.us/AboutCPS/Board/Bios/Bobins/bobins.html


(snips)


Norman R. Bobins
Board Member


Norman R. Bobins is chairman, president and chief executive officer of LaSalle Bank. He is also president and chief executive officer of ABN AMRO North America, Inc., the parent of LaSalle, head of Midwest Commercial Banking for ABN AMRO North America, Inc., and senior executive vice president of ABN AMRO Bank N.V. He is also vice chairman of Standard Federal Bank, N.A., a subsidiary of ABN AMRO North America. He is a member of the Board of Directors for Standard Federal Bank N.A.

(...)


Active in numerous civic organizations, Mr. Bobins holds directorships with the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, which honored him with its Distinguished Service Award in 1982. Other awards include the American Jewish Committee's 1992 Human Rights Medallion, the National REIA Fall Conference's 1995 Wexler Award, the 1997 Keshet Rainbow Award, the 1997 CANDO Person of the Year Award, the 1998 Midtown Educational Foundation Reach for Excellence Award, the DePaul University 1999 Business Leadership Award, the 2000 Harold Washington College Business Professional of the Year Award, the 2000 Jane Addams Hull House Medal, the Southwest Organizing Project Anti-Predatory Lending Award 2001, and the Boys & Girls Clubs 2002 Chairman's Award.

Mr. Bobins is the former Chairman of the Board at the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. In January 1999, Governor Ryan appointed him to The Governor's Commission on the Status of Women in Illinois. He recently joined the executive board of the Auditorium Theatre Council, the board of directors of the Terra Foundation for the Arts and the newly formed Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Foundation. He continues to serve as a member of the Board of Education of the City of Chicago, where he was re-appointed in June 2002 to a third, four-year term. He is a member of the board of trustees of WTTW Communications, Inc., The Field Museum and the Illinois Business Roundtable. He is also a trustee of the University of Chicago Hospitals. In addition, he serves on The Council on the Graduate School of Business at The University of Chicago, is a member of the Kellogg Graduate School of Management Advisory Board, The Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners Advisory Committee, and serves on the boards of Spertus College, and the Executive Council of Chicago Metropolis 2020.


(...)


:eyes:

[liberalhistorian]

28. Jebus, now why doesn't that

surprise me? Maybe we should organize a little "educational campaign" for all of the wonderful civic organizations Mr. Wonderfully Concerned About and Involved in his Community belongs to. I'm sure they'd be very interested in his ruthless hypocritical bullshit.

[barb162]

18. when you think how many soldiers are in this situation

it makes me wonder how many have already lost their houses. Bush has been using the reservists like regular army for almost 3 years. No person serving this country should have this happen EVER. Laws can easily be passed stopping this crap (as easy as Bush passes laws for his corporate buddies).

[BeHereNow]

22. This is the future...

for all of us.
Make no mistake.
BHN

[alfredo]

23. I got out from under ABN Amro and I feel so much better

now. I hope we can all contact them and tell them to back off.

[happyslug]

26. Here is the "Servicemember Civil Relief Act" Section regarding Mortgages

§ 533. Mortgages and trust deeds

(a) Mortgage as security. This section applies only to an obligation on real or personal property owned by a servicemember that--
(1) originated before the period of the servicemember's military service and for which the servicemember is still obligated; and
(2) is secured by a mortgage, trust deed, or other security in the nature of a mortgage.

(b) Stay of proceedings and adjustment of obligation. In an action filed during, or within 90 days after, a servicemember's period of military service to enforce an obligation described in subsection (a), the court may after a hearing and on its own motion and shall upon application by a servicemember when the servicemember's ability to comply with the obligation is materially affected by military service--
(1) stay the proceedings for a period of time as justice and equity require, or
(2) adjust the obligation to preserve the interests of all parties.

(c) Sale or foreclosure. A sale, foreclosure, or seizure of property for a breach of an obligation described in subsection (a) shall not be valid if made during, or within 90 days after, the period of the servicemember's military service except--
(1) upon a court order granted before such sale, foreclosure, or seizure with a return made and approved by the court; or
(2) if made pursuant to an agreement as provided in section 107 <50 USCS Appx § 517>.