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Review A HOMEOWNER'S FORECLOSURE NIGHTMARE.

In 2008 Countrywide Bank set aside $8.4 billion in Loan Aid, a settlement Governor Jerry Brown worked on among many others. Brown was quoted to say: Countrywide's greed turned the American dream into a nightmare for thousands of Californians who now face foreclosure.' This is the story of one of these nightmarish experiences.

In the course of the last eight years, I hired at least ten attorneys '“three are now disbarred. I spoke on the phone with more than eighty different bank agents. I faced a dozen Trustee Sales and stopped all but two. I won one lawsuit to stop Bank of America '“temporarily'” from taking away my home. I received up to six pieces of mail in one day from the same bank regarding the same property, and in total received or faxed thousands of pages of documents. I received hundreds of phone calls from bank agents. I put together several dozen so-called Modification Applications,' that were between 30 and 80 pages long. I worked an average of ten hours a week and would have earned over $200,000 in my line of work. I have disclosed every single detail of my financial life to the banks.

As I got embroiled in the endless cycles of loan modification procedures, I discovered that my Countrywide home loan had been securitized, the way things happened in the movie The Big Short.' I started to receive so many FedEx envelopes with bad news (notices of acceleration, trustee sale notices, etc.) that I developed recurrent nightmares about finding envelopes at my door. My work required moderate travel for research but I was unable to travel more than a very short time so I would not get into a default for not faxing information on time. I kept postponing the care of my home for the day when I got my modification.' I learned words I would prefer not to know like Trustee Sale, Deed-in-Lieu, dual-track, cash for keys, forbearance, rescission, reconveyance, and acronyms like RMA, NPV, MERS, HARP. The holiday season was especially hard each year since banks love to schedule Trustee Sales at Christmas time, and I once had to go into bankruptcy in December to keep a foreclosure company at bay.

The banks I dealt with paid countless agents, appraisers, inspectors, underwriters, and document assistants, to create modification offers that were pointless since the investor' of my loan, Bank of New York Mellon, refused every single possible modification on the grounds that it was not in the financial interest of the bank.' If the salaries of all the bank agents involved in working with me had been invested in a reduction of my loan instead, my modification would have ended long ago with great results.

I am still in my home as I write this, and I am sending this as a sort of Hail Mary pass, hoping that somewhere there is someone, senator, representative, attorney, journalist, or even banker, who might be able to offer guidance in my quest to achieve a very simple goal: to continue to retire in the home I built, to continue to live and work there as I walk down the last part of my life.

BATTLING BANKSTERS & LAWSTERS
The story of my descent into a Foreclosure Nightmare.

I was sucked into the modification process very simply in the fall of 2007 when property values plummeted in the small gold rush town where I live. I had renovated three small properties and was about to sell them in order to pay off the loan on my home. Their value suddenly fell so low I could now only sell at a loss. I had to rent them and wait for the market to go back up.
Fortunately, the situation was so bad state-wide that refinancing programs and loan modifications were being offered to home-owners across California. I received lots of offers in the mail every day about refinance options. My most pressing issue however, was to protect my home. It was a Countrywide negative-arm loan. It had appeared OK when I obtained it since my plan was to renovate and sell the properties in Grass Valley, and do away with it quickly.
2008 Countrywide did have a Home Retention Department and I learned they could offer interest rate reductions. I put together an application in March 2008. By April they called me and told me that owing to the negative-arm loan I had, I would pay more if they froze my interest rate. I was quite puzzled by the news. While I consulted with a CPA, I was encouraged by one event: I obtained from Countrywide a modification of the small miner's cottage I call the Clipper. It reduced interest from 6% to 4.25% for a period of five years. The market would recover by then. It was a reprieve.
By September I was paying my home loan out of my savings. I had called Countrywide many times about my home, but in the fall, I was redirected to a Bank of America agent. Countrywide had failed. Bank of America had no programs yet. I should call each month for new regulations and new offers.
2009 President Obama's new stimulus package offered $1000 to home-owners who opted for a modification rather than a short-sale. I was on the right track. I kept calling Bank of America regularly each month. By March my home's value had dropped by 60% and my loan had gone up $80,000.
I was directed to put together several modification packets, learned the lingo and the mechanics of it, but after several Nays,' I was told by a Bank of America agent that I would not get the attention of the modification department unless I was at least three months behind in payments. This was repeated to me from various other sources. I waited as long as I could, but by July, with a heavy heart, I cancelled my automatic mortgage payment.
Almost immediately, I found in my mailbox a letter from Bank of America giving me options for dealing with my newly delinquent mortgage. First on the list: a loan modification. Perhaps this would work after all. I spoke with Krystel in the Hope Department' (really?). She suggested I apply for a six-months forbearance and a loan modification. Great news. I had two days to put the packet together with covers for each section, loan number on each page, etc. but I managed and sent her a note of gratitude with the documents.
By then, my monthly payments had gone up by $550. Hopefully, the modification would not take long. I faxed 80 pages of documents in October. The application Krystel had suggested somehow petered out in December. But I was signed up for a new plan that would extend my loan over 40 years, reduce my principal, and give me a six-months forbearance. I reapplied, dozens of faxes, dozens of calls. Still, I felt I was not sufficiently informed about this process. So I hired a local attorney to crunch figures, calculate my chances, and help me write a good Hardship Letter.' According to her, things actually looked promising for me. I went home, worked hard, faxed my revised packet with high expectations.
2010 I was now completely invested into the loan modification process and had no way of backing out since my loan was ballooning at a faster rate than I had ever imagined. My new daily routine included calls to Bank of America, writing letters, faxing documents, receiving mail, filing, research. My first modification offer in March 2009 accomplished nothing in the words of my local attorney. It offered a loan with an interest rate that hiked up every single year to 7.5%. I did not take it. I was given another chance to apply.
I was getting the hang of this. I downloaded call sheets from the bank's website, wrote down the names of agents, the date and the gist of our calls. I created a special fax cover for Bank of America, only had to change the date and the name of the agent. I sent a big packet in January. And was told in February that I had to start all over again. Reason: I had used the wrong fax number (the number the previous agent had given me). Obviously faxes get lost in the great bank yonder.
At that time, I discovered Bank of America had a Customer Advocacy Department. I explained my woes to agent Yuridia. It had been a long three years. Would the bank consider taking over my two rentals, for free, in exchange for a good modification of my home loan? Unrealistic, I know. There was no response. Agent Yuridia who was initially going the help me out with all these crises soon vanished. Overload, I'm sure.
2011 A familiar pattern emerged. By April I was told I was not eligible. In May I was allowed to reapply: modifications came in cycles. I'd miss one, I'd catch the next, like city buses. This went on for most of the year. Meanwhile my loan was ballooning. By fall, I learned what dual-track' means: I received a Notice of Default. While I had been working on a modification with one Bank of America department, another Bank of America department was busy working on foreclosing and selling my home.
In November a man drove up my driveway and taped a Notice of Trustee Sale to my logs. It obviously paid well to work for the foreclosure industry. I hired an attorney and had to put down a $10,000 bond for the privilege of suing the bank. I also had to pay the bank $2000 a month in rental cost', and of course $2000 a month to my attorney. This had better work. My savings were almost depleted.
2012 It was actually restful to let a lawyer do the fighting for me and not have to deal with the modification application rigmarole for a while. On the other hand, the financial burden was acute.
While the trial was ongoing, I carefully prepared the ultimate modification application, again with the help of my local attorney. It was handed out by my attorney to the bank's attorney during the trial. He promised to hand it in person to the loan department. During that time, I worked as hard as I could to pay for all this. When my litigation terminated in September, the foreclosure on my home was rescinded. I was much poorer but still living in my home. And there was hope.
With a little more time on my hands, I had sent Kamala Harris' office a request for help. I received helpful suggestions. In particular, I learned about the Monitor program, created to monitor the proper application of the National Mortgage Settlement obtained by several state's Attorneys General against the major banks. This was a new avenue, designed in particular with Countrywide customers in mind. The settlement directed the banks to match the loan balance and the home's value. It was obvious that this applied exactly to my case.
2013 As a result of my modification application conveyed by a bank's attorney, I was now put in touch with agents in the CEO's office, while agents from the Monitor program kept track of the progress. Things were going well. Just as I finished my application for the National Mortgage Settlement, my good agent Dennis disappeared. Another was appointed and she was just as wonderful, but we have to start almost all over again. She disappeared in turn after a few months and a new very helpful agent took over. More updates needed.
All my documents were in at last by November. It had been five and a half years. I received an offer made according to the National Mortgage Settlement for a monthly payment of $1,240, with a principal reduction, longer loan life, etc. It had all been worth it!! Only one cloud: the investor' of my loan, Bank of New York Mellon rejected it since It was not in the financial interest of the bank.' What of my financial interest?
2014 This was the only way it could work. This offer was the answer. So I appealed, three times in a row. My appeals were denied, three times in a row. Each time because it was not in the financial interest of the bank' of New York Mellon.
Shortly after that, there was a lull. No news for a couple of months. I relished this eye of the storm, with always a tinge of worry in the back of my mind of course. What was brewing? By September, I learned that Select Portfolio Services was now replacing Bank of America as the servicer of my loan.
Blitz of letters. Blitz of calls from 8am to 7:30pm. I persisted. But alas, the National Mortgage Settlement had expired in June, together with the Monitor program. I was again left on my own. October brought good news: a new initiative by President Obama. I kept going with the faxing, and the calls, and the mail, and the filing, and the research.
2015 The new year brought along a Trial Modification Plan. I should have been ecstatic except that the monthly payment was three times as high as the National Mortgage Settlement offer, and totally prohibitive for my now-depleted purse.
I noticed however that the monthly payments were calculated at $3232 while my income was calculated by the bank at $2300. I called, Select Portfolio Services agent Carmen answered. She agreed with me that there had to be an error. I could not be qualified for payments that exceeded my earnings. We appealed, appeal denied. It was not an error. But I was given another chance. The cycle started again, my life reduced to this: calling, getting urgent mail or FedEx's, faxing, appealing. I was unable to leave for more than two weeks at a time for fear I would miss some urgent deadline.
2016 The nightmarish cycle went on throughout 2015 and into 2016. In December 2015, my new application was complete. By February 2016, I was informed that I did not qualify for any program. Of course the escrow of my loan was by now over $300,000. Before I even appealed, a kind and bright Select Portfolio Services agent called and told me that I could start all over again. I was surprised but relieved: you never know when a new program might come your way.
A week later, as I prepared my new package, Select Portfolio Services agent Maria called. Of course I could not apply again. I did not qualify for any modificatono. My home was now going to a Trustee Sale in a matter of weeks.
So here I am, almost eight years later, still in a foreclosed home. Attorneys charge a $5000 retainers minimum, $2000 a month. I can no longer afford such fees. I am now closing in on 70, completely disillusioned about a system supposed to help hundreds of thousands of Californians like me.
************
Yet this chain of events was only a part of all that happened to me and my bank loans. Other developments occurred that seemed designed to punish me for ever thinking that I could sell my small cottages to pay down my home loan. Here is a quick overview of how this happened.
In late August 2009, I received a hysterical phone call from Joan, my tenant of two years: "I'm being evicted. How could you do that to me!" Forty-five minutes later, the tenant next door called in turn with a kinder approach. She too was being evicted, she too wanted to know why.

THE RENTAL CABINS
Stepping back for a moment, this was my situation at that time: I was in my late 50s when I had to start a new life on my own. I had always been a mom-at-home, freelancing in teaching, writing textbooks, translating, writing history. I had never been a part of the work force per se. How was I going to survive alone? I had four years with regular monthly income ahead of me to decide.
After consulting with various financial specialists, I created a small corporation, mortgaged my home in Nevada City, and purchased one property with four small houses literally falling to pieces in the nearby gold rush town of Grass Valley. I acquired them for a good price, since they were actually five grand-fathered lots: two were empty and buildable. Two had one home on them. One had the small Victorian and the China on it.
These lots had been owned by two elderly sisters. When the oldest, Rose, passed away in the 1970s, the youngest, Sadie, simply locked the main house with pots and pans, furniture, bedding still in place, and never returned. Rose's House remained empty. The cottages were rented to the same people for decades, Sadie never came by. By the time Sadie passed away and I purchased the lots in 2005, two of the cottages had turned into meth hangouts, the third was occupied by a man who was mentally challenged and lived without working plumbing, his tub and sinks permanently plugged, and gaping holes at the bottom of one of the walls.
It took six months each to renovate the three bungalows. This was not cosmetics and flip. I enjoyed paying attention and restoring the style of each home, especially since I was writing a history book about the town of Grass Valley at the time. The Clipper was paneled in dark wood which was stripped and refinished; nautical brass lights, knobs and curtain rods gave it a sparkle. The China had been a part of the city's Chinatown, brought up the hill in the 1940s when it closed down. I refinished the Chinese carvings on the sides of the small porch, kept the unusual, irregular lines, designed a custom bamboo kitchen, and an artistic friend painted the front door in red and gold. All three cottages had brand new kitchen and bath appliances as I scoured sales everywhere to get the best bargains. Rose's house at the bottom of the hill took a little more work since it was older and larger, but it soon came to life again with a new floor plan, Tuscan colors on the walls, and white custom-made kitchen cabinets. The high porch was closed up for privacy, a bathroom added, the claw-foot tub restored.
We used locals for labor, paid lots of fees to the City, and truly changed the character of that single-block street. I used construction loans for each house, then refinanced these when the renovation was complete. My contractor and business partner ran the job sites and handled finding the loans for which I was the signer since my credit was good. We worked hard at building equity.
This was my business and daily work. The plan was to sell the properties in the fall of 2007, and pay down my home mortgage so I could retire and live in my home with very low monthly payments, with luck no payments at all. The plan was good; the timing could not have been worse. By late 2007 banks started to fail and the real estate market in our area took a steep plunge. I had to rent and wait for the market to recover.

2009 FORECLOSURE: The China & Small Victorian (on one lot) Attorney Craig Michael Laverty '“ now disbarred '“ home lost.
Back to that fateful day, I rushed over to meet with the tenants, apologized, explained that I had hired attorneys to represent me for a modification of the loan. I would investigate, it had to be a mistake.
I called the attorneys, the Craig Laverty Law firm in San Diego. There was no immediate response. At their request, I'd given them a power of attorney so they could handle all communications with the bank. My role was to forward every piece of mail I received from the bank, which I had done scrupulously. They finally called back: they would look into it. They called back a few days later: someone at their firm had forgotten the Trustee Sale date, a younger associate who "had been severely dealt with." I was assured by the senior partner that "they were going to fix this for me."
Ignorant of how things worked, I felt reassured and tried to contact the tenants to report the news, but I could not get through to any of them. I eventually discovered why: they had been offered "cash for keys," an undisclosed amount of money roughly between $5000 and $10,000, to leave the premises completely empty, clean, with nothing missing, by the end of the week. And most of all, they were forbidden to communicate with me or they would lose the deal. They were gone within a week for one (who got the most money), two weeks for the other. I never heard from them again. On a human level, that was rather hard to take. No closure with people I'd known for over two years.

2009 WRONGFUL FORECLOSURE: The Clipper -- Freddy Mac takes over IndyMac and forecloses on a property with a Bank of America loan. (Yes.)
By September the tenant in the third bungalow, next door to the foreclosed ones, called in turn and told me "I'm being evicted." What? The Clipper was on a lot separate from the other two, with a different loan, with a different bank. I was current with payments and had even obtained a modification of that loan the previous year. How could Freddy Mac foreclose on a Bank of America loan???!!!
While I waited for the Laverty law firm to reverse the sale of the small Victorian and China, as I watched the tenants leave without a word to me, I entered the mad world of wrongful foreclosures. I warned Freddy Mac, their lawyers and real estate agent, that they were not reading documents and lot maps right, that these were two different lots, two different banks, and two different loans. No one listened. Especially not the young tenant who was being promised his "cash for keys." Like the other tenants, he was looking forward to that incredible windfall. He was already dreaming in fact of his new life in Hawaii. He was hostile on the phone as I tried to explain that this was a terrible mistake, they could not evict him since Freddy Mac did not own the loan for this property. "The other ones got it, why not me?" was his response. I had no credibility left with anyone on that block. He went on moving everything out of the cottage and the shed behind the house, including furniture I'd loaned him and building supplies I might have still been able to use. He never received his cash and eventually left in disgust after spiking the garbage disposal with glass. Another human failure.
I had to cancel all sorts of important dates related to work so I could straighten out this mess. The Laverty lawyers were increasingly hard to reach, increasingly hostile to me, telling me I would not have obtained a modification anyway. The lawyers and real estate agent for Freddy Mac were not returning calls or emails, putting up For Sale' signs everywhere, including the Clipper, ignoring me. I called Bank of America's various departments to alert them that my tenant had been wrongfully evicted. They did not care; they were not responsible. The situation jeopardized my ability to find another tenant. Without a tenant, I fell behind on my loan payment, I lost the modification.
I kept making calls, and hoped things would be straightened out, but the Laverty law firm never made good on their promise. In fact, they developed acute problems related to ethics. Since work took me to Quebec that summer and I was away for several weeks, I informed my business partner who had been away of all these events and gave him the names of a few attorneys that were recommended to me by various real estate agents and might be able to save the two properties. We were not in a good place with our partnership. This would push it over the edge.
By the time I returned, the Laverty Law firm had been seized by the FBI, Laverty was in the process of being disbarred. The small Victorian and the China were lost owing to their negligence.

WRONGFUL FORECLOSURE at THE CLIPPER' '“ Round 2. Attorney Sharon Lynn Lapin '“ now disbarred.
The Clipper remained empty, modification lost, loan payments missed, its fate uncertain. Freddy Mac and its lawyers and real estate agents were becoming aware that they had made a mistake. No one offered to fix it. They went on trying to sell the small Victorian and the China on the adjacent lot, oblivious to my calls about the imperative need for a lot line adjustment. Par for course, dÃ©jÃ vu, and so on. The property lines between these two contiguous lots had never been officially recorded. As I expected, the property could not legally be sold but the bank and its agents, and even the Title Company, continued to refuse to even listen to the lot line problem. The only avenue that made sense was litigation.
While I was away, my partner had hired attorney Sharon Lapin who was at the time well known for her anti-foreclosure work. She had a large load of similar lawsuits in Marin and Nevada counties, her husband drove her around from one place to the next. She charged $2000 to file a lawsuit against everybody involved, for every reason possible, throwing in the kitchen sink for good measure. As soon as I returned from my trip, I looked her up on the internet, and discovered that she had had problems with the Bar in the past. Then I realized that she was merely pushing paper and charging clients for it. When questioned about the scope of my lawsuit and her reasons for all these widespread claims, she became increasingly difficult to reach. She let on during one of our rare conversations that she was not very familiar with my case, and that she did not really know what might happen next "when the case went to Superior Court" and she could not follow it there. We had paid her $2000 to push paper through the local courts, and we had not yet reached the Superior Court level. She would not give me a refund. I wrote the Bar a letter asking for help on how to proceed with a complaint against her and never received an answer. She was eventually disbarred in 2013.
During my absence, my business partner had neglected work on the two remaining properties, the Clipper and Rose's House. He had not fixed things that needed fixing, had ignored problems with our remaining renter, had not made some payments on time, had even misappropriated funds from my personal account. He left four days after I returned, with no time or interest to attend to any of these problems. He'd be gone three months this time. I was truly alone. I rolled up my sleeves and went to work not realizing how long this would all take, and how hard it would be. This was 2009. I'm still at it today, in 2016.
I hired handymen to fix fences pulverized by falling branches, hired pest control to get rid of rats, negotiated a big gouge in a maple floor with departing renters. Everything took time, patience, resilience. The real estate market was still collapsing, as was the economy. The values of the properties had fallen sharply. I could not find lawyers willing to tackle the problems for a fee I could afford. I could not refinance since the properties were no longer good enough as collateral. I went on to support myself and the properties out of my savings and my earnings as a writer. That could not last very long.

WRONGFUL FORECLOSURE at THE CLIPPER' '“ Round 3. Attorney Anthony Kassas '“ now disbarred.
I carefully research attorneys specializing in foreclosures, and on August 16, 2011, after reviewing their track record and even flying down to Orange County for a meeting in person, I paid the Anthony Kassas law firm a first fee of $1,333 so they would protect my miner's cabin in Grass Valley from foreclosure. Two weeks later, the law firm was taken over by the FBI, files and assets seized, my money lost. Thanks to the Bar Association, I have since recovered most of the funds, five years later.

FORECLOSURE at THE CLIPPER' '“ Round 4 '“ I'm forced into bankruptcy to save it from a trustee sale while my file goes from Bank of America to the new servicer, Select Portfolio Services.
In the fall of 2011, I researched lawyers again, and this time hired the Consumer Debt Legal Group to help me modify the loan for the miner's cabin. These lawyers were doing a great job of it when Bank of America suddenly transferred my loan to a new servicer.' We learned this in December 2011. A Trustee Sale was scheduled for January 4, 2012. Bank of America refused to delay the Trustee Sale while my file was being moved from their office to the new servicer's office. The only way to stop the sale, was to file for bankruptcy. So I did, with a heavy heart. The January 4 sale was postponed until February 21. By February 16, Consumer Debt confirmed Select Portfolio Services had approved me for a modification. That bankruptcy is still on my credit reports.

FORECLOSURE NIGHTMARE for Rose's House -- Bank of America offers a forbearance program then takes it back.
In June 2008, after many calls, I obtained a forbearance program for Rose's House, a six-months' period of lower loan payments while I applied for an outright modification. I unfortunately returned the packet describing the program without making copies first. That would come back to haunt me.
I made my first two payments without problem, but then my mother fell ill and I had to go to France where she lived to be with her for 4 weeks. My business partner did not make the September payment in time, but he made two payments just before I returned in October. He called Bank of America and was assured that it would be OK. By October 7, 2009 I received a letter telling me I'd breached the terms of the agreement. I made calls and was told all was good. I made my next payment in November. But even though agents like "Sandy" on November 13, were telling me I was confirmed for an arrangement, the bank was leaving foreclosure notices on the property. I went on to provide documents for the next step in the arrangement, and received a Notice of Intent to Accelerate on December 8 (I had no clue what those meant of course, I just knew they meant trouble.) I sent letters that month that were only acknowledged as received by the bank ... on February 24, 2010. I made more payments and by February 2, my modification was denied because "my loan was current." Go figure'¦
I kept asking for a copy of the forbearance agreement, by phone, fax, and mail, but despite regular assurances that I would get my copy soon, I never received one. I never could check what the terms were, what my options were, etc. As I tried vainly to reopen the forbearance, or apply for a new modification program, there were long delays, often several weeks. I made a few more payments. My next one was refused and a Notice of Default followed. I hired an attorney to get informed and to prepare a good Letter of Hardship,' the central ingredient for a modification application. She did a few calculations, told me my income could sustain a modification. I sent zillions of pages of documents to a host of people with different names and fax numbers, but in return, I received a notice of Trustee Sale in May 2010. I had again been put on a dual track. The foreclosure track is always faster than the modification track.

UTTER WRONGFUL FORECLOSURE NIGHTMARE at Rose's House. Bank of America sells the empty lot next to the house illegally FIVE times in a row, and unilaterally rescinds a settlement agreement.
The modification process for Rose's House was similar to my home's endless cycles of highs and lows, endless faxes and calls, vanishing sometimes reappearing agents. But what sets it apart besides the bungled forbearance situation, was a series of foreclosures that included an adjacent lot in every Trustee Sale Notice between May 2010 and December 2015. This all started on May 30, 2010 when I received a Trustee Sale Notice that described two lot numbers. With great concern, I discovered that the upcoming sale included the adjacent lot --which was free of any mortgage and belonged to me in full. I called Bank of America's agents, the bank's litigation department, Recontrust, but my complaints fell on deaf ears. No one had a clue what I meant, and no one seemed to care. I was in default, I had no rights left. I had to file a lawsuit in September 2010, put down a $10,000 bond as I would have to do for my home the following year, and hire a lawyer. It took eight months of discovery and hearings for the bank to agree that they had made an error. In the settlement agreement signed in May 2011, Bank of America pledged it would rescind the faulty Reconveyance and Notice of Trustee Sale, and correct the errors in the two parcels' numbers.
The ups and downs of the modification went on throughout 2011, with great agents genuinely trying to make it happen, but I was once again dual-tracked. Bank of America scheduled a Trustee Sale on October 9, 2011. For unimaginable reason, they re-used the previous, faulty papers and parcel numbers. My attorney called the bank's lawyer and the Trustee Sale was postponed. I resumed trying to modify, but what I did not realize was that the bank never stopped including the adjacent lot in its appraisal calculations, making it hard to reach the right figures. The bank also never considered removing all the escrow fees that had accumulated between May 2010 and October 2011 during the lawsuit and this second wrongful foreclosure. I was not responsible for these delays, yet the balance of the loan had grown exponentially during those 17 months, making a modification all the more difficult.
I resumed my attempt to obtain a good modification, but this additional balance was getting in the way of making figures work out for me. Despite letters that explained the situation and calls to my agents, I received another Notice of Trustee Sale from Bank of America in August 2012. Unbelieving, I realized that the Trustee Sale again including the lot. I mentioned it to my agent. The sale was again postponed. I started over. This was getting to be a very uncomfortable but very familiar cycle.
Refreshingly, there was no Trustee Sale in 2013, and it looked like my application might have a chance after all. What I did not realize was that on October 30, 2013, the bank had proceeded to record a rescission of its 2011 agreement in complete violation of the settlement. I learned this fact only recently. At the time, I had no idea this was happening, or what a rescission was for that matter.
As I forged on with faxing away my financial life in my quest for this elusive modification, I tried to make the bank's agents understand that the adjacent lot actually represented a financial asset for me. I sent a detailed map of the two lots in January 2014 to explain where the house stood, where the property lines were, what the lot numbers were. I pointed out once again that the interest on this loan was 6.125% and it would make a huge difference in the monthly payments if the bank simply agreed to cut that in half. However, by October 23, 2014, Bank of America recorded a new Trustee Sale, and while it used the correct lot number for the trustee sale document, it clouded the adjacent lot in the Substitution of Trustee which was recorded at the County's Recorder office earlier in June 2014. I felt helpless at the thought of having to fight the giant corporation again.
This war of attrition was taking its toll on me, I felt tired at the thought of forging ahead. Yet my savings were right there, in Rose's House. Again I spoke with agents, again they postponed the Trustee Sale, and let me start over. Half-heartedly now, since the process seemed so daunting, I went on with the modification application. I was not at all surprised when on December 7, 2015, Bank of America again scheduled a Trustee Sale of Rose's House and again included the adjacent lot in its paperwork. It was in the course of providing my attorney with the dates and paperwork for each Trustee Sale, that I realized that the bank had actually made the same MAJOR error FIVE times in a row, and had wrongfully reneged on their settlement agreement.
The story of Rose's House's bungled Trustee Sales has an epilogue of sorts. In February 2016, just as I was gathering documents to initiate at least talks, perhaps a lawsuit, Bank of America transferred my loan to a new servicer, NationStar Mortgage. Oblivious to this ancient history, the new company is simply proposing to start the modification process all over again. From their point of view, all is good and they can proceed'¦
I now suspect, with great sadness, that the banks never intended to really help for any property over $200,000. Their agents were instructed to push paper, the managers to switch agents around and to request a ton of documents, which created delays that eventually brought me to a point where my escrow had become so huge that there was no longer an avenue.
The volume of foreclosures is slowing down these days in great part because so many folks gave up. I cannot blame them. Confronted with all the orchestrated deadlines, hoops to jump, and pressures, I too was tempted to quit. But I love my home, I built it for my retirement, I live and work here. I'm not giving it up.
So BEFORE I look into the possibility of hiring yet another lawyer again '“a rather frightening prospect since the cost is so high'”I am sending this letter and log, as a sort of Hail Mary, in the hope that it will reach out to someone willing to pay attention, to make suggestions, to direct me to the person who can, eventually, perhaps, help me keep my home.

Claudine Chalmers
April 2016

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