This is a letter I sent to CBS This Morning in July, 2012, after seeing Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program), on the show.
Barofsky was right on about TARP funds being misused! Without going into all of the gory details, I have been trying to get a mortgage modification through HAMP since the program was implemented in March 2009, over three long, painful years!
Right now if you go to the Sussex County Sheriff Sales online, my name, Joan Fletcher, will be number 27.
First Horizon/MetLife had my mortgage - seven percent, $1,400 a month - and told me I had to be at least three months behind to qualify (I met all other qualifications) once I stopped paying. Even though I was filling out all the forms, faxing them, mailing them, overnighting them, they started foreclosure proceedings (now called dual-tracking) and then sold me!
Next came LBPS now called Seterus, owned by IBM, and my mortgage backed by Fannie Mae. More forms to follow, foreclosure canceled, hope, denial, hope, denial, foreclosure, hundreds and hundreds of personal info being sent over and over lost in some wormhole. Oh and the denials for missing or late paperwork, now only to be sold at a sheriff's sale. I haven't given up yet, though.
First Horizon/Metlife got over $800 million in TARP funds, just got the naming rights to the stadium in New Jersey and is holding Superbowl 2014 there, all while still foreclosing on people everyday who qualify for HAMP, including me. All I did was apply for a HAMP loan mod. That is all I did! I should have had a low interest mod in July 2009. Now all I have is severe stress and life-altering anxiety.
I can barely pick up a toothbrush, a hairbrush, much less a pen or a phone to call one more 800 number. How ironic....I worked for the phone company for 30 years. Now when I just look at the phone I hear that music from the shower scene in "Psycho."
So I am a squatter in my own home, which will be sold for probably less than what I owe and I will have to find a place to rent for more than what they could have negotiated a loan payment for. It makes no sense!
I have been writing to everyone I can for over three years now! Neil Barofsky finally just told the truth! Go on the Hope Now List or Making Home Affordable list and just see how many of those mortgage companies got TARP funds and then ask them how many loan mods they have made in the last three years and how many foreclosures. Again just look at the sheriff sales for August in my little county in Delaware - start there.
Ok, fast-forward to today. I could not stop this Kafkaesque nightmare, no matter what I did. My home was sold, I mean stolen, taken by Fannie Mae on Aug. 21, 2012 even though I overnighted another 30-page loan mod package on July 30, requested by them, Fannie Mae! Why was the sheriff sale not "stayed?" Missing paperwork! I still fought every day any way I could.
On Dec. 21, four days before Christmas, Judge T. Henley Graves ruled for Fannie Mae to take possession of my home, saying they "don't have to" help me and they "don't have to" modify anyone's loan. I still have been fighting since Dec. 21 and won't stop. Fannie Mae can still right this wrong. I'm not sure what is going to happen, but I guess I will find out, because "the defendant" (me) had to vacate by Feb. 28.
Joan Fletcher
Lewes
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