Family faces foreclosure after following the rules - penalized for having significant equity

[Kadie]

Family faces foreclosure after following the rules
Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, November 25, 2010


After struggling with medical crises and recession-related lost income, Susan and Robert Gerke thought they had jumped through every hoop that their bank, CitiMortgage, required for them to get a loan modification.

They made 11 trial payments on time, sent in paperwork as requested and stayed in close touch with Citi. So it came as a rude shock when they received the foreclosure notice on the San Rafael home they've owned for 15 years.

"We were so sure we could keep it and that they were really working with us, I just feel blindsided," Susan Gerke said.

The house is scheduled to be foreclosed upon on Dec. 29, leaving the family of four - the Gerkes, their 22-year-old autistic daughter and Susan's 86-year-old father, who has Alzheimer's disease - without a place to live.

snip...
"Citibank gave them a HAMP loan modification and took it away from them - because the house is worth more than the loan, so Citi will financially benefit from foreclosure," she said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/24/BUD61GGJ2I.DTL#ixzz16JS6V37X

[dkf]

1. Citi needed to be called out on this.

This is just plain WRONG.

[Speck Tater]

2. The Golden Rule: Those who have the gold make the rules.

We are powerless peons. The rich will take whatever they want from us. There is nothing we can do about it. Resistance is futile. Shut up and get back in line for your full body scan and anal probe.

[DCKit]

3. ""Citibank gave them a HAMP loan modification and took it away from them...

because the house is worth more than the loan, so Citi will financially benefit from foreclosure," she said."

It's happening all over.

Is it still a crime if they rob you with papers instead of a gun?

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. They made their payments on time and they are losing their home?

What am I missing here?

[Kadie]

9. It's unreal.

Why is this kind of stuff allowed to happen?

[Edweird]

5. Remember: Obama didn't want the program to be too helpful - he didn't want any 'undeservings'

catching a break.

[girl gone mad]

8. It was a program designed exclusively to help the banks.

Google for information about a private meeting the WH and Treasury dept. members had with bloggers a few months back. Some of the bloggers called them out on the failure of HAMP to help homeowners at all, and Geithner said that in their eyes, the program was an enormous success because it has allowed the banks to appear solvent.

[Scruffy1]

6. If this were a real country

The streets would be filled with citizens with pitchforks in hand instead of a bunch of "liberals" worried about going through a scanner on their way to Mazatlan. In 1774 the colonists in Massachusetts arose over the coercive acts and mobbed by the thousands to throw Crown appointed judges out. They marched many out of towns forcing them to recant as they were marched. This was the real beginning of the American Revolution. Not a bunch of politicians acting. But I forgot, we're only a Banana Republic of the Corporations run by the Corporations for the Corporations.

It should be obvious to all and sundry by now that the theft of America is a done deal and changing politicians won't have any effect as long as we have unequal distribution of wealth and therefore unequal distribution of power. Rather we need to organize the disenfranchised into a solid, educated bloc to resist corporate power.If we keep using the same methods we will get the same results.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

7. :(

:cry:

this is just wrong!

Somehow I knew ages ago that citi was crap--I got the feeling from the constant phishing emails I got. I wish they had picked up on that same impression. :(

[Godhumor]

10. The family has been approved for a mod, according to the article

It happened, of course, after the reporter contacted CitiBank about the situation. Still, they're not losing the house.