The Associated Press has a story entitled, “Mortgage Forgiven After Woman Shoots Herself.”
A 90 year old woman in Akron apparently owned her home outright in 1995. Then she took out a mortgage in 1997 and refinanced it a few times. Apparently she defaulted because a foreclosure action was brought by Countrywide and the home was sold at Sheriff’s sale to Fannie Mae which, in turn, sought to have her evicted when she refused to leave the house which was no longer hers.
When the Sheriff came to force the eviction, the woman shot herself in the chest. Fannie Mae has now decided to drop the eviction action and forgive the mortgage.
Call me cold-hearted, but it sounds like an ill-advised precedent to me.
I see now that the Fed has come up with $900,000,000,000 for bad loans. I have a lot of questions. Can they do that without somebody’s permission, like congress’? Were they just sandbagging when they went to congress for the $700,000,000,000? So far, this all adds up to about $2,000,000,000,000,000. Where are we getting all of this money? (That one is rhetorical.) Now that we own them couldn’t we agree to change those silly-ass names, Freddie and Fannie? Hand me the gun.
Tom, I’ve been compiling a little list if you want some suggestions…
Feel free to ignore any names you don’t agree with – just as long as someone’s making a start…
Doug–
I was thinking the same thing. Like maybe we need a waiting period for little old ladies facing foreclosure who want to buy guns. Maybe have a gunshow loophole for those who really can’t wait, though.
Doug, I felt the same way initially; and I still wonder about the “wisdom” of Fannie announcing they were doing this. I remember in 1996 being a recent seminary grad and 27. My wife and I thought about buying a house with very little down. Both the banks and the real estate people promised us the moon and the stars and an “asian massage parlor happy ending.” We slept on it and chose not to buy for a year-I mean I hadn’t even received my first paycheck at that point-how did I really know what I could afford?
I’ve worked with many seniors, and even the smartest ones are easy victims to predatory lendors. At her age, with a house paid off, she should have gone the reverse mortgage route. But something tells me that doesn’t pay banks well. My own grandma was sharp as a tack when she was “younger” (okay, granted the youngest I remember her being was 74 or so) but by the time she was in her late-80’s she would have fallen victim to this kind of problem if my uncles hadn’t been watching out for her.
I feel more for her than for Mannie Fac…but maybe that is the pastor in me..and not the lawyer.