Worst Mortgage story ever?

Anyone duped like this?
A work in progress by Ken Edwards
In April of 2007, My wife had a home mortgage on our ten acre horse farm in Fellowship, a NW neighborhood of Ocala, FL. We had paid cash for the property in 2001, $85,000.00 equity from our previous home we sold in Abingdon, Va.
We rented a 621 Case Loader with bucket and root rake for two months($6000.00) and cleared the brambles and forest, saving all the small, medium, and large Oaks of various breeds.
How we loved the property! We paid cash, $32, 500.00 to a local barn builder with one helper to build us a large pole building(horse barn). We had a well dug, and septic, and parked our fifth wheel triple pop-out Holiday Rambler Alumascape there.
4 years or so later we mortgaged the property ($160,000.00) to finance a beautiful(to us) Triple Crown home.
We were feeling great with our investment, a realtor advised us to list it for $949,000.00. Our Barn is huge, our house is nice, land near us was going for 50k an acre, I have 1500’ of road frontage, a corner. Prime.
Training a customer’s Stallion, I get permanently disabled at the age of 43 or 4. I continued to try to teach and train, but with incomes of people dropping, and the market declining with the economy going down the drain………. we saw home values dropping, we kept lowering our home price, $799,000.00 I recall was reasonable at the time.
We decided to semi retire, we had 600k in equity, my wife had some savings, she was semi-retired already, being a little older than I. We found a modest 1200’ home on two lots in Hudson, FL, gulf frontage, with a large private lagoon, originally built to be a marina for the community.
I could retire, work some days at Walmart or Lowes maybe, four blocks away on HWY 19, and run my 12 boat marina with boat reconditioning and sales.
We put down $10,000 and agreed to pay $1400.00 lease/option until we sold our farm and could pay cash for the entire $365,000.00
Seemed logical. Our new neighbors in Hudson told us about a ‘fantastic’ mortgage broker from Clearwater.
Harborline Mortgage associated with Rocky Point Title, Michael Milton, Parker Stafford, and Robert Galitz were the main brokers there, our new scintillating mortgage broker was named Jason Varela. Formerly a superstar of Ameriquest, considered perhaps the most fraudulent of Mortgage Brokerages. He was well trained we found out.
I asked if we could get a bridge loan, I had no income to speak of, we were closing down our farm, selling it, and wanted a modest house on the water, we had a great deal. Could he get us a bridge loan until the farm sold?
Absolutely! We had 600k in equity, he could do that easy. No payments until you sell your farm. We never wondered why he was so solicitous of us, he even helped us move into our house in Hudson, bought us house warming gifts, impressed all my visiting family members from all over the country.

The Broker, Jason Varela, had us signing 'application' documents. A huge pile on two occasions no discussion of amount/rate/term, they were 'blank', a formality, he would get us a good deal. We needed so many stacks of documents so that he could ‘plug’ the loans into different banks to get the best options.
Most all documents we were told not to date, all documents were blank, none of the lines filled in. A girl came with him in his new black corvette up from Clearwater to Ocala. She was a friend he said. She would help, she got a copy of our licenses for the applications.
They left with all documents, none were left with us. We were only in an application meeting, he would let us know what rates and terms he could get once he submitted our applications all about.
It should also be noted that I pointed out my middle initial is not a C, but a G. Mr. Varela said it did not matter, they would correct it in the final documents.
Please remember: We were looking at purchasing a second home we had a contract on. Could we get a bridge loan and buy the house outright? Pay off the loan when our house was sold? He would see what he could do.
One day he called quick to say, watch your account you are getting a wire, and hung up before I could learn anything.

$141K goes in my account, and some days later I get a bunch of checks from the title company to pay off a car and boat loan and some credit card debt. I am left to add up all these costs to find out how much my actual loan is. I wonder if I can not send these out? Clark Howard says not to put unsecured debt into your home, I am sure.
I tell the broker that I was not interested in upping my interest rate and borrowing more money. The broker says don't worry we will refi it right away, and says he will do it soon. The first billing statement comes confirming 430k. I call the bank and asked about paying it down to lower the ghastly $2908.00 payment. I can give back the 140K. The phone call and reading documents tell me that I will have a huge prepayment penalty, and my payments can never be lowered by paying down principle. I can only shorten the length of the loan.
I have spent 15K almost by now on our contract with the owner of our desired new house, and we love it. We were still somewhat safe, our total monthly obligations were less, whether we liked how it occurred or not. We were planning to sell, and Real-estate brokers wanted to list us over 800K.
The broker has us come in again to discuss the bridge loan and the purchase of second home, we sign a third bunch of documents, there was some, date this but not that. He is smooth, and he is the big boss at the big desk in the office.My wife now says, "I wondered why the other guys in the office were giving funny looks." I have learned since that this was another 'fake' closing
We leave the office with no paperwork whatsoever. It should also be noted that there was no notary present, we sat at a desk facing just the mortgage broker, Jason Varela. We never had discussions with the Broker(Parker Stafford) whose name shows on the mortgage as the mortgage broker. There were two or three other men at desks, so he may have been present in the background. On the 1003 it states phone interview with him, and that is not true, this never happened.
We were never made aware of a single financial detail of the loan, we were told that would be determined later. Just sign here, initial there.
A week or so later the quick call from Jason Varela to look for money coming into the account, and 'gotta go', nothing about our purchase. More money, 171k comes in, no documents to look at concerning it. A payment statement comes in the mail later. High 7%. I learn later that I should have been given a three day right of rescission on both loans before they were written and during closing, and had it explained to us by a notary.
When I get the statement from the bank, I do the math on what was sent to my account and how much the loan was to find out how much the money cost. Seemed like a good way to make a living. Calling the bank I learn that if I want to close the loan out I have to pay it all back, thus losing in just a couple weeks a lot of money, like $25000.00...... Broker is unreachable as usual except for his key days. Until……... he contacts us to do the purchase. Only on pay days does he work.
Brief discussion about these troublesome refis, he can make them great later It is all a plan to get my bridge loan. Acts like I am stupid when I ask him about the amount of the loan versus how much was wired to my account. He does not work for free!
The 300k is not enough to buy our new house, we have to pay another 365K to own it. We get a changed contract, adding 30k or more to the price of the house we wanted to purchase. plus more than 2K payments. I realized that he was trying to put me on track for the nine homes he said we could get as small investors before red flags show up, I did not want 9 declining value homes, and made that clear to him.
I realize upon getting this third 1003, with the house being inflated 20% over my contract agreement, that this broker is committing fraud. I had no idea how badly though.
Further, I see that he has stated my near zero income as over $15,000.00 a month. I will not ever sign such a document, that is for certain sure. I am dumbfounded to be somehow legally put in this position, I could not really comprehend it.
I had begun to realize how much financial trouble I am now in, and this is a proposal to add more debt service. I had originally discussed pulling out enough equity to buy the new home outright, we had enough equity in that market. I thought that we might get a 'bridge' loan, and not have to pay until we sold our house. I was not told there was no such thing.
I talk to some brokers from around the country, about using the 300k to pay down these loans. Refi me to a better rate at the same time. I was surprised that no one said they could help. I do the math, if I take it all and pay it on the first mortgage, I will still have many years to pay the $2900.00 and no money to do it. Not to mention the second. If I immediately paid off the second, the bank confirmed that I would be losing all the closing costs and brokers fees. There I was trapped, looking at 300 cash borrowed that would only last 4 years if I lived cheaply.
I put my house on the market and prayed. I searched high and low for an investment that would pay that payment, and service any new debt. All sorts of franchises, tons of types of business's.
I found a hundred unit mobile home park in Lake Charles, Louisiana. It would have saved us, the owners failed to perform on the agreement to sell . I found a 50 unit RV park in Central Texas, it would have saved us, the owners did the math and suddenly backed out of the sale agreement, I found another RV park in upstate NY, the owners backed out on selling, after speaking with an attorney or commercial broker, as the price enabled us an incredible return on investment.
It was impossible for me to figure out where to put that 300,000.00, dwindling monthly by $6,500.00, so that I could pay my home mortgage, and some new debt service on a business that would cash flow enough to pay for both. God……… how I tried!
I somehow let this happen, My stupidity astounds me. Though I know if I had documents before or at closing to study regarding the details, I never would have taken either loan. I had turned down two or more loan packages that came properly in the mail earlier. They came with large payments, and false stated incomes. I would never sign such a statement.
It should be said that this was my first mortgage in my life. It has taken some time to realize all the impropriety. While fighting to keep my house after getting the lis pendis, we get the ‘original note from Homeeq servicing. So two and a half years later I learn that my first loan actually has a 3 year prepayment penalty, 30 year balloon, 40 years amortized. And an adjustable rate! I never would have done that.
After thirty years I would have to come up with 360k or so to keep my house.
Anyone else get duped in such a manner? Getting into two loans they would not have accepted, and then not having a closing or being given any closing documents so they even knew the right to rescind? Now as a further possible insult, I find that my second was a line of credit, and could have been left in an account to draw as desired. Had I known that, I would have chosen that, but I still would have objected to paying so much money up front for the privilege of a LOC. As I did not ask for it and did not need it, and it was not what I was looking for anyway.
I have gotten some documents from the mortgage brokerage, and can see where he plugged in a perfect 31% DTI, with a high false income stated, my signature is below. I would never knowingly accept that, and in the past turned down signing such statements. It looks like numbers were added later, as I do know we signed many blank documents, 'just a formality', much discussion was had as we signed and initialed an inch high pile of paper. I am thinking now that he buried the ones he needed deep in, but I feel certain he must have done some clever copying or something. There does appear to be some whiting out on some of the digital copies.
I am going to dig through phone records; I may have called both banks during the rescission period, though I did not know of such law, and did not have any documents, much less the ‘right of rescission’ one. Neither bank informed me of that even though both discussions involved paying the money back, and my worry about the affordability of the loan.
We soon realized we would not be able to buy the new house, and gave up the contract after spending 25K. Our 800K farm is down in value, not sure to what exactly, all credit is destroyed.
All equity is not only disappeared, it is owed.
Is it possible that the bank could owe me all interest paid, all broker fees and closing costs?
Perhaps even some value for incredible mental anguish for several years so far, near dissolution of my marriage at one point?
It is a provable fact that every possible violation of mortgage law was broken by that broker, his company, the title company, and the rotten lender Novastar whom was backed up by the lesser Wachovia.

The below story is written by a top financial analyst and she makes it so we can understand the Big Banks Crimes. We need more of these type stories published and will be glad if you forward me some.
In the Spring of 2007, Wachovia gave Novastar another 100 million so they could continue to rake in high profit sub prime mortgages for securitization. Novastar knew the game was up and the snared borrowers with a vengence. Mortgage brokers were given the best incentives for writing the worst loans they could fob off on a borrower.
Mortgage brokers were starting to starve and lose their own homes even, so they had great incentives to defraud borrowers with lenders permissions even.
In September 2007 Novastar could write no more, unfortunately I was gigged in late June and July.

Hmmm….I have to find it again…………found it!
Wall Street Is A High-On-Crack Driver That Just Smashed Into Your House by Janet Tavakoli

If a high-on-crack driver crashed his speeding rental car into your house and killed your spouse, you would be outraged if law enforcers took bribes and gave the driver a pass on a blood test. If the judge then merely fined the killer and ordered you to pay it, you would appeal, wondering what happened to justice. If the government then handed the crack-driver keys to a bigger rental car and presented you with the rental bill, you would certainly protest.
How is it, then, that you have remained largely silent in the face of the same sort of behavior by Wall Street and Washington? Bonus-seeking bankers careened off the right path and ran Ponzi schemes that nearly ruined our economy. Bureaucrats and elected officials bailed them out without demanding consequences. Bankers are revving their engines again.
Bankers Get Bonuses, the USA Gets the Great Recession

Taxpayers are asked to believe that over-borrowing by U.S. consumers created a global financial crisis. This myth aids and abets Wall Street. The economy was nearly destroyed because banks borrowed massively, and they borrowed many multiples more than they could afford. Wall Street pumped the Fed's cheap money through financial meth labs, and deceptive financial vehicles ran over securities laws at top speed.
More than 20% of mortgage loans--including originally sound loans--are underwater, meaning the borrower owes more than the home is worth. Official unemployment numbers hover ataround 10%. If you include underemployment, it is around 18%. In depressed areas where the nation's poorest--chiefly minorities--have been hurt the most, unemployment has soared past 30%. For this destitute group, unemployment combined with underemployment exceeds 50%.
As U.S. soldiers fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wall Street flattened Main Street. Our foreign wars drag on, while the U.S. battles a crippling recession at home.
Global Ponzi Scheme
Fraud by borrowers, fraud on borrowers, and speculation by people who thought home prices would rise forever have all tarnished mortgage lending. Yet this pales compared to the epidemic of predatory lending.
Predatory snipers committed financial murder as deliberately as British soldiers sold smallpox contaminated blankets to Native Americans. Honest homeowners were systematically targeted and actively misled into bad mortgage products. Loans were presented as gifts, but these Trojan horse loans hid destructive risk. "Disclosures" were acts of malice.
When Wall Street packaged these loans and sold deceptive "investments," documents did not specifically disclose that credit ratings were misleading. If you know or should know a car's gas tank will blow up, you cannot use a misleading third-party consumer report as an excuse. Yet bonus-seeking bankers used this sort of excuse to get through a few more highly-paid bonus cycles, before it all fell apart. Only the elite crowd of insiders prospered.*
This was the most massive Ponzi scheme in the history of the global capital markets. U.S. taxpayers became unwilling unsophisticated investors when we bailed out the financial system. We must hold Wall Street accountable for its fraud.

More Bonuses for Bankers, a Deeper Recession for the USA
Banks that contributed to our economic distress are heralded as geniuses at risk management, after taxpayers saved them from ruin. Wall Street escaped prosecution (so far), and Congress gave it a faster and more powerful car.
Paul Volcker suggested reforms, and special interest groups successfully lobbied to make them meaningless. His proposal to limit "proprietary" trading--a small step in the right direction--has been thwarted by banks claiming they engage in high risk trades on behalf of customers. Washington seems to have already forgotten that AIG nearly went bankrupt--and nearly took the entire financial system down with it--because of Wall Street's "customer" trades. Wall Street and AIG insiders grew rich on bonuses based on a myth, and taxpayers funded AIG's $180 billion bailout.
Wall Street now makes most of its "profits" from high-risk trading, and rewards risk with huge bonuses. It has unfettered access to more U.S. taxpayer money than in the history of the United States. Traditional banking suffers; it cannot generate enough revenue to "justify" massive bonuses. Bankers get billions in bonuses based on a myth, and U.S. taxpayers get a deeper recession and more risk.
Reform Starts with the President and Congress
Congress has protected Wall Street and passed on the costs to hard-working taxpayers. "Too-big-to-fail" financial institutions are too big to exist, and it is past time to break them up. They currently enjoy around $13 trillion of taxpayer-funded support, including tens of billions of FDIC debt guarantees for each of the too-big-to-fail banks and more than $2 trillion in nearly zero-cost funding from the Fed.
President Obama has not yet condemned Wall Street's massive fraud, and Congress's bailout methods rewarded Wall Street's malicious mischief. The House just passed abigger bailout bill that will give too-big-to-fail Wall Street banks access to $4 trillion dollars the next time they crash the economy.
Congress must start again from scratch, and give us real reform. Washington needs to get back in the driver's seat, and voters need to make Congress steer straight this time by calling and writing representatives and senators.
* In a control fraud, only insider agents prosper. The losers are financial institutions' shareholders and debtors, investors, borrowers, and the U.S. taxpayer. Banks covered-up indefensible lending--enabled by complicit rating agencies, "creative" accounting at related mortgage lenders, crooked CDO "managers," venal hedge funds, crony accountants, and captured regulators. They parked the risk on their own balance sheets, on the balance sheets of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, in off-shore vehicles, or on unwary investors around the globe. Sometimes banks "transferred" risk with credit derivatives backed by phony securities that harmed "sophisticated" insurers like AIG, Ambac, MBIA, FGIC, and ACA--all of which were either bankrupted or damaged.

I return now to my personal saga:
An important issue to note: Our mortgage broker was not allowed to write mortgages anymore for Novastar or Wachovia. Or rather, by their own published standards, usual ones for lenders, he would have been barred. This is perhaps why Harborline mortgage brokers let him pretend to own the office and act like the principle broker there, sitting at the owner Michael Milton’s desk, and discussing the family photos and fish tank and memorabilia as if it were his own.
All those brokers were there listening, there was a jovial atmosphere, great guys all supporting their big boss Jason Varela. Meanwhile, he had no license, and they were conspiring to sign the 1003’s(applications) later.
Oh, we were duped. It turned out that he faked both closings before the same day, then the next meeting was to fake close our new house.
Back to the mortgage standards, Lenders do not let brokers work for them anymore if a single one of their loans defaults within the first year. Mr. Varela, having legally stolen a house from the client that introduced us to him, had refi’d it way up in a declining market, cashing out for himself, then in January, sold it for another 100k profit to one of his new customers, while telling the buyer he would lease it back for a huge monthly profit.
Mr. Varela defaulted on the first lease payment, so the new buyer knew he was screwed intentionally, so he defaulted, never making a single payment.
This owner was served a lispendence, intent to foreclose, a couple months before Mr. Varela was enabled to defraud me.
My loans were written during the final death throws of Novastar, I mean literally one of the final days before declaring insolvency. This was also well into Wachovia’s final efforts to defraud the world’s investors of mega billions. Wachovia stayed afloat another year I think.
Makes me sick, ill, and ever increasingly angry. When I feel awful, I then think of the investors, retirees and the like, that were duped further with the 1000 plus toxic loans in my ‘package’
I did some research, everyone one I look up, is riddled with suspect mortgage fraud, and even though I only looked up ten or so, I came across a default everytime, usually due to the interest reset on an ARM. You could see all the obvious signs of liar loans also. Poor Greece, and the other nation’s peoples that got sold on the value of America. You wonder about why some people from around the world are no longer happy with America? Look past our expansionist warmongering capitalism, in the name of freedom and democracy for all……..
I may lose my farm, the greatest thing I have created, but worldwide, people have lost their life savings to this fraud, I am now 49, and have figured out how to recover. But imagine all the aged folks, counting on secure, sensible returns, probably only 4%.
While the banks and brokers reaped mega billions of up front profits. The worse the loan terms, the higher the profits. Absolutely ridiculous. The government allowing lenders to give the highest rewards for the worst usurious loans.
A paper, or triple A paper, whatever term they call it………call it toilet paper. The banks have wiped their asses with the lives of the people of the entire world, and our last two governments bailed them out for it.

I have been chagrinned that a lot of Americans, all those who did not refi when their house was way up in value, think the rest of us got what we deserved. Well I did not get what I deserved.
I am willing to start paying on my loan, but I feel justified in getting settled for way less due to an incredible mortgage fraud perpetrated upon me, with bank collusion.
My life was ruined for their greed, if at the age of thirty I had not already dealt with severe thoughts of suicide, and its ramifications upon ones family and extended family and friends, I might have pulled the trigger one of these last four years.
I have spent some time looking up suicides, especially older couples committing double suicide, or murder suicide. There is often a toxic mortgage, possibly at the forefront of their troubles. Very sad…….lets bail out the feelings of their friends and families.
Thanks for reading my work in progress,
Ken

Novastar defaults in Lake County

Novastar wrote 315 mortgages in Lake County since January 2004, and to date have filed 124 Lis Pendens. 39.3%

Novastar defrauds borrowers and investors with help

The below story is written by a top financial analyst and she makes it so we can understand the Big Banks Crimes. We need more of these type stories published and will be glad if you forward me some.
In the Spring of 2007, Wachovia gave Novastar another 100 million so they could continue to rake in high profit sub prime mortgages for securitization. Novastar knew the game was up and the snared borrowers with a vengence. Mortgage brokers were given the best incentives for writing the worst loans they could fob off on a borrower.
Mortgage brokers were starting to starve and lose their own homes even, so they had great incentives to defraud borrowers with lenders permissions even.
In September 2007 Novastar could write no more, unfortunately I was gigged in late June and July.
Anyway, The story below is an excellent one.

Novastar Mortgage Fraud in Pasco County

Well, a quick search of Public records shows that from Jan 2005 Novastar wrote 533 mortgages in Pasco County, and have served 233 LIs Pendens since. 49% have gone south. How many more will fail?
Check out Florid stats too:
Pinellas County 713 mortgages, 353 Lis Pendens, 49.5% fail rate
Hillborough County 1256 Mtg's, 598 Lis Pendens, 47.6% Fail rate
Polk County, 900 mortgages,301 Lis Pendens, 33% fail rate
Sarasota County, 35.6% fail rate
Marion County, Since 2004, 325 mtg's, 127 failures, 42%
Keep in mind that more Lis Pendens are getting filed all the time. New York Bank of Mellon appears to have taken control of many of the bad notes and is starting foreclosure suits rampantly.

Pinellas County Novastar Mortgage Fraud

A quick look at Noavastar in Pinellas County, Jan 2005 to Sep 2007 they wrote 713 mortgages. To date they have filed 353 Lis Pendis' filed. 49.5% failures to date!
We know they were promoting mortgage fraud to brokers, Lets prove it with your borrower stories.

Novastar Mortgage Fraud in Marion County

I am studying this issue. Novastar started writing mortgages in Marion County in 1997. They wrote two, One went south less than two years later. 50% fail rate. They continued on a course of high interest, adjustable rate, with many unfavorable balloons until September 2007.

Out of 56 loans they wrote in on 2007 in Marion County, at least 20 went bad, 13 in way under 2 years. That is a minimum of 35% bad loans. While studying these, there were many more that look like they could go bad, there was much evidence in the records of financial duress on borrowers not yet in Foreclosure. 8 more fail, and that will be 50%!

Numbers get worse, there were 325 mortgages written by Novastar from Jan 1, 2004 until September 07. Since then there have been 127 Lis Pendis' filed. 42%!! Now a few of those mortgages were likely written slightly earlier....but my God!

Can the people fight back? I'm trying, please call or write me.

Ocala 100% financing USDA

Good morning, did you know that nearly all of Marion County qualifies for USDA 100% financing? Except for the center of town out to 75 on west side, and about the same distance in all directions, all Marion county addresses are in the USDA 100% zone.
See for yourself, go to the USDA rural home development website and right there you can plug in your desired property address, or view the whole county.
The rest of the qualifications are there also.
Combine that with the tax credit and the current real estate prices, it is time to consider owning a home

New mortgage broker in Ocala Florida

I am a new mortgage broker in Ocala, Florida. New meaning, newly licensed, not new as in new to town. I am licensed with an excellent mortgage brokerage in Tampa, Florida. Bay to Bay Lending, LLC., I started there in early October, 2009.

I commuted for about 6 weeks till Christmas week. Now I am staying in Ocala mostly and drive down for important meetings. One of the owners of the company is our in house processor, when our files go out to the lender, we don't have delays due to error. We can get through lender stipulations that crop up quickly. If you qualify for a loan, we can get it done.

We have many lenders, and Bay to Bay has a plethora of experience in the industry. We do residential and commercial lending. I am currently working on a commercial purchase loan, a purchase involving a short sale, and a home refinance.

I am also working with several clients whom are first time home buyers. I enjoy their excitement.

I start this blog with plans of helping people learn how to get fair financing. I believe strongly in consumer protection, and have a strong interest in preventing mortgage fraud and predatory lending.