Stop Foreclosure Answer

Earlier this month I read a story which really had an impact on me. It was about how people, a credit counseling service and politicians helped a Man suffering from Cancer and his family save their home from foreclosure. His mortgage company was inflexible. However, many people they didn’t even know jumped in to help the family out.

Let me tell you about it.

A man in New Hampshire, Angelo Kontarinis, has cancer of the kidney. He was diagnosed with it in 2007. By the fall of 2008 the cancer had spread to his lungs and brain. Angelo had been an adjunct professor at an art institute. As his disease progressed he had to stop working.

As you can see the cancer now is in advance stages.

Angelo and his wife contacted their mortgage company, Taylor Bean and Whitaker. They had not missed any mortgage payments. They knew that with all of their expenses and with Angelo unable to work, they would not be able to continue to make them. They wanted to work with Taylor, Bean and Whitaker to modify their mortgage.

The people at Taylor, Bean and Whitaker told them that their company would not consider modifying their mortgage payment until they missed the monthly payment for three months. Angelo and his wife fell three months behind on their payments.

They then found that the mortgage company would not even talk with them. For five months any time they were in touch with Taylor, Bean and Whitaker, the company’s representatives were rude to them. In late April of this year the Kontarinis family received a letter from an attorney. The letter indicated that their home would be auctioned off on May 8.

Angelo and his wife figured that they and their children were destined to be homeless. After he became aware of his cancer, Angelo has found a forum on the internet for people with cancer of the kidney, their relatives and friends and doctors. He found that on that forum he could get advice, support and encouragement.

He decided to let the people on the forum know that his home was being auctioned off. So he posted a message about it. He didn’t realize the support that he would get.

The people on the forum jumped in to help out. They called and emailed Taylor, Bean and Whitaker over and over again. One person called the company about 21 times. Angelo’s supporters also got the office of a Consumer Credit Counseling Service and some of the politicians in his area including a state senator involved.

On a Thursday night at the end of April Angelo and his wife were shocked. A case manager for Taylor, Bean and Whitaker called them. In 10 minutes this case manager modified their mortgage lowering their interest rate and monthly mortgage payment. The new payment is one they can make. All of this was done over the phone and in 10 minutes.

When I read this story, my heart went out to the Kontarinis family. Angelo’s condition is severe. He did not have to endure the added burden of possibly being foreclosed on and having to move. I wondered if the anxiety he was experiencing from this aggravated his cancer.

I was glad to see how people most of whom he did not know came to his aid and went to bat for him with Taylor, Bean and Whitaker. They were the ones who were instrumental in getting the mortgage company to change their position and to modify the mortgage.

The way Taylor Bean and Whitaker handled this right from the start is disgusting. They should have never treated Angelo and his wife the way they did. Rather than being rude they should have been empathetic. They could have gotten all the information they needed much earlier and modified the mortgage much earlier.

The sad thing is Taylor, Bean and Whitaker is not the only mortgage company that acts this way. Similar complaints have been made about other mortgage companies. I am sure that you have heard similar stories on radio or television. You may have read about them in the newspaper, a magazine or on the internet.

This is one of the reasons I recommend that people facing foreclosure get help from a lawyer or an expert in the field. They know what these mortgage companies are doing and know how to deal with them.

Anyone facing foreclosure should not have to experience anything like this.

Much Success,

Mark Elkins