A Tale Of How The Wolves Wolfed Up The Wolfes’ Home
I recently read about a couple, the Wolfes, who purchased a home they couldn’t afford. Now I know what you are thinking… “What’s so unique about that? Just about everyone’s been doing that”. Well, yes you are right. A large, too large for comfort, number of people took loans they could ill afford and are now ruing it as they find it difficult to repay them. However, this senior couple had more than just this much of bad luck. They took this house because their agent promised guaranteed financing. Many predatory lenders resort to this trick wherein they tend to loan money to people with bad credit with the express purpose of taking their home.
Now that they had fallen prey to this lender and realized that they couldn’t make payments on their mortgage, they decided to sell off their home and move to a smaller, more affordable home. A real estate company contacted the Wolfes and sent them a form to sign. The company claimed that this would expedite the sale of their home. The couple was expecting to save some money from the profit of the sale. What the Wolfes didn’t realize was that they had signed the last page of a quitclaim! This meant they had lost all rights to their house and the profit from the sale — a profit of $125,000!
By the way, if you’ve fallen prey to such a lender, you don’t have to panic. You do have legal recourse. While each of the individual steps these companies take are generally legal, when you look at the whole picture, the deal becomes what the court system calls “unconscionable”. All you need to do is get in touch with the attorney general’s consumer protection division.
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