Just on CNN:

Woman lives in home for 27 odd years. Has no job. Lives with disabled daughter. Only income is $1200/month in Social Security disability.

Some time before February 2007 she refinances her mortgage to save money. In Feburary her rates go up around $400 and she can no longer afford the monthly payments. Her church helps her with payments for 2 more months and then just stops payment. Now she is being foreclosed on.

They show footage of her fluffy calico cat and her cluttered kitchen. She’s bundled up in a coat because they say she can’t afford to pay for heat and pan to an old electric heater in a room packed with crap.

Then they bring on her lawyer who goes on to explain that she shouldn’t have been able to get the refinanced mortgage because the contract has her income wrong. Zero monthly income from employment on one page (correct, she’s on SSD) and something like $3900/month on some other page.

They then comment on how she’s afraid of losing the house and how it’s run down panning to the attic door which obviously has water damage.

Now here’s the problems no one bothers to bring up but is pretty damn obvious.

1. The contract is void. No good. It needs to go to court to figure out if it was fraud or negligence but either way the contract should be suspended till it’s decided. She hold some responsibility for not catching the error but the bank should have caught it too. Again… either way it’s an invalid contract. If the mistake was intentional than I see no reason not to just let the old contract stand and perhaps the bank would pay punitive damages.
2. She stopped paying the mortgage. Why does she not have money to pay for heat? If she can’t afford it now with the money she hasn’t spent on the mortgage she couldn’t afford it before the rate increase last February.
3. Why the hell, beside to stir emotions, did they mention the house was in disrepair? If she didn’t keep the house in shape after she stopped paying the mortgage I doubt very much she did before the whole thing happened. I know many of people who have home in disrepair. All of them could easily and cheaply repair their home by asking their congregation for help… but they don’t. It doesn’t take much money or effort to replace an attic door. The roof which leaks likely I’ll give you is expensive and difficult to fix but I know personally there are government grants to repair them.

This shit really bugs me. I’m reading John Stossel’s Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity right now and it’s full of this kind of crap.

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