Non-English Speaking Parkinson's Sufferer Loses Home In Foreclosure Of $20K Home Equity Loan

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

• Hong Zhang Lin lost his home in Oakland's Fruitvale District in a foreclosure auction this month. The 44-year-old former construction worker, who is disabled by Parkinson's disease, can barely believe it. He's not a subprime borrower, he has a huge amount of equity in the home, and he has made all his mortgage payments on time. The four-bedroom house, which Lin and his two brothers bought in 1992, is worth about $500,000; he only owes $94,000 on the mortgage. But he evidently stopped making the $135 monthly payments on a $20,000 home-equity loan. The loan was with the bank division of Countrywide Financial, the same lender that carries his primary mortgage (Editor's Note: Lin was current on his primary mortgage). Countrywide initiated foreclosure proceedings and sold the house to investors for a bargain price of $190,300 at an Oct. 2 auction on the Alameda County Courthouse steps.

For more, see Face of foreclosure crisis - Chinese-speaking Parkinson's sufferer.

For story, see Foreclosed Oakland home returned to family.

Editor's Note: The problem here may be, in large part, due to the apparently miserable notice requirements that exist in California in connection with foreclosing mortgage lenders' obligation to provide notification to homeowners of pending foreclosures. The foreclosure notification requirements in the state of Maryland, a state with arguably the most homeowner hostile foreclosure process in the country, are currently in the process of being challenged in a Maryland appeals court by the Public Citizen Litigation Group, as being in contravention of a policy set forth by a recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that dealt with the constitutionality of notification requirements in foreclosures sales (see Due Process Being Trampled By Maryland’s Home Foreclosure System, Argues Appeal). Given the situation that happened in this story with the Parkinson's disabled homeowner (and given that no "red flag" went up at Countrywide, which held both mortgages on the home - one of which was current), maybe someone should make an assessment of the constitutionality of the California foreclosure notice requirements, which would allow a case like this to happen.