Bay Area Resident Facing Foreclosure Gets Nothing In Sale Leaseback Of Home; Sues Foreclosure Rescue Operator

In San Francisco, California, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story on an area homeowner facing foreclosure and her experience with foreclosure rescue operator, Diversified Management Consultants, a Sacramento company. With her home loan in default and a leaky roof, she reportedly entered into a sale and leaseback arrangement with this company in which: (1) she would receive up to $100,000 from the home sale, (2) her rent would be half of her mortgage payment, (3) she'd get assistance in improving her credit score, (4) she'd have the chance to make money referring other people for similar lease-back plans, and (5) she was assured that she'd be able to buy back here home after two years. She said that the promised benefits didn't happen and that she signed away her house and got nothing.

Excerpts from the story:

• [The homeowner] thinks she fell victim to a classic foreclosure rescue scam. She has filed a civil suit against the investors alleging that they used "predatory bait-and-switch tactics ... designed to take both her money and her home."

***

• Public records show the new deed holder refinanced [the homeowner's] house with new mortgages totaling $698,000. That's $170,000 more than the $528,000 Bridgewater said she owed. In a typical sale, [she] would have received that $170,000 minus fees and commissions. Instead, fees and costs exceeding $165,000 were disbursed from the mortgages, her lawsuit said. The only item that directly benefited [she] was a new roof, valued at about $6,600.

• A week after [the homeowner] signed over title, the investors said her monthly rent to stay in the house would be $2,900 - almost double what she had told them she could afford.

Assisting her with her lawsuit against the rescue operator and others is the Predatory Lending Clinic at the University of San Francisco, and the San Francisco law firm Liuzzi, Murphy & Solomon.

For more, see Enticing deals in the mortgage crisis often are too good to be true.