Unsuitable Mortgage Leaves Financially Strapped Staten Island Senior Back In Foreclosure

In New York City, the Staten Island Advance reports:

• Behind the big lenders headlining the subprime crisis are smaller fraudulent players, who experts say played a role in the foreclosure crisis now gripping Staten Island and the nation. A new state law, which requires all people who originate mortgages in New York to undergo criminal background checks and fingerprinting, could help cut down on criminal behavior. It's a measure Islander Elizabeth Giammarino wishes had been in place when she dealt with two mortgage makers back in 2006.

• The same two men were recently arrested in Florida on drug charges. And one, Annadale resident Joseph Crapanzano, already had a criminal record for a real estate scam even before he promised to find a loan to help Mrs. Giammarino's mother stop foreclosure on her Great Kills home. But 75-year-old Rose Marie Giammarino only sunk deeper into debt and back into default after Crapanzano and Mark LaMassa got her an "interest only" $350,000 mortgage in 2006. The loan doubled her monthly payments and was due to be paid in full after one year -- an impossible proposition, attorneys at the Homeowner Defense Project at Staten Island Legal Services argue in court papers.

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• Elizabeth Giammarino said she learned only on closing day that the money was coming from a private individual, not a bank. She balked at the high interest rate and monthly payments, but said she was afraid to back out because foreclosure of her mother's home was imminent. "I was at the point where I thought I had no choice," she said.

For more, see Good Faith, Bad Loans, More Misery (Woman, 75, seeking to keep her home falls victim to a system with few restraints).

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