Boston Retiree Faces The Boot From Family Home Of 50+ Years After Being Victimized In $500K+ Home Equity Ripoff

In Boston, Massachusetts, The Boston Herald reports:

• Nancy Henry could be spending Christmas out on the street. In what her attorney called a mortgage swindle, the 76-year-old retired accountant is facing foreclosure of the two-bedroom row house in Cambridge that has been her family home for more than 50 years.

• "I’m supposed to be out by Dec. 15, but I don’t know where I would go,” said Henry, who lives in the home with her adult son. “I’m praying something can be worked out at the last minute, so I can stay put.”

• Todd Kaplan, an attorney with Greater Boston Legal Services,(1) said Henry was the victim of a complicated scheme to deprive her of the home and take more than $500,000 of equity from the property that was never repaid, forcing the foreclosure. “Miss Henry was the victim of a scam to deed over her house,” Kaplan said. “She is facing eviction and holding on by her fingernails.”

• Henry said the scammer promised to sell the home for her and use the proceeds to purchase a ranch-style house where she could live on one floor. Instead, she said, the man sold the home - which has an assessed value of $443,000 - for $228,000 in 2007 to a “straw buyer” and “flipped” the property six months later for $580,000. The new “owner,”, with Henry still living in the home, took nearly $500,000 out in home-equity loans that were never repaid.

• City Life/Vida Urbana, a Boston anti-poverty agency, organized a “stop the foreclosure vigil” at Henry’s home last night. They argue that the mortgage holder, Provident Funding Associates, should stop the eviction while any one of several solutions is explored. They want Provident to agree to sell the house to a Cambridge nonprofit as an affordable home or rental. Sarah Billeri, the attorney representing Provident Funding Associates at Harmon Law Offices, did not return a call seeking comment.

Source: Homeowner to be on street after alleged scam.

See also Cambridge resident says she was scammed into foreclosure.

(1) Greater Boston Legal Services provides free civil (non-criminal) legal assistance to low-income people in Boston and thirty-one additional cities and towns, ranging from legal advice to full case representation, depending on client need.