Adding new uncertainty
in the state’s ongoing mortgage crisis, a Texas company is aggressively
pursuing hundreds of Californians to collect second-mortgage debt – on homes
they’ve already lost through foreclosure.
Many of these former homeowners
believed their mortgage debt had been erased after their houses were taken by
banks and lending companies. But the Texas company, Heritage
Pacific Financial, has aggressively pursued collections and filed lawsuits
claiming those debts still linger.
For Ahmed Abdelfattah
of San Jose, debt collectors started calling in 2009, saying he owed Heritage
Pacific $135,000. He said he’d never heard of the company before.
“It’s been a nightmare,”
Abdelfattah said. “It’s cost me money and time, and they ruined my credit until
now.”
Oscar Trejo said his
first encounter came a few days before he expected to exit bankruptcy and get a
fresh financial start. That was in November 2010, he said. Heritage Pacific
sent Trejo, who also lives in San Jose, a letter saying it had asked a
bankruptcy judge not to discharge, or erase, its $88,800 claim against him.
Trejo invested in
properties in Merced and later lost them all in foreclosures. But he hadn’t done
business with Heritage Pacific. “I had never seen the company’s name,” he said.
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