She took out a loan and paid $28,000 for a small home in Gallagher, a former coal camp where she grew up. The simple, coal company-built house — known in West Virginia’s coalfields as a “Jenny Lind” home — didn’t have much insulation. The bathroom ceiling was falling in and windows needed replacing. But it was home for Timmons and her boys and she was willing to get her hands dirty and fix up the place, doing the rehab work herself.
By 2006, she says, she decided she needed money to continue her renovations.
“I wasn’t desperate, but I was in need,” Timmons recalls.
She talked to a mortgage broker about refinancing her mortgage and pulling some cash out to make repairs and pay some debts. According to a lawsuit Timmons later filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court, she told the broker she wanted a fixed-rate loan that would roll her property insurance and taxes into her monthly payments.
She claims the broker promised her a loan with $622-a-month payment that would be fixed for two years, after which, the broker said, she could refinance and keep a fixed rate.
The appraisal was done by a West Virginia-based real-estate appraiser named Mark Greenlee. He put the value of the home at $75,000 — a figure that was double the actual market value at the time, Timmons’ lawsuit claims.
When she closed on the refinancing in November 2006, Timmons’ suit says, she didn’t receive a federally required ”settlement statement” that laid out the costs and details of her loan.
The $67,500 loan was funded by WMC Mortgage Corp., a subsidiary of General Electric since 2004.
Read on.
No comments:
Post a Comment