In the summer of ‘04, John and Sally fell in love. Both were in their late 20's and had recently gone through difficult divorces. Life being unpredictable, as it is, put them in each other's paths about one year prior. Since they were both going through difficult times, they hit it off immediately and moved in together. They lived up north in the big city and had always dreamed of moving to beautiful sunny Florida. They both had pretty good jobs, with Sally being an LPN and John working for a medical records company, this is actually how they met, but the living expenses in their area were too high. Purchasing a home together, in the city, was out of the question.
One day, Sally received a nice brochure in the mail from a builder in Florida, Paradise Castles LLC, it was chock full of beautiful shiny pictures of Florida and had a promise that they would build you a new castle in Paradise starting in the mid 150's.
Sally was so excited! Can it be possible? Could John and I really afford to buy a home in Florida? The brochure states we don't need any money and they will pay all our closing costs! Sally could hardly contain herself and couldn't wait for John to get home, so she picked up the phone and called Paradise Castles. She got lucky and a real nice man named Mr. Needermoney answered on the second ring.
"Hello, thank you for calling Paradise Castles, this is Mr. Needermoney, how may I help you?" "Hi" said Sally "I just received a brochure from you, me and my fiancée are interested in moving to Florida. Your brochure said we didn't need any money. That sounds real good to us, since we don't have any. Our credit is a little messed up but we do have good jobs and should be able to get jobs down there pretty easily. Can you help us?"
Mr. Needermoney, is now the one who is excited, there's a live one on the phone and he has a quota to meet, "Well we do have a special going on today, in fact, we are giving Castles away to anyone that breaths. I will have our mortgage guy, Mr. Liarsloan, give you a call."
Sally is ecstatic and can't wait to tell John "We are moving to Florida!" Mr. Lairsloan calls and explains to Sally "We will have to do a stated income loan since you don't qualify on your own and John's credit....well, it sucks. But don't worry, I'll take care of everything for you. Just sign the documents I'm getting ready to send you and send them back with the fogged up mirror I'm including. No, no, no ....it's not lying, it's called a no document, no verification loan, I do them all the time. Just do what I ask and we'll get you in that Castle in beautiful sunny Florida."
Eight months later, they loaded up the truck and moved to Paradise. Life was grand! It was heaven! Their new home was beautiful and their future looked bright. Sally had found out a week before leaving the big city that her new job did not pan out but that's OK. We're moving to Paradise anyway and we will figure out what to do when we get there. Of course, when they arrived, they were surprised to find out that the jobs they were used to getting paid $25 an hour for, in the big city, only pay $15 in Paradise. Sally decided to go to work for Wally World while she waits for a better job and John.....well John just decided "I ain't working for no stinkin' $15 an hour. I'll keep looking."
They got real lucky though. They had purchased their home at the right time and by the time the construction was complete and they moved down, it had appreciated about $35,000. Not only that but they got stuff in the mail everyday from really nice folks that said they qualified for an equity loan of $35,000. WOW!! This really is Paradise. So, like any young couple in love, wanting to start a new life together, they pulled all of the equity out of their home to hold them over until Sally found a better job and John started work.
They also decided there was really no need to wait any longer for that new furniture they needed. So they bought some new furniture and really had the house looking good. The new couch was soooo comfortable John decided he would just sit there all day and play video games on the new plasma big screen. He'll have much better luck finding a good job in the spring time. After all, we have enough money in the bank to carry the house for six months and the way values are going up we can always refinance again, if we have to.
So on and on it goes.......................John left Sally in mid '06. She was too stressed out for him. The house is in her name, so what the heck...John decided to go back to the big city and move in with his parents.
Sally called me last week. She hasn't made a house payment in three months and wants to sell. She hates living in Paradise. All she has done for two years is work to try and make ends meet. She refinanced again after John left. She owes $210,000 on the house and now it's only worth $185,000 and declining rapidly. Her heaven turned into hell. And Broker Bryant can't do any thing about it. Sally's a nice person and I feel for her. But I can't help. I can't perform miracles. Her house WILL be foreclosed on. THE END
So whose fault is it? Does it really matter? All Sally ever wanted was a better life. If Mr. Needermoney and Mr. Liarsloan didn't "help" her she would have found someone else to. Would she have found you?
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