Ms. Patmon first sought out the assistance of ACORN Housing on May 8, 2008. At that time, she was six months late on her payments and was scheduled to have a court hearing that would have set a sale date for her home. She had owned her home outright but was convinced to refinance. After the first refinance, she was caught in the vicious cycle of refinancing every two years in order to avoid upcoming interest rate adjustments. Carolyn is disabled and her only income is her monthly disability check. With each refinance her payment had climbed higher to the point where she was only able to make one payment on this loan.
Her loan had recently been assigned to Loan Care Servicing, which is notoriously hard to deal with. A proposal was sent to them on June 2, 2008. This set into motion a 10-month fight during which Carolyn became a active ACORN member appearing in various media outlets, testifying before the Florida House of Representatives and meeting with Governor Charlie Crist.
On July 7, 2008 we received a modification offer that would have left Carolyns payment the same. We fought with Loan Care over their decision even having a conference call with them to go over her budget line by line. On September 15, 2008 we received a second modification offer that would have decreased her payment by only $65 per month. Carolyn was ready to accept this offer in order to stop her sale date but shortly thereafter was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer which had metastasized to her liver. She had a lengthy stay in the hospital, and shortly after she came home had a heart attack on New Years Eve. At this point, I told the lender that they really dont want to put a dying woman out on the streets.
After another four months of battling with her lender, her case was resolved on April 13, 2009. Her payment was reduced from $925 to $275 with a repayment-to-modification agreement!!
