Today, I won't write in my own words. I will let homeowner, Sheryl Sutter, tell you her story. Sheryl has written a letter to her neighbors, which she shares with us. It is my pleasure to welcome Sheryl Sutter to Voices Against Foreclosure.
Sheryl?
This is an apology to our neighbors, our neighborhood and our city.
We apologize for how our home has deteriorated and how, it may seem that
we have been neglectful of our home. We have lived in our home and in
this beautiful city, for almost nineteen years; and for many years we
were very involved in trying to better our community and in some ways
are still involved today, although, as you will see, we have been busy
in other avenues of bettering, hopefully, our country when this is all
said and done.
In 2004, after a very destructive year in our lives
(the death of our son-in-law and grandson, the loss of a job and a son
serving his country in Iraq); we were forced to refinance our home and
unfortunately for us, had dealt with a loan company that, within six
months after our “closing”, would receive a Cease and Desist letter from
the State of Michigan for illegal practices. We would learn this fact
after the bank tried to illegally foreclose on our home in 2006. We
discovered that the involved lender had blatantly forged my husband and
my signatures to the mortgage document, notarized that document and
recorded it as legal tender at the Lapeer County Register of Deeds.
We
spent the next six years, fighting the bank, over a crime that, had we
committed, would have sent us straight to jail, paying restitution and
suffering the consequences that go along with that type of decision. We
not only had to fight the bank; we had to fight the very court
(bankruptcy) that we reported this crime to. The trustee hired an
attorney that jumped on the bandwagon to win an avoidance of the forged
mortgage, only for that same attorney to turn around, after we won (in
July 2007), and attempt to sell the avoided mortgage back to the
defendants for $30,000, without notifying us or our attorney; an action
which would have allowed the guilty defendants to retain their interest
in our property and continue with their illegal foreclosure. We were
forced to pay the trustee’s attorney over $12,000 for his “services”.
This
erroneous decision by the bankruptcy court, before determining whether
the bank had a legal right to an equitable mortgage, caused us to appeal
the resale of our voided mortgage to the US District Court. This
courts determination was that the bankruptcy court had not determined
whether the bank had a legal right to have an equitable mortgage, based
on the forgery, and sent it back to the lower court for a determination.
The bankruptcy court, upon the receipt of this remand, immediately
determined that the defendants were eligible for the equitable mortgage
and, again, we were forced to appeal to the US District Court. The
final determination deemed that the bank did not have the legal right to
have an equitable mortgage. This action caused the bank to file an
appeal to the US 6th Circuit Court, where, finally, in January of 2012
the higher court denied the equitable mortgage.
Most would consider
this a big win, however, if this was a big win, I wouldn’t be sitting
here, almost seven years later, feeling compelled to write this letter
of regret. The entire time that we were embroiled in this fight, we
were continually told that we were not to make any repairs to the home
(after all it might go back to the bank). The bank (six years after the
avoidance of the mortgage and a year-and-a-half after the circuit
court’s decision) still have their names on our deed and have placed
forced insurance upon our home that has been billed to us on our ever
growing “escrow” that we weren’t entitled to when we actually had a
mortgage…and the coup de grâce, the bank is reporting that we are over
80-months delinquent on our non-existent “mortgage”.
We have had to
hire another law firm to straighten out this mess and after speaking
with our lawyer, this will be another long, drawn out affair. We have
attempted to file a claim against the insurance, however, it is likely
the bank will rescind the insurance based on a “mutual mistake of fact”
(the original servicer, midway through the appeals process sold the
non-existent mortgage to another servicer)…so, in other words, oops,
sorry we didn’t tell you that the mortgage we sold you had no validity,
no hard feelings.
We have contacted every agency that we can think
of to try and get help with our situation, only to be told that because
our credit is shot we, most likely, would not be able to get any help if
there was any help available in the first place.
There is no quick
fix for us. We decided to stand up against a crime that was committed
against us and this is the consequences of an average American going toe
to toe with the banks. They will chew you up and spit you out without
any regard for the laws that govern us, the “average” Americans. So,
therefore, I feel compelled to apologize to my neighbors and community
and let you know that this is not what we want and every day we make
strides to overcome what the last ten years has done to our lives. I
will not apologize for fighting a crime or standing on principle, but I
know that my decisions now have consequences for my neighbors and
neighborhood. I hope that this will at least give our neighbors answers
to the why “it is what it is”.
Sheryl L. Sutter
Lapeer MI 48446
http://mortgageforgery.wordpress.com
Thank you Sheryl, for being my guest and sharing your compelling story. I would like to invite you back for an update in the near future. Thank you again.
