They Got Their Home Snatched…
Like thieves in the night they came, they saw, they conquered…
Now, who are these perps?
Well, they’re the securitized trusts/predatory third party investors/shadow bankers — aided and abetted by rogue billionaires — who saw a good thing in the wake of the 2008 meltdown and zeroed in on families like the Breitlings.
Looking at the Breitling brood which currently numbers six daughters, one son, five sons-in-laws and sixteen grandchildren — with another on the way — what sort of image do comes to mind?
Loving, warm and fuzzy folk; down home family values? Perhaps the fulfillment of the American Dream, secure in the here-and-now, looking forward to a well deserved retirement?
Well think again…
The Texas-based Breitlings have lost two homes; one to foreclosure and another to 2017’s Hurricane Harvey.
The latter was a disaster and one wrought by nature. The former: well, that one was wrought by greed, pure and simple, and reprises the same story told by millions of Americans: a tale of sketchy foreclosures brought about by a class of characters that wanted your home so bad that they would do anything to snatch it and, by anything, I mean forge documents/lie in Court/ignore the most basic rules of civil and moral conduct.
The Breitling family should have had an easier time.
I’ll let Joann describe it in her own words:
We bought our home in Sachse, Texas, in 1982. Sachse was a small community of 7000 people, northeast of Dallas. Sachse was the perfect place to raise a large family. The house had a huge backyard, and I envisioned a lot of children playing in that yard.
That vision came to pass. My husband worked as a Dallas Police Officer (prior to that he joined the Navy and served 4 years with the Marines), I worked in a government job, and we were your typical married couple.
In 1983, with four daughters, I gave birth to our son Matthew, who was born with Down syndrome and congenital heart disease. Our world was about to become very different. Our son had to have two open heart surgeries, I became pregnant for a 6th time, and medical bills were consuming us.
In 1994, with six daughters and our son Matthew, we borrowed $50,000 and did $50,000 in home improvements. We saw this as our forever home. After my husband had a series of health issues in the 90’s (open heart surgery and a major back surgery) Texas had changed the laws and became the final state to allow homeowners to borrow from the equity in their homes. So in 2000, we took advantage of the new law and took out a Texas Home Equity Loan. It was going to enable us to consolidate a lot of medical bills, and we now had two daughters in college, and two more about to go to college.
The broker told us that because of our debt to income ratio, we would be in a high interest loan for two years, but after two years we could refinance again and get a lower payment again. We were put in a 12.375% interest rate, which was predatory. We were trapped in this loan and nothing that the broker told us was true. When we became involved in a legal battle and I obtained documents I learned that the broker had signed our names to closing documents and that the loan was closed with no title. Our original refinance was with Aames. They went out of business about six years later. We had paid them two payments. Then our loan was sold to Weyerhause and we made about eleven payments to them. Servicing rights were transferred to Countrywide, and we paid them until Sept or Oct of 2007. Then servicing was transferred to Wilshire and we paid them nine payments and in May, 2008, I was notified that MGC would be taking our payments, and they would contact us.
Now, I’m still not certain exactly which of Dante’s circles of Hell are populated by home snatchers — skells and lowlifes — but I’d guess there’s lots of room in Circle IV (Greed); Circle VII (Violence) and unlimited space, no doubt, in Circle VIII (Fraud).
Enter: Andy Beal, one of the richest men in Texas and a guy who flies under the radar screen.
A Billionaire and like many Billionaires he likes living the good life…
He’s a dabbler; dabbling in high stakes poker; dabbling in assorted ventures like a Richard Branson-style start-up: a privatized space rocket business that went bust.
But Beal — an amateur mathematician who knows numbers — also dabbled with real estate and when you play sub-prime poker you’re looking at pots in the trillions and when you’re in a position to buy the best lawyers and PR folk; know the Judges and the politicians, you’re nestling four aces.
In 2008 he founded two companies: MGC Mortgage and the LNV Corporation and they began to hoover in the so-called distressed mortgages; the Breitling’s among them.
While Beal has tried to keep out of the limelight his machinations did attract the attention of an investigative journalist, David Dayen (his 2016 piece for Intercept references the Breitlings).
I defer to JoAnn:
When we never received a welcome letter in 2008, I looked online, found an address for MGC Mortgage and mailed it using our social security numbers. The payment was lost and then misapplied. I sent our next payment by courier and it was not cashed for 2 months, so I stopped payment on it.
Andy Beal — Breitling alleges — used his LNV Corporation to drag her and her attorney through endless court confrontations while they challenged numerous assignments from Deutsche Bank (a usual perp) to Ellington Mortgage Partners to LNV; pointing out that in the usual robo-signing way of doing business all said assignments were signed and dated the same day: March 21st, 2008.
We finally had been approved to refinance away from this horrible loan in July, 2008 but MGC could not provide us a payoff quote saying we were not in their system! By the time they gave us a payoff, the housing crisis of 2008 was upon us and no one was lending anything. In November, 2008, MGC told us not to send any further payments, that we were being transferred to their office in Sudbury, Massachusetts. When they told us that I realized we were caught in a scam. Why else would they transfer us from an office 12 miles away to one 2000 miles away. It was a sickening feeling.
Ironically, for many homeowners who descend down treacherous foreclosure shoals there remains a hopeless optimism; after all, many come to Court armed with reams of research spelling out fraudulent behavior on the part of lenders and servicers — robo-signing; broken chains of title, et al — and believe that our system of Jurisprudence will support their efforts on a level legal playing field.
Well, if you believe that, try imagining a victorious ascent to the peak of Mt. Everest in nothing but your skivvies.
Traps are set at every turn; every corner and like the Viet-Cong’s infamous punji sticks that killed unsuspecting American GI’s, these legal traps are formulated to deliver a knock-out blow to any homeowner; discouraging further pleadings for foreclosure salvation.
An aside: While traveling down Dante’s foreclosure inferno the wary homeowner may pass a strange but alluring sight. Emulating the Sirens of Greek mythology representatives from places like Bank of America may be yodeling out very attractive offers for loan modifications: Just miss a payment or two, that’s all, they’ll sing, and for those who’ve taken the bait they realize — too late — that after sending in pages and pages of required documentation they were also dual-tracked. In banking parlance: while promising a modification the bank has also started foreclosure proceedings.
Dazed and confused homeowners plead: what happened? I thought I was going to get my loan modified? The bankers respond: we’ve looked at your documentation and you don’t qualify for a modification. Please exit the premises and never darken our — not your — door ever again.
The Breitlings were lucky to have family and and after getting bounced from their Sachse home they moved into a house purchased by one of their daughters; a roof over their heads, providing a refuge from the storm.
While continuing to do battle with Beal in Court; desperate to win back their old home, the unthinkable occurred.
Hurricane Harvey struck just as they were settling in.
They were down but not out.
After spending seven months in hotels — and with lots of help from family and friends - they’re back home in Kingwood; albeit far from feeling normal. They still suffer from what only can be termed foreclosure PTSD.
JoAnn Breitling still fears Andy Beal and his unpredictable and vengeful behavior.
Ironically, Samuel Breitling spent thirty-two years in a PD uniform patrolling the streets of Dallas in search of bad guys; now the Breitlings count themselves as victims of Bad Guys in expensive garb and these perps are running free, hiding in plain sight. Check out their lairs: boardrooms in New York (Goldman Sachs); Charlotte, NC (Bank of America), San Francisco (Wells Fargo); West Palm Beach, FL (Ocwen) and Coppell, TX (Mr. Cooper a/k/a Nationstar).
The real tragedy that infuses the story of the Breitlings — and millions of other ordinary Americans — is that there’s really no one out there, currently, to do the policing — to serve and protect — against those who rob and steal in the name of profit.
As Woody Guthrie mused in his iconic ode to Pretty Boy Floyd; a dust-bowl Robin Hood:
… Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
I’ve seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen…
I’ll allow JoAnn to deliver parting thoughts:
I am sure none of the judges we encountered realized the implications of ruling against us. Andy Beal must have spent close to one million dollars in attorney fees to take away our humble $220,000 home. For him, he HAS to win, If he loses even one case, his entire scheme starts to unravel.
Neither Beal, nor the attorneys, nor the judges, realized that taking our home of 35 years, where our kids had grown up, and where our dogs are buried, would have dire consequences for us.
We are in our 70,s and it is too much to hope for that life will ever be normal for us again. On a pension, we can never replace the possessions we lost. We will not live long enough.
We do not ever want to be “victims” again! I now say “We survived Harvey.” Someday, I hope to even be able to say “We survived foreclosure.”
Touche!
Joel Sucher is a co-founder of Pacific Street Films (together with Steven Fischler) and has written for a number of platforms including American Banker, In These Times, Huffington Post and Observer. com.
