It’s just not fair that a homeowner who trusts a lender to provide expert advice gets put into a mortgage that leads the homeowner down the road to foreclosure. What’s even sadder is when this happens to a senior citizen and his disabled wife who don’t have a lifetime to start all over again.

Consider the story of Johnnie Lee Bussie who is 73 years old and lives with his 78-year old disabled wife in Atlanta, Georgia. The Bussies are in danger of losing the quaint home they have owned since 1999.

The Bussies are fond of collecting small angels which they proudly display in their living room. But no angel could protect them from the fate that has befallen them following their encounter with a mortgage lender in June of 2005. At that time, the Bussie’s then existing mortgage loan was refinanced by the lender with two complex loans that are now in default and the subject of this foreclosure. The Bussies say that the lender failed to explain to them that it was extending them two mortgage loans with two separate monthly payments.

The Bussies thought they were getting one fixed rate mortgage. Instead they were given an adjustable rate mortgage with a low “teaser rate” for two years which meant that the low initial payments were only temporary. They also were given a second loan from the same lender which will require a balloon payment of $24,400 at the end of 15 years.

When the loans were made, the Bussies were living primarily on fixed retirement income yet the adjustable nature of one of their loans required higher payments after the first two years, payments which the Bussies could ill afford. When the inevitable occurred after the first two years, the Bussies were facing a March 4, 2008 foreclosure date. They were able to stop the foreclosure when they obtained a loan modification from the lender. However, even with the loan modification, the Bussies have not been able to afford their loan payments and are now facing foreclosure once again. The Bussies aren’t the only ones who have had a failed loan modification. This leads us to ask the question, why are so many loan modifications failing? A loan modification in name only does no one any good and unfortunately, too few so-called “modifications” are structured with this in mind. For a modification to really benefit both the lender and the borrower, it must be one that is sustainable for the long term and keeps the homeowner in their home making mortgage payments they can afford to avoid foreclosure.

The Bussies’ lawyer has been trying to save their home and has offered to settle their two mortgage loan obligations with a short pay-off using with the proceeds of a FHA-insured reverse mortgage. On December 9, 2008 the lender refused this offer. It would be a tragedy to see the Bussies lose their home in this way, a tragedy that is being repeated too many times in this nation.

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