It appears that with enough dedication and effort, a homeowner may be able to literally embarrass a lender into reversing a foreclosure. Tanya Dennis, the disgruntled borrower who made headlines several months ago by barging into a Wells Fargo shareholder meeting and publicly berating the participants, has succeeded in getting a principal write-down and having her mortgage – and her ownership of the home she’s lived in for 27 years – reinstated[1].Dennis is a California resident and the former vice-principal at Castlemont High in Oakland. She was evicted from her house after Wells Fargo foreclosed on the property nearly 18 months ago, but promptly broke back in and changed the locks in order to continue living there[2]. All of her efforts were very public and received a great deal of media coverage, particularly after she publicly confronted the bank’s CEO during a shareholder meeting and was removed from the meeting. She also sued Wells Fargo and appealed her case after its dismissal (representing herself the entire time), confronted Wells Fargo’s regional president for the San Francisco Bay Area, mobilized homeowner advocacy groups on her own behalf – including the now-defunct ACORN – and convinced multiple state senators to write to Wells Fargo in her support.
The lender has agreed to change the amount that Dennis owes on the home from $484,000 to $365,000. A spokesperson emphasized that this has “nothing to do with her [Dennis’] efforts, but is because the bank wants to keep homeowners in their homes.” Dennis sees the resolution differently, joking that “They had to deal with me to pacify me and get me out of their hair.” A Wells Fargo representative says that the modification could have been done months ago if they could have obtained “the proper information” from Dennis, but emphasizes that “If we can resolve this situation, I think everyone will be happy.”
Do you think that this is just a loan-mod gone awry, or did the bank cave in to public pressure?
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[1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44263534/ns/business-real_estate/#.TlfP5qgmbW4
[2] http://www.baycitizen.org/housing/story/squatting-homeowner-beats-bank/
Caved into public pressure – absolutely caved. Also, she had a great amount of knowledge to present her case.
Oh, public pressure, definitely public pressure! and that nonsense about having the proper documents? H-orse Hooey! The bad guys here are the banks! they DO NOT want to keep people in their homes because the government is paying them MORE to foreclose than to modify! This needs to be reversed and the only way to do it is an informed and very, very vocal electorate! Good for you Ms. Dennis! You are a modern day hero in the company of Robin Hood!
Caved into public pressure, I have pages of notes where Wells Farto lied to me about a loan mod, strung me along. No newspaper will publish the notes and names of those who lied to me, THEY ALL STINK Good for this lady, I wish I had the money to fly to a shareholders meeting and do the same. CAN I SAY IT ENOUGH, WELLS FARGO EXECS ARE LIARS, LIARS, LIARS, ALL IN IT FOR THEIR OWN GOOD AND GREED
wells fargo has a loan mod dept they refer to internally (themselves) as “the black hole”. two guesses as to exactly what that means…? you want a loan mod from the baks who have securitized the loan? not gonna happen. and if it does? you just won the lottery.
As a Realtor watching all these home owners illegally thrown out on the streets for the past 4 years, while the banksters and servicing companies lied to these home owners saying “Oh yea your good just keep sending in this $ amount per month and your going to be fine, long enough to collect from these home owners as much in pocket then pull the rug from under them and foreclose, while the courts allow this is a shock to what I once knew… These poor people /families /kids /animals thrown out of their home and lied to by these bastards! on the tax payers dime.
Their have been families who killed their entire family thinking their was no other way out, their were people who hung themselves or put the gun against their head and pulled the trigger!! THIS IS MURDER ON THE BANKSTERS AND ALL INVOLVED. They made these people FEEL WORTHLESS, as i said these B*stards. Lets face it they lost the paper work deliberately while home owners were sending in and making the partial pymts as agreed, & turned around & intentionally with premeditation foreclosure anyways, They collected insurence of 80% of full loan amount owed and then turned around and sold the securities/assests that they had no legal claim to in most cases, it was freaken free money for them on stolen assets under a system who allowed this. (some watch dogs)
Jenniffer Quinn / Realtor Dare to care.
Yes they caved to pressure. People provide the “correct paperwork” all the time and do not get modifications as a result. I wish more people would stand up and
loudly object to the way the lenders step all over the distressed borrowers today. Breaking into the shareholders meetings and engaging the media is an excellent way to get attention to the problem. Its just a shame that that’s what a homeowner has to do. I commend her for her actions.
Seems to me that if she was organized, persistent and passionate enough about her home to do all that she could to keep it, that Wells caved because they did not want her to have a loan mod no matter how much paperwork they wanted. I speak from experience, I have made over 11 loan mod attempts, could afford the new loan mod payment with living expense money left over and now they want an audited P&L from a CPA. There isn’t one that will put their name to my cause without having a prior relationship and Wells is making up rules as they go along. Wells gets more money foreclosing, they.. are.. LYING… when they say they want to keep people in their homes!
Why didn’t she just get a part time job and pay what she owed on her mortgage? Ms. Quinn, as long as you are paying your mortgage “on time as agreed” you do not get foreclosed upon. Banks and mortgage holders do not “owe” anyone a modification. Think of this, you loan your cousin $100,000 for a private mortgage, in todays market you loaned the money at current market rates of 4.6% they stop paying you because now the house is only worth $70,000 and they want you to reduce the payment and knock the mortgage down to $70,000 owed, is that right? You loaned them $100,000 and now they want you to pay for the shortfall, well, were you going to make money if the house went up? Nope, they just want you to take the hit. This is exactly what happened in this case, it is no different yet somehow the banks are the bad guys? The sense of entitlement that people have is astonishing, who do you think ends up paying for these modifications? Yep, we the tax payers pay for these through higher taxes and through poor performing stocks which are in our pension funds, our 401k’s, IRA’s and held by our insurance companies. I’d like to see what Ms. Dennis’s life is like, is she living a life of frugality? No cable TV, no cell phone, carefully calculating out each trip to reduce costs? Too often people want to enjoy their Cable TV, cell phones, texting, highspeed internet access, big screen TV’s, newer cars while not paying their mortgage, I see this in my group of friends at times. When times are tough, you have to cut costs.
I’m a landlord. If the tenant doesn’t pay, they don’t stay. The same applies to home ownership. On the other hand, I will work with the tenant to try to work things out if there’s a job loss or medical problem. Banks also are understanding if there is a legitimate “hardship”. Everyone doesn’t deserve a loan mod. When she broke into her home, changed the locks and moved back in (after it was foreclosed and she was evicted) she broke the law! She should be penalized for that. She did not have a right to do that! I believe someone should fight to keep their home but that was not the way to do it.
Fraud nullifies a contract so Stephen and Owen the bank had no right to foreclose upon my property in the first place. They had securitized my note in January 2007 which means that they had been paid and as a result of this action put be in a position of double jeopardy. ALSO most people don’t know that your home is paid for the moment you sign a promissory note. It it wasn’t worth anything how come Wall Street pays for your note? People need to read Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt to truly understand that they are a part of a huge Ponzi Scheme.
If the banks were so innocent why are they settling with the AG’s for their misconduct. I had a World Savings Bank Pick-a-pay loan, also known as “toxic waste” in the industry. By the time I defaulted I owed $80,000 more than when I took out the loan.
As for ACORN being a corrupt organization Owen, please don’t paint everyone with such a broad brush. If that is the truth than every priest in the Catholic church is an abuser of young boys, all Republicans cheat on their wives while preaching family values and all Black people steal. There are bad apples in every group. For the most part ACORN did some wonderful things for the poor and immigrants. The new organization name is ACCE and the people are honest people working for positive change. We are currently helping people stay in their homes, bring good jobs to Oakland and quality transportation to the masses. We have been joined by Just Cause, SEIU, Oakland Teachers and Oakland Community Organizers and many faith base groups. If ACCE was a corrupt organization I don’t think these groups would associate with us. We’re also a part of a national organization called the New Bottom Line and we’re staging a week of action at the end of September to demand that banks clean up their blighted foreclosed homes instead of putting on you tax payers; pay their fair share of taxes and give principle reduction for distressed homeowners. We are the voice of the voiceless and have saved many people’s homes.
As for my victory. I hope it tells people not to go quietly into the foreclosure night without hope. The banks were unregulated and they committed crimes against us. It has been established that 80% of the loans have some form of fraud in the execution. Before you take cash for keys, find out if there were breaks in the chain of title, whether securitization took place, whether there were illegal cognovit clauses in your contract which constitutes fraud, whether there was misrepresentation and deceptive advertising and whether you Bank committed RICO when they sent your note across state lines for their unjust enrichment.
I paid this note for 18 years,……….became critically ill for eighteen months and was unable to work until I had major surgery that saved my life, that’s why I defaulted in the first place. I’m not a deadbeat homeowner, I’m not living beyond my means and I did not commit a crime repossessing my home. Wells Fargo foreclosed on my second equity line of $27,000, did not give me proper notice (illegal)and sold my home back to themselves for $27,000. At all times I was in possession of my 1st. The first supersedes the second. The reason Wells Fargo didn’t have me arrested is because they knew this.
I know firsthand what Tanya went through from the beginning. A major part of the story that is still untold is the malicious and devious behavior of the attorneys for Wells Fargo, as well as the outrageous treatment she got in the courts. Wells Fargo and their attorneys got away with violation of rules of procedure, specifically rules on service of notices and documents. They blindsided her, which is the only way they could foreclose. From there, it was like fighting against an enemy that speaks their own language, owns and rigs their own battleground. However, Tanya fought as hard as anyone could, standing up for what she knew to be right — World Savings Bank induced her into a fraudulent pick-a-pay loan that was doomed to fail from the beginning, which was then acquired by Wachovia, another major purveyor of fraud, then finally Wells Fargo. Tanya and others like her are fighting because banks don’t actually provide home loans, they dupe people into what’s actually a highly complex financial engineering vehicle to create trillions in Wall St. profits! The “borrower” is the tool, is left uninformed and excluded from the stream of revenue. It’s time to blow the lid off this ponzi scheme. Call your attorney general and the White House today and demand full prosecution of banking fraud. The banks should be split up and nationalized anyway because they aren’t supposed to be our masters who create perpetual debt servitude that’s mathematically impossible to break free from. Remember, money is power and the FED and banks control it all!
Yes, it was public pressure that made Wells Fargo do the wrong thing..
A contract is a contract and when a home buyer signs his name, it should mean something. Nowhere does the Note say, “Except in hard times.”
I understand that the government pays the banks the total amount of the loan when the banks foreclose, plus they get the money from the re-sale. If this is true, the banks have a good incentive to foreclose.
When a homeowner gets behind on payments and foreclosure procedures are started, the homeowner has to pay all the back payments plus costs, to reinstate the loan. Even those who become able to once again pay the mortgage payments, can’t come up with that lump sum.
I think the homeowner should be allowed to prove they can again make the payments and all the missed payments and fees should be tacked onto the end of the original mortgage loan. Just my 2 cents worth.