Man nearly loses home to foreclosure over 80 cent error
Imagine this scenario. After struggling to make your mortgage payments, you receive notice that you have been approved for a mortgage modification, which lowers your monthly mortgage payment by several hundred dollars. You are excited about finally reaching this long-awaited turning point for you and your financial situation.
But then you are notified that you no longer qualify for the modification because you missed a payment by a whopping 80 cents. This is what happened to a man in Florida who suddenly found himself dangerously close to foreclosure after making an 80 cent typo on his mortgage payment.
The man says that he recently qualified for a mortgage modification, which decreased his monthly mortgage payments by $200. While making his payment over the phone, however, he mistakenly typed in $615.02 instead of the required payment of $615.82, a difference of 80 cents.
He was notified of his error by the bank and sent in a separate check for the missing 80 cents. The next month, however, he received a letter from his lender stating that his loan was no longer eligible for the Fannie Mae modification program because he had not made “all the required trial period plan payments by the end of the trial period.”
He also received a guide from United Way, which was designed to help him prepare for foreclosure. That was when he knew that he was in danger of losing his home. He again contacted the lender, who is reportedly complying with his request to correct the error.
This story has a happy ending, but it sheds light on the ease and quickness with which banks begin the process of foreclosure against Georgia homeowners, whether they have legitimately defaulted on their loan or simply made an innocent error.
Source: Yahoo! News, “80 cent check typo nearly cost man his home,” Eric Pfeiffer, Jan. 5, 2012
