Military Wives Try to Avoid Bank Foreclosed Home

Military families have to deal with the difficulty and emotional hardship of seeing their loved ones fight war overseas. And the experience is even made difficult if they are facing the possibility that their properties would be added to the growing statistics of bank foreclosed home.

The Soldiers and Sailors Act was enacted to help military personnel on active duty avoid repossession until their tour of duty is done. But the law failed to protect one military family in Las Vegas, Nevada who is facing the threat of foreclosure.

The Las Vegas wife does not want to let her husband, who is currently deployed in Iraq, to know that their house is in danger of being taken by a bank. She explained that two months before her husband left for Iraq in May, utility bills and other fees started to weigh heavily on their finances.

She said that she and her husband acquired their current Las Vegas home three years ago thinking that they could afford to pay for its monthly mortgage. It turned out that the monthly mortgage is way beyond their capacity to pay.

The house went into foreclosure shortly after her husband left for Iraq. But until now she does not talk to her husband about the foreclosure threat and how serious it is. She said that she does not want to place more burden on her husband, adding that being far away does not help resolve the problem.

She turned to loan modification to help her save her home from foreclosure. Her lender, Countrywide Mortgage, said that it is not the company’s practice to foreclose on properties of military personnel on active duty.

However, this seems not to be the case with the Las Vegas wife who claimed that Countrywide Mortgage wants to refinance her home loan with a 14 percent interest rate which is higher than the loan’s original terms. The wife sought the help of a consumer advocacy group to re-negotiate her home loan with Countrywide Mortgage.

For the first half of this year, Las Vegas’ foreclosure activity was six times higher than the national average rate. According to market data, one in every 13 homeowners in Las Vegas received a foreclosure filing during the period compared with one in every 84 national ratio.

By Cassiano Travareli