AIG,, Morgan Stanley,, Merrill Lynch,, Bear Sterns,, Et al Complaint

AIG,, Morgan Stanley,, Merrill Lynch,, Bear Sterns,, Et al - Unworthy mortgages caused financial melt down

As a result of the Financial Melt Down propagated by companies like AIG, Bear Stern, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros, Morgan Stanley, et al caused my wife and I to loose one or more of our properties as well as possibly filing for bankruptcy. At least three of the named companies are involved in our mortgages in Florida. Their possible law breaking actions, greed and mismanagement has created a melt down of the financial system in the United Sates, placing my wife’s and my physical and financial will being in ruin. Is a class action lawsuit appropriate? And if so are there any that you are aware of that we can join?

Back in the summer of 2005 we received a call from a childhood friend who had a business concept for us to consider in Florida. We both did not have a pension coming to us so we were looking to purchase some low cost homes keep them until we retired and then sell them one at a time to help supplement our retirement. Sounded like a good plan at the time.

This individual was in the process of getting his life back together so we were a little apprehensive about entering into a friendly partnership with him. Before we agreed to anything we went down to Florida for a visit and all seemed great so we proceeded. Together we purchased two and half duplexes. He had no credit so in order to purchase these homes my wife and I had to hold the mortgages in our name. Still being a little apprehensive about this individual, my wife and I thought that if things did not pan out at least we owned the property. We never anticipated a national financial melt down that was fueled by greed on Wall Street. For the first year things were great, Stu was in complete charge of managing the properties because we lived in New York and he lived around the corner from the properties in Florida.

Toward the end of the first twelve months we started to suspect that something was going wrong. We started to receive late notices and insurance notices. To make a long story short we found that he was not paying the insurance bills and the mortgage payments were being sent in late. All the properties were being rented and he was helping himself finance his gambling addiction. We separated ourselves from this individual, took back total control of the properties and spent a lot of money to get things back on track. The properties were also immediately put on the selling block. We found it to too difficult to manage everything from here in Rochester, NY.

With the initial problem resolved and behind us we were confident that we would be out of this situation by selling everything off in Florida. Shortly after the properties were put up for sale the bottom started to fall out from below us as a result of the greed on Wall Street. Four of the properties were purchased for around 100,000 and the fifth for just above 100,000. According to the Real Estate Agent, the properties were priced right. However we were not attracting any interested parties and we started to lower the price just to unload them. We were interested at this point to just break even or even take a small loss. Things as you are aware continued to deteriorate and the values of these properties, when we purchased them, were valued at 135-145,000. Today we still cannot sell them for 69,000. To make matters worse we were not able to find tenants, even through a property manager, for the last 12-14 months, which meant that we have been carrying all five mortgages all this time without a means to supplement the payments.

The national financial melt down resulted in hitting us from two sides that we have not been able to recover from. Tenants were hard to come by because businesses were closing at an alarming rate. Many people were leaving the area to find work elsewhere and then there were more houses for rent and sale than not. My wife and I were not one of the people who added to the financial melt down by making a purchase, as an example, of a home for 500,000 but could only afford a 100,000 home. The proof of that is that we spent approximately 100,000 to keep everything current. Our credit was important to us so we did not walk away like so many other people did. We tried to do the right thing.

The other effect that the greed on Wall Street contributed to was that now our life savings account has lost better than 50. Having said that we no longer had resources to continue to pay all the mortgages. Say nothing to the fact that retirement in the next five years is out of the question.

As I stated previously, my wife and I have always felt strongly about maintaining our credit in good standing. I cannot remember a time, before now, that our credit rating was not in the mid 700s or higher. The bank of one of the properties sold the mortgage to a company called Wilshire Credit Corp. of Portland, OR. Back in May of 2008 I starting calling them telling them of what we were facing and if there was something they could do to work things out with us. We wanted to create a win-win to be able to maintain our good credit and keep on paying the mortgage. If nothing else we were looking for some relief from the 11 interest rate we were being charged. We were told that because our payments were up to date their policy was that they could not help us. They also said that they were not interested in helping due to the fact that we were using this property as rental income and not a primary residence. After being persistent, in June of 2008, they finally had me send in our financials and other information. This went nowhere for four months and things were rapidly worsening for us financially. In September I spoke with a non committal rep at Wilshire who said that I had to miss three or more payments before they would consider letting me place the house as a short sell or take the Deed in lieu of Foreclosure, which when it was explained to me was much better than being in foreclosure. Desperation was starting to set in so we stop making payments to Wilshire.

I had our attorney get involved and he received information from Wilshire stating that they would entertain a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure or a short sale. Two weeks ago they served us in New York with a summons from Florida to foreclose on this particular property. Wilshire has refused to return any of my attorney’s calls and my wife and I are just devastated. We were in the process of trying to down size from our large colonial home to a smaller ranch for health reasons. Several large and local banks have told us that Wilshire has destroyed our credit and there is no way we can get a new mortgage. On the actions taken by Wilshire we could be on the verge of Bankruptcy. All other mortgages are up to date and in good standing so the only black mark in our financial history is Wilshire.

Our government has bailed out the very people who have placed my family and so many other families like mine into jeopardy of loosing everything. Where is the justice? Wall Street continues to collect year-end bonuses that are mind-boggling; these individuals remain personally financially solvent while we no longer sleep at night worrying that we could loose our primary residence that we worked so hard for so many years. Where is our “bail out”, how we get someone to help us or show us how to go about getting our situation reversed and our good name and credit restored?

We did nothing wrong or dishonest nor were we being greedy. We were trying to help ourselves to retire with some money in the bank when all along it is being driven into our brains, from our own government, that you need to be prepared that Social Security will not be there for you when you retire. Taking the warnings seriously we were taking responsibility for our selves as we were being cautioned to do. The government has failed the average person on “Main Street” on so many levels that it is hard to believe and comprehend.

My wife and I are looking for restitution. We have been harmed beyond belief both physically and financially. How do we get involve in starting or getting added to any existing lawsuits against these malicious, greedy and mismanaged companies? It seems to us that they need to be held accountable, stop the greed and do the right thing. The government is certainly not doing that.

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