Sandwich Couple Swindled Out of their Home

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Irwin and Inger Young live in an 1876 New England farm house in Sandwich, in some ways it’s their dream home.

It’s near Irwin’s job - where he makes about $50,000 a year managing a restaurant.

Inger loves the spot; beautiful views, space, a short walk to a perfect swimming hole on the Cold River.

When they bought it in 2002, they knew it would need some serious work.

Six years later, it still does.

Insulation is exposed; the downstairs bathroom is missing a wall.

When you look up in the kitchen- where the ceiling ought to be- you see the bottom of the Young’s bathtub.

In the spring of 2007, after five years of endless home repairs, Irwin says they just couldn’t keep up with the expenses anymore.

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IRWIN YOUNG (IRWIN): 11:06 March is when I started falling behind. Bills kept coming. She’s telling me I have to pay this...and I made the same amount of money, but there was so much going wrong with the house....By May everything was in turmoil.

Financial struggles and tension in the marriage led to a separation.

Irwin rented an apartment in town.

But already tight on cash, the family couldn’t afford that and their mortgage payment.

By June they were facing foreclosure.

One day that month Inger got a phone call.

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YOUNG: 8:56...she introduced herself as Yvette. She said, she was from Houston Finance. She said she helped a lot of people stay in their house in my position.

DG: Groups like Houston Finance and Leasing are known as home mortgage rescuers.

They reach out to homeowners who are desperate to save their homes.

Later that summer, the Young’s say Houston told them it could buy their mortgage for $88,000.

That would cut the Young’s mortgage almost in half.

Irwin saw this as an opportunity to save the house, and a real chance to get ahead.

So they gave permission to Houston to talk with their mortgage holder Countrywide.

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IRWIN: 3:!1...Countrywide had accepted the short sale for $88,000...I was all happy about it. I told her, the payments are going to go down.

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YOUNG: 6:12......I was so happy and proud. We fixed this, we came through it again. One more time.

DG: In October, the Young’s drove down to Houston’s office in Manchester to finalize the deal.

But as soon as the Young’s walked in, something felt wrong.

Yvette- the woman they had been talking to all these months- was waiting for them.

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YOUNG: 3:16...she said there’s a glitch, she called it a glitch that we had just found out about...you are just going to have to lease it temporarily.

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EB:....classic bait and switch.

DG: That’s Elliot Berry, the Young’s attorney.

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EB: 15:33...The Young’s get no cash out of the proceeding, they get their mortgage settled out...and a lease and option to repurchase.

DG: That’s not the deal the Young’s believed they were getting.

Up until then they had never heard anything about leasing their own home.

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YOUNG: :12... she could see I was getting upset over that. And she made it worse, if you don’t sign them, they are going to foreclose.

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EB: 9:45...it’s take it or leave it. if you don’t do it. it’s game over. The house is foreclosed upon.

DG: So they signed.

But to their surprise, an altogether different company- Rockpoint Management became the new owner.

On the same day, Rockpoint turned around and sold the property to a third party.

So now, Sarah Mattson, the Young’s other attorney says a new bank holds a new mortgage on the house the Young’s still live in.

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SM: :25...We have no way of knowing what is going on with that loan. If it’s getting paid, if it’s behind. If it’s going to have a foreclosure auction tomorrow.... If that loan doesn’t get paid, they are going to want this house.

DG: Franklin Pierce Law Center Professor Peter Wright says Rockpoint’s sale to that third party is a big problem for the Young’s.

Even though there’s a new law that helps protect homeowners from these types of scams.

PETER WRIGHT: 1:42 the homeowners right to cancel the deal expires upon the sale of the residence to a third party...what it basically means, once the transaction gets beyond the scammer and the title of the property ends up with...a third party, innocent or not, the homeowner can no longer use this statute to unwind the deal.

DG: No one from Houston Finance returned a call for comment.

The New Hampshire Banking Department has taken action against Houston in the past.

And the Young’s lawyer, Elliot Berry says his office- New Hampshire Legal Assistance- has received a number of complaints against them.

EB: 1:48 we think there is enough smoke here to believe that there is fire and that somebody should at least make them accountable for the number of ppeopel who have been involved with them who have lost either their home, or substantial amounts of equity in their home.

DG: Berry has called on the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Bureau to look into the matter.

The Bureau says it has one complaint against Houston, but would not comment on any possible investigation.

The Young’s court case is scheduled for next month.

In the meantime, everything is on hold.

Projects wait, half done, the Young’s unsure whether to invest in something that might soon be lost.

But there’s one thing they can’t wait on...the cord wood they need to heat the house this winter.

They say they’ll buy it, not because they’re optimistic, but because they don’t know what else to do.

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YOUNG: 19:31 everyday, everyday, everyday I am afraid I will come home and find something on the door. I try not to think about that. I try to have faith, in god, this is wrong. And justice will be done. What else can you do?...we have to try to fight for what’s right.

For NHPR News, I’m DG