Foreclosure for Man Who’s Never Missed a Mortgage Payment
By Foreclosure-Fighter Staff Writer
As adjustable-rate mortgages reset across the country, thousands of families are finding themselves unable to make payments and are receiving notices of foreclosure. Questionable lending practices during the housing boom have been blamed for many of the loans going sour today.
But the tragic foreclosure of one Maryland man raises concern about foreclosure law, as well.
According to reports from the Baltimore Sun, Kwata Atta Poku, an immigrant from Ghana currently working as a taxi driver in Columbia, Maryland, lost his home to foreclosure in 2005. The unusual thing? He'd never missed a mortgage payment.
The Sun reports that Poku decided to refinance his loan two years ago, so he went to Washington Mutual, the bank that held his mortgage. But Washington Mutual allegedly never received Poku's settlement check and first payment on the new mortgage loan.
Sources indicate that financial institutions that handled the money were responsible for misplacing the check and accompanying paperwork. And, indirectly, for causing Poku's foreclosure.
When Washington Mutual assumed Poku had defaulted on his payments, the bank reportedly foreclosed on his house and sold it. Maryland law only requires 15 days for a foreclosure to run its course—which doesn't leave much time for action for the homeowners who are taken off-guard.
In fact, court orders to stop foreclosures in Maryland can take as long as 30 days. Poku's defense lawyers are apparently hopeful that the ruling of the Appeals Court will be in Poku's favor and set a precedent that could change the way foreclosures are handled in Maryland.
But most people are not optimistic about Poku's chances.
One judge from the appeals panel expressed the complexity of the situation by recognizing that Poku had been wronged, but Maryland law had no provisions to right that wrong: the house was sold—how could the judge take it away from the new owner, who has no knowledge of Poku's situation?
And it's a sticky situation. Maryland's narrow time constraints only add to the overall difficulties. Even though Poku reportedly took only a matter of weeks to hire an attorney after he learned about his home's foreclosure, he didn't act quickly enough.
Experts say he would have had to file an injunction to stop the foreclosure or file a lawsuit against the settlement company, its agent, or the bank involved before the 15-day foreclosure ended. Many of the attorneys involved have agreed that the situation will likely be dictated by technicalities.
Poku's lawyer has acknowledged that, because the sale of the house has already taken place, there is nothing to "get back" for his client, reports note. By filing the suit, the lawyer was apparently hoping to win Poku some of the money he funneled into mortgage payments on the home.
Because the foreclosure proceedings followed Maryland's law, though, most people involved with the case believe Poku's chances of winning anything are slim.
Representatives from Washington Mutual have supposedly admitted that Poku did nothing wrong—unfortunately, they may not have, either. Because a third party's error caused Poku to lose his home, liability isn't easy to identify.
His lawyer reportedly hopes the judges' ruling in this trial will open the door for Poku to move forward with a negligence claim. But, so far, that doesn't look too promising.
Poku's foreclosure met all the technical requirements for foreclosure under Maryland law. He never missed a mortgage payment, and now he's out of a house. Hopefully, his case will alert lawmakers to some of the serious flaws plaguing foreclosure legislation.