A Brush with Foreclosure...
A Happy Ending to a Nightmarish Story

Queen Palmer stands in front of her house, which HUD helped save from foreclosure

Willie and Queen Palmer had lived in their small ranch home in Bellwood, a sleepy western suburb of Chicago, for nearly thirty years. One day, Willie picked up a circular on his front stairs from Beneficial Mortgage, a subsidiary of lending giant Household International. Palmer died soon after he signed the loan papers, so it remains unclear if the circular promised to help him consolidate his bills, to provide funds for renovations, or for some other purpose that was especially pressing. What is clear is that he took out a 12.49% loan of just over $92,000 to refinance the mortgage in 1999. Closing costs were over $8,000.

Mrs. Palmer states that she was unaware of the terms of the loan until her husband passed away and she found herself saddled with monthly payments of more than $1000 on one income rather than two. Since she was unable to keep up the payments her home soon went into foreclosure. At the suggestion of friend and neighbor Detroit FHEO Program Center Director Yvonne Poindexter, she called the Chicago Program Center and filed a fair housing complaint.

In Palmer v. Beneficial Illinois, HUD Case #05-03-0917-8, Beneficial Mortgage admitted to no wrongdoing or violation of the Fair Housing Act, but agreed to the terms of the conciliation agreement negotiated by Senior Equal Opportunity Specialist Gordon Patterson. The agreement included a waiver of over $7800 in overdue interest and a reduction of the complainant's interest rate from 12.491% to 0% for the life of the loan, resulting in a reduction of her monthly mortgage payment, from $1,066 to $534.

In addition, although this is not mentioned in the text of the formal agreement, Patterson also convinced Beneficial to waive an additional $10,746 in accumulated foreclosure expenses, further decreasing the financial burden on the complainant. Beneficial also interceded on Mrs. Palmer's behalf and requested that she be allowed to become part of a class action suit for which she had missed an important deadline, and as a result she was able to realize an additional $1600. The picture above was taken on a recent early spring morning as Mrs. Queen Palmer, now in her eighth decade stood in front of her home of more than thirty years, a home she almost lost but for the intervention of HUD's Fair Housing division.