- J
- R
Hello. We are Jan and Keralee Peterson. Thirty-one years ago, when we started our family, we could never have imagined the sequence of events that led to our posting this campaign. We need $37,500 by Wednesday, May 25th 2016, to save our home for us and our family.
Our problems started two years ago, when Jan lost his job the day before Keralee was going in for a total knee replacement surgery. Keralee had the surgery, and during her recovery, Jan was looking for employment and doing some contract work to pay the bills. Finally, Jan received an offer of employment that looked pretty good, but with the problem that it was out of state and would require the family to relocate. Keralee, obviously, could not relocate until she had fully recovered from her surgery (and she had a pending surgery to have the other knee replaced, as well, in a few months).
Jan headed out to California to take the job and keep income coming in for the family, with the expectation that Keralee and our children would join him in October when Keralee had recovered from her surgerys. Unfortunately, things did not turn out as planned, and Keralee was diagnosed with lupus and needed to stay in Utah where her doctors that were familiar with her complete medical condition were located. Keralee and Jan determined that it would be best to find a job back in Utah and not relocate after all.
In October, while Jan was home for a four day weekend, he had a surgery to remove a suspect mole from his back (tests had shown that, while it was not malignant, it had potential to become so and the doctor advised that it be removed as soon as possible). Jan signed up for short term disability to cover the month that it would take to recover from the surgery (the removal had some complications and resulted in a much longer than normal recovery). After three weeks, however, we found out that the short term disability application was denied by the insurance company. This meant we had gone about a month without pay. Jan returned to work in California, but three days later was told that his services were no longer required. We were out of work again.
Back in Utah, Jan was able to find a job with another company after only being out of work for about a month. Things were starting to look up again, but we were still behind on everything at this point and were struggling to get back on top of things. Keralee's health condition also continued to decline and we started seeing an immunologist to try to determine what was going on and what treatments were available (Keralee has suffered from health problems over the years, including having to have had a kidney removed ten years ago, two bone infections that required treatment with IV antibiotics, and having to be on supplemental oxygen).
Around this time, the IRS advised us that they would be garnishing our wages for back taxes in the amount of $50,000. While we knew that we did not owe this amount, we were unable to get the IRS to listen to us. The new job that had looked so good in December ended up not being everything it was advertised to be. The company did not have sufficient work to justify Jan's position, and even changing to two different roles in the company was ineffective. Jan was out of work a third time within two years. Finally, Jan was able to secure good employment in August 2015 and has been stably employed since then, but again we were playing catch up on everything.
Around this time, we started getting notices that our home was in danger of foreclosure. We started exploring options, and ended up taking out bankruptcy in October 2015 to relieve us from the collection efforts of the IRS and to save our home from foreclosure. We thought we were finally on track to be financially stable by the end of the bankruptcy in five years. We very carefully made all of our payments on time for the next several months.
In January, our minivan (a 1999 Chevrolet Venture) broke down with a failure in the engine that would cost over $4,000 to fix (way more than the van was worth). Now we were also without a vehicle. We discussed this with our lawyer who advised us that after our bankruptcy was confirmed, we could petition to add additional debt and buy a newer vehicle that would be somewhat reliable. Until then, however, we would have to rely on our daughter's old Jeep (and the public transportation system) to get around.
In March, we found out that our lawyer had taken a new job and would no longer be able to represent us. He handed our case (which had still not been confirmed yet) off to another member of his firm. Around this time, the mortage company filed a motion in our case to be relieved from the stay because they did not have any records of payments we had been making since November 2015 (we had documentation of these payments, but never received notification about the motion or we would have objected at that time).
Our first indication that there was an issue with our mortgage was on May 2nd, 2016, when a notice was attached to our door indicating that our home would be sold at auction on May 27th. We contacted our new lawyer to figure out what was going on and what we could do about it. At this time, we discovered that the mortgage company had been released from the stay in April. We asked our lawyer to take action to protect us from losing our home and also contacted our mortgage company.
Our mortgage company has no record of any payments since January 2015. They claim to have no record of payments we made since November when the bankruptcy was filed. We have supplied them with copies of relevant bank statements, but they have not processed them yet. Our lawyer is planning on filing a motion for an injunction to prevent the sale, but we have no guarantee that the court will accept the motion or that it will be granted. Our lawyer has also attempted to contact the lawyer for the mortgage company to explain the situation to them and get them to delay the sale until the mortgage company has time to review their records and find the missing payments.
The mortgage company has told us that we owe $37,544 that would bring our account current. While we do not believe we owe this full amount (due to the payments we have been making), we are out of time to resolve the problem. We are asking for funding to meet this amount so that we can save our home from foreclosure. We are under a hard time limit as our home will be sold on Friday, May 27th.
We would greatly appreciate any help that any of our friends and associates can supply in helping us to get this taken care of. This will save our home of the last sixteen years for our family. Please help us in any way you can. Thank you.
Our problems started two years ago, when Jan lost his job the day before Keralee was going in for a total knee replacement surgery. Keralee had the surgery, and during her recovery, Jan was looking for employment and doing some contract work to pay the bills. Finally, Jan received an offer of employment that looked pretty good, but with the problem that it was out of state and would require the family to relocate. Keralee, obviously, could not relocate until she had fully recovered from her surgery (and she had a pending surgery to have the other knee replaced, as well, in a few months).
Jan headed out to California to take the job and keep income coming in for the family, with the expectation that Keralee and our children would join him in October when Keralee had recovered from her surgerys. Unfortunately, things did not turn out as planned, and Keralee was diagnosed with lupus and needed to stay in Utah where her doctors that were familiar with her complete medical condition were located. Keralee and Jan determined that it would be best to find a job back in Utah and not relocate after all.
In October, while Jan was home for a four day weekend, he had a surgery to remove a suspect mole from his back (tests had shown that, while it was not malignant, it had potential to become so and the doctor advised that it be removed as soon as possible). Jan signed up for short term disability to cover the month that it would take to recover from the surgery (the removal had some complications and resulted in a much longer than normal recovery). After three weeks, however, we found out that the short term disability application was denied by the insurance company. This meant we had gone about a month without pay. Jan returned to work in California, but three days later was told that his services were no longer required. We were out of work again.
Back in Utah, Jan was able to find a job with another company after only being out of work for about a month. Things were starting to look up again, but we were still behind on everything at this point and were struggling to get back on top of things. Keralee's health condition also continued to decline and we started seeing an immunologist to try to determine what was going on and what treatments were available (Keralee has suffered from health problems over the years, including having to have had a kidney removed ten years ago, two bone infections that required treatment with IV antibiotics, and having to be on supplemental oxygen).
Around this time, the IRS advised us that they would be garnishing our wages for back taxes in the amount of $50,000. While we knew that we did not owe this amount, we were unable to get the IRS to listen to us. The new job that had looked so good in December ended up not being everything it was advertised to be. The company did not have sufficient work to justify Jan's position, and even changing to two different roles in the company was ineffective. Jan was out of work a third time within two years. Finally, Jan was able to secure good employment in August 2015 and has been stably employed since then, but again we were playing catch up on everything.
Around this time, we started getting notices that our home was in danger of foreclosure. We started exploring options, and ended up taking out bankruptcy in October 2015 to relieve us from the collection efforts of the IRS and to save our home from foreclosure. We thought we were finally on track to be financially stable by the end of the bankruptcy in five years. We very carefully made all of our payments on time for the next several months.
In January, our minivan (a 1999 Chevrolet Venture) broke down with a failure in the engine that would cost over $4,000 to fix (way more than the van was worth). Now we were also without a vehicle. We discussed this with our lawyer who advised us that after our bankruptcy was confirmed, we could petition to add additional debt and buy a newer vehicle that would be somewhat reliable. Until then, however, we would have to rely on our daughter's old Jeep (and the public transportation system) to get around.
In March, we found out that our lawyer had taken a new job and would no longer be able to represent us. He handed our case (which had still not been confirmed yet) off to another member of his firm. Around this time, the mortage company filed a motion in our case to be relieved from the stay because they did not have any records of payments we had been making since November 2015 (we had documentation of these payments, but never received notification about the motion or we would have objected at that time).
Our first indication that there was an issue with our mortgage was on May 2nd, 2016, when a notice was attached to our door indicating that our home would be sold at auction on May 27th. We contacted our new lawyer to figure out what was going on and what we could do about it. At this time, we discovered that the mortgage company had been released from the stay in April. We asked our lawyer to take action to protect us from losing our home and also contacted our mortgage company.
Our mortgage company has no record of any payments since January 2015. They claim to have no record of payments we made since November when the bankruptcy was filed. We have supplied them with copies of relevant bank statements, but they have not processed them yet. Our lawyer is planning on filing a motion for an injunction to prevent the sale, but we have no guarantee that the court will accept the motion or that it will be granted. Our lawyer has also attempted to contact the lawyer for the mortgage company to explain the situation to them and get them to delay the sale until the mortgage company has time to review their records and find the missing payments.
The mortgage company has told us that we owe $37,544 that would bring our account current. While we do not believe we owe this full amount (due to the payments we have been making), we are out of time to resolve the problem. We are asking for funding to meet this amount so that we can save our home from foreclosure. We are under a hard time limit as our home will be sold on Friday, May 27th.
We would greatly appreciate any help that any of our friends and associates can supply in helping us to get this taken care of. This will save our home of the last sixteen years for our family. Please help us in any way you can. Thank you.