Help Kimberly Save Her Home from Foreclosure

This is tough to write but I’m afraid our options are running out… I moved into Kimberly’s home about 10 years ago and she already had a mortgage with Wells Fargo that started at $438 a month and as of last year that payment gradually leaped to $1700 a month. Kimberly is a Gold Star family member veterans widow whose husband received a Purple Heart from service as an MP in the Vietnam War and later passed away as a result of Agent Orange cancer. She is living on a fixed income of $1400 a month from her VA benefits. Now imagine receiving a monthly mortgage bill that is OVER the amount of your monthly income. I discovered how this happened simply because of my experience being a roofer way back when. Our homeowner insurance company Pride got bought out by ARKO insurance around 2021. Our insurance was $1714 a year if you can believe that and the insurance companies decided to just fleece their customers all at once to not only stay solvent but to enrich their corporate buddies as well. Unknown to most people they lobbied state legislators to pass “force placed” insurance or Lender Placed Insurance LPI on folks like us suddenly priced out. Our insurance rate went from $1700 a year to a staggering $22k a year. Yep, you read that right. Up $20 thousand. Because of our mortgage with a balance of only $47k these charges were improperly mandated into the mortgage payment. You had to pay the full amount or they threaten foreclosure.

Here’s the thing — they lied. When our insurance rate skyrocketed they were using AI to scan thousands of mortgage and insurance policies they had acquired in the merger. Any minor thing they found they would use to fleece you. They somehow read that the 20 year warranty shingles that this house USED to have were installed again in 2000. Therefore in 2021 they said the roof warranty was expired and therefore the roof was “damaged” despite zero claims made by us and zero inspections on their part. They literally just made it up saying we were no longer FBC Floridia Building Code compliant. Only we were compliant and I can prove it. The current roof was installed with 30 year warranty shingles, not 20. I have the receipts, the permit and the pictures. This being 2025 that means the anniversary of the roof installation is this November 2025. So for 4 years they price gouged us so much money that it was OVER the entire amount of the principal balance of the original loan!

I knew something was wrong and quickly researched the litany of class action lawsuits against Wells Fargo for all kinds of impropriety when it comes to mortgage “servicing” - literally stealing customers money through deception and fraud to which they have been successfully sued for billions of dollars per year. We should have been claimants on a 2022 class action lawsuit filed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau CFPB for mortgage fraud that won $3.7 billion for customers ripped off. We got a law firm to sue WF but they ignored our attorney’s request for arbitration, stalled us by asking for more time to respond and then suddenly “sold” or transferred our mortgage to a shell company literally called Shellpoint and this somehow knocked us out of federal court. Shellpoint avoided our attorneys as well and then filed a foreclosure on us in the state court of Florida.

Facing a one month deadline now our only option is to file bankruptcy which gets us a hearing before the judge. So long story we are in desperate need to hire another attorney to not only file bankruptcy but to also stop the foreclosure and get this toxic mortgage dissolved altogether and sue Wells Fargo for roughly $200k in actual damages.

There is a lot at stake here - this is our day in court and we are all the weaker without a good attorney. If we lose the house to foreclosure we will be basically homeless and the dogs we saved during COVID lockdown will be at risk of having to be taken from us. The amount we are asking is really the bare minimum needed to cover this legal fight as well as the mounting bills at home. Anything helps if you can. Turns out it’s pretty expensive to even file for bankruptcy. We did not see this coming and Kimberly does not deserve this at all — she’s been in this house for 30 years. This is a severe injustice. Boycott Wells Fargo — they never learn. Not helping is the current administration eliminating the CFPB.

Thank you so much for reading this story—this is a true hardship I didn’t want to have to write but it’s now time. Other details I have omitted make the situation worse — happy to speak or write to anyone who wants to know more and offer whatever support they can— including legal advice or experience with bankruptcy and foreclosure.