Help us save our home from predatory Bankers
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Toni and Randy have fallen on very hard times. They lost everything they owned after the bank foreclosed on their farm they had put up as collateral on a house they had purchased for Toni's daughters family. They are living in a small travel trailer and all of their personal property is all so being held hostage by the by the bank Including Randy's truck. They have never had a day in court to plead their case. Please help them fight this. They have never asked for such help from anyone before, but they need money for attorney fees.
My name is Randy Mitchell. Im writing this on my wife’s behalf at her request. All of the dates and monies are approximate, because we don’t have access to the paper work. Im 62 my wife Toni (Barta) Mitchell is 59. We have been married for 9 years. For the last 4 years going on 5 we have had an on going conflict with Whitefish Credit Union about our home. It has taken us over 4 years to find an attorney to fight them. We have called over 15 + attorneys and as soon as we mentioned Whitefish Credit Union they back tracked instantly saying they could not help us because it is a conflict of interest for them to help us. We wonder why that is ? We were so desperate, we even went as far hiring someone off the internet to draw up a loan modification and paid out over $2000.00 to save our home and Whitefish credit Union refused to even talk with him. We had ‘been waiting for them to serve us, so we could have our day in court, even if we had to defend ourselves. We finally found an attorney who agreed to defend us against Whitefish Credit union at the beginning of August. We know he's doing what he can. Here is the situation, there are 2 properties involved. At that time the one in Ronan was worth about $169,000 and our home on 5 acres was worth about $350,000. In 2006 Toni took out a loan against our home in Polson at Glacier Bank for about $90,000.00 to purchase her scrapbooking store “ Country Cottage. “ Her payment was about $800.00 a month. In the spring of 2008 Toni’s daughter and her family moved back to Montana from Arizona. Her husband took a job at Ford as a mechanic in Ronan, her daughter did housekeeping work. The family of 6, Mom and Dad with 2 boys and 2 girls were living with Toni in her 3 bedroom home at the farm. Needless to say it was very crowded. Rentals here are very scarce as very expensive . They came to the conclusion that the only way they were going to get a place of their own was to buy.
In July of 2008 Toni’s daughter and her husband and family found a home to purchase in Ronan, but they had no down payment, the bank said they needed more collateral, the only collateral my wife had was her home. The bank took her home as collateral. Then the kids found out in August 2008 that their youngest son had a terminal illness and he died in March of 2009 at the age of 7 years old. With all the medical bills and all, they defaulted on the loan. Toni made the payments of about $1200.00 a month till the fall of 2014. From that time in 2009 till the fall of 2014 she had contacted Whitefish Credit Union and ask if they would rewrite the loan. They told her that “there was nothing they could do.” She had contacted them in that same time frame numerous times for help to get out from underneath this loan, with the same answer of, “ theres nothing they could do.” In 2014 with no money left she defaulted on the loan with Whitefish Credit Union and Glacier Bank. We gave up on trying to make the payments to Whitefish Credit Union and made sporadic payments to Glacier bank. In 2015 Toni sold the Country Cottage store and got caught up the payments to both Whitefish Credit Union and Glacier Bank. In September of 2016 Toni filed for chapter 13 and then the court converted it to a chapter 7 bankruptcy. I was working at Jore Corporation and Toni at Walmart and currently at Jore Corporation. We tried renting out the house in Ronan for the $1200.00 a month but we had no luck there as people were afraid of getting thrown out of the house. My whole monthly pay check went to make the payments of both loans. but it got to the point where we could no longer keep up with both payments, and we got behind again. Toni’s bankruptcy attorney contacted Whitefish credit Union Attorneys, Trieweiler, Hedman, Hileman & Lacosta in Whitefish-and told them that she had people interested in buying the Ronan house. These attorneys said to put the house in Ronan on the market, we did and had it sold for $150,000. Then these attorneys either quit or were fired. We don’t know which, and they hired Crowley Fleck as attorneys, and then added about $60,000 worth of attorney fees. They waited until a couple of days before the closing date and decided not to let the sale go through leaving us to pay the buyer back a thousand dollars for the inspection. In December the house went to sheriff sale and the bank ended up keeping Now I could understand them putting a lean on our property for the amount of the down payment, but to take everything, this is nothing but theft. They already had the collateral, with the house in Ronan. Glacier Bank bent over backwards to help. They rewrote the loan for the business loan and lowered the payment, they could not understand why the credit union would not re write the loan. Whitefish Credit Union and their attorneys have done everything in their power not to work with us and to deny us our day in court. They tried serving Toni starting in about July of 2018. Their process server came to our house twice and spoke with our grandson as we were not there. Lake County Sheriff came to serve Toni and spoke with Toni’s daughter, her daughter informed the Sheriff of where Toni worked and her hours of work. The last time the Sheriff came I had just got home from work, I informed him I had just gotten home. He replied “ I know thats why Im here “ I informed him that Toni was in Helena trying to find an attorney. He told me he was working the weekend and would be back on Saturday between 8:00am and 9:00 am. I told him I will make sure we are there. He never showed up. We at no time avoided to be served. From day one they knew where Toni worked and could have served her at anytime. Toni even informed Human Resources at work that they would be coming. We were wanting our day in court. Whitefish Credit Union and their attorneys put their legal notice in the back of the 3 page newspaper here, which no one reads and said we were served. That's outrageous !! We were handed eviction papers by Lake County Sheriffs office on 8/22/18 and evicted on 8/27/18. Signed by District Court Judge Deborah Christopher. Our attorney filed papers and spoke with her personally about the way they had done this. Her response was she didn't want to deal with it until their attorneys had time to respond and gave them 10 business days to do so, and threw us out on the street with no place to go. We have been homeless since 8/27/18. This is a working 5 acre farm. We had to find homes for our 22 chickens. Now as of 9/14/18 they have denied us access to anything on the property . The sheriff deputy treated us like we were criminals. What we still have in our 4 bedroom home is all our clothes, some antique furniture, tv’s ect…., 2 freezers of food, my shop has about $40,000.00 worth of tools in it. The barn and the other out buildings have equipment and other belongings My only truck that we could move with is apart with the transmission and transfer case sitting on the floor. They are holding ALL of our personal property hostage unless we sign a paper saying WE WILL CEASE AND DESIST IN ANY FURTHER ACTION IN THIS MATTER.
Our attorney has filed papers with the court but Judge Kim Christopher will not give us our day in court. The last paperwork our attorney filed was before Christmas and still nothing. We are living in a travel trailer and have been all winter as we cannot find anything to rent. We have to be out of the trailer park April 1 as the space we are in has been reserved. We have no where to go.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you can help or know anyone who can we would appreciate it.
My name is Randy Mitchell. Im writing this on my wife’s behalf at her request. All of the dates and monies are approximate, because we don’t have access to the paper work. Im 62 my wife Toni (Barta) Mitchell is 59. We have been married for 9 years. For the last 4 years going on 5 we have had an on going conflict with Whitefish Credit Union about our home. It has taken us over 4 years to find an attorney to fight them. We have called over 15 + attorneys and as soon as we mentioned Whitefish Credit Union they back tracked instantly saying they could not help us because it is a conflict of interest for them to help us. We wonder why that is ? We were so desperate, we even went as far hiring someone off the internet to draw up a loan modification and paid out over $2000.00 to save our home and Whitefish credit Union refused to even talk with him. We had ‘been waiting for them to serve us, so we could have our day in court, even if we had to defend ourselves. We finally found an attorney who agreed to defend us against Whitefish Credit union at the beginning of August. We know he's doing what he can. Here is the situation, there are 2 properties involved. At that time the one in Ronan was worth about $169,000 and our home on 5 acres was worth about $350,000. In 2006 Toni took out a loan against our home in Polson at Glacier Bank for about $90,000.00 to purchase her scrapbooking store “ Country Cottage. “ Her payment was about $800.00 a month. In the spring of 2008 Toni’s daughter and her family moved back to Montana from Arizona. Her husband took a job at Ford as a mechanic in Ronan, her daughter did housekeeping work. The family of 6, Mom and Dad with 2 boys and 2 girls were living with Toni in her 3 bedroom home at the farm. Needless to say it was very crowded. Rentals here are very scarce as very expensive . They came to the conclusion that the only way they were going to get a place of their own was to buy.
In July of 2008 Toni’s daughter and her husband and family found a home to purchase in Ronan, but they had no down payment, the bank said they needed more collateral, the only collateral my wife had was her home. The bank took her home as collateral. Then the kids found out in August 2008 that their youngest son had a terminal illness and he died in March of 2009 at the age of 7 years old. With all the medical bills and all, they defaulted on the loan. Toni made the payments of about $1200.00 a month till the fall of 2014. From that time in 2009 till the fall of 2014 she had contacted Whitefish Credit Union and ask if they would rewrite the loan. They told her that “there was nothing they could do.” She had contacted them in that same time frame numerous times for help to get out from underneath this loan, with the same answer of, “ theres nothing they could do.” In 2014 with no money left she defaulted on the loan with Whitefish Credit Union and Glacier Bank. We gave up on trying to make the payments to Whitefish Credit Union and made sporadic payments to Glacier bank. In 2015 Toni sold the Country Cottage store and got caught up the payments to both Whitefish Credit Union and Glacier Bank. In September of 2016 Toni filed for chapter 13 and then the court converted it to a chapter 7 bankruptcy. I was working at Jore Corporation and Toni at Walmart and currently at Jore Corporation. We tried renting out the house in Ronan for the $1200.00 a month but we had no luck there as people were afraid of getting thrown out of the house. My whole monthly pay check went to make the payments of both loans. but it got to the point where we could no longer keep up with both payments, and we got behind again. Toni’s bankruptcy attorney contacted Whitefish credit Union Attorneys, Trieweiler, Hedman, Hileman & Lacosta in Whitefish-and told them that she had people interested in buying the Ronan house. These attorneys said to put the house in Ronan on the market, we did and had it sold for $150,000. Then these attorneys either quit or were fired. We don’t know which, and they hired Crowley Fleck as attorneys, and then added about $60,000 worth of attorney fees. They waited until a couple of days before the closing date and decided not to let the sale go through leaving us to pay the buyer back a thousand dollars for the inspection. In December the house went to sheriff sale and the bank ended up keeping Now I could understand them putting a lean on our property for the amount of the down payment, but to take everything, this is nothing but theft. They already had the collateral, with the house in Ronan. Glacier Bank bent over backwards to help. They rewrote the loan for the business loan and lowered the payment, they could not understand why the credit union would not re write the loan. Whitefish Credit Union and their attorneys have done everything in their power not to work with us and to deny us our day in court. They tried serving Toni starting in about July of 2018. Their process server came to our house twice and spoke with our grandson as we were not there. Lake County Sheriff came to serve Toni and spoke with Toni’s daughter, her daughter informed the Sheriff of where Toni worked and her hours of work. The last time the Sheriff came I had just got home from work, I informed him I had just gotten home. He replied “ I know thats why Im here “ I informed him that Toni was in Helena trying to find an attorney. He told me he was working the weekend and would be back on Saturday between 8:00am and 9:00 am. I told him I will make sure we are there. He never showed up. We at no time avoided to be served. From day one they knew where Toni worked and could have served her at anytime. Toni even informed Human Resources at work that they would be coming. We were wanting our day in court. Whitefish Credit Union and their attorneys put their legal notice in the back of the 3 page newspaper here, which no one reads and said we were served. That's outrageous !! We were handed eviction papers by Lake County Sheriffs office on 8/22/18 and evicted on 8/27/18. Signed by District Court Judge Deborah Christopher. Our attorney filed papers and spoke with her personally about the way they had done this. Her response was she didn't want to deal with it until their attorneys had time to respond and gave them 10 business days to do so, and threw us out on the street with no place to go. We have been homeless since 8/27/18. This is a working 5 acre farm. We had to find homes for our 22 chickens. Now as of 9/14/18 they have denied us access to anything on the property . The sheriff deputy treated us like we were criminals. What we still have in our 4 bedroom home is all our clothes, some antique furniture, tv’s ect…., 2 freezers of food, my shop has about $40,000.00 worth of tools in it. The barn and the other out buildings have equipment and other belongings My only truck that we could move with is apart with the transmission and transfer case sitting on the floor. They are holding ALL of our personal property hostage unless we sign a paper saying WE WILL CEASE AND DESIST IN ANY FURTHER ACTION IN THIS MATTER.
Our attorney has filed papers with the court but Judge Kim Christopher will not give us our day in court. The last paperwork our attorney filed was before Christmas and still nothing. We are living in a travel trailer and have been all winter as we cannot find anything to rent. We have to be out of the trailer park April 1 as the space we are in has been reserved. We have no where to go.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you can help or know anyone who can we would appreciate it.
Organizer
Toni TJ Mitchell
Organizer
Polson, MT
