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15 de enero de 2008

Lo último en fraude hipotecario: el pago "balun"


By Molly Priesmeyer
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008
Subprime was voted 2007's word of the year by the American Dialect Society. As 2008 opens, other dubious mortgage loans are surfacing, ripe for nicknames.
One such loan has a familiar name — balloon payment. But this latest version could be called a "blimp payment."
A lawsuit filed in December in Hennepin County District Court details the unfortunate case of South Minneapolis homeowner Stanzer Knox, who discovered that refinancing his house in early 2006 saddled him with, in effect, a 40-year mortgage.

Though he thought he had taken out a 30-year $185,000 loan, Knox and lawyer Mark Ireland eventually found in the fine print that he would have to make 10 years' worth of payments all at once at the end of the 30-year term.

Total amount of the blimp payment? $121,062.58.

Such details of the loan emerged after Knox fell behind on his mortgage payments and was threatened with foreclosure proceedings in May 2007, Ireland says. Knox's lawsuit claims that Homestead Mortgage Co., an Arden Hills-based business described as "inactive," violated a number of provisions in the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, among other statutes. The current loan holder, a Delaware company called Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS), did not return MinnPost's calls for comment.