Vietnam veteran’s home sold without his knowledge
Ray Wilson owed his mortgage company $2,814.78. They apparently sent him notification of the debt, from 2020 until 2022. Wilson said that he did not remember seeing those notices. However, towards the end of the article, the reader is advised to read all mail, especially those related to finance. Mail should be read even if the reader does not recognize the company or thinks that it is junk.
From WSOC-TV:
However, the mortgage company sent him letters between 2020 and 2022, which stated that he owed around $2,800.
The letters said that he must pay or face foreclosure.
Wilson said he doesn’t remember seeing any of the notices.
“I was living there, been living there for about 15 years and this happened,” he said.
The mortgage company foreclosed on his home.
A company called Four Corners of Charlotte bought it in April.
Wilson and his daughter told Action 9’s Jason Stoogenke they didn’t realize his house wasn’t his anymore until a month or two later.
“Something told me just to look it up in public records and it stated that the house had been sold,” Saunders said. “And I called, and I was like, ‘Dad you sold your house?’ and he said, ‘No.'”
However, it was sold.
Both sides told Stoogenke the same thing. August rolled around and Four Corners gave Wilson 10 days to move out. He didn’t, and in the middle of that month, deputies padlocked the house.
“I couldn’t think of (anything) that I could physically do about it, so I just went ahead and started taking my stuff out (of) the house,” Wilson said.
Four Corners said it offered Wilson $5,000 and to pay his moving expenses. It said Wilson agreed but then changed his mind. Wilson and his daughter recall some of that, but not all of it.
Either way, the bottom line is that Wilson lost his house for less than $3,000.
“It happened to me,” he said.
And it appears Four Corners got a good deal on the home.
WSOC-TV provides additional information here.
Category: Veterans in the news
Would think that any time something like this was happening, the company needs to make a recorded personal visit to explain the situation to the homeowner.
Or send a certified letter that has to be signed to confirm receipt.
They also shouldn’t be able to keep the excess they got from the home sale. They get their $2,000 and the rest should go back to the homeowner.
I am unaware of any such requirement in the mortgage laws of any state. Notices of default and impending foreclosure sale in most states do not require anything other than written notice, usually by mail.
The mortgage company owes Mr. Wilson 250,000, less associated sales costs.
At the very least.
They sold the house for $253k. The note was satisfied and the remainder goes to the owner. It was a shitty way of doing business but it is owed by law.
Maggots.
If the mortgage company complied with the North Carolina foreclosure statutes, the veteran will not be getting his house back. He may have incurred the debt that was in default for failure to pay his property taxes or insurance. Most mortgages provide that if the borrower fails to pay either of them, the mortgage company can pay them and then demand reimbursement from the borrower. Failure to pay is then a default and becomes the basis for a foreclosure.
Court of public opinion might be a powerful resource.
Yep…The Mortgage Company may have been following the letter of the law and will bring in their high priced lawers to prove their case…That would be the Law Firm of Dewy, Cheatum, and Howe.
Vet needs to get him an attorney.
He will lose if the mortgage company strictly complied with the NC foreclosure statutes.
That is likely the only “court” that can get his home back.
If it was my house, the faulty wiring would have caused it to burn to the ground.
I like the way that you think
“Something told me just to look it up in public records and it stated that the house had been sold,” Saunders said. “And I called, and I was like, ‘Dad you sold your house?’ and he said, ‘No.’”
Sounds legit. I know I do that myself, I check to see if my house is sold out from under me. Right along with checking to see if I have any warrants I didn’t know about and to see if I pop up on any sex offender registries.
🙄
I’m all about sympathy and shit (conveniently co located with syphillis in the dictionary), but having worn a uniform doesn’t absolve you of satisfying just debts.
Yep. If you don’t have the deed to your home/car/whatever chances are you owe someone. Best to find out who and pay them instead of checking a web site to see if it’s been sold.
Satisfying just debts.
If he had enrolled in a gender dystopia class he wouldnt be…
There’s four corners to this story.
Sounds sad on the surface, but I’m not buying that this fellow didn’t know what was happening.
He should have asked Arthur Fonzarelli for a reverse mortgage.
Is his offer better than Tom Selleck’s?
PUBLIC INFORMATION.
Ray Lewis Wilson has several properties/lots/homes on Polk and White Road.
Various street addresses for Ray Lewis Wilson’s name are 2907, 2925, 2939 and 2957 Polk and White Road…all are PUBLIC INFORMATION and listed under the Mecklenburg County, NC Property Tax site.
https://taxbill.co.mecklenburg.nc.us/publicwebaccess/BillSearchResults.aspx?StreetAddrPk=6529
His mailing address for ALL his tax bills for ALL his properties is 2939 Polk and White Road to include the house on 2957 Polk and White Road.
The news article discusses the home on 2957 Polk and White Road.
Sometimes his tax bills for all his properties have been late in payment.
In 2021, Nationstar Mortgage paid his tax for 2957.
In 2022, he paid some of his tax bill for 2057. The rest was paid by PHH Mortgage Services.
In 2020, his taxes were paid by Lereta.
In 2019, he sold the property on 2925 to ABP Development LLC.
The 2957 property has two business names associated with that address:
Tobin Pharaoh Inc and Mallard Creek Group Home For Veterans Inc:
https://www.bizapedia.com/nc/by-tobin-pharaoh-inc.html
Something is a bit off with his story. He said he was living at the home on 2957 Polk and White for 15 years?
And his Daughter said this? This is VERY weird..(We don’t believe her story..)
“Something told me just to look it up in public records and it stated that the house had been sold,” Saunders said. “And I called, and I was like, ‘Dad you sold your house?’ and he said, ‘No.’”
Is he REALLY a “Vietnam Veteran”?
We ain’t buying it…
🙄
Thanks for the additional info on this. We hear “Vet” and automatically want to take their side on things, whether we are Vets ourselves or simply grateful Americans.
I almost lost my home for a different reason, so I understand that sometimes communication just isn’t what you would hope it should be when involving tangible assets. In my case, I bought my house in ’09, left in ’12 for a military PCS, and kept the Homestead Exemption. I rented everything from a trailer to a 100-year-old shotgun shack, to a loft in an old cotton mill, to a 200 sq/ft house near Quantico for the rest of my time in the Army. Meanwhile, I used my home as a permanent address, received mail there, and kept the utilities turned on and in my name. I had a few people staying there rent-free over the years, especially after the floods in 2016, where 80% of the houses in the parish had flood damage while mine was high and dry, but I guess that at some point in 2018, when my neighbor’s niece moved out and before her parents moved in when their own house collapsed, the parish officials saw the house was vacant. Long story short, in late 2020 I got a certified letter that I owned some $4-5k in back taxes due to the Homestead Exemption being revoked. I paid it, kept the house, and refiled for the Exemption last year. Knowing what I know now, I’d have just rented the property like most people do, yanked the Exemption, and not have paid as much as $3k a month between the mortgage and rent.
A lot of us (especially me) can screw things up and gamble with our investments, but there are a lot of holes in this story. As others have said, if everything was done by letter of the law, this guy has no feet to stand on. It goes hand-in-hand that he’s now opened himself up to doubts about the character of his service, or lack thereof.
fm2176:
THANK YOU so much for sharing…
We really appreciate it. Your honesty. Your sincerity. Your maturity.
As with everything, there is “The Rest Of The Story.”
We spoke too soon when we asked the question if he was a Vietnam Veteran.
As you can see, further researching does show Lewis was a Marine and served at Chu Lai, so we apologize for jumping the gun.
We do not know what his MOS or Specialty was while serving with the Marine Corps…Funny when we saw he served at Chu Lai in October 1965, we immediately thought of Frank Joseph Visconi:
https://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=41610&cpage=1#comments
Who can forget Forgin Frank?
Wonder if Ray Lewis Wilson and Frank Joseph Visconi actually served together at Chu Lai in October 1965?
🤔
Thank You again, fm2176!
Owning all those properties, he is not unsophisticated in real estate. Several documents have to have been sent to him, alerting him that he was in default. Usually there are demand letters, then a notice of default with notice of up to 90 days to pay to reinstate the mortgage. Then finally there are notices of foreclosure. They are followed by notices of the foreclosure sale date and the amounts owed. We obviously don’t have the “rest of the story.”
Ray Lewis Wilson IS indeed a Vietnam Veteran.
Boots On The Ground
With the US Marine Corps.
In February 1965, he was identified as a PVT, heading to Okinawa for a one year tour with the Third Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment.
In October 1965, he was at the Chu Lai sector with the Third Marine Division.
In 1968, he was a SGT with the Second Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Little by little, with each passing year, I’m starting to understand the hierarchical or organizational method of how military structure works.
In this case, correct me if the understanding is flawed, the top of the structure is the Division which contains Regiments which contain Battalions.
Top down (in very general terms):
Army (not THE Army; an army)
Corps
Division
Brigade
Regiment
Battalion
Company
Platoon
Squad
Fire Team
Soldier/Marine
Not all apply in every case. Aviation and Artillery units have some different names such as wing, squadron, and battery.
Cav and Air Cav units are organized (under the Regimental system of regiments, squadrons and troops. They tend to be larger than their counterparts of brigades, battalions and companies.
Other units may have a regiment identity but it isn’t used for command and control purposes, simply for identification from the old regimental system. There are no regiment commanders outside of cav units and certain Reserves.
An “Army” is an empty command with nothing in it except some support units unless it is a Field Army, such as 8th Army (Korea). Otherwise they don’t really command anything. Corps also tend to be empty. Stood up as needed.
Keep up on that sh*t… just sayin’.
The claim that Wilson was unaware of the debt is fishy. How many folks with a home and mortgage are unaware of the debt and the common knowledge provision that if you do not pay you will lose it all? Pretty basic bit of knowledge there as well as look at the mail before you throw it out. I fault Wilson there for a lack of basic adult responsibility. AS other said, just because you served it does not absolve you from the requirement of using common sense the rest of your life.
My veteran next door neighbors ex wife took out a reverse mortgage on the house she was got in the divorce. He had paid the house off years prior to this and was unaware that she did the reverse mortgage thing.
She recently passed, and he learns all this, and was wanting to keep the house for his younger son. I helped him in writing an email to the fiance company that held the lien. I’d ask on a weekly basis if he heard from them yet. Same answer always, nope.
He went to visit his older son, and they went to the fiance company. It turned out they had tried to call him several times, but since he didn’t recognize the number and it was an out of state number, he never answered the calls.
Sometimes older people are their own worse enemy. He’s currently going through cancer treatment and my wife has been keeping all his appointments straight for him and getting him to and from his appointments.
Mike
USAF Retired