Deferred Maintenance

October 7th, 2005

Governor Bill Owens
136 State Capitol
Denver, CO 80203

Letter #3

This is letter #3 in a series. The first 2 are dated 09/02/05 and 09/26/05.

The common thread (theme) in this letter is dishonest loan sales which lead to foreclosure. For those who are familiar with the Dream Team – this letter provides guidance and insight about where they will be 12 months from now.

Aurora, Colorado (population 300,000) has more foreclosure than the entire state of California. How is this possible? Here in Aurora, foreclosure is the result of teamwork. A dishonest mortgage broker teams up with a dishonest appraiser, they help a dishonest borrower apply for an inflated loan from a dishonest loan sales company (for example Countrywide or National City). The dishonest people (for example Stanford Kurland and Dave Wurfel) at the loan sales company then sell the dishonest loan package to a sucker. The dishonest people make money and the sucker gets screwed.

My dictionary says: Fraud = Intentional deception to cause a person to give up money. Something said or done to deceive.

This letter presents two examples:

Curtis Duff

In February 2005, Long Beach Mortgage (a/k/a Washington Mutual) made a $380,000 loan on a property worth about $310,000. Long Beach promptly sold the loan to a sucker.

The borrower (Curtis Duff), the lender (Long Beach Mortgage), and the appraiser worked as a team – they created a deception for the purpose of selling the loan. It worked. Whoever it was that bought this loan got screwed.

Curtis Duff bought 7 seven houses in 2004 (see attached 1 page summary).

Curtis Duff filed for bankruptcy in July, 2005.

In July 2004, Aegis made a $243,000 loan to Curtis Duff. The $243,000 loan was secured by a $219,000 property – 21862 Berry Lane, Centennial, CO 80015. After 385 days on market any idiot could see this property was not worth $243,000 – not even close. The MLS listing and listing history tell the story. Aegis promptly sold this loan to a sucker.

About a year later, the loan is now worthless (literally), and the sucker owns the house. 21862 Berry Lane is on the market for $229,900. This is wishful thinking – the sucker still doesn’t “get it”.

In July 2004, America’s Wholesale Lender (a/k/a Countrywide) made a $253,000 loan to Curtis Duff. The $253,000 loan was secured by a $217,000 property – 19836 Dickenson Pl. Countrywide promptly sold this loan to a sucker.

About a year later, the loan is now worthless (literally), and the sucker owns the house. 19836 Dickenson Pl. is on the market for $224,900. They wish they overpaid only $28,000 – they still don’t “get it”.

Curtis Duff borrowed $2,013,000 from 7 different “lenders”, who sold the loans to 7 different suckers. Mr. Duff put a cool quarter million dollars ($251,000) in his pocket.

I expect the 7 mortgage “lenders” to keep a low profile, act dumb, and repeat the process every chance they get.

Shame on Countrywide. Shame on you Stanford Kurland, clean up your act.

Shame on Aegis Mortgage. Shame on you Rick Thompson, clean up your act.

Shame on Washington Mutual. Shame on you Kerry Killinger, clean up your act.

National City Mortgage

On 7/26/04, Dave Wurfel of National City Mortgage called and asked me to do an appraisal on 15567 E Radcliff Pl, Aurora, CO 80015. He said it was a rush order and I would get paid out of closing. I told him I needed to get paid whether the loan closed or not. He faxed me an order with a “target” value of $290K, and faxed me a written promise to pay my bill.

My appraisal report disclosed “deferred maintenance” of the exterior trim paint on the windows. Every window had this problem. My report included an example photo.

Dave Wurfel called me on 8/9/04. He “asked” me to remove the photo from my report.

He asked me to remove the words “deferred maintenance”. He said it was just a minor problem and I should ignore it. My reply: If the problem is minor, then go ahead and make the loan. He said National City intended to sell the loan to Fannie Mae and they can’t sell the loan with the picture in the appraisal report. He assured me the homeowner was going to paint the windows next month. I offered to re-inspect the property after the window problem had been fixed.

He checked with his boss, and called me back. I held my ground. He checked with Underwriting, and called me back. I held my ground. He told stories, he joked, he whined (note 2), he lied. He made a diligent and determined effort to convince me to remove the photo. He threatened that if he had to get another appraiser, the loan might not close on time. When he ran out of stories and realized I was not going to remove the picture, he quit calling me.

I called Dave Wurfel on 8/18/04. The first words out of his mouth were that he got another appraisal done and the loan had closed.

I asked about paying my bill. He said he would check on that and call me back. He promised to call me within a week. Can you guess how this part turns out? He never called me back, never returned my calls, and most importantly, he never paid my bill (note 1).

My conclusion: Dave Wurfel is a dishonest person.

In August 2004, National City Mortgage refinanced 15567 E Radcliff Pl to the tune of $275,000. National City promptly sold the loan to a sucker. Whoever put up the money for this loan got screwed. About a year later, the borrower filed bankruptcy (case number 05-36543-SBB) and the property is now in foreclosure.

It remains to be seen what the house will sell for, but it will not bring $275,000 because those windows never did get painted. [update 08/26/06 - asking price is now $264,900]

Shame on National City. Shame on you David Daberko. Clean up your act.

Sincerely,

Philip G Rice
11268 E Linvale Dr.
Aurora, CO 80014
720-282-3376

-- End of Letter --

End Notes

Note 1: This is not a collection letter - I did get paid – in spite of Dave Wurfel’s best effort to stop the check – as if my fee would come out of his commission check.

Note 2: My dictionary says whine = complain or beg in a childishly undignified way.

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