You Are Not Broke Enough, L

I need to set the record straight. Before I poisoned myself with tainted smoked salmon, I had written what some might call a diatribe about Wachovia Mortgage's handling of my one-year effort to obtain a government Make Home Affordable loan modification. In that post I reported that the reason I was given for being denied a modification was that I didn't have enough income. Of course that was ridiculous, and of course I didn't believe it, but I had to wait one full week before receiving the promised correspondence that contained the real reason.

Forget what the idiot on the phone said. The letter says that because I am current on my loan and based on the financial information I was required to provide, "you have the ability to pay your current mortgage payment using cash reserves or other assets!"

The so-called cash reserves mentioned happen to be what's left of my 401k, the only money I have after the battering I suffered from the demise of the economy and the housing market.

So, the bank says the government requires them to list retirement accounts as liquid assets. In order to qualify for that loan, I am apparently expected to spend all available funds on my mortgage until I am literally penniless. AND, I am being penalized for having made my payments and not (deliberately) gone into default.

The bank is more than happy to allow me to start this process all over again, this time leaving out the puny retirement fund and applying instead for one of the bank's modification programs. For the entire time that I have been talking to the bank about my problems, I have had the distinct impression that their institutional resentment of the government's attempt to meddle in their fleecing of the American homeowner has fueled an almost blatant attempt to prevent their customers from qualifying. The truth is, if the bank had had their modification programs in place months ago, I would have voluntarily gone with their program as long as it was beneficial to both of us. I have no deep, burning desire to be the beneficiary of government largesse--unemployment insurance is quite enough.

Frankly, I still don't know what to believe about the motives of the bank or the implied desire of the government to work only with people who have been irresponsible with their mortgages and who have waited until they are destitute before attempting to ameliorate their financial predicament. But here's what I do know: I stopped payment on the January mortgage payment and will not be paying any more. I am required by the bank to put the house back on the market at what they call Fair Market Value, but nobody is able to tell me what that is, because there hasn't been a comparable sale in my zip code since January 2008.

Perhaps my situation is unique. Maybe I am the only senior citizen caught in the Catch 22 of being unemployed and suddenly unemployable because of the magic number 65. Maybe I am the only older person who has tried to ward off total ruin by fiercely guarding my credit score by using dwindling savings to pay the expenses on a home I can no longer afford, thinking that it would put me in a better position to negotiate with the bank. Perhaps, but I doubt it.