"Somebody Tried To Steal My House" Says Mortgage Servicing Fraud Watchdog As Campaign Continues Against "Predatory Schemes", "Sleight Of Accounting"

In Manchester, New Hampshire, msnbc.com reports:

• How long will it take before the American nightmare of home foreclosures is over? Ask Mike Dillon, who’s been fighting to keep his New Hampshire home for most of the past decade. Though he missed two payments in 2002, Dillon then caught up and was current on his loan by later that year, he said. That’s when his mortgage problems began.

• After the company servicing his mortgage failed to properly credit monthly payments to his account, it placed the loan in default. As he worked to straighten out the bookkeeping, with canceled checks in hand, the servicer began adding additional fees for property inspections, insurance and other charges.

• In 2005, a New Hampshire judge agreed that the servicer’s “sleight of accounting resulted in improper assessments” against Dillon and, citing a “predatory scheme of penalties,” barred the foreclosure and ordered that the loan be reinstated without penalties as of August 2005.

• Five years later, Dillon is still in court trying to resolve the dispute. While he is no longer under threat of foreclosure, he is still fighting to get clear title to his home. “I’ve got nine years of my life tied up in this case, and it’s done a lot of financial and emotional damage to me,” said Dillon. “This isn’t about money in the long run. This is about the principle of the issue -- somebody tried to steal my house.”

For the story, see Foreclosure mess will take years to clean up (Borrowers, lenders, investors face years of red tape, legal challenges).

See 'Playing the Odds' for the transcript of an ABC News Nighline interview with national mortgage servicing fraud watchdog and victim advocate Mike Dillon of GetDShirtz.com on how some mortgage servicers go about giving homeowners a real screwing over in the handling of their house payments.