Lender OKs Homeowner Request To Seek Short Sale Buyer, Then Starts Foreclosure, Changes House Locks Anyway; Action Put On Hold After Media Intervenes

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, KJRH-TV Channel 2 reports:

• It was the home Penny and her husband had been searching for. "This was our dream house and it hurts my heart that we're losing it," Penny said. The couple lost it after Penny's husband lost his job, and she took a 45 percent paycut.
  
  
• "I contacted my mortgage company at the time, let them know what was going on, asked if maybe we could work something out," she said. Penny says a loan modification fell through due to lost paperwork. Other programs didn't work either, she says.
  
  
• Finally, Penny says Everhome Mortgage agreed to a short sale through a real estate agent, who put their dream home on the market. "Four days later we had an offer, in the meantime, our mortgage company had started foreclosure proceedings."
  
  
• Penny says it hired a "property preservation" company, which entered the house to change locks. And she says that company went through their personal belongings.
  
  
• Penny doesn't understand why since they had been approved for a short sale to avoid foreclosure. "It's really frustrating, this has been going on for nearly a year now."
  
  
• But then Penny contacted the 2News Problem Solvers, and we got in touch with the mortgage company. We weren't given many details about Penny's situation, but within days, she got good news. The foreclosure was put on hold, to allow for a short sale.
  
  
• Penny says she was eventually able to get information about her options, by contacting a government agency called Making Home Affordable.

Source: Foreclosure catches homeowner by surprise.