Non-Profit Law Firm Scores Temporary Halt On Home Foreclosure Of Elderly Widow Scammed In Alleged Reverse Mortgage Ripoff

In Louisville, Kentucky, WATE-TV Channel 6 reports:

• A Blount County judge has stopped the foreclosure of a Louisville woman's home, although it was in the works since March. Joy Joines was caught in the middle a multi-million dollar fraud investment scheme, according to investigators.
  
  She was about to lose her house because no one would listen to her claims that she was a victim. Then Legal Aid of East Tennessee stepped in and got a judge's attention.

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• Her problems started when accountant Joyce Allen was arrested six months ago, along with an associate, and charged with fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. [...] In 2005, Allen helped set up what was believed to be a reverse mortgage on Joy's home. For seven years, it provided her a small steady income, but there was really no reverse mortgage.
  
  "She thought she was getting a reverse mortgage when in fact she got a new mortgage on the property," explained legal aid attorney Charity Miles Williams.
  
  She and an associate wrote a persuasive motion for a restraining order, enough to convince a judge that the bank trying to foreclose on Joy's home had violated the Fair Debt Collections Act and had no authority to initiate the foreclosure.
  
  When asked who owned the note, Williams said, "At this point, Freddie Mac owned the note, not PNC. There have been no documents filed with the Blount County register of deeds."

For the story, see Judge stops foreclosure of Louisville woman's home after scam.