Consumer complaint received 2015-07-18
Product: Mortgage — Other mortgage
Issue: Application, originator, mortgage broker — 
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. (FL)

1. I am XXXX and my husband is XXXX In 2005, we met a mortgage broker with Washington Mutual at a business association affair. He was shocked to hear we lived in our home mortgage-free. He convinced us we needed to put that asset to work by mortgaging our home and investing in rental properties. He drew the picture for us of sitting in our rocking chairs enjoying life with the rents we were collecting. He claimed that Washington Mutual was offering a special deal for a short time, a 2 % loan. This was at a time when mortgages were in the 5 % - 7 % range. So we went for it. We mortgaged our home for {$840000.00} and invested in XXXX rental townhouses. This would not have been a bad deal had he put us into conventional fixed mortgages. Instead, without telling us, he placed us in XXXX negative amortization mortgages. Good for those who intend to flip the property in a year or so, not good for long-term investing designed to yield sustainable rents! Yes, we paid 2 % but we did n't notice that the loans were between 5 % and 7 % and the difference was added to the balance each month. I am embarrassed to say, we did n't notice the escalating balances until the payments began to rise to the point of exceeding the rent we could charge or, even worse, the payments we could afford on our home. By then, Washington Mutual and the broker were gone. CHASE took over our mortgage and XXXX of the mortgages for XXXX XXXX. XXXX took over the XXXX, also for XXXX XXXX. I applied for and was granted a loan modification of our home mortgage.. Our current interest rate is 2 %, reducing our payments from {$6000.00} a month to {$3600.00}. We are both on Social Security so I am drawing {$2000.00} a month from my IRA. and we have had to short sale the XXXX rental properties. Our home is worth close to {$700000.00} but the mortgage is currently at {$980000.00}. We have lost all of the money we had saved and have nothing in the bank. We are very healthy and may very well run out of retirement funds before we die. I have tried to find a job but no one seems interested in an XXXX year old elderly woman.We love our home and want to stay here, besides, it is so underwater we could not afford to sell it. I tried to interest several attorneys in our case but, I have a XXXX and they thought the courts would say I should have known better. I agree but I obviously, did n't! I was working at the time in a program I established to try to change the attitudes and behaviors of juvenile delinquents ( XXXX ), a non-profit I established and I paid no attention to the mortgages, simply trusting that Washington Mutual would n't do anything to hurt us. When we were presented with the mortgages, there was a rush to get them signed so we did not have time to read through them. Even now, when reading through the huge documents, it is difficult to understand that it is a reverse mortgage as this is written near the end of the multiple pages of small print. 
2. I realize our hard-earned savings are gone. But I would like this huge mortgage to go away, to be put back the way were were when this broker found us. Our debt is too high for a reverse mortgage but we have been seriously harmed and need help. 
3. We are in our XXXX 's, living on S.S., having lost all of our savings because of these sub-prime mortgages.. We were obviously taken advantage of by the Washington Mutual broker XXXX who did quite well, selling us XXXX of these sub-prime mortgages.. 
4. CHASE mortgage on our home is # XXXX, a conventional fixed mortgage, I believe. 
Original principal Balance {$840000.00} Unpaid Principal Balance $ XXXXDeferred Principal Balance {$290000.00}