Fearful of losing house, Queens homeowner claims bent mortgage company duped her
BY Robert Gearty: DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, April 24th 2011, 4:00 AM
“This is not an uncommon tale,” said Kathleen Day of the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending in Washington. While Day wouldn’t comment on Gopaul’s case, she agreed that “what you are describing is what financially troubled homeowners say happened to them” again and again. Gopaul got her mortgage in 2006 from IndyMac Bank, a notorious peddler of “liar loans” that required small documentation such as income verification. Two years later, IndyMac collapsed under the weight of terrible loans it made to borrowers like Gopaul. TheFederal Reserve took steps to discourage liar loans. Albany also passed a bill sponsored by upstate Republican state Sen. Hugh Farley that became law in September 2008. Farley said lenders and brokers must “make a reasonable and excellent-faith determination that borrowers have the ability to pay.” Similar language became part of the massive financial reform bill signed by President Obama last summer.
All of this was too late to help Gopaul, who defaulted on her first mortgage payment and now faces foreclosure. In a court affidavit, she contended she was “duped and tricked into entering a mortgage transaction in a sum far beyond my ability to repay and without my knowledge.” While the bank’s lawyers insisted documents were mailed to Gopaul laying out the monthly mortgage payments, she insisted she never got them and sued GuyAmerican for fraud. After being sued in November 2007, GuyAmerican President David Ramnauth faxed employees who helped Gopaul: “You gave a disabled person a loan?”
In 2009, the FBI busted Ramnauth for running a $23 million mortgage fraud scam involving 44 properties in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. The loan officer who misrepresented Gopaul’s income on her application, Orette Killikelly, also was charged. Ramnauth and Killikelly have pleaded guilty to various charges; Killikelly became an informant. Last summer, he testified against two former co-defendants who were convicted. He admitted he boosted Gopaul’s income to qualify her for the mortgage. “We place her as a consultant and that was it,” he said. The firm he listed as Gopaul’s “employer” was owned by a friend who knew what he was doing, he said. Killikelly admitted he never clarified the mortgage to Gopaul, but said her son, Ronald, knew what the payments were. Ronald Gopaul declined to answer questions except to say his mother was not pleased. “She feels like she was taken advantage of,” he said. “She doesn’t want to lose her home.”
So, lets go over the facts. This 63 year ancient woman, on disability, bought a $495,000 home, with 100% financing including her closing costs. She knew that her monthly payment was $3,279.00 and because the mortgage broker told her she could afford it, she really thought her actual $703.00 a month income would cover the cost??????? She doesn’t even make the first payment!!! So, for five years, she lives in this $495,000 home without making one single payment and she is a victim????
Wow, tell me where I can get that sweet deal and sign me up!
Here is a fantastic video that was made exclusively in response to this Daily News Article. As another NY attorney remarked, “If it weren’t so right it would be laughable”.
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