Mortgage tussle heats up for Baldwin man
Lawyer says bank is not coming through
A bank has admitted that it made a mistake by reneging on an agreement to fund a home loan for George Baumann, an 84-year-old Baldwin Harbor man whose wife recently died.
Hanover Community Bank has agreed to fund the entire $271,000 mortgage and compensate Baumann $7,200 for the payments he has made over the past four months. But his attorney, Steve Barrison, says the bank’s gesture is not enough. Barrison said that the bank should also pay Baumann $25,000 for all that he has gone through since the loan was denied in May. He said his client has racked up more than $10,000 in legal fees fighting to get the loan restored, and that Baumann has experienced severe emotional distress and financial hardship.
“The bank is not compensating him appropriately,” said Barrison. “We think the bank should make him whole, and they’re not doing that.”
Baumann and his wife of 62 years, Florence, closed on the loan with Hanover on May 7 in a deal to refinance the house they had lived in for about 50 years so they could pay off extensive debts. The $1,475-per-month mortgage payment on the 30-year, fixed-rate loan would have been $325 less than the $1,800 per month they were paying before the refinancing.
Florence, 82, died of a heart attack on May 12, and a day later the bank reversed its decision to fund the loan, even though Baumann has an excellent credit rating.
Sangeeta Kishore, Hanover’s acting president and CEO, blamed the mistake on a loan officer who no longer works there, saying the mortgage should never have been denied. “We’re funding the loan, and our lawyers are preparing the documents today or tomorrow,” Kishore said in a phone interview on Aug. 3. “There have been some issues with our loan officer, and there has been some miscommunication about the loan.”
Barrison said that the bank did an about-face on the loan only after Baumann’s problems with the bank attracted media attention. “I’ll tell you that if the bank doesn’t do the right thing, it will be a big-time news story,” he said. “The bank is waffling. We made a demand. I asked for a figure and they turned it down, and then they gave me an insultingly low number.”
