44ag/11 - Maryland Courts

communicated and verified a new phone number months before
the August foreclosure date. Her frustration is summarized in
her email from August 11, 2010 at 11:43 a.m.:
I have called CLG multiple times in the last 10
days and left my phone number, 240.444.0178,
but no one returns my calls. It is too late. The
foreclosure sale time has passed. My
understanding is that once the house is sold,
bankruptcy law cannot save it. If U know
differently, tell me. I’ve filed Chap. 13 before to
save the house from foreclosure & could have
done it this time, if you’d been on top of this &
I’d heard from you earlier. You have your own
inhouse lawyer, yes? Why didn’t you pass this to
Gerald Chapman? Could he not have filed on my
behalf at the last minute? Does he think filing
Chap. 13 now would save the house from the
hands of a buyer who has just purchased?
Ms. Bogarosh reiterated she could have paid the
arrearages in August to avoid foreclosure. She acknowledged
that she was never guaranteed that she would obtain a
modification, but she felt she was led to believe the process
would be relatively easy. Until the date of the actual sale,
bankruptcy was not discussed, and in her mind, it was not an
option based upon the inheritance she received.
At the hearing, Mr. Chapman expressed that he was
“aghast” at the Bogarosh situation. Mr. Chapman stopped doing
modification work within thirty days after learning what
occurred. However he noted that 95% of the time, in his
experience, foreclosures are not postponed until the day before
they are set. In most instances, he found that postponements
occurred when modification requests were pending.
Mr. Chapman contended Ms. Bogarosh had to have been
aware that bankruptcy was an alternative, as she had followed
that course in the past. Based upon his file review, the problem
occurred because Ms. Bogarosh’s new telephone number was
not properly logged into their system. The “overwhelming
majority” of their communications with her were by email, but
by the time she reviewed the critical email to pursue bankruptcy,
it was too late. Efforts to communicate by phone were
ineffective since the wrong number was still maintained for her.
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