I’m a New Yorker, I grew up here, and my wife is also a New Yorker. When we first moved back, she was not particularly enthusiastic about coming back. But I remember a couple of weeks after 9/11 that she said that she felt very defensive of the city. In a sense, almost tender towards the city. As a New Yorker, you’re kind of accustomed to having a permanent love/hate relationship with the place. There are aspects of the city where you see in it things you don’t like in yourself. You get crazed, and Type A, and all this sort of thing. But this brought out this incredible diversity in the city. And the way in which the city pulled together was very moving and interesting to chart. I wrote a long piece for the Style section of The Washington Post on post-terror New York about three months out that I was very happy with.
Another story I wrote was about an Algerian guy who’d been arrested up in Buffalo right after 9/11. He had been held for a couple of years without charges being brought, without any suspicion, other than the fact that he happened to be an Algerian. For whatever reason nobody paid any attention to this. Then a judge wrote a blistering opinion saying this man had been held for no good reason, and he was the longest held person post-9/11 without charges being brought against him; it was utterly baseless. So I went up and I interviewed him and did a long investigation of his case.
One of the things you always worry about, particularly at a time like that, is your assumptions. Because—9/11 “truthers” to the side—there was an actual attack. Two actual buildings went down, planes crashed, lots of people died. You don’t want to fall into the trap of assuming that anyone who is picked up is automatically a victim. Nor, of course, do you want to make the assumption—which at that point was quite a bit more the dangerous one—that they’re all terrorists. In this case I did a very long piece, which ended up in part helping him get released. I look back on it and that was one of the pieces I was proudest of.
When did you move from the Post to the Times?
I came to the Times in the spring of 2007, hired on to Metro to write large enterprise pieces about the city and the surrounding area. But I was almost immediately put on the presidential race. The first eight months I was there I wrote biographical, investigative pieces on Giuliani, whom I had covered as bureau chief [for the Post] and for New York Newsday and who I had a quite contentious relationship with, frankly. Though, if you did your job covering Giuliani you were going to have a contentious relationship with him. His dislike of reporters was bred in the bone and intense.
Did he express that dislike to you?
There was one case I was told of when I was at Newsday. A friend of mine was a press guy for one of the commissioners. They were in the morning meeting that Giuliani had and somebody said, “Michael Powell at Newsday wants to know X.” Giuliani ignored it and kept going. Towards the end of the meeting, someone asked him again how are we going to deal with this thing Michael Powell wants to know. Giuliani turned around and he said, “Fuck Michael Powell.” It’s a memory that I cherish to this day.
I am a Realtor in Pierce County, Washington, and I am attempting to close a short sale on a HUD insured reverse mortgage. As a brief summary, we have an otherwise qualified FHA buyer but Bank of America‘s interpretation of HUD guidelines prevent them from paying typical, ordinary and customary seller and buyer loan costs or, should I suggest that Bank of America is using that as their excuse.
As an example, and there are many others, despite the fact that nearly all closing in Washington State are handled through an independent 3rd party, an escrow or an attorney, Bank of America says HUD guidelines forbid them from paying a closing settlement or escrow fee. They justify their decision by claiming that since Washington Law doesn’t specifically dictate that closings have to occur through an escrow company or an attorney, settlement / escrow fees cannot be considered typical, ordinary or customary. Except for the closing of a FHA repo, in my own 38 years of experience in real estate, I have not had a circumstance where a closing or settlement fee was not paid in some fashion. In the case of the FHA repo, HUD has a specific closer located in Snohomish, Washington, who is under contract with FHA to handle those closings.
The bottom line though, our FHA buyer will likely be unable to complete the purchase because, like a majority of FHA buyers in our jurisdiction, beyond the down payment, the buyer lacks the additional funds to complete the FHA purchase. Bank of America’s contention is, the data we provided concerning what is typical, ordinary and customary in our jurisdiction has been deemed unsatisfactory. Yet, Bank of America continues to be unable to identify for us what exactly would be deemed satisfactory. As Realtors, we have been placed in a no-win situation.
If you would be interesting in discussing this situation further, or would be interested in reviewing the email treat from the beginning of our short sale negotiation, I would be happy to discuss this with you further.
At this point though, my questions include:
1). Is there any recourse against Bank of America?
2). Is it really the intent of HUD to essentially make it impossible for a FHA buyer to purchase a home where it involves the short sale of a HUD insured reverse mortgage? In the case mentioned above, due to Bank of America’s rigid unrealistic interpretation of the HUD guidelines, that is exactly what is happening. Is that really what we want?
3). Is it really the intent of HUD guidelines to allow lenders to put Realtors in a no win situation.
I would be extremely interesting in a response to our situation and my questions.
Respectfully submitted.
Ken Thiemann, Managing Broker
Director, Tacoma/Pierce County Association of Realtors
Windermere RE / Paragon Co.
(253) 370-5626
#1 Posted by Ken Thiemann, CJR on Mon 27 Dec 2010 at 09:18 PM