Staten Island: Mortgage Scams Leave Residents Looking For Answers
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Residents in one Port Richmond neighborhood believe they were the victims of mortgage scams, which they say were all too prevalent in the years leading up to the recession. NY1's Amanda Farinacci filed the following report.Nestled at the foot of the Bayonne Bridge, 14 homes on Newark Avenue in Port Richmond were built just two years ago. The sight of the newly constructed homes were a dream come true for first-time homeowner Myrla Riffas, who put just $3,700 down, and believed she was going to pay $2,500 a month on a 30-year mortgage. But just weeks after moving in, she says things started going wrong.
"I had a bucket here and towels here because the water was coming down," said Riffas.
Riffas says she also had problems with her heating and air conditioning along with cracks in the ceiling and floor. In the meantime, neighbors on the block are dealing with flooding, which leaves their homes filled with sewage and stink that no amount of cleaning can help.
"The raining? Hard. The flooring, it's a doo-doo, paper toilet, everything, destroy my apartment, everything," said Angelica Polido, a Newark Avenue resident.
Unable to get any help from the builder, 7 Girls Inc., residents banded together and decided to stop making their monthly mortgage payments to the Cambridge Home Capital Company. Their mortgages were then sold to CitiBank. Riffas's home went into foreclosure, and was auctioned and is now owned by a bank. She is now being evicted, while other residents fight foreclosure.
"I feel really screwed. I got, you know, I got tricked into this house, and you know it's not right. It's not right what they did," said Riffas.
"We were blinded with all this. They took advantage of us, really, something serious," said Ivonne Davila, a Newark Avenue resident.
The Staten Island chapter of the Neighborhood Housing Services has been working with residents on Newark Avenue. Claire Mitchell-Dumas of Neighborhood Housing Services says she refers many residents to pro-bono lawyers who can help try to sort out the mess.
"They probably could file suit against some of those scam artists that got them into this in the first place because there are situations where the lawyers look at the paperwork and see that due diligence wasn't done," said Mitchell-Dumas.