Deal for mortgage raises questions

Herbert A. Freeman said when he bought his double-wide manufactured home in 2001, the seller asked a favor.

For $5,000, the seller — Dennis D. Williams — wanted to use Freeman’s name and credit to also buy himself a home.

Freeman, a school custodian, agreed. He signed a $420,750 mortgage in his own name for Williams’ house.

The transaction is one of dozens of questionable deals tied to the troubled neighborhood of Windy Pines South.

At the time, Williams was president of Fintech Homes, a company that sold land-home packages in the subdivision south of Hope Mills. Freeman came to Williams about buying one of the double-wides.

Williams wanted to purchase a luxury home in the Buckhead neighborhood, off Raeford Road, Freeman said. He offered Freeman the $5,000 if he would buy it for him, with an agreement that Williams would make all the payments and pay the taxes, Freeman said.

Deeds show the transaction took place October 2001. Freeman obtained the loan to buy the house at 604 Humboldt Place. Freeman’s name is also on the sales deed as the purchaser.

The closing attorney, Andre Barrett, has since been sentenced to prison for unrelated real estate fraud. Barrett did many of the other closings in Windy Pines South, where homeowners found problems with their mortgages and ended up in foreclosure.

A week after the transaction, deeds show, Freeman got his own home in Windy Pines South with a mortgage of $89,200. Barrett closed that deal, too.

Although loan applications are supposed to list a borrower’s financial obligations, Freeman’s application for his own home makes no mention of the $420,750 loan, which would have carried monthly payments of $3,770, according to paperwork. Freeman said he earned no more than $2,800 per month as head custodian at Gray’s Creek Elementary School and with other part-time jobs.

Williams declined to answer questions about the deal.

But real estate records indicate Williams probably had credit problems. Deeds show a bank had begun foreclosure proceedings against Williams and his wife on a $345,000 home in the Kingsford subdivision that they bought in August 1999. Their mortgage — with adjustable interest that started at 12.75 percent and would go up after three years — was the same type of costly loan that sunk many homeowners in Windy Pines South.

The Williamses’ loan also carried a prepayment penalty, which meant the bank could charge fees if they sold the home before the interest rate went up.

Freeman, 54, said he had good credit. The Buckhead mortgage — in Freeman’s name — appeared to have good terms: no adjustable interest, no penalties.

Freeman liked Williams. When Freeman fell behind with his own payments in Windy Pines South — the $600 mortgage kept going up, like everyone else’s in the neighborhood — Williams gave him $6,000 to catch up, Freeman said.

“I went to Dennis, and he gave me the money to get current,” Freeman said. “I’m thinking everything is OK.”

In June 2003, deeds show Freeman extended to Williams an option to buy the Buckhead home. Freeman gave Williams power of attorney to deal with Equibanc Mortgage regarding payments and balances.

In December 2005, a deed shows, Freeman sold the property to Williams for $500,000. Freeman said no money changed hands. The home, with a swimming pool, remains in the Williamses’ name.

Freeman wasn’t so lucky. He fell behind again. The bank eventually foreclosed. He lost his home when the bank auctioned it in August 2004.

He was devastated.

“To me, it was the most embarrassing thing I ever had to do,” Freeman said. “I stayed over there a while and I got to know the people and stuff, and then when my foreclosure came, I had to move out.”

More than two years later, he’s still paying off bankruptcy debts. He rents an apartment near Bonnie Doone, off Bragg Boulevard.

“It was a waste of my time, and a dream of a home went down the tubes,” Freeman said.
Staff writer Matt Leclercq can be reached at leclercq@fayobserver.com or 486-3551.