Page 4 of 6
But within months of the owner's death, Capitol Federal ordered that the remaining $10,000 balance on the mortgage be paid immediately or else it would foreclose on the house. The Browns didn't have the money.
A representative from the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America — a group that helps families facing foreclosure — looked at the case and discovered that Capitol Federal had continued accepting payments even though it knew that the Browns' deal wasn't a legal sale of the property. NACA's local director tried to work out a payment plan, but Capitol Federal refused. In a suit brought against Ginder-Brown by Capitol Federal, a judge ruled that the bank owned the property because her name was never on the title. The family was given a week to find a new place to live. Channel 5 aired the story on Monday, March 2, 2009, and the property was scheduled for auction on Monday, March 9.
On the day of the auction, Channel 5 aired a new story. This time, Denelle Ginder-Brown was smiling. Capitol Federal had relented because, as it turned out, it was only servicing a loan that was owned by Freddie Mac, which had decided to work with her on a new loan. But there was even better news. An anonymous good Samaritan had seen the Browns on the previous week's broadcast and offered to pay the loan completely. All Ginder-Brown had to do was wait for the bank to confirm that it had received the house payment in full, and then she could see her name on the title. The moral to the story: There are good people in the world.
The family's anonymous savior was Hardin.
"We got down on our knees and we prayed for God to help us because we didn't have anything else we could do," says Brown, who is currently on disability. "We believe God makes a way out of no way, and he sent Denny Hardin."
At first, the Browns were skeptical of Hardin's claims that he was a private bank. Then he gave them a packet with all the steps he had taken, what laws he had to abide by, the ordinances that must be followed. They decided their prayers had been answered.
Immediately after Hardin paid their mortgage, the couple says, they received a visit from FBI agents telling them that Hardin was paying off other people's homes with fraudulent bonds. James Brown claims that the agents asked him to inform on Hardin. But it's hard to convince people to roll on a man sent by God to save them.
The Browns believe that the status of their house is still uncertain; they claim that they're still fighting over the initial loan disagreement. Most of their belongings are in storage, and they're ready to move on a moment's notice.
"We're down to the barest of essentials in here," Brown says. "Our house is almost naked because we don't know the final outcome. But if it hadn't been for Denny's help, we'd have been steamrolled right over from the start."
Since he started his bank in September 2008, Hardin says, most of the $160 million in notes that he has written have been to pay off people's bank loans and keep them from going into foreclosure.
"As far as I can tell, nobody's lost their house who he helped," Brown says. "He put a new roof on our house, and he saved us from being on the street, and he never asked us for a dime."
The thing about probation-violation hearings is that they're supposed to be simple. There are no mitigating circumstances. There are no degrees of violation. Either you broke the terms of your probation or you didn't. Denny Hardin has a gift for making simple things complicated.
Showing 1-14 of 14
