Everything Happens For The Best!
This is a story about a Big Bad Bank, an Ordinary Couple, Dade County Water and Sewer, a brave and honorable Judge, a little Shih Tzu Angel named Timmy, and God.
Miami Dade Water & Sewer hasn’t answered my letter. You know, the “Monopoly Rules” theory practiced by those who think “We the People” are just “Oh those guys…” I have now been attempting to resolve an issue over an “alleged” leak for ten months, three weeks and four days. (See my article: Kisses and Volkswagon To The Rescue)
The more I ask for cooperation, the higher the bill, the more times they waste all that fuel and time by sending out the big truck to turn the water off over and over again in my home of 33 years.
A wealth of other people responded. Unexplained charges, usurious penalties, interest charges….You know the story. No need to upset your breakfast.
But a surprising amount of support, concern, comradery and even money came from all over the country – the world in fact. You can see it in our posts, and some I will publish. We are all in the same boat. It doesn’t matter who is responsible for the hole. If there is a hole in the boat, we all sink.
That is why this story includes the Big Bad Bank, et al.
Diane Yano-Horoski and her husband, Greg from Suffolk County was the first thing I saw on AOL, thanks to an Eyewitness News Reporter (thank you ABC), The Honorable Judge Spinner, (go New York!!!) and a couple who tried everything they could think of to avoid litigation and just make affordable payments.
At first blush, that may not seem exactly the same as my plight with Dade County Water and Sewer, but when you can see the whole story, and especially what’s real from your heart, as the little shisu Timmy and the big award testify, it’s the same.
Only the decimals and names are different.
Their mortgage nightmare with banksters from One West, a California Bank, is much like mine was for five years in a case that involved Amerifirst, an S& L and the RTC (Resolution Trust Company). The Water & Sewer dilemma is the same crazy making senseless abuse tactics. I call them Soul Squishers.
Knock Knock. How are my usurious bills for an alleged water leak like a foreclosure action? Has anything like this ever happened to you – or should I say, how often?
I’ll explain.
The definition of a leak is “to become known despite efforts at concealment ” ~Webster
It is the bank and Dade County Water & Sewer who have “leaks.”
Suffolk Judge Jeffrey Spinner erased $525,000 in mortgage payments that One West Bank was demanding from the couple who had tried (like me) everything they could to get some co-operation.
“We did act in good faith and the only reason we had taken this case into the judicial system was because we could go no further.” said Papa Bear Horoski.
Judge Spinner said One West’s conduct was “inequitable, unconscionable, vexatious and opprobrious,” He cancelled the debt.
“Spinner pulled no punches as he smacked down the bankers at One West — who took an $814.2 million federal bailout but have a record of coldbloodedly foreclosing on any homeowner owing money” said NY Post reporters
“A Bombshell Decision” cheered ABC News.
The decision, we all know if we’ve ever been to court or owned a TV, will be challenged.
I still own my home – with much thanks to an advocate, Marie McDonnell. But I can tell you this – I never received a penny owed to me by the Resolution Trust Company, now defunct. And I never received the money still owed by the Savings and Loan, now defunct.
And even after I survived that ordeal, my own Miami Homeowners Association tried to steal my property claiming I had not paid a fee the year of Hurricane Andrew. I was flat on my back in traction from a car accident in Honolulu when a fan of my Kisses™ comic strip sent my office a condolence note about “the foreclosure action.”
I still own my house. Thanks to Ms McDonnell again. I had to retain attorneys, locate records from years past and the debris of the worst natural disaster of all time in 1992- Hurricane Andrew, Category 5.
I had to borrow money, wake up at 3AM to make the calls with the Hawaii-Florida time difference. I proved I did not owe the money. But it wasn’t necessary. The Statute of Limitations was up anyway. Had I not heard from a fan, I would have lost my home – paid in full – over an alleged $700 or $800 Homeowners Association Fee.
Know what – one of those little old ladies is still on the board of the Beautification Committee for the Homeowners Association bothering people about duck poop on their patio.
You can see why the story about the Horoskis – who paid so much and didn’t even have equity in their home, and why Dade County Water and Sewer, who cannot even answer one letter after repeated requests and inquiries for nearly a year, and bankers, businesses, and Bernies who get away with duck poop have to be stopped.
Everything Happens For The Best!
Bless Judge Jeffrey Spinner for blasting the bad bank and erasing $525G of debt. Bless the press for publicizing this and giving so many people so in need of hope a glimpse of justice.
But most of all, I am really grateful for Diane Yano-Horoski’s genuine sharing of her feelings, her fear, her faith. She said this “victory” did not come without a price:
“While speaking with a news reporter, our beloved Shih Tzu, Timmy, was killed by an oncoming car. Nothing can replace him or the sadness his death has caused. It has been a bittersweet time for us, and I am certain marks the beginning of yet another round with this bank.”
This is the simple truth. Nothing can replace a life, a relationship, a bond where love is the driving force. That’s not true of a house, or mortgage, or money, or unfortunately in this case – a judgment, which may just create more expense and concern and litigation during the already threatened appeal.
We never own anything. We tend to allow things to own us though.
In my book (literally and figuratively, I am the author of GOOD MOURNING, What Death Teaches Us About Life) Timmy’s death poses that incessent question: WHY? As Rabbi Kushner best selling book asks “Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?”
Why, indeed, is this couple and why are millions of us pinched by the tallons of the Big Bad Bank? Or the victim of loveless bureaucracy – like my situation with Dade County Water and Sewer, or a Foreclosure happy Homeowners Association?
Maybe we’ve put those material things first, and when we were looking the other way, we lost what matters most.
I asked Pastor Elwin Ahu of New Hope Christian Ministry this question. He had served as a judge in Honolulul for 24 years before he became a minister for this Four Square church.
He listened to my tales of woe – everyone in my family has died, my legal battles for my house, copyright infringments, my withdrawal from newspaper syndication of my comic strip because I would not tolerate my designs on products made my child slavery, the Moving and Storage stole 20 years worth of my work and every possession I had.
Pastor Ahu listened.
“Why do you think these things happen?” Pastor Ahu asked me. And I thought only Jewish people answered questions with questions…
“I don’t know why, I said. But I do know this. Eventually, everything…even death…has been a seed for something good to blossom in it’s own time.”
“By not allowing the newspaper syndicate to strong arm me into ownership of my copyrights, I use my work to endorse and promote things that make a difference in the world. And here I am in Hawaii, in paradise.”
Pastor Ahu gave me a knowing grin. “I’ll tell you why.”
“When you love God so much, and do good – you are a threat to the darkness.”
So this story about a Big Bad Bank, an Ordinary Couple, Dade County Water and Sewer, a brave and honorable Judge, a little Shih Tzu Angel named Timmy, and God reminded me that “Everything Happens For The Best.”
Regardless of what happens next with the appeal or the banks, for me Diane and Greg Horoski are already the winners. Not because of the $500,000.
If some nitwit at One West Bank does pursue the appeal, or the sleeping beauty in the White House doesn’t examine just what the Big Bad Bank is doing with that $814.2 million federal bailout, this ordinary couple and extraordinary judge have restored some respect and trust in our judicial system, and perhaps a higher law.
The Horoskis are welcome to move in with me. I’m looking into privatized water, and the itty bitty duck droppings on the patio wash away with the rain.
Everything Happens For The Best!
Vivian Greene
Invest In Love inc
“All that is real is seen with the heart.”
© 2009 – 2011, Vivian Greene. All rights reserved.
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