Just two weeks after KHTS published a story about a Saugus family about to lose their home due to alleged misconduct by Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing, the family’s foreclosure defense realtor is claiming that company officials are retaliating against him at the expense of another client.

Richard Szerman of Alta Realty Group says Shellpoint officials almost foreclosed upon a Frazier Park home owned by Steven Pohorsky on Monday, March 20 despite his months-long attempts to submit a short sale offer on the house.

“It was sort of a shock that foreclosure is coming Monday,” Pohorsky told KHTS on Friday, March 17. “Maybe I need to start throwing a lot of stuff away and spend the weekend figuring out where I can move to… Things are really in my face to get out of this house.”

Like with Saugus resident Steve Yu, the foreclosure was postponed at the last minute following calls made by KHTS requesting comment for this story, which were not returned.

Frazier Park resident Steven Pohorsky.

“This one is also with Shellpoint, much like the last situation with the Yus, and I can’t help but see quite a few similarities,” Szerman said. “I’ve been doing short sales for a long, long time, and I have never seen a file with this many obstacles that were not disclosed to us… This feels a little bit like retribution to me.”

Related: Saugus Family About To Lose Home Calls Foul Play By Banks, Home Saved After Calls By KHTS

Szerman alleges that on both the Yu and Pohorsky files, Shellpoint officials refused to answer repeated inquiries from both the homeowners and Alta Realty Group and lost paperwork over and over again, all the while denying that any attempts at contact were made until it was too late.

In both cases, what Szerman calls Shellpoint’s “incompetence” resulted in the homeowners running out of time and seemingly unfairly receiving a foreclosure notice.

While the Yu family’s situation involved a loan modification, Pohorsky says he was told by Shellpoint officials to do a short sale on his house in late November of 2016, which Szerman was successfully able to get an offer for with plenty of time to spare.

Szerman claims he submitted the offer on Dec. 22 and again between the Christmas and New Years holidays, neither of which were acknowledged by Shellpoint officials. When the offer expired in February, Szerman says he re-submitted again with the same results.

“We were submitting it basically blindly because we couldn’t get anyone assigned to the file, or they wouldn’t tell us who was assigned to the file, or if they told us who was assigned to the file, we couldn’t get those people to call us back,” Szerman said. “But we still kept submitting the offer because that’s what we needed to do.”

Foreclosure Defense Realtor Richard Szerman of Alta Realty Group explains his client’s situation.

After the February offer expired too, Szerman says he re-wrote the offer yet again and finally was able to speak to someone about it, but at that point it was already too late.

“We have called them on an almost daily basis, we have sent them documents on an almost daily basis,” Szerman said, noting that his office keeps thorough records and proof of attempts at contact. “”We finally got a single point of contact to return our calls on the 6th of this month — that’s three months of us chasing Shellpoint, three months of them ignoring us, and the whole time we were saying — shouting as loud as we could — if we don’t get this done immediately, we are going to run out of time.”

Szerman continued that the “game” he believes Shellpoint officials are playing is to intentionally not return phone calls or do their jobs until it’s too late for the homeowner.

“Their modus operandi is, they drag their feet, they don’t do their job and then they blame the client for taking too long,” he said. “That’s not right, that’s not fair, that’s not equitable. (Mr. Pohorsky) has done everything they had asked of him, we have done everything they had asked of us, and yet they still intend to foreclose with no pause to even … consider the file.”

After the Yu “debacle” in Saugus, Szerman says he was given a contact in the company’s upper management to speak to if he had another problem, whom he alleges hasn’t returned any of his phone calls.

When asked why he believes a servicer like Shellpoint Mortgage might intentionally delay working on their clients’ files to create foreclosures, Szerman said it comes down to a lack of any real consequences.

Steven Pohorsky’s home in Frazier Park.

“There is a difference between a servicer and the actual bank — the servicer has the responsibility but they don’t have the money,” he explained. “So when a servicer screws up a file, it doesn’t really hurt the servicer that much — it’s not their money… and it’s not like the investor is ever going to get this whole story. All the investor is going to hear from Shellpoint is, ‘Well, they never got an offer in,’ or ‘They never got anything in on time,’ which is completely ridiculous.”

While homeowners like Pohorsky and Yu can sue Shellpoint for malfeasance, Szerman noted that most homeowners in these situations are “priced out” of the legal system — and he says the servicers know it.

“If somebody stole Mr. Pohorsky’s car, he would have the police to go to … but if a servicer is trying to steal his house, there is nothing he can do,” Szerman explained. “To fight a foreclosure in civil court, you’re looking at a tremendous amount of money that people just don’t have. If you had the money to do that, you wouldn’t be in foreclosure to begin with, and the banks know this.”

As for Pohorsky, his foreclosure date was postponed until April 20, according to Szerman.

“Hopefully this 30-day stay of execution will be enough time for the bank to look at the offer that has been presented and to consider it with earnest,” he said. “Without the assistance of KHTS, the house surely would have been foreclosed upon. Time will tell, but at least at this point the house still belongs to Mr. Pohorsky, and he is very grateful for that.”

As this difficult time continues, Pohorsky told KHTS he is relying on his faith to get him through it.

“I’m trying to remember that God is in control,” Pohorsky said. “I’m confident God wants to work things for good, because that’s what is promised in the Bible. Romans 8 (says) God works all things together for good for those that love God and are called according to his purpose. So I’m optimistic.”

To contact Richard Szerman of Alta Realty Group for free foreclosure defense services, call 661-253-3000, email richszerman@gmail.com or click here.