A Santa Clarita realtor is continuing to warn local homeowners about a new epidemic causing homeowners who are current on their first mortgage to have their house suddenly foreclosed on due to a “zombie” second mortgage they thought was long gone.

Richard Szerman of Alta Realty Group — who offers free foreclosure defense services to the public — explained that many homeowners received letters in the mail about 10 years ago telling them that their second mortgage was “charged off” and no more payments were required.

While the average homeowner would take this to mean that their second mortgage debt was over and done with, Szerman said that this usually isn’t the case.

Related: OPINION: The Sad Tale Of An Elderly Palmdale Woman Who Lost Her Home To A ‘Zombie’ Second Mortgage

“Even if it’s not on your credit report, … it may still be on your title,” he said. “Unless it was reconveyed and taken off your title, it’s still there, and that means it’s still against you.”

After about a decade of making no payments on their illusive second mortgage, which has silently been ballooning in accrued interest, victims of zombie seconds are now receiving letters from servicers who purchased the loan on the secondary market demanding immediate payment.

“You get this letter in the mail that says, ‘Hey, that $35,000 debt you had 10 years ago that you haven’t paid on still exists. You owe us $100,000 now. Pay us right now or else,’” Szerman said. “And if you don’t pay them — and this is where is gets bad — they foreclose and take your house.”

A recent victim of these zombie second mortgages was an elderly woman from Palmdale who thought her $36,000 second had been charged off long ago.

“She called me in a panic because that debt then ballooned to $96,000 because she didn’t know it existed (and) she didn’t pay it for 10 years,” Szerman said. “These horrible, horrible people took her house… That’s absolutely ridiculous and totally unnecessary, and it’s wrong.”

One bank Szerman is currently battling in an effort to save a local family’s home was bold enough to tell Szerman about the prevalence of these types of cases in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Related: Santa Clarita Realtor Believes ‘Zombie’ Second Mortgage Crisis Has Reached Epidemic Levels (VIDEO)

“They told me last week that they have hundreds of these files, and I quote, ‘in my backyard,’ meaning in Santa Clarita,” Szerman said. “They’re hunting for them because we’re a fairly expensive real estate community.”

Szerman and his team have been taking on these types of cases by providing free loan modification and foreclosure defense services to the public for more than two decades, with what Szerman called a “very, very good success rate.”

“We fight these things,” Szerman said, “and (we) do it totally free of charge, just because I believe the banks are wrong… I think it’s legalized robbery. I think that something needs to be done about this.”  

To contact Rich Szerman of Alta Realty Group for free foreclosure defense services, call/text 661-714-1400 or click here.

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