Freddie Clark is a 78-year- old mother of six, who has lived in her home for over 40 years. She is challenged with reading and writing. She received a "foreclosure notice" from her current mortgage holder because of late payments.

Her son contacted Roy Shellhammer, a loan officer with Next Generation Financial Services, in February of 2006 to discuss whether a reverse mortgage could help. NGFS is a division of 1st Mariner Bank, based in Baltimore.

The existing lien holder was uncommunicative and very difficult to work with, continuing to add on additional charges and fees to her current loan. When NGFS finally had a closing date set with an appropriate closing amount, and closing documents, the lien holder suggested to Freddie and her family that they should apply for a hardship reduction in fees.

She started this process with NGFS support. The lien holder would not respond to requests for a new payoff figure. The interest rate lock was lost and now the closing fees were greater than the amount of outside funds available.

It appeared as if Freddie would lose her home.

Freddie's family contacted a local "legal aid" group, and they put in a tremendous amount of effort to get the lien holder to provide a payoff figure. The lien holder denied the hardship reduction. Legal aid petitioned a judge to require the lien holder to provide the necessary information. The lawyers finally were able to talk the day before closing.

Freddie got her reverse mortgage on July 21 and is now able to live in her home the rest of her life, PAYMENT FREE.

With the help of the reverse mortgage, and with some assistance from family and friends, her church, legal aid, and loan consultants Roy Shellhammer, Troy Shellhammer, and Grant Shellhammer, Freddie's home was saved, but not without a lot of hard work from everyone involved!