Man Suffers Lethal Heart Attack After Foreclosure

By Cornelius Nunev


A lawsuit has been lodged against JPMorgan Chase for supposedly giving a Texas man cardiac arrest after foreclosure notices were sent to him. Harry Engel's fatal heart attack (which Chase denies responsibility for) makes him another casualty of foreclosure.

Significant heart attack happens

Seventy-nine year old Harry Engel's family told the news that they had lived in the same house for 22 years. Then, Chase bank forced them out in foreclosure proceedings. Shortly thereafter, in July 2010, he experienced cardiac arrest, according to KHOU. His family blames the bank for his condition.

The local Chase branch advised the Engel family that they had to miss a payment before they could qualify for the Department of the Treasury's Making House Affordable Program, and they did so. They were planning to lower their rate because they were on a fixed income and hear they could save some cash that way.

The bank started the program but stopped their enrollment in it. Chase sent them foreclosure cautions after late fees and notices came, and eventually, a Chase attorney said eviction was approaching. The man had his heart attack about that time.

Widow upset about this

His wife, Wando Jo Engel, is suing Chase, according to the Huffington Post, in a wrongful death lawsuit. The Engel family was among a number of people who had been given similar instructions. They were told to miss at least one payment to qualify for a troubled mortgage refinance, only to fall into foreclosure after the bank chose to not follow through. Chase had not filed foreclosure proceedings yet, but was in the early stages.

The Senate Banking committee hearings in 2010 talked about this, called "servicer-led foreclosure," according to the Washington post. It was part of the massive suit the government did against the five largest mortgage lenders in the nation for "robosigning" and other practices that were not allowed. The mortgage lenders settled for $25 billion earlier this year, according to the LA Times.

There are other families in the Engel family' positions. In fact, Pamela Flores of Georgia got kicked out of her home earlier this year after a similar situation occurred in which the bank promised a modification that did not work out and she wound up in foreclosure.

Causes emotional stress

There have been quite a few foreclosure suicides since 2008 when the market first started to crash, according to USA Today. Distressed homeowners had troubles with their loans and started calling suicide hotlines. This year, there have been a few incidents, two of which were suicides and one which was a murder-suicide. People are crumbling under the pressure of keeping their family together when getting kicked out of a home.



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