EDIT: Title should say mortgage and not loan. Sorry about that.
My parents bought a commercial building in 2000-ish. For some reason, their banker convinced them to do a balloon mortgage. I think the purchase price of the land was around $60,000. Every three years the bank had them come back to resign the paperwork for some reason. (I am not familiar with balloon mortgages and how they work)
Then, in 2007 they resigned the paperwork to add $13,500 to their mortgage for equipment. This should bring the mortgage total up to $73,500. This will be important later.
This year, my parents decide to sell the building. By their math, they should owe somewhere around $45,000. They list the building for $65,000. Someone is very interested, and my parents lawyer and the buyer's lawyer start talking. My parent's lawyer gets the total for how much they owe from the bank, and there are two mortgages on the house. The one my parents originally got and another one that was added in 2007 for $80,000 exactly. They have never seen this mortgage in their life, and never recieved $80,000 from the bank.
Someone that was there said they would put the addition as a second mortgage in a dormant state so no interest would be paid. When the house mortgage would be getting down the bank would take more off of the equipment loan and put it on the house loan.
My parents remember the banker saying that "Not all the paperwork is filled out yet, but you can still sign it." I realize it wasn't the smartest move to sign it, but what's done is done.
My hunch, and it's probably a long shot and will be explained away by someone here, is that the amount wasn't filled out when they signed, filled in to say $80,000 after papers were signed, and someone pocketed the extra $66,500. Anyone have any ideas where to go and what to do? My parents are getting payment histories and information on the mortgages on Friday.
I look forward to your responses, and thanks for the help in advance. If any additional information would help or I'm missing something important I'll see what I can do to get it.
Submitted June 06, 2019 at 09:04PM by IROCkiller http://bit.ly/2I0NGg7
