Kudos to St. Pete Times for getting this story out!

NEW PORT RICHEY — It looks like Sharon and James Bullington might be able to stay in their home — for now at least.

The retired couple faced foreclosure after paying a January mortgage payment one week early in December to Bank of America. The following month, the bank rejected their payment because it was made electronically without a signature.

[ST. PETE TIMES]

St. Pete Times-

Seventy-year-old Sharon Bullington may lose her home because she paid her mortgage a week early.

That may not make much sense to the thousands of homeowners who are behind on their mortgages in Florida. But it seems it does to Bank of America, which has filed to foreclose on Bullington and her husband, James, 78, who is terminally ill.

“It’s like death to me,” Sharon Bullington said, her voice quivering on the phone Friday. “My husband is bedridden. It’s almost more than I can bear.”

[ST. PETE TIMES]

from AARP’s Press Release:

The plaintiffs, from Indiana, New York, and Maryland, are represented by AARP Foundation Litigation and the Washington, DC law firm of Mehri & Skalet, PLLC.  The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks an injunction prohibiting HUD from abandoning long-standing rules and from illegally foreclosing on surviving spouses.  These arbitrary changes allow lenders to initiate foreclosure and eviction actions against the plaintiffs.

The case will have broad national implications, because the outcome will determine whether spouses will be able to stay in homes that are now “underwater” as a result of the housing downturn, a possibility that reverse mortgage borrowers have always paid insurance premiums to protect against.