GREENSBORO, N.C. — Bobby Wilson gets a big grin on his face when he starts to talk about his house. Wilson and his wife had the Winston-Salem home built 18 years ago.
“I told my wife you can have anything just as long as I get a man cave,” Wilson said.
After serving our country and moving around most of their lives the couple was planning to settle down and make this their forever home.
“Nice place, I love it,” Wilson said.
Retired from the military Wilson had found other work but right before the pandemic struck, he was let go. He looked for work the next several months, but most places were laying people off not hiring them.
“I continued to pay the mortgage as much as I could but I got into a situation when I couldn’t make it,” Wilson said.
He reached out to some friends for help along with the mortgage company. The mortgage company would allow him to skip three payments but wanted the missed payments paid in full on the fourth month.
“If I can’t pay you now and with no one hiring, how do you expect me to pay you everything in four months,” Wilson said.
He passed on the offer but after missing another payment he found a foreclosure notice in his mailbox. The mortgage company had decided to start the foreclosure process.
“When I saw the foreclosure document, I said, 'I need help, more than a friend, so I reached out and got in contact with (News 2),'” Wilson said.
A few days later we reached out to the mortgage company and spoke with one of their corporate executives. A couple of days passed as they agreed to review the case and see if anything could be done.
“Never been behind on the mortgage, never missed a payment and then bam, this is what they are going to do, foreclose,” Wilson said.
A few more days passed before Wilson received a call from the mortgage company. It agreed to stop foreclosure proceedings and tack the missed payments on to the back end of the loan.
“I feel great like a prayer has been answered thanks to you all,” Wilson said.
Wilson had kept the news of the foreclosure and financial struggles to himself, not sharing it with his wife. He was finally able to give her the news once the foreclosure was halted.
“I didn’t want another person looking sad and upset,” Wilson said.
Wilson wouldn’t elaborate but told us he has been able to find a steady stream of income for the past couple of months. Telling us the mortgage payment should not be a problem moving forward.
“If you didn’t step in, I don’t know where my situation would be today,” Wilson said.
