I feel an obligation to share with Oxford residents my personal, past situation which was recently published on the Valley Independent Sentinel.
I am a professional architectural designer and was self‐employed in this field for many years, providing services mainly to residential clients. When the economy began to unravel in the fall of 2008, work quickly and steadily dropped off as clients found they were unable to afford to start or continue work on their homes.
Like a lot of other small business owners and families, I struggled along in the poor economy, using our family’s personal and retirement savings to support ourselves.
By 2009, the economy and business had not improved, and with our eldest son in his second year of college we had exhausted our savings.
Knowing that we would begin to fall behind on our mortgage payments, we contacted our lender and made them aware of the situation. They agreed to work with us, but advised that once we had fallen two months behind they would no longer accept partial payments and would begin foreclosure action.
Action was started, and the CT court system immediately required mediation between the lender and me.
At the first meeting, the lender agreed to working on an arrangement to end the foreclosure. With the court’s guidance we continued mediation sessions until they were assured that we would be able to work out a plan to keep our home and satisfy the lender. Since the start of the process, the lender has taken no further action to proceed with the foreclosure.
With the overwhelming caseload of homes in foreclosure across the country, it took our lender almost a year and a half to be able to review our case and propose a solution. They finally did so in the spring of this year, and we once again began making payments. We signed a new mortgage agreement with our lender which calls for the full repayment of the original balance on our mortgage, as well as the accrued interest.
This ended any foreclosure action against us. Since then we have continued to pay our mortgage in full, and on time.
We have never been wealthy, had ‘deep pockets’ to pull from, or lived in a big house, and having felt first hand the effects the depressed economy has had on many of Oxford’s families I am well aware of the necessity of living within your means, managing your budget, and living up to your obligations.
As Administrative Assistant to the First Selectman I have been sympathetic to the plights of our residents, and been able to provide guidance and help. When working on the town budget, I’ve advocated staying mindful of the financial restrictions many of us live under. As a volunteer firefighter since 2006, I work to give back to my community and help others even as we have been helped.
I’ve enjoyed this work and hope to continue to serve Oxford as the next First Selectman.
The writer is a candidate running on the Democratic line for Oxford First Selectman.
