Public Outcry Halts Eviction of 103-Year-Old Woman

By Mark Davis and Angel K. Brooks, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

04 December 11

103-year-old woman facing foreclosure from her home will not be forced to leave the dwelling she has lived in for the past 53 years.

The bank administering a second mortgage on the northwest Atlanta house where Vinia Hall lives will work out an arrangement so that she and her 83-year-old daughter, Kathelyn Cornelius, don’t have to move. The bank, JPMorgan Chase, announced the decision Wednesday afternoon.

"We will work out a resolution to keep them in the home," Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for the bank, said in an emailed statement.

"That's a blessing," Hall told Channel 2 Action News.

The bank’s decision caps a series of telephone calls and negotiations that involved a former Atlanta City Council member, a state senator and the office of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.

There were plans to evict the women Tuesday, but the movers and Fulton County sheriff's deputies sent to the home did not remove them, Channel 2 reported.

Hall, whose 104th birthday is three weeks away, told Channel 2 that day that she was not worried about being kicked out of her Penelope Road home.

"No, I knew that they know what they were doing. God don't let them do wrong," she said.

The situation seemed to affect Hall's daughter, who was rushed to the hospital, Channel 2 said.

In 2002, Ali Muhammad, the grandson of Vinia Hall, got a second mortgage on the house from Deutsche Bank National Trust, according to Fulton County Civil Superior Court records. That loan ultimately was administered by Chase.

Muhammad was listed as the owner, though his grandmother had lived in it for decades. Seven years after getting the loan - in March 2009 - Deutsche foreclosed on the property.

Hall remained in the home while Muhammad fought the foreclosure, said Derrick Boazman, a former Atlanta City Council member who said he negotiated with the banks to keep the two elderly women from eviction. Joining him was state Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta. Officials representing Reed also contacted the banks.

Chase, Boazman said, "should write this off at a loss."

Chase - not Deutsche -should be negotiating with Hall, said John Gallagher, a spokesman for Deutsche. Chase administers the loan, and is responsible for settling it, he said.

"Deutsche Bank was not involved in any way in the decision to seek to evict Mrs. Lee and her daughter," Gallagher said in an emailed statement. "As trustee, Deutsche Bank does not control decisions or actions related to foreclosures or evictions."

News about Hall’s predicament, originally broadcast Tuesday night, prompted Carol Beaver to leave her west Cobb home Wednesday morning and deliver a basket of fruit to Hall.

Hearing of Hall’s plight "just broke my heart," said Beaver "This really puts a face on foreclosures."