Magnifisyncopathological

Dear Customer:

In accordance with THE NATIONAL FLOOD INSURANCE REFORM ACT OF 1994, National City Mortgage is required to track any changes in the Special Flood Insurance Area (SFHA) status of real estate secured loans. This process has revealed a recent change in the federal Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMS). [my house] securing the loan noted above is now being included in a high risk SFHA zone. Please be aware that FEMA may revise the flood map for the area multiple times during the life of your loan.

Interesting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency didn't rate enough for its own parenthetical acronym. Notoriety?

As a result of this change, it will be necessary for you to purchase flood insurance to protect your dwelling, and for National City Mortgage to track the maintenance of this flood coverage for the life of the loan. As required by the 1994 Flood Act, we must receive verification of acceptable flood coverage within 45 days from the date of this letter. If you have an escrow account, we must escrow for your flood insurance. This is in accordance with the 1994 Flood Act.

I'm barely two paragraphs into this garbage and the weaselly passive-voice tone is infuriating. "it will be necessary"? Take some responsibility you sons of bitches.

You have the right to purchase flood insurance from the company of your choice.

I do!? HOLY SHIT! I didn't even know this fantastic right existed...I wonder what other delights I can find buried in the United States Code.

No, wait. Mockery won't do justice here. In this system, I don't actually have the right to buy flood insurance from whomever I want. The state has seen to it that only certain people are allowed to sell insurance.

I actually do have the moral right to choose to spend my money on insurance if I wish. That follows from my essential right to determine what happens with my property, and that right includes choosing not to buy flood insurance if I don't want it. The state is holding their statutory gun to my head again.

Don't think so?

The flood insurance must be maintained for the term of the loan. If you fail to purchase or renew flood insurance on the property, Federal law authorized and requires us to purchase the flood insurance at your expense.

Let's play this scenario.

I do nothing and continue to mind my own business, paying my mortgage account on time along with the extra $25 I toss in against the principle.

On January 18th, a National City Mortgage automated software program might run a weekly process to determine who has not sent in their paperwork. Perhaps they'll mail another letter with sterner language on it, telling me this is my last chance to pick insurance on my own.

This time, I write them back telling them I do not want flood insurance and therefore do not want to pay for it. I tell them I think the laws they referenced are illegitimate and my consent was never given to them. I tell NCM that I wish the state would not put them into this position as a proxy enforcer of tyranny and I will offer any help I can give them to oppose this. I close by clearly stating I will not pay for any flood insurance that I have not voluntarily picked for myself without outside pressure or threats.

Maybe a month later, I get paperwork from NCM explaining the terms of the flood insurance they purchased for me along with the additional cost it will add to my mortgage payment. Let's assume it costs $60 a month more.

In a letter addressed to NCM'sExecutive Vice President Phil Cunningham, Executive Vice President, Mortgage Services (and carbon-copied to their insurance questions address and Research Department), I reply that I do not want flood insurance, never asked for it, and therefore will not pay the additional amount into my escrow account. I call it coercion and unacceptable. In include copies of previous communications and I repeat my offer to help NCM oppose this in the name of individual liberty and free choice. I include a detailed breakdown of my month's payment and explicitly single out the flood insurance premium as something I refuse to pay. (I leave out property taxes for the purpose of keeping things simple, but integrity would require me to speak up about that as well)

Maybe this correspondence nets me a phone call (in which I repeat everything already written) or maybe a month later NCM just sends me a note saying my previous month's payment was insufficient and my account is therefore in danger of being late.

My response is similar to my CC'ed letter but is addressed to NCM's Chief Operating Officer, Robert Crowl along with any other names used to communicate with me. I continue to refuse to pay the amount and discuss how people would be furious if they were forced to buy a gym membership but "were cynically allowed to shop around for their gym of choice as long as it was approved by the government." I continue to pay my mortgage minus the flood insurance premium. I also refuse to pay the late fees they are probably assessing against me at this point.

By this time, I imagine I'd get someone from NCM patiently telling me I have to make the payment because it is part of my mortgage now. That the law requires it and it even makes sense for a lot of people. That, sure, maybe FEMA's flood plain map can't be counted on as gospel, but they're doing their best to protect people's property. Of course, the conversation doesn't change my mind and the agent gives up, telling me if I do not pay the extra money, they will classify me as chronically delinquent and may initiate legal proceedings against me.

So, we've gone around the bush for a few months. They simply don't care about my argument or are busy watching themselves implode or are utterly baffled at my refusals or are simply laughing their asses off at this young moron in Austin challenging The Way Things Are. Maybe they invoke the arbitration clause in our contract, which of course goes no where because I am convinced of the situation's injustice. Whatever happens, I don't bend and at some point they involve the courts.

If I remain honest to my values, my resistance doesn't stop at this point. I decide to show up to fight the proceedings and make the same case I have for months. The court, having long ago abandoned any pretense as an independent check on government power, yawns and agrees with National City Mortgage. They demand I either pay the fines, insurance premiums, and court fees...or give up my house.

Righteously outraged, I denounce NCM and the government as co-conspirators in aggression. I categorically reject the court's decision and walk out. Maybe the law calls for wage garnishment or some form of fine at this point. I refuse to pay.

Though it takes a while for the details to work themselves out, eventually NCM asks the state to physically intervene. What happens then?

The fact that this fictional drama unfolds over half a year has absolutely no bearing on the essentials at stake. Legislators, their regulatory flunkies, and their partners-in-arms in the lending industry are forcing me to buy something I do not want. Obviously this principle applies to all kinds of routine horrors happening right at this moment all over the country, some of which are objectively far worse than what I'm going through.

The Flood Disaster Protection Act of 1973, as amended, requires that Federally regulated lending institutions shall not make, increase, extend, or renew any loan secured by improved real estate, or a mobile home located or to be located, in an area that has been identified by the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as an area having special flood hazards and in which flood insurance has been made available under the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968, through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), unless the building or mobile home and any personal property securing such loan is covered for the term of the loan by flood insurance in an amount at least equal to the outstanding principle balance of the loan or the maximum limit of coverage made available under the Act with respect to the particular type of property, whichever is less.

This isn't a free country. This isn't a free market. This isn't unbridled capitalism. This isn't individual liberty for all.

This is a tiny symptom of a disease so colossal it can only be measured in generalities like "the number of lives affected." But this is so basic a component of today's society I'm the crazy one for point it out.

*sigh*

I acquiesce on property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, jury duty, vehicle registrations and vehicle inspections, parking tickets, and all the other little government travesties that bump up against me on a daily basis. What's one more little slice of my life?

Isn't it great that's the question I now face a week before Christmas?