How a disability payment error nearly cost this father his home

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (InvestigateTV) — Henry Adams almost lost his house after a disability payment error caused a mortgage trial payment to bounce, kicking him out of a loan program that he entered while trying to take care of his wife through her cancer battle.

Adams held up a photo of his wife, Ellen Adams, and their daughter, Caitlin, on the back deck of their family home.

“This is us in the house when we first got here. Caitlin was so little,” he said. “She’s 21 now.”

The Adams lived in the home for almost two decades, during years in which the couple served as pastors in Atlanta. Their homeless outreach ministry was even featured in a local media outlet.

Adams said he survived cancer years earlier but was left with a disability. “I went through chemo and they was able to kill it but it left me with a disability,” he said, describing swelling in his leg.

He receives disability income from his previous employer, AT&T, and later found at-home work in cybersecurity, but Ellen Adams’ condition worsened after a years-long battle with breast cancer.

“I needed to watch her,” Adams said, describing frequent medical appointments and treatment.

As health costs mounted, Adams said finances tightened. “Things were getting really tough.”

Falling behind on mortgage payments, Henry Adams enrolled in an FHA loan modification program through U.S. Bank. The program paused the mortgage for several months, then required three consecutive on-time trial payments to qualify for final approval of the loan modification.

Hours after Adams admitted his wife to the ICU for what would be the final time on April 1, he received a call from the bank.

The scheduled disability direct deposit did not arrive, the mortgage payment bounced, and he was immediately removed from the loan program trial.

“If you miss that trial payment, there is no do-over,” Adams said. “There is no grace.”

AT&T’s disability provider later acknowledged what it described as a “systemic issue” that delayed payments by two days. Recipients were notified in a letter dated April 8.

“They had a glitch in their system,” Adams said. “They didn’t alert the thousands of people that they were servicing, so none of us knew that our direct deposits would not be in the bank by the last day of the month.”

Adams said the bank told him he owed nearly $10,000 in back payments and faced immediate foreclosure. “I never thought I’d be facing foreclosure in the house we celebrated in,” he said. “We had our baby here. We grew her up here.”

When asked who should be held accountable, Adams said, “I hate to blame the long-term disability department... but now we could possibly be homeless.”

Hours before Atlanta News First Investigates met with Henry Adams, Ellen Adams died at the hospital.

In a recording from one of Ellen Adams’ sermons before she became ill, she preached: “Jesus got it... He said, ‘I got something for you, I’m not gonna leave you like this, I’m not gonna leave you in sorrow.’”

They were words that would ring true for her husband years later.

We contacted AT&T, U.S. Bank and the federal loan provider to inquire about the payment delay and whether an exception was possible.

Within days, U.S. Bank worked out a policy exemption with the FHA program allowing Adams to restart the trial period in July.

“When [the bank] called me, I could not stop crying on the phone,” Adams said. “God rescued us and he used you all to rescue us, to help us, to support us.

“You came and sat down, and you listened, when a lot of other people wouldn’t listen,” Adams, who is now focusing on raising money for his wife’s funeral in early June, said.

Tips to avoid issues from payment delays:

• Try to pay loan payments early when possible
• Check your bank accounts often to verify deposits arrived
• Ask your lender about hardship exceptions if payment issues occur

“The client’s mortgage is an FHA loan, and we are required to follow their servicing guidelines which include a number of automatic actions if the requirements are not met,” a US Bank spokesperson said. “That said, we value our longstanding relationship with Mr. Adams and acknowledge the unfortunate circumstances involved, and we have worked directly with the FHA on a policy exception and will be in a position to offer reinstatement to the trial plan.”

“This unfortunate incident stemmed from a system error at our third-party benefits provider and affected a small number of people who receive long-term disability payments from us,” said an AT&T spokesperson. “We have apologized to Mr. Adams for the disruption this caused and are working closely with our vendor to help ensure this does not happen again.”

We reached out to AT&T’s third-party benefits provider for comment and did not receive a response.