Two years before dementia forced her to move into a nursing care facility, Dorothy Halstien obtained a $73,000 loan from Washington Mutual Inc. secured by her house on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle.
In 2007, a year after she moved, the bank hired a trustee, Quality Loan Service Corp. of Washington, to foreclose. Halstien’s home was sold off for $83,000, even though her guardian had arranged a sale for about $150,000 more. The party that bought the house out of foreclosure later sold it for $235,000, according to a suit filed in state court in Seattle.
