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'My House. My Dream. It Was All an Illusion.'
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"My house. My dream. It was all an illusion," Ortiz said. She has scraped the money together to hire a new lawyer and has filed an appeal.
Hernandez, who sold the home in December for $380,000, according to Alexandria property records, did not return several phone calls seeking comment. His attorney, Don Haddock, said the judge's order corrected the "erroneous" housing document to clarify that Hernandez and Ortiz are not married.
"Is [what they did] illegal? I don't think it's illegal," Woodson said. "But you've knowingly induced people to enter a bad agreement."
Aguilar said he saw nothing amiss in the transaction. Ortiz wanted a house, and Hernandez wanted an investment.
"Everybody was fine. Everybody was happy. But now that the market's gone down, everybody's got a problem and wants to blame it on the realtor, saying we guided them to bad loans," he said. "Everybody's blaming everybody else. But everyone contributed to the housing bubble, the banks, the real estate agents, the appraisers. Everyone's to blame."
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Glenda Ortiz is again living in an apartment off Glebe Road in Arlandria. She said she had become so depressed about losing her home that she stopped working for more than a year.
The family photos are back on the walls, as is the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Michael the Archangel sits atop the bookcase, little glasses of beer set in front of him, "because he likes it." The TV blares Spanish soap operas. It is not perfect here. It is not hers. But she's tired. And it will do. "You think you're doing something right, and it turns out all wrong," she said.
She no longer dreams of owning a home in America.
