CMG Mortgage, Inc. v. ["Thomas L. Brizendine, Sr.","Donna L. Brizendine","John Doe, as occupant of the premises","Jane Doe, as occupant of the premises","Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC"]

Let’s be real: nobody tunes in for a mortgage foreclosure. Not unless there’s blood, betrayal, or at least a meth lab in the shed. But here we are, deep in the heart of Muskogee County, Oklahoma, where a quiet little VA-backed home loan has gone off the rails like a runaway cattle truck on Highway 71 — and now a mortgage company is trying to seize a piece of land worth more drama than a Sunday sermon.

CMG Mortgage, Inc. — a name that sounds less like a financial institution and more like a minor character from a Call of Duty expansion pack — has filed a foreclosure action against Thomas L. Brizendine, Sr. and his wife Donna L. Brizendine, over $87,473.40 in unpaid mortgage debt. That number alone is enough to make a grown man weep into his sweet tea. But here’s the kicker: the Brizendines haven’t just missed a couple of payments. They’ve been in default since September 1, 2019. That’s over four years of radio silence to their lender. In mortgage terms, that’s not just a late payment — that’s a full-on ghosting.

So who are these people? Thomas and Donna Brizendine, Sr. — yes, both are “Sr.,” which raises more questions than it answers — appear to be a married couple who, back in 2015, bought a modest rural property at 29804 S 55th St E, Porum, Oklahoma. The land? A half-acre slice of the NW 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 22. (If that sounds like GPS coordinates from a Dungeons & Dragons map, welcome to rural property law.) They financed it with a $110,000 VA-guaranteed loan through Peoples Bank, which later got sold or transferred to CMG Mortgage, Inc. — a common enough move in the shadowy world of mortgage servicing, where loans change hands more often than a dollar bill at a honky-tonk.

The Brizendines signed on the dotted line, promised to pay $820.56 a month, and everything was copacetic — until it wasn’t. According to the filing, they stopped paying in September 2019. Not a word. Not a call. Not even a “my dog ate the checkbook” excuse. Just… crickets. And while the bank wasn’t exactly lighting candles for them, it did what banks do: it waited, calculated the growing debt, and then — four years later — finally said, “Alright, we’re done.”

Now, let’s unpack what’s actually happening here. CMG Mortgage isn’t just asking for the money. They’re asking the court to foreclose — which means they want to take the property, sell it at auction, and use the cash to cover what’s owed. This isn’t a slap on the wrist. This is the financial equivalent of a home eviction with a side of public humiliation. And the debt? It’s not just the principal. We’re talking $87,473 in unpaid balance, plus interest, plus fees: $926.82 in escrow advances (likely for unpaid property taxes or insurance), $193.45 in late charges, $75 in NSF fees (because someone’s check bounced), and even a mysterious $5 “other fee” — the financial version of “you’ll know it when you see it.”

And then there’s the cast of mystery players. The lawsuit also names “John Doe” and “Jane Doe” as occupants of the premises — legal placeholders used when the bank isn’t 100% sure who’s living there. Are they the Brizendines? Relatives? Squatters who’ve set up camp in a foreclosed dream home? The filing doesn’t say. And then, just to spice things up, Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC is also named — not as the lender, but as a potential claimant due to an old, unreleased “Non-HAMP loan modification agreement” from 2013. That’s before the current loan even existed. Which raises the question: is someone trying to collect on a ghost debt? Or is this just a paperwork snafu that could delay the whole foreclosure like a bureaucratic poltergeist?

So what does CMG want? Legally, they want three things: (1) a judgment against Thomas Brizendine for the full $87,473.40 plus fees, (2) a court order declaring their mortgage the top priority lien on the property, and (3) permission to sell the land at auction to recover their money. Is $87,000 a lot for a foreclosure? In Muskogee County? For a half-acre rural lot with a house? Yeah, it’s significant. But not astronomical. The original loan was $110k — this is about 80% of that. But with years of interest and fees, plus the cost of legal action, it’s clear the bank isn’t just chasing the debt — it’s chasing recovery. And if the house sells for less than what’s owed? Too bad. The Brizendines could still be on the hook.

Now, here’s our take: the most absurd part of this whole saga isn’t the four-year payment gap. It’s not the ghost fees or the mystery occupants. It’s the fact that this all started with a VA loan — a benefit meant to help veterans buy homes with little to no down payment. Thomas Brizendine is presumably a veteran (hence the VA backing), and yet here we are, watching that safety net unravel over what amounts to less than $700 a month. Did something happen? A job loss? A medical crisis? A divorce? A runaway goat that ate the mail with the mortgage reminder? We don’t know. The filing doesn’t say. And that’s the tragedy of these cases — behind every cold legal document is a human story of struggle, pride, and sometimes, plain old bad luck.

Are we rooting for the bank? Not really. They’re a faceless entity playing by the rules. Are we rooting for the Brizendines? Sure — if they’ve been blindsided or fallen on hard times. But let’s be honest: four years of non-payment is hard to spin as anything but a choice. And now, the music’s stopped, the chairs are gone, and someone’s about to lose their home.

Welcome to the American dream — Muskogee County edition. Where the land is cheap, the stakes are high, and the court filings read like a country song you never wanted to hear.