The Wilmington-based legal aid provider helps low-income residents — many of them senior, with chronic health conditions and limited resources — resolve often-complex financial challenges that threaten their homes and security.
“Often the Last Option for People in Significant Distress”: Financial Protection Law Center
Share
“Sometimes they only make their way to us when foreclosure is imminent. We drop everything to investigate possible solutions to help them avoid the loss of their home.”
That’s how high the stakes can be for clients of the nonprofit Financial Protection Law Center, attorney Maria McIntyre explained.
One older couple living in Pender County was facing foreclosure because they had fallen behind on their property taxes.
Their previous home, which they owned outright, had been destroyed by inland flooding caused by Hurricane Florence in 2018. They received a disaster loan to buy a replacement home outside of the floodplain. The loan, though low interest, was an unexpected financial obligation.
The 2020 COVID pandemic and ongoing medical expenses put additional strain on their fixed income.
They wanted to keep their home but didn’t know how to navigate the legal system on their own — and their age and health challenges would have made it nearly impossible for them to travel to the county courthouse.
They wanted to keep their home but didn’t know how to navigate the legal system on their own — and their age and health challenges would have made it nearly impossible for them to travel to the county courthouse, McIntyre, FLPC’s executive director, noted.
“We learned that the husband had health problems for which he required daily care given by the wife,” she said. “She herself was enduring very serious health issues.”
The couple is representative of a segment of FPLC’s clientele: senior, managing chronic health conditions, living on modest incomes and fixed Social Security benefits, and residing in areas where natural disasters like Hurricane Florence are frequent. Many also live in counties where there is a shortage of attorneys.
Financial Protection Law Center primarily serves an eight-county area that includes four counties classified as legal deserts. In 2024, 35% of their clients were aged 60 and older.
A Wilmington-based legal aid provider that works to preserve home ownership and property and to protect families from predatory financial practices, FPLC was founded in 2001, just a few years before the subprime lending crash that contributed to the Great Recession. In the years since, staff have supported low-income residents, primarily in New Hanover, Pender, Brunswick, Columbus, Bladen, Sampson, Onslow and Duplin counties, through challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic and periods of high interest rates and inflation that put financial pressure on home ownership.
“We’re often the last option for people in significant distress,” McIntyre noted. “And foreclosure prevention sometimes turns up a range of other financial problems — for example, heir property concerns [when a surviving family member wants to take over mortgage payments on the family home of a deceased loved one], which can be very complex and frustrating for the heir.”
April Cheers, a North Carolina-certified paralegal who also serves as the center’s finance and grants manager, added that many clients are experiencing challenges that go beyond civil legal concerns. To provide more holistic assistance, center staff work with other local service providers to ensure clients get the nonlegal support they need.
FPLC — which operates on what McIntyre characterized as “a lean budget” that supports two full-time staff and two part-time staff — received a 2025 NC IOLTA grant of $75K to support core legal services.
The nonprofit Financial Protection Law Center provides protection and legal representation for low-income North Carolina residents to help them preserve home ownership, build equity and prosper.
Their services include:
- Representing and defending homeowners from mortgage and tax foreclosure and mobile home repossession.
- Seeking justice for clients harmed by predatory financial practices through advocacy and litigation.
- Representing clients in bankruptcy proceedings to save their homes or other assets.
- Advising consumers on properly exempting their homes and other property to protect against judgment collection and execution.
- Providing outreach and assistance to help eligible homeowners apply for property tax exemptions to reduce their annual property tax bill.
- Making facilitated and timely referrals to other legal services organizations or private attorneys when appropriate.
The funding has been critical to the center’s work. In the first half of the year alone, Cheers reported, staff served 100 cases at no cost to the clients.
The nonprofit is also part of the Home Defense Project, a group of six legal services agencies working collaboratively on behalf of financially vulnerable and economically disadvantaged North Carolinians across the state. (NC IOLTA provided $600K in grant funding to the Home Defense Project in 2025, of which FPLC received $50K.)
In the case of the Pender County couple, center staff assisted them with preparing and submitting an application to the NC Homeowner Assistance Fund, which was established through the federal American Rescue Plan to aid homeowners in recovering from financial hardship associated with the pandemic.
“They could never have afforded the legal advice and services necessary to address their financial situation and challenges. NC IOLTA funding helps make it possible for our organization to provide this kind of critical support for free.”
The Pender County couple, like many FPLC clients, is senior, managing chronic health conditions and living on a fixed income. (Stock image used to protect clients’ confidentiality.)
The detailed, monthslong process resulted in an award of assistance that allowed the couple to regain their financial stability, catch up on their mortgage and property taxes, resume mortgage payments and remain in their home.
“They could never have afforded the legal advice and services necessary to address their financial situation and challenges,” McIntyre concluded. “NC IOLTA funding helps make it possible for our organization to provide this kind of critical support for free.”
Learn more about the Financial Protection Law Center on their website.