“Simplicity is key,” says Peter Fessenden, in remarking about lending documents, such as those indecipherable credit card agreements. “If they don’t do that, you wonder whether they have something to hide.”

Fessenden should know. As the bankruptcy trustee for Maine, Fessenden’s job is to counsel Mainers whose debt has overcome their lives. Thankfully, our state’s small population allows Fessenden to have a personal touch, and develop in-depth knowledge of the consumer pitfalls that cause bankruptcy.

Simplicity is important, according to Fessenden, because modern lending can be hopelessly complex, which has made becoming overwhelmed by debt remarkably easy.

The old maxim is still true: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Unfortunately, the housing boom in Maine of the past five years, and the rise of the subprime mortgage market, has helped twist the phrase into a grotesque form: if it sounds too good to be true, it could end up costing you everything.

Fearsome predictions exist for the housing foreclosure market in Maine. A December 2006 report by the Center for Responsible Lending estimates in the Portland, South Portland and Biddeford area, subprime loans made in 2006 will enter foreclosure at a rate of 17.8 percent, a three-fold increase over similar loans issued from 1998 through 2001.

Southern Maine’s thriving real estate market is blamed – prices had a high perch from which to fall – a trend not duplicated in Lewiston-Auburn, where housing prices, according to studies, have peaked and stabilized.

The silver lining is L-A’s subprime loans are more stable. The same report estimated a slight decline in the 2006 foreclosure rate, unlike Portland’s projected meteoric rise.

Yet L-A is still home to a stratospheric number of subprime loans: more than a quarter of mortgages recorded in the Twin Cities in 2005 were subprime, according to data released under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. The total dollar value of the loans was approximately $136 million.

House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, is introducing legislation to tighten the reins on subprime lenders by curtailing unsavory practices – such as flipping, prepayment penalties and hidden fees – that can trigger foreclosure upon bewildered mortgagees.

Cummings’ bill, the Maine Homeowners Protection Act, is coming at the right time, and soon, according to the speaker’s office. On the verge of its official introduction, the bill has more than 100 co-sponsors already on board, an unprecedented figure.

Subprime lenders shouldn’t be allowed to build wealth through predatory practices, bulldoze vulnerable borrowers with aggressive tactics, and victimize them with murky lending agreements.

It’s the path for meeting with someone like Peter Fessenden.

And by then, overcoming debt has become anything but simple.