WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ME?
Big Changes in the World of Foreclosure Means Big Opportunity for Homeowners
As More Information about the Handling of Mortgages and Foreclosures Emerges, We See Ever More Scandal!
EVENTS ARE (FINALLY) MOVING SWIFTLY. We have been predicting these changes for a long time. Now a major national investigation is drawing to a close (involving all 50 states attorneys general, the U.S. Attorney General, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the Federal Financial Crimes Task force, and, last but not lease THE FBI!!!), and there will be far-reaching ramifications. The only surprise is the rapidity of developments.
HERE’S HOW IT AFFECTS YOU:
DO NOT BE MISLED! The problems with lenders documents filed in foreclosures are HUGE, not small. The cost to lenders of filing foreclosures will grow, as they struggle to reconstruct events (and legitimate documents) properly reflecting the history of these loans. It is our opinion that, in a surprising number of cases, individual mortgages will prove to be entirely unenforceable. At that point, perhaps the lenders will offer borrowers the kind of mortgage modifications (including principal reductions) that they should have been offering all along, but wouldn’t. Recently the HAMP program was enhanced, to include the reduction of mortgage principal balances!
We believe that one danger going forward is that naive homeowners, not realizing how strong their hands truly are, will “give away the store,” settling for much less desirable outcomes than their new bargaining position would indicate. Later, when the whole truth about this new “round two foreclosure crisis” comes out, they will kick themselves.
In this time of change, the fundamentals remain true:
1. DO NOT MOVE OUT OF YOUR HOME.
Your homestead exemption is more important than ever.
2. DON’T MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT YOUR FUTURE WITHOUT GETTING GOOD ADVICE.
The situation with mortgages and their enforcement is complex, and the lenders
will come back with new strategies to regain their position of total power over
property owners. But there is only so much they can do to fix what may well be
fatally flawed mortgage documents. Experienced Foreclosure Defense firms
know these issues. Take advantage of their expertise! Your family’s future may
depend on it.
3. IF YOU ARE OFFERED A MODIFICATION, have it reviewed by a qualified foreclosure defense attorney, to make sure it represents the best deal you can get.
For example, we're seeing Making Homes Affordable modifications
that INCREASE the homeowner's mortgage balance, rather than
reducing the principal, as the program was intended to do. I guess
the banks feel that everybody in the country should lose money
except for them.
THIS IS JUST THE START OF A VERY LONG STORY.
WATCH THIS SITE FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS!
Mortgage Foreclosure Terminology
Service of Process is the act of a process server, often a deputy sheriff, locating the defendant in a lawsuit, and personally presenting him or her with process papers, that is, a Summons and Complaint.
The Summons is a command from the Court to appear and answer the accusations in the Complaint, usually within 20 days in Florida.
The Complaint is the basic document which starts every lawsuit. It is a recitation of the facts (that is, the Plaintiff’s version of the facts), arranged in numbered paragraphs, which the Defendants, usually through their attorney, must admit or deny.
MERS is the abbreviation for Mortgage Electronic Registration System. MERS is an entity set up by the lending industry to facilitate the process of securitization, that is, turning your and my home mortgage into a security that can be bought and sold on the financial markets. More than anything else, securitization has crippled our economy and put millions of Americans in danger of losing their homes. Using MERS, the mortgage industry sought to avoid the cost of recording assignments of mortgages in the public records, and destroyed transparency in the relationship between borrowers and lenders. If your mortgage is a MERS mortgage, there may be defenses to foreclosure based on that fact alone.
RESPA is a federal consumer protection statute, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. It required the use of the HUD-1 Settlement Statement in residential transactions, and certain procedures in the process of closing residential real estate transactions to protect you, the consumer.
TILA is another, even more important federal consumer protection statute, the Federal Truth in Lending Act, which requires certain disclosures to borrowers. While many of its require- ments are very technical, it is often critically important to protecting the interests of borrowers who find themselves in the mortgage foreclosure system.
FDCPA is a federal consumer protection statute, the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act which restricts the behavior of debt collectors.
