From the monthly archives:

March 2009

Loan Mods by Lawyers Shut Down by Massachusetts AG Coakley

Attorney General Martha Coakley Obtains Temporary Restraining Order Against Company for Deceptively Advertising Foreclosure Relief Services and Soliciting Illegal Advance Fees
BOSTON – Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office has obtained a temporary restraining order against Express Modifications, Inc., d/b/a “Loan Mods By Lawyers, Inc.,” which ran prominent advertisements in a local newspaper last month offering to [...]

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A Solution to the Cramdown Impasse?

The subject of cramdown legislation is widely attended to by consumers and corporate executives alike. Consumers are paying careful attention as the bill, if passed, could give desperate homeowners another exit strategy from serious hardships caused by the worsening economy.

Corporate executives argue that the legislation would result in higher interest rates for borrowers, however, most [...]

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91-year-old Ohio woman who shot herself after foreclosure dies

AKRON, Ohio — Addie Polk’s solitude was shattered six months ago, when she shot herself in the chest as she was about to be evicted from her foreclosed home in Akron.
“She was a very private person,” said Mary Dennis, Polk’s only living sibling. “She would not have wanted people looking into her life.”

Polk, however, became [...]

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Banks Starting to Walk Away on Foreclosures

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Mercy James thought she had lost her rental property here to foreclosure. A date for a sheriff’s sale had been set, and notices about the foreclosure process were piling up in her mailbox.
Ms. James had the tenants move out, and soon her white house at the corner of Thomas and Maple [...]

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Florida Attorney General Calls for Cooperative Approach to State’s Mortgage Fraud Issues

~ Situation likened to a “state of emergency” ~
TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that he has sent a letter to several state agencies and associations, including the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Office of Financial Regulation, the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and the Florida Bar, calling for a [...]

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Wells & Wachovia Suck! The Mortgage Servicing Follies Continue…

Wells Fargo CEO Stumpf worries that economy could cancel out his efforts to revive Wachovia and deal with toxic loans.
He should be worried and the investors that own these loans should be more than worried. They should be in court suing Stumpf and these idiots for incompetent mortgage servicing practices. I have been writing about this [...]

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State suing 4 Miami companies, alleging fees were charged for loan-modification services

The state attorney general’s office is suing four Miami companies for allegedly charging customers upfront fees for loan-modification services in violation of Florida law.
Named in the suit filed Wednesday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court are: Mortgage Crisis Solutions Association, Property Solutions Specialists, One Source Communications and Nationwide Financial Partners. Principals Donald R. Gillette and Flynn McCarthy [...]

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Commercial Foreclosures: US programs seen too late to stem foreclosure wave

* CMBS default rate could hit 3.5 percent by year-end
* Bank default rate could reach 4.8 percent in 2011
* Commercial real estate prices may fall 35-45 pct from 07 peak
By Ilaina Jonas
NEW YORK, March 26 (Reuters) – The new federal programs to aid the U.S. financial markets will likely not fend off the impending wave [...]

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Victims Sought in Mortgage Foreclosure Scheme

SAN DIEGO – Authorities asked for the public’s help Wednesday in locating additional victims of a San Diego foreclosure fraud scam in which victims were falsely told that “land patents” would protect their properties from foreclosure.
District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said 61-year-old Larry Smith and five alleged accomplices sold the bogus “land patents” to homeowners, claiming [...]

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Homeowner Revolution Anyone? The Internet May Bring on the 2nd Revolution

I really don’t think the government gets what is happening on Main Street and on the internet right now. The American people on Main Street are not getting the help they deserve and the criminals on Wall Street seem to get new multi billion to trillion dollar bailouts daily. It appears that some people have [...]

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Geithner says US Loan Modification Plan is Only “Pretty Good.”

I just picked this up from Reuters. The big Obama plan gets a HUGE, ummmmmmmmmm, actually just a so-so “pretty good” rating from U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Reuters:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. mortgage loan modification program has “a pretty good chance” of success, though it will take a couple of months to gauge its effect, U.S. [...]

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Congresswoman Doris Matsui Advocates for Increased Consumer Protection Against Loan Modification Scams

Congresswoman Doris Matsui Advocates for Increased Consumer Protection Against Loan Modification Scams
Presses Federal Trade Commission for Full Disclosure to Consumers of Financial Terms on New and Existing Loans
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Doris Matsui (CA-05) addressed the Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Hearing today on the topic of “Consumer Credit and Debt: the Role of [...]

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‘Shadow’ Supply Of Foreclosures May Delay Housing’s Recovery

“Everybody is stalled 100%; the lenders aren’t doing anything” with modifications, said Moe Bedard, president of Loan Safe Solutions, a Corona, Calif.-based firm that does mortgage auditing for attorneys. Some shadow inventory may not be listed publicly because some lenders sell foreclosures via in-house divisions, says Bedard. Or, lenders may be selling the defaulted paper to investors. But these gray market sales can’t account for all unlisted foreclosed properties.

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Florida Bar Ethics Alert: Providing Legal Services to Distressed Homeowners

The Florida Bar’s Ethics Hotline recently has received numerous calls from lawyers who have been contacted by non-lawyers seeking to set up an arrangement in which the lawyers are involved in loan modifications, short sales, and other foreclosure-related rescue services on behalf of distressed homeowners.
These non-lawyers include mortgage brokers, financial management advisors, foreclosure “consultants” and [...]

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Loan Modification Scams Shut Down by the FTC: Hope Now Modifications & New Hope Property

The Federal Trade Commission convinced a U.S. district court to order two companies to stop advertising that they are part of a government-endorsed mortgage-assistance network. The complaints and restraining orders name Hope Now Modifications LLC, related entities and principals Nick Puglia and Salvatore Puglia as well as New Hope Property LLC and principals Brian Mammoccio [...]

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Second Mortgages: What will be done about them?

While President Obama, Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke continue to advance plans to improve the economy offering answers about how homeowners, lenders and even judges can modify loans, one important piece of the puzzle is often left out: second mortgages.
Current legislation aimed at incentivizing lenders to modify first mortgages may not be enough to solve [...]

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Home Loan Resolution Reality Check

The word is out! If you just pick up the phone and call your mortgage servicer, they will take care of you and help you out of the foreclosure process holding your hand all along the way. These mortgage servicers are on your side and want to save your home.
You can trust them, right? WRONG!
To [...]

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Predatory Renting Extends its Grip to Apartments, Low Income Families

The foreclosure crisis is something we can’t get away from if we tried. It’s on the television each night, in the newspapers and discussed actively online each and every day. And everyone’s got an opinion about the cause and the cure. But I’ve been writing on a different type of crisis, very much related to [...]

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Fed Commits to Buy up to $1.45 Trillion of Mortgage Debt

For the first time in recent memory the markets seem to be rebounding from record losses. In an effort to continue the sustained improvement of the economy the Fed recently announced a plan to buy $300 million in T-Bills and as much as $1.45 trillion of toxic mortgage debt. The plan is aimed to get [...]

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HUD Approved Foreclosure Avoidance Counseling

By Kenneth M. Corioso
A great deal of effort has gone in to writing articles about how to avoid becoming one of the thousands of victims of foreclosure consulting fraud. Thousands of loan modification firms have set up shop across the United States; some operating legally and others operating illegally. While I believe using an attorney [...]

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California Loan Modification Firms Out of Control

Not only are the authorities cracking down on fraudulent loan modification firms, but attorneys are beginning to file class action lawsuits against major violators. One loan modification company mentioned in the FOX report, The Firm, from Rancho Cucamonga, CA was recently forced to pay back advanced fees to a client for loan modification services. [...]

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“So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don’t you leave.”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
Marcy Kaptur of Ohio is the longest-serving Democratic congresswoman in U.S. history. Her district, stretching along the shore of Lake Erie from west of Cleveland to Toledo, faces an epidemic of home foreclosures and 11.5 percent unemployment.That heartland region, the Rust Belt, had its heart torn out by the [...]

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Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against You Walk Away

Distressed Homeowners Sue Carlsbad-based “Foreclosure Consultant” YOU WALK AWAY, LLC for Violations of California State Law -

“$995 for foreclosure advice? Why not pay for actually doing something… I have a REAL spell caster that can cast a wicked protection spell on those evil bankers so they leave you alone. – Reader Comment

The perfect storm for underwater real estate is reaching the tsunami boiling point and for companies that help homeowners ditch their homes and jump into a home saving raft like You Walk Away, business is absolutely BOOMING!

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Hidden in Obama’s Housing Bill, The Mortgage Investors Protection Act Of 2009

Hiding in Obama’s foreclosure bill are provisions to protect big investors from bankruptcy cramdowns.
Washington is finally realizing that there are two types of mortgage investors and you usually can’t help one without hurting the other.
A last-second addition to the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 would make it so that senior mortgage investors–often [...]

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An Answer to Unemployment, Mortgage Servicing and Foreclosure Scams

Our country is facing many economic crises and they all seem to be reaching the boiling point simultaneously. From housing to unemployment, many Main Street Americans are suffering from foreclosures and layoffs by the millions.
I have a possible solution that may kill three Main Street viruses in one fell swoop (foreclosures, unemployment and foreclosure scams). This [...]

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Mortgage Modification Act and Politics as Usual

“Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central powerhouses. The conflict is no longer between the men, but between the motors that drive the men, and the men tend to succumb to their own motive forces. [...]

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Tide turns against schools as foreclosures rise

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Way back when times were good — last April — builders showed up one day at Forest Grove Middle School and gutted a little-used classroom off the gym.
Four months and a half-million dollars later, they had transformed the space into a gleaming, bubbling mini marine biology laboratory, with five huge, blue [...]

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Do I need a lawyer to get a loan modification, and if so, why?

by Nathan Fransen Esq.

Loan modification companies now occupy countless blogs on the internet, almost every commercial break on the radio and now even television commercials. Some are lawyers, some are not. Both groups seem to be spouting the same message to the same people.
Is this “boom” caused out of a legitimate need, or is [...]

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Why CNBC Sucks & You Should Get Your Business Advice From Comedy Central

FYI America, your TV is a vehicle to buy and sell YOU things.
It is also used to manipulate people and in CNBC’s instance, possibly manipulate markets. You, the consumer happen to be the target that the sellers on Wall Street call a consumer/sucker. Without TV Network advertising, there would be no TV stations like CNBC to [...]

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Wall Street Bank CEO Protest

NACA & Loan Safe demand loan modifications for struggling homeowners in a protest in Stamford, CT. Watch as Bruce Marks, NACA, Moe Bedard, Loan Safe and hundreds of homeowers stand of for ALL our rights on the properties of the very banking culprits who have driven our economy into the ground!

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Mortgage Investors Call for Changes in Rescue Plan

Investors who hold billions of dollars of residential mortgage-backed securities are pressing the Obama administration to make changes in its housing rescue plan.
Participation by these investors will help determine the success of President Barack Obama’s $75 billion plan to reduce foreclosures and help stabilize the housing market. But many investors are critical of features of [...]

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Financial Fraud Is Focus of Attack by Prosecutors

I am sure that many of these Wall Street financial fraudsters were not thinking about spending the rest of thier lives in a 8×8 prison cell for ripping off Main Street to the tune of billions of dollars. I guess going from a penthouse to a concrete house with 25 to life will give you some time to think [...]

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The Tenant Against the Predatory Renter/Realtor

My predatory renting saga continues…
As many of my readers know, I am a renter in foreclosure. Meaning, the home I am leasing for my family and I is in foreclosure.
My landlord, Sherry Mc Coy (who happens to be a California Realtor) is taking my hard earned money that I pay on time every month and [...]

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Obama’s Foreclosure Dilema: Where’s the Accountability?

Mortgage servicing is at the heart of the foreclosure crisis. Few people understand the role that servicers play as opposed to the institutions that provide loans (banks and lenders). When critical aspects of problems are not well understood the probability that problems will linger on increases exponentially.

Servicers do not merely accept payments from borrowers, they also play a major role in deciding when to foreclose on homes. As intermediaries between the borrower and the institutions that lend money, servicers clearly play a critical role in the solution to the ongoing crisis.

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Attorney General Brown Sends Message to Loan Mod Scammers: You WILL Go to Prison for YEARS!

I am glad that our great California AG Brown went after this crew of Inland Empire loan modification scammers. He not only went hard after this scum bag crew, he put down the hammer and sent a serious message to foreclosure scammers/sharks everywhere in the Golden State .
YOU WILL GET CAUGHT AND YOU WILL GO [...]

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Did Chase Stop Loan Modifications?

Over in our free loan modification forum, a member and client of Chase said that they have temporarily halted all loan modifications. Did anyone else here this?
Click here to read the news:
diana0806 diana0806
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 121
Re: All Chase Modification on Hold!!!
Yes, i was told the same thing today. But i was told they [...]

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A Message to Lenders From California: Offer Loan Modifications or Else!

“Many distressed homeowners in California are underwater by more than 5% on their home loan, which makes them ineligible to apply for refinance assistance,” said Lieu, author of a state foreclosure moratorium law that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed last week.

What is the The California Foreclosure Prevention Act?

The California Foreclosure Prevention Act, known as SB 1137 is the first law in the nation to impose a foreclosure moratorium and encourage quality loan modifications. SB 1137, the new California foreclosure prevention act became fully effective on September 6, 2008. This legislation only applies to foreclosures on loans made between January 1, 2003 and December 31, 2007. It sunsets December 31, 2013.

Who’s money is paying for all this?

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Get Free Foreclosure Help in Columbia, South Carolina March 13-16th With NACA & Loan Safe

For the second time this year LoanSafe Solutions (LSS) will participate in yet another Save the Dream Event Hosted by NACA in Columbia, SC from March 13th to March 16th. To accommodate the thousands of homeowners expected to attend, the event will be held in the Carolina Coliseum at 701 Assembly Street, Columbia, South Carolina.
The [...]

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Mortgage Bankruptcy Bill Passed by Congress

After almost two years, it now looks like bankruptcy judges will soon be allowed to offer loan modifications through bankruptcy court as a last resort for a homeowner to stop foreclosure.
The process of claiming bankruptcy on your mortgage has been dubbed “cramdown.”
Under current BK laws, bankruptcy courts may reduce many forms of debt for struggling [...]

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HUD Secretary Donovan Speaks on the Obama Housing Plan

SHAUN DONOVAN, HUD SECRETARY: We’re going to target those borrowers that are most at risk of foreclosure through our modification plan, helping to bring payments down to 31 percent of their income for three to four million borrowers. We’re going to target that in a way that first of all, no speculators, no investor-owners are [...]

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FDIC to Pursue Billions in Mortgage Fraud

Sheila Bair says the FDIC is gathering momentum to go after past mortgage fraud in the lending industry and is pursuing more than 100 home mortgage fraud cases, and is investigating another 4,000 more.
Watch out mortgage brokers from the past. Karma in the name of an F a D an I and a C looks like it may be [...]

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Sheila Bair of the FDIC Speaks on the Obama Housing Plan

I really feel that Shelia Bair is the perfect person to aid the Obama administration in leading our nation out of the mortgage and housing crisis. Her knowledge, voice and face portray calmness and trust to Main Street. Something that Obama can’t buy, but he definitely can recruit Bair to his cabinet for the real [...]

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PennyMac Saviors/Vultures Nothing More Than Ex-Countrywide Predators?

“Not only are former Countrywide execs back in business, but they are making money off of the current housing crisis, they helped create. All this makes me wonder if Countrywide’s business model was just a sick massive mortgage ponzi scheme that makes ponzi-poster child, Bernie Madoff look like .25 cent lollipop bandit and Stanford Kurland [...]

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Details on Obama’s Home Affordable Loan Modification Program

The Obama Administration’s Making Home Affordable program will offer assistance to as many as 7 to 9 million homeowners making a good-faith effort to make their mortgage payments, while attempting to prevent the destructive impact of the housing crisis on families and communities.
It will not provide money to speculators, and it will target support to [...]

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Hope Now Facts or Fiction?

Loanworkout.org and loansafe.org are committed to providing data from various sources that may help to ameliorate the foreclosure crisis in America. Loanworkout.org and loanSafe.org are consumer websites that never accept corporate donations or advertising dollars from the entities we monitor…we feel taking anything from them would undermine our objectivity.
Not everyone feels the same.
This week, HOPE [...]

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