Having legal help can be the difference between people keeping their homes and being evicted. A lawyer can stop foreclosure proceedings or put enough pressure on lenders to get them to rework the terms of the loan. A lawyer can also intervene in other ways, such as enforcing consumer protection laws or spotting legal violations by banks and lenders.
According to the report, the barriers keeping homeowners from obtaining proper legal representation are twofold. The first, not surprisingly, is funding.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/lack-of-legal-help-one-mo_b_310353.html
ref: “Lack of Legal Help: One More Way the Deck Is Stacked Against Homeowners”
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/lack-of-legal-help-one-mo_b_310353.html)
Arianna Huffington’s article is extremely insightful because it points out things some people never consider such as: Owing a debt does not justify denial of Due Process, nor erroneous or fraudulent pleadings filed in courtrooms, nor any other Unconstitutional violation of people. The average person not only can’t afford a lawyer, more critically, since the average person does not even recognize which laws were broken, he or she doesn’t recognize when judicial oversight is necessary -which also is a problem because courts have been biased. In a few States such as where I reside, Louisiana, there is such a thing as “Cognovit Clause” which most States have banned because it precludes people from timely raising objection to improper foreclosures. However, mortgage loan debt is NOT the only type of debts whereby the “lack of legal help” does indeed “stack the deck” against people!
The appalling and incredible reality is that people who owe debt often have ‘unfair decks’ stacked against them (sometimes to the degree of crime and extortions of horrific proportions). Some borrowers who become delinquent on a payments are gold mines for unscrupulous law firms! Too often rather than the agenda being repayment from the borrower, the goal is to rake in mega bucks from corporations that pay those legal tabs. And worse, if a debtor protest unfair collection tactics, blacklisting from employment and incredible invasion of privacy, are among the consequences.
Here are links which also discuss the problem of ‘unfair decks’:
▬”IRS Tax Advocate Renews Criticism of Private Collectors”
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200803131508DOWJONESDJONLINE000968_FORTUNE5.htm
▬“Piling On: Borrowers Buried by Fees” by Gretchen Morgenson
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/business/20gret.html?hp
▬“DEBTOR’S HELL”, a 4-part investigation by the Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/specials/debt/
▬-Mortgage Mess, Foreclosure Fraud and Impediments to Justice
http://newsblaze.com/story/20071203130614tsop.nb/newsblaze/TOPSTORY/Top-Stories.
▬“Dubious Fees Hit Borrowers in Foreclosures”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/business/06mortgage.html?_r=3&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
▬“Complaints Against Debt Collectors Skyrocket, Lack of Oversight to Blame”
http://www.mediasyndicate.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid
▬ Public Citizen’s Consumer Law & Policy Blog,
http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/debt_collection/index.html
▬OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA on Foreclosure Crisis
http://www.pr-inside.com/open-letter-to-president-obama-on-foreclosure-crisis-r1505916.htm
**Illustration of motive and abusive collections, can be seen from this lawsuit: “ Super Future Equities Inc. v. Wells Fargo, et al.,” http://www.bankruptcylawnetwork.com/2007/05/11/what-are-those-mortgage-servicers-doing/
Excerpts>> Paragraph 37- “pattern of initiating litigation. . .designed to further its own interests. . .” Paragraph 38- “expanded its business activities from. . .unscrupulous “litigation machine.”” Paragraph 64- ““After foreclosure, . . .ORIX makes “servicing advances,” which include legal fees spent by ORIX to pursue claims against the borrowers. . . At the time of foreclosure, ORIX receives additional foreclosure related fees, in addition to all the other fees collected from the Certificateholders. On information and belief, Wells Fargo benefits from these improper foreclosures by charging inflated and unexplained “expenses” to the Trust in connection with the foreclosures.””