December 2009

MEMPHIS, TN – Memphis and Shelby County leaders have filed a federal lawsuit against Wells Fargo, claiming the company’s lending practices have violated the Fair Housing Act and “wreaked havoc” in Memphis and Shelby County. Memphis Mayor A C Wharton [...]

While lawmakers continue to address the national foreclosure crisis, some recently evicted West Roxbury residents are taking matters into their own hands. On Dec. 23, protestors from the nonprofit housing organization City Life gathered outside a recently foreclosed home on [...]

Banks, mortgage bond investors and servicers are loath to go further, by forgiving principal, because it’s either a direct hit to capital or tricky to do under current bond documents. Enter Fannie and Freddie. With unlimited support from Treasury the [...]

I worked out a modification with my loan servicing company, and a third-party loan counselor was involved as well. I signed the paperwork, made the down payment on time and then made the first payment according to the agreement. But [...]

Prospective homeowners always need to ask how much mortgage they can afford based on their income. This is an important question because no one wants to take on a mortgage they cannot afford to pay for the next fifteen to [...]

However, even after Kosch noticed clues of mortgage fraud — suspicious income, questionable appraisals or missing documents — loans usually were approved anyway. Senior managers at Long Beach Mortgage aggressively pushed loans through as one of the nation’s biggest subprime [...]

What we’re seeing here is the mortgage equivalent of credit-card sweatboxes: servicers who make sure to drain homeowners’ savings before they foreclose, since they know that they won’t chase homeowners after foreclosure, even in recourse states. By holding out the [...]

(CHICAGO FBI) Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, announced today the filing of criminal charges against four [...]

Breaking global warming news, Obama calls news conference for Gore to admit Climate Change Hoax.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – (Business Wire) Whitfield Financial Services Inc. (Whitfield), which operated a statewide loan modification business, surrendered its real estate license in lieu of defending accusations of violations of the real estate law at an administrative hearing. The license [...]

Where do I begin with this sinister group of  Orange County, California mortgage brokers who wreaked havoc on homeowners across the nation from 2008-2009?  The OC mortgage outlaws are known as Curtis Melone and Christopher Fox who operated a cluster of illegal loan modification [...]

By Richard Davet: In response to the WSJ article titled “Foreclosure Challenges Raise Questions About Judicial Role” At the heart of some of the court rulings is what became a common practice among mortgage companies: filing a foreclosure claim without [...]

Homeowners facing foreclosure who have been the victims of fraud have little hope of obtaining justice or financial restitution. That was the message of Lionel Ouellette, executive director of the New York City-based advocacy group Changer. He was speaking to [...]

CNNMoney recently received a flood of e-mails from readers complaining about the impact of trial modifications on their credit reports. To be sure, many people who apply for the president’s plan are already delinquent in their mortgage payments, which wrecks [...]

Apply 2 Save and Derek R. Oberholtzer must have the loan modification  record for being sued by various Federal and State consumer protection agencies.  I wrote about the FTC lawsuit in July, Apply 2 Save – FTC Files Lawsuit to [...]

TALLAHASSEE — Facing the nation’s worst foreclosure crisis, Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince has Ok’d recommendations from a panel of experts to order foreclosure cases into a new “managed mediation” program where debtors could try to negotiate their [...]

IDAHO ATTORNEY GENERAL (Boise) – Idaho homeowners who paid a Westmont, New Jersey, company to help them obtain mortgage modifications will receive refunds as a result of a settlement agreement, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said today. The agreement with Best [...]

A story by the New York Law Journal this morning shows how some state-court judges are reacting to their recession. Arthur Schack, a supreme court justice in Brooklyn, who previously graced the pages of this blog for his rulings in [...]

Unlike Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), AIG (AIG), Chrysler, and GM, Congress deemed that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had not received “exceptional assistance” and therefore did not have to have their pay decisions scrutinized by the pay czar. [...]

The days of simply hanging out a shingle and opening up a loan modification business are coming to an end in Florida. As of Jan. 1, individuals or companies providing loan modification services must be licensed by the Florida Office [...]

Fannie and Freddie on 12/14/09 issued new servicing guides with lots of stuff mostly good and new borrower notices that follow HMP.ADMIN Directive from Nov I previously posted. HMP is for non GSE’s. Unfortunately we have 3 different sets of [...]

Hocking the house for quick cash is a lot harder than it used to be, and it’s causing headaches for homeowners, banks and the economy. During the housing boom, millions of people borrowed against the value of their homes to [...]

Baker is done with being a homeowner. Last month, she stopped paying her mortgage. “Who says that my American dream has to be a home with a white picket fence and all of that?” says Baker, sitting at her dining [...]

With the purchase, Pasadena, Calif.-based OneWest more than doubled its branches to 72 and increased its total assets by a third to $24 billion, making it the largest bank based in Southern California.