January 2010

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) — When John King stopped making payments on his home in Coral Gables, Florida, two years ago, he assumed the foreclosure ended his mortgage contract, he said. Last month, a Miami-Dade County court gave collectors permission to [...]

Many newspapers and television stations have reported on loan-modification scammers, people taking money from homeowners who can least afford to be flimflammed. But it’s still happening, so the word hasn’t reached everyone who needs to hear the message. Here’s an [...]

In the middle of the fierce storm that pounded Southern California last week that momentarily displaced some homeowners, Blanca Ordoñez was going through a more serious tempest. On Tuesday January, 20, Ordoñez and her two daughters, Clair and Genesis, were [...]

With their mortgage consuming about half of their monthly income and the bank threatening to foreclose, Jason and Jennifer Sonterre looked like perfect candidates for the federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, which was supposed to help up to 4 [...]

Nearly three years after Michael Anthony Prieskorn disappeared, he was arrested Tuesday in Florida and accused of orchestrating one of Minnesota’s largest mortgage frauds. Authorities said Prieskorn, 35, received more than $5 million from investors who bought some 70 homes [...]

“Mortgagee Review Board underscores FHA’s stepped up lender enforcement efforts” WASHINGTON – The Federal Housing Administration’s Mortgagee Review Board (MRB) today announced that it is immediately and permanently withdrawing the FHA approval of three mortgage lenders and is suspending a [...]

“Lender faulted for gross violations of FHA underwriting standards” WASHINGTON – The Federal Housing Administration’s Mortgagee Review Board (MRB) today immediately and permanently withdrew the FHA approval of Premium Capital Funding, LLC, a Jericho, New York-based lender doing business as [...]

DETROIT, Jan 26 (Reuters) – The U.S. housing market appears to have bottomed out after its worst downturn since the Great Depression, but a large wave of homes in foreclosure remains a risk to the sector’s fragile recovery, Freddie Mac [...]

Freddie Mac plans to announce Thursday the opening of two help centers in Chicago for homeowners who are delinquent on mortgages backed by the agency. The pilot program won’t change what some consider a frustrating, laborious loan modification process, but [...]

The loss to the public from loan-modification cases is in the millions of dollars, State Bar officials say. Most of the attorneys under investigation are from Southern California, but many of the victims live in the central San Joaquin Valley, [...]

Based on the reverse foreclosure procedure, Miami Dade Circuit Judge Jerald Bagley awarded title of a home in the Keys Gate development to HSBC Bank on Jan. 12. The home had fallen into foreclosure in 2007. Since then, the home [...]

“I call it extortion,” Salter said. “Government-backed extortion. I mean, who in their right mind would accept this? No one would. No one should.” The mortgage modification solves a short-term problem: It allows Salter to stay in his home. But [...]

Pennsylvania’s Homeowners’ Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program was created in the 1980s in response to job losses in the steel and coal industries. With funding tight, the approval rate for new loans in the Pennsylvania program has fallen to about 22% [...]

LAKEWOOD, Colo. — Imagine modifying your home loan only to have your house taken from you three months later. That’s the reality for one Arvada family. After the modification, Bank of America sent them a letter saying the bank had [...]

A group of alleged Orange County, California loan modification scammers were arrested over the weekend on 97 counts of theft for defrauding approximately 400 homeowners out of $1.25 million dollars. The Orange County District Attorney’s office has arrested former attorney [...]

The recession has driven an increasing number of California lawyers to cheat and steal, say State Bar officials, who expect to discipline or expel hundreds of them in coming months. Financial pressures are behind the increase in lawyer wrongdoing, they [...]

These are boom times for receivers. With the brutal real estate market causing owners to lose their buildings to their lenders, more professionals like Hoffman are being tapped to look after properties until they can be resold. Hoffman is managing [...]

The couple contacted Real Estate Loan Negotiation Services in Jacksonville, Fla., to redo their loan. They say they were told that their 10 percent interest rate on their $97,000 mortgage could be reduced to 4.5 percent. The Jenkinses signed up [...]

WASHINGTON – Homeowners with FHA-insured mortgage loans who are experiencing financial hardship are now eligible for loss mitigation assistance before they fall behind on their mortgage payments. Previously, these homeowners were not eligible for such assistance until after they had [...]

The law enforcement crack downs are starting to make a huge dent in the business of scamming for out of work mortgage and real estate brokers,(AKA Cockbrokers). The FBI, FTC, DA’s, AG’s and city cops have shined a criminal light on the [...]

According to the HUD database, Alethes has made about 2,000 FHA loans in the past two years. Due to the high default rate of its borrowers, that translates into a high number of current defaults and claims: 366. Drilling down [...]

Phelps, a mortgage broker whose license has been withdrawn by a state agency, is considered the “linchpin,” Lobingier said. She apparently had close ties to two other defendants. Phelps was indicted on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity in [...]