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Organizing your community to bring public attention to builder’s bad deeds and seeking assistance from local, state and federal elected officials has proven to be more effective and much quicker for thousands of families. You do have choices and alternatives. Janet Ahmad |
Forcloseure Latest News
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New York Times: Homeowners Walk Away |
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Sunday, 14 February 2010 |
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No Help in Sight, More Homeowners Walk Away
“People like me are beginning to feel like suckers,” Mr. Koellmann said. “Why not let it go in default and rent a better place for less?” After three years of plunging real estate values, after the bailouts of the bankers and the revival of their million-dollar bonuses, after the Obama administration’s loan modification plan raised the expectations of many but satisfied only a few, a large group of distressed homeowners is wondering the same thing. New research suggests that when a home’s value falls below 75 percent of the amount owed on the mortgage, the owner starts to think hard about walking away, even if he or she has the money to keep paying. |
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NY TIMES GRETCHEN MORGENSON: The Federal Mortgage Plan and Banks Fails to Assist Consumer |
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Sunday, 06 December 2009 |
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Why Treasury Needs a Plan B for Mortgages
AFTER months of playing pretend, the Treasure Department conceded last week that the Home Affordable Modification Program, its plan to aid troubled homeowners by changing the terms of their mortgages, was a dud. The 10-month-old program is going nowhere, the Treasury said, because big institutions charged with implementing it are dragging their feet.“The banks are not doing a good enough job,” said Michael S. Barr, assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions, in an article published last Sunday in The New York Times. |
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Washington Post: Quarter Of Borrowers In Anti-Foreclosure Program Are Late Paying New Mortgage Bill |
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Sunday, 06 December 2009 |
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Quarter of borrowers in anti-foreclosure plan are behind
About 25 percent of borrowers helped under the administration's massive foreclosure prevention plan have already fallen behind on their new mortgage payments, according to government data that raise new questions about the program's effectiveness. The delinquency figures reflect the latest troubles of the program, known as Making Home Affordable. Earlier this week, Treasury officials announced a campaign to put new pressure on lenders to do more to move struggling homeowners into loans with easier terms. So far, more than 650,000 borrowers have been enrolled into the initial, or "trial," phase of the program and have seen their payments lowered by an average of $640 a month, or 40 percent. But a recent survey of large mortgage servicers published by the Treasury Department found that that more than 25 percent of borrowers in the program were not current on their trial payments. |
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Huffington Post: Corperate Welfare Tax Breaks |
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Monday, 16 November 2009 |
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Huffington Post
Gretchen Morgenson: Lobbyists Win Again In Securing Tax Break For Home Builders
The New York Times ’s Gretchen Morgenson points out that lobbyists have won another victory that will lead to billions in taxpayer dollars being handed over to firms that helped spur the economic crisis. The Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009, which President Obama just signed into law, contains “a tax break that lets big companies offset losses incurred in 2008 and 2009 against profits booked as far back as 2004,” Morgenson reports. |
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HUD/FHA Sweet Deals Enabled Predatory Lending |
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Tuesday, 13 October 2009 |
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A Secret Deal Between Wall Street and Washington Shines a Harsh Light on Federal Housing Agency
While the Federal Trade Commission was receiving gut-wrenching documentation of predatory lending abuses at a unit of Citigroup, the Federal agency mandated to level the playing field for low income homeowners, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, was quietly awarding 19,968 mortgages of homeowners in distress to Citigroup to dispose of as it saw fit. HUD legally became Citigroup’s joint venture partner in at least two of the deals, retaining a minority interest. |
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Attention: Check Mortgage Legal Filings - Some foreclosures may at least be slowed |
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Sunday, 04 October 2009 |
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Ruling by judges rattles mortgage industry
Law and custom have long required that property transactions be recorded with a county clerk or “recorder of deeds,” along with information about the person who holds the mortgage...Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, set up a company that would do it all electronically. It is called Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS)...Once people started defaulting on loans, MERS would announce the default on behalf of its bank clients. Consumer activists and attorneys for homeowners began questioning whether MERS, which represents banks but has no direct financial interest in the loans, could legally trigger foreclosure, but judges were generally not sympathetic to the argument. |
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NY Times: Recording Legal Ownership Troubles |
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Thursday, 01 October 2009 |
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GRETCHEN MORGENSON:The Mortgage Machine Backfires
The opinion spotlights a crucial but obscure cog in the nation’s lending machinery: a privately owned loan tracking service known as the Mortgage Electronic Registration System. This registry, created in 1997 to improve profits and efficiency among lenders, eliminates the need to record changes in property ownership in local land records... Dotting i’s and crossing t’s can be a costly bore, of course. And eliminating the need to record mortgage assignments helped keep the lending machine humming during the boom... In April 2006, Mr. Kesler filed for bankruptcy. That July, Landmark National Bank foreclosed. It did not notify either MERS or Sovereign of the proceedings, and in October, the court overseeing the matter ordered the property sold. It fetched $87,000 and Landmark received what it was owed. Mr. Kesler kept the rest; Sovereign received nothing. |
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The Huffington Post: Millions of distressed homeowners may have legal advantage to avoid foreclosure |
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Wednesday, 23 September 2009 |
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Landmark Decision Promises Massive Relief for Homeowners and Trouble for Banks
A landmark ruling in a recent Kansas Supreme Court case may have given millions of distressed homeowners the legal wedge they need to avoid foreclosure. In Landmark Natioal Bank v. Kesler, 2009 Kan. LEXIS 834, the Kansas Supreme Court held that a nominee company called MERS has no right or standing to bring an action for foreclosure. MERS is an acronym for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, a private company that registers mortgages electronically and tracks changes in ownership. The significance of the holding is that if MERS has no standing to foreclose, then nobody has standing to foreclose -- on 60 million mortgages. That is the number of American mortgages currently reported to be held by MERS. Over half of all new U.S. residential mortgage loans are registered with MERS and recorded in its name. Holdings of the Kansas Supreme Court are not binding on the rest of the country, but they are dicta of which other courts take note; and the reasoning behind the decision is sound.
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Families buying time in Foreclosures |
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Tuesday, 22 September 2009 |
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Delayed Foreclosures Stalk Market
Debra and Arthur Scriven were served notice in June 2008 that their mortgage lender, a unit of Citigroup Inc., was preparing to foreclose on their home. Fifteen months later, the Scrivens are still in their home near Columbia, S.C., and battling to stay there, even though a dispute with the lender over how much they owe prompted them to stop making regular payments last year... Legal snarls, bureaucracy and well-meaning efforts to keep families in their homes are slowing the flow of properties headed toward foreclosure sales, even when borrowers are in deep distress. While that buys time for families to work out their problems, some analysts believe the delays are prolonging the mortgage crisis and creating a growing "shadow" inventory of pent-up supply that will eventually hit the market. |
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Reuters: Officials Warn of the Huge Next Round of Foreclosures |
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Sunday, 20 September 2009 |
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"Option" mortgages to explode, officials warn
The federal government and states are girding themselves for the next foreclosure crisis in the country's housing downturn: payment option adjustable rate mortgages that are beginning to reset."Payment option ARMs are about to explode," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said after a Thursday meeting with members of President Barack Obama's administration to discuss ways to combat mortgage scams. "That's the next round of potential foreclosures in our country," he said. |
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Snakes, lizards, alligators and dragons - all the warning signs were there |
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Wednesday, 16 September 2009 |
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Adolfo Pesquera: Gaming the finance system: breaking down the Housing Jungle
When housing construction was going full throttle --- hmmm? --- how was quality control keeping up? Simple answer: what quality control? In fact, many good craftsmen left the housing industry during its peak, because they took pride in their work, and wanted a pay grade subcontractors were not willing to pay...For builders and lenders, it's all about eliminating risk during the process of making a profit. Less risk equals more profit. No risk equals piles of ill-gotten profit. Homebuilders were, still are, masters of eliminating risk. Warranties written on homes are designed by homebuilders...five years ago...for every four homes sold each month, one house was going into foreclosure. |
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