Foreclosure Nation

A dozen U.S. senators are pooling their influence to persuade federal regulators to work with state attorneys general and other federal agencies, including the U.S. Justice Department and HUD, as the various parties work to “fix the broken foreclosure process,” as the lawmakers put it. In a letter...

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Lenders could bypass plenty of legal legwork when they foreclose on some homes, including abandoned houses, investment properties and vacation homes if a bill in the Florida House becomes law. The law would create an "alternative foreclosure procedure" that lenders could impose on owners of non-hom...

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UNDERWRITING BULLETIN 2011-07 To: ALL FLORIDA OFFICES AND AGENTS OF Chicago Title Insurance Company Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company Fidelity National Title Insurance Company From: FNTG Florida Agency Underwriting Department Date: March 9, 2011 Re: Foreclosure Process Disc...

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Florida state courts could be forced to shut down April 1 and furlough staff and judges if a budget shortfall caused by a drop in foreclosure filing fee revenue isn't addressed by the Legislature, Miami-Dade Circuit Chief Judge Joel Brown said Thursday. If courts do not receive emergency funding be...

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It was always about the money, but over the past few years that truism has descended into a miasma of self-interested perversity that has begun to put the entire game at risk with more and more of the nation's economically disenfranchised sensing that they have become powerless in a system that look...

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Lee Castillo, 34, is an IT systems engineer with zero experience in the mortgage industry. But when he found out that his friend had been scammed by a loan modification company and was a week away from losing his home, Castillo decided to get involved. "He had been trying to work with CitiMortg...

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For the past 30 days, Kendra and Todd Parker have been trying to figure out what to tell their four children, fearing that they, like millions of other Americans facing foreclosure, could be tossed out of their home. But unlike the vast majority of homeowners in their predicament, Kendra Parker sa...

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WASHINGTON -- A top federal regulator told bankers on Friday that a major investigation into Wall Street's foreclosure system has revealed a "broken" process that takes advantage of homeowners, further intensifying the debate over regulatory remedies to potential foreclosure fraud. Mortgage compa...

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For the past 30 days, Kendra and Todd Parker have been trying to figure out what to tell their four children, fearing that they, like millions of other Americans facing foreclosure, could be tossed out of their home. But unlike the vast majority of homeowners in their predicament, Kendra Parker ...

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Sandra Castillo-Rivera is fighting the foreclosure on her Doral townhouse, but first she's got to figure out who has the right to take her on. Castillo-Rivera obtained a $220,000 mortgage loan in 2006 from WMC Mortgage, but Deutsche Bank, is foreclosing on her home on behalf of investors in a pool ...

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The uproar over faulty paperwork in mortgages is putting the brakes on the nation's foreclosure system. The number of foreclosure filings nationwide fell to about 260,000 last month, 17 percent lower than in January 2010. In areas where judges, law enforcement and other officials have taken aggr...

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Fewer U.S. homes entered the foreclosure process in January than in any month in more than three years, the latest sign lenders are taking longer to move against homeowners who have fallen behind on mortgage payments. The number of homes that received an initial default notice fell 1 percent la...

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Last year the Florida State Courts Administration asked its legislators for $9.6 million to try to clear its massive backlog of foreclosures. Since the courts received the money and began working through the backlog in July 2010, the state has cleared more than 110,000 foreclosures from its system...

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Last year's robo-signing scandals delayed tens of thousands of foreclosures in the 23 states where the process is handled in court. A new controversy could complicate foreclosures in the other 27 states. At issue is the notice of default, the first letter that a mortgage lender or servicer sends to...

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Massachusetts’ highest court will consider whether a home buyer can rightfully own a property if the bank that sold it to him didn’t have the right to foreclose on the original owner. The state’s Supreme Judicial Court, which agreed last month to take the appeal, already ruled Jan. 7 that banks c...

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Recent data from Barclays Capital examines the ramifications of the fourth quarter foreclosure debacles on REO roll rates. Data released Friday shows the foreclosure-to-REO rate dropped 57 percent in judicial states the last few months of 2010, and dropped 42 percent in the non-judicial states. I...

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As foreclosure cases continue to pour into courts, judges in New York are holding their fellow legal professionals accountable for their role in perpetuating foreclosure fraud. Judges in the state say foreclosure lawyers have filed often ludicrous paperwork on behalf of their clients, which Nassau ...

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Once a home owner falls into foreclosure, the eviction doesn’t happen right away — in fact, it may take years before delinquent borrowers finally have to turn over their keys. Data by LPS Applied Analytics shows that New York holds the longest average in the nation--mortgage loans in the foreclo...

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The 2011 Mortgage Servicers Outlook published mid-December by Moody’s predicts more troubles ahead for servicers regarding irregularities in foreclosure practices and documentation. More scrutiny of the irregularities banks have recently been under fire for could allow for definition of just how...

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Since the meltdown in the housing market began more than three years ago, Maryland and the District have changed their foreclosure laws to give borrowers greater protection. Virginia has moved in the opposite direction. Last year, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law making it eas...

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Several key House Democrats are circulating a letter urging support for new regulations that would crack down on what critics say are rampant foreclosure abuses in the nation's banking system. The letter, authored by Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) encourages federal banking regulators to rein in practic...

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The call for federal officials to establish industry-wide mortgage servicing and foreclosure standards is getting louder. A group of more than 50 senior economists, academic leaders, and influential investors sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the heads of five federal regu...

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Two years before dementia forced her to move into a nursing care facility, Dorothy Halstien obtained a $73,000 loan from Washington Mutual Inc. secured by her house on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle. In 2007, a year after she moved, the bank hired a trustee, Quality Loan Service Corp. of Was...

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Broward Circuit Judge Michael Gates, head of the foreclosure division, issued an order Friday canceling all foreclosure sales between today and Dec. 31. Chief Circuit Judge Victor Tobin said the order was issued for humanitarian reasons and because the sales docket had thinned significantly. T...

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In part one of this series I showed that MERS recommended that mortgage servicers retain the "wet ink" notes that borrowers signed. These notes are required in 45 states to foreclose on a home. Not only does the foreclosing party need to physically hold the note, but the note must be properly endo...

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In two recent pieces I harped on the problems at MERS, the Mortgage Electronic Registration System. ("Support Representative Kaptur's Bill: Time To Shut Down Mers And To Restore The Rule Of Law" and "Shut Down MERS"). Briefly, MERS purportedly offers an alternative to paperwork, maintaining an ele...

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Federal banking regulators have been conducting extensive reviews of foreclosure practices at the nation’s largest mortgage servicers. They say the robo-signing controversy has exposed what they describe as widespread and inexcusable breakdowns in the process, and some are pushing for Congress to e...

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Some large law firms that handle the state's foreclosures are regrouping and re-filing court documents that were pulled earlier this fall, claiming that flaws have been fixed and hoping to move home repossessions forward. But foreclosure defense attorneys are crying foul. They say judges shouldn'...

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Reacting to reports of barriers to attending foreclosures hearings, Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Canady issued a memorandum Wednesday directing all judicial circuit chief judges to ensure public access. The American Civil Liberties Union, news media groups and other parties complai...

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Four federal banking regulators – the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), the FDIC, and the Federal Reserve – are in the process of conducting an in-depth review of foreclosure practices at the nation’s largest mortgage servicing operations, which...

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The ongoing controversy surrounding deficiencies in foreclosure documentation is taking its toll on the housing market as a significant share of home shoppers refused to even look at distressed properties in October, according to an industry study conducted by Campbell Surveys. In addition, both th...

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Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase told the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday that they were making changes in their foreclosure processes after reviews found areas that needed improvement. Barbara DeSoer, president of Bank of America's home loan business, said the company has set up a n...

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CHICAGO — An Illinois sheriff who halted foreclosure evictions last month because some bank employees weren't following the proper procedures said Friday he's been forced to order his deputies to carry them out, but he will continue investigating the matter and could charge banks and their employe...

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CHICAGO — An Illinois sheriff who halted foreclosure evictions last month because some bank employees weren't following the proper procedures said Friday he's been forced to order his deputies to carry them out, but he will continue investigating the matter and could charge banks and their employees...

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Of course, you know the ax is going to fall sooner or later. You have fallen behind in your mortgage payments for whatever reason. You have been getting a lot of calls from your lender. Probably, you don’t even bother answering those calls anymore. You have nothing new to tell them that you hav...

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Each state in the U.S. handles it's real estate foreclosures differently, it's important to understand those differences and know your specific state's procedures. The terms used and time frames vary greatly from state to state, but the following information provides a general overview of the diff...

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In states that allow a nonjudicial foreclosure through a power of sale clause in a deed of trust, homeowners find that their properties are sold out from under them without a hearing or chance to defend themselves. In fact, it is up to the borrowers to bring a lawsuit into court against the lender a...

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These are all the mortgage walkaway trustee sale states, meaning they are non-judicial foreclosure states. In those states, generally, when they foreclose on you, they cannot pursue you for their financial losses. Many, such as California, do in theory allow a lender to choose judicial foreclo...

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The following article provides a summary of non-recourse mortgage states and anti-deficiency statutes. In a non-recourse mortgage state, borrowers are not held personally liable for more than the home’s value at the time that the loan is repaid. The lender may recoup some of its loss...

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The following is a list of non-recourse and recourse states. Recourse basically means that the lender can come after you (has recourse against you) if your house sold at auction or through a short sale for less than the amount owed the lender. If you borrowed $350,000 to buy your home and it sold at...

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Reporting by Dave Clarke; Editing by Leslie Adler and Tim Dobbyn Huffington Post ARLINGTON, Virginia (Reuters) - Litigation arising from foreclosure paperwork problems could be "very damaging" to the housing market, a top U.S. banking regulator said on Monday. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Cha...

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A recent case regarding the service and filing of evidence in a Florida foreclosure matter relied upon in a Motion for Summary Judgment. The Second DCA held that Rule 1.510(c), which requires all evidence to be served (and possibly even filed with the Court) at least 20 days before the hearing,...

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Condominium and home owners associations desperate for money are experimenting with a tactic called “reverse foreclosure” to force banks to pay association fees. The process works like this: When a borrower stops paying the mortgage, banks often delay taking the property into foreclosure. When ba...

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An interested dilemma that has come out of out current situation arises when a property owner - borrower "disappears" (ie does not repond to service, can't be served, cant be found). In many cases this is because the borrower has decided to simply walk away. But as you can imagine there may be othe...

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Miami Dade is now the largest County and the 12th using on-line auctions for its foreclosures. The move is expected to save the county $750,000 annually. with over 110,000 open foreclosure files and an additional 7,000 coming in each month (before the foreclosure crisis, Miami-Dade's court was r...

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If the USA is joined in the foreclosure action, the lien can be extinguished. However, the IRS has a 120 day right of redemption. You can contact the US Atty in the controlling district and request a release or waiver of the right. They usually require payment in exchange for the release. If the p...

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1. Complaint filed naming all parties on title search with interest in property (consider any title defects). 2. Summons 3. Lis Pendens 4. Publish notice of foreclosure action twice of not less than 20 days. 5. 20 days to file answer, defesnes, counter claims. 6. No answer = motion for defau...

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California, Arizona and Nevada are non-judicial states. Florida is a judicial state. For more on each process see previous entries....

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....go to the sale and tell people there that the matter is in dispute so that they will not bid. But talk to your lawyer first....

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Remember TILA claims survive eviction for recovery of money and possibly recovery of the house from the lender if violations existed. Talk to your lawyer about it....

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Federal TILA, RESPA, RICO, Fraud. State court fraud claim State court action for stay of sale or eviction Emergency petition for temporary injunctions - state and federal court Motion to expedite discovery Interrogatories Requests for admission Notices of depositions duces tecum Baknruptcy p...

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Lawyers are are pulling alot of old trick and some new ones out of their hats to delay residential foreclosures for homeowners. Here are a few more for you: 1. Wait until the last day to respond to a default notice before filing an notice of appearance. 2. File a motion to extedn the time all...

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Was ervice of procees properly effectuated? Are there charges that are not allowe dincluded in what the lender is claiming is due - these might include especially high inspection fees or forced place insurance that costs a lot more than what the homeowner was paying for insurance purchased on hi ow...

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Foreclosure is a legal procedure with roots going back to English common law pursuant to which a lender takes title to a parcel of real estate following a borrower’s failure to comply with the mortgage loan agreement entered into with the lender. The most frequent failure is a default in payment ...

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As I covered on Fox News, America’s Newsroom yesterday afternoon, here are some of the tips I discussed. DON’T PANIC This is not your father’s foreclosure with all of the old stigma attached. If there’s any comfort in numbers, there are millions. And plenty of people who want to help. FIRST...

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TILA audits should only cost a homeowner under $500. A more complete audit with a Qualified Written Rqeuest, attorney demand letter and suggestions for how to proceed should cost under $2500. A lot of possible defenses are raised by the securitization proces lenders used. The goal is to get ...

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