Breaking News!
Immediate changes coming to the foreclosure industry. Lenders being held accountable for improper foreclosure process. ALL foreclosures starting in 2009 to be examined for infractions and owners given compensation….and/ or their homes are to be GIVEN BACK TO THEM.
NOTE: the AG Robo-Signers settlement will be in addition to this…so, more changes coming to the foreclosure process.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve and the Office of Thrift Supervision released enforcement action against 14 major bank/servicers in the form of consent orders.
Bank of America , JP Morgan Chase , Ally Financial, Wells Fargo, SunTrust, Citibank,HSBC, MetLife, PNC, U.S. Bank, Aurora Bank,EverBank, OneWest Bank and Sovereign Bank will all be hit with no fewer than 16 new requirements for mortgage servicing and loss mitigation.
These 16 new requirements are more or less what the requirements were always thought to be…. forcing the servicers to improve on foreclosure documentation, oversight, and chain of ownership. Additionally, lenders are required independent reviews and a single point of contact for borrowers facing foreclosure. The action prohibits dual tracking, when one arm of the bank pursues foreclosure while another pursues modification.
Another detail, servicers (banks) will also be held accountable of their third-party vendors, including lawyers, who provide foreclosure services. No more…”that was an outside company we hired…we had no idea they were doing X”
Banks must comply within 120 days of the order. Most of the big banks have already implemented many of these ‘new’ requirements.
The second we get an official copy of these 16 new requirements we will publish them on this site.
And now the really interesting news….
Penalties are coming… “The Federal Reserve believes monetary sanctions in these cases are appropriate and plans to announce monetary penalties.”
and…. The OCC also says the enforcement actions, “do not preclude determinations regarding assessment of civil money penalties.”
In other words, we are talking about potentially huge penalties and judgments from the civil claims.
As part of this new enforcement the banks will be required to engage an independent firm to review foreclosure actions from January 1, 2009 through December, 2010 to assess whether foreclosures complied with federal and state laws and whether there were in fact grounds to foreclose.
You read that correctly, all foreclosures that happened between 01/01/09 and 12/01/10 will be reviewed by (hopefully) independent firms looking for infractions.
And what happens if (when) infractions are found….?
If borrowers were harmed by the foreclosure process the banks will have to remediate the borrowers in some way. Remediation could include monetary damages and even the borrower getting the home back.
Imagine all the folks who lost their homes to foreclosure that will be filing claims. Lenders will be required to create a system where by anyone who feels they suffered financially can submit a claim.
Watch the video:
I am so happy to see this, During my day in court the tiny court room that seated about 50 people had 150 cases at the 1pm session. Literally 95% of the cases all hired some Contracted Attorney who had no authority , no files, and was a bully and basically refused to give even a day over the 3 weeks before the sheriff lockout.. Errors were pointed out , such as 30 day notice when the law stated 60 days , were ignored. The judge refused to allow any of the foreclosed owners any defense. The only person who got even a day longer was the one guy who did not show up but his attorney did. One person had a ink signed letter from the Governor stating in her case ( having been a Federal employee or something like that) whom was also completely disabled and in poor health, assuring her she had 3 months longer that she could stay. The Judge said he does not know of any such law and refused to even look at her letter much less listen to the poor woman who literally had her home 18 years before an accident that rendered her disabled at the age of 62 .. I mention this because a lot of people are under the impression that people bought more house than they could afford and sort of forget that the entire foreclosure process had become a rubber stamp process. The Contactor Attorney refused my case an additional 3 days to get a payday because our bank negotiations required an attorney which took all of our money to move with, Actually it turned out the attorney wrote the wrong date on our legal document which he signed and we signed and submitted to the judge, and guess what.. The judge laughed and said this document says April but I think you meant March and then he changed it! The attorney had made similar mistakes about 30 times , this is not an exaggeration, and each time he and the judge laughed while people were being forced out on to the street, and over 50% of the ones who thought they had something worked out or were told they could stay if they paid, had also spent their money on attorney fees thinking they were working something out,
I literally read the Real Estate Course materials and every single law about foreclousres and even the Judges Bench Handbook so that I could at least know how things should go down, and I was sure we had a legal position , We never got a chance to say a word,, This was the worst of the worst , in terms of what the laws said and what actually happened. This was only 1 day. The court literally had been fo9reclosing for months . There were 20000 foreclosures in my city , which is not a big city in one month. Personally I believe in this country and I absolutely love LAW and I have been hoping that these cases would be reviewed by a higher entity than a tiny little Riverside County court room. It was so staggaring to hear person after person thinking they had a chance and all it was was a scam to burn down the clock. Chase took over Wamu in Sept. of 08 and in Oct. 31, 2008 There were press releases stating Chase was trying to help 400000 homeowners keep their homes. What no one seemed to notice that not only did they not do that, they pushed through ridiculous numbers of trustee sales. Literally thousands in California with in the first 90 days, we were in court being evicted 67 days after the trustee sale, and again Chase agreed to work with us, and my attorney even worked out a deal allowing 45 days of us paying the daily rental which we would have gladly paid, just to find a place to live, Guess what we ended up being in Renters hell by an absolute slumlord who moved on to the property and broke ever rule possible not to mention ordered us to get out in 10 days when the delapidated roof which leaked so bad that our belongings were partially ruined and the entire dump was covered in deadly mold, The local authorities did nothing to assist. Yet we were told over and over he cant do that . In the 30 day notice which he never gave us a copy of which was also incorrect as a 60 day notice was required, This man in 30 days cut off all utilities moved some kooks in who tampered with gas lines alm,ost causing an explosion to the point Code enforcement wouldnt even enter the place. He Falsified proof of servoce got a judgement and further sold the house for a fraction and filed an unlawful Homestead and kept the entire 99000 cash . We on the other hand were never late on rent , He refused the rent , which we did not have to pay until the rotted roof was repaired,. He served us whith a proof of service signed after the mailing date., and guess what the Judge said, we had no defense, I had to practically interupt the judge to tell him to look at the proof of mailing and the improper 30 day notice,,,He tossed it, but the 500 in fees we didnt get back! .. the same Judge who handled foreclosures, I had an entire set of documents including County Orders to repair and a ton of other evidence, We wanted to be reimbursed for the violations the county required us to repair like the gas leak, and damages since we never even had one mone living in the place as the slumlord moved a trailer in and there were a total of 7 other occupants living on the property. The place was a joke, but after a foreclosure your credit sicks, we had pets and no time to find a place, After the slumlord we rented a house from a really nice giy who seemed really honest.. and guess what on the 19th of this month his house is being sold at a Trustees auction. So now we again do not know where we will end up. No savings, and half of our belongings lost or ruined, Oh yeah the Slumlord ripped us off too, He STill owns a house and two businesses, and qualified for special down payment help so he never even had to come up with a down payment. In certain areas of this county if you are of certain nationalities you can get free lawyers , silent second mortgages, and even file homestead so that the first 100 K in cash goes to the HOMEOWNER if the property is not in default. The real estate agent was even worse than the slumlord, Anyway i dont mean to run on.. But for anyone who doesnt know what really happened in the foreclosures might understand that not every one was a loser who lied to buy more house than they could afford, My mortgage after two years was increased by 1000 two times in the 3rd year. Bringing the payment to an amount that was more than the income, yet the terms were written in such a way that no one… not even my real estate agent nor my attorney got it at first and then when we couldnt pay the mortgage which had doubled, we were the dead beats! Agaib apologies for the ranting
One other issue I wish to point out, is that someone needs to look into people buying up the houses cheap and massing hundreds of houses. We tried to buy several houses which would have provided us a mortgage even at hard money rates with monthly payments a fraction of the rents that are being charged. Each time a house was listed with the same day it was sold.
Well I happened to come across a name of a buyer over and over. after looking into it, it seems that a HUGE real estate broker had the property deeded to him and then he deeded it to companys using his initials. I dont know if this is illegal or not but the man owns hundreds of properties since 2008 and using various company names or purchasers, He has paid cash and also financed all of the really good ones around where we live, and still owns them. While foreclosed homeowners who lost out are denied prequalifying, denied by any bank and who has any money left after losing everything they had in either attorney fees or paying high rents for lousy homes . The credit naughty list seems to be the worst of it, We have rented since we lost our home, never late , and for amounts 3 or 4 times what a mortgage would be. Our score is below 680 so FHA banks wont even take out application. I feel that the largest real estate broker buying houses at absolutely rock bottom low prices after the banks purchase their own houses back at much higher amounts then take the loss and are sold before any other offers can come in should be looked at, If it isnt against the law, I feel its close. If a Doctor or Lawyer or Donal Trump bought hundreds of houses that is one thing, but someone who handles a large majority of the home sales in the area being the guy who managed to “snap up” houses practically the first day offered seems like something similar to insider trading to me. Any comments would be appreciated. Oh and by coincidence the same realty company managed to short sale a house with a 200K and a 100K second for 99K cash in under 60 days. Talk about weird. There is a ton more things I hope the Federal Authorities start looking into. What is gonna be the fallout when they discover that homeowners who were wronged in a foreclosure, cant have their homes back because its sold, and then the same name comes up over and over… As it is taxes and fees and credit rates for the next houses or anything really are at the bad credit risk rates because the ruined credit in an illegal foreclosure. The fallout of correcting the wrongs is enough to make ones head spin.