Never Give Up Your Home.
The housing market has been paralyzed by a wave of foreclosures caused by wall street and felt by main street. Foreclosure filings have skyrocketed throughout the United States, leaving most homeowner terrified of losing their homes, and wondering if they are powerless to stand up to the mighty banks. In the past lenders were able to have their way with homeowners who were in default.
For decades, when troubled homeowners and banks battled over delinquent mortgages, it wasn’t a contest. Homes went into foreclosure, and lenders took control of the property. On top of that, courts rubber-stamped the array of foreclosure charges that lenders heaped onto borrowers and took banks at their word when the lenders said they owned the mortgage notes underlying troubled properties.
But with all that has happened with the housing market in the past year, Judges are starting to scrutinize the rules-don’t-matter methods used by lenders and their lawyers in the recent foreclosure wave. On occasion, lenders are even getting slapped around a bit:
“One surprising smackdown occurred on Oct. 9 in federal bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York. Ruling that a lender, PHH Mortgage, hadn’t proved its claim to a delinquent borrower’s home in White Plains, Judge Robert D. Drain wiped out a $461,263 mortgage debt on the property. That’s right: the mortgage debt disappeared, via a court order.”
The playing field is becoming more level by the day, and the bottom line is that if lenders intend to foreclose, they must come forward with proof, otherwise it will be very difficult if not impossible to achieve that objective. Why is that so? Well:
“The huge mass of mortgage securitizations that occurred during the housing boom. Securitizations allowed for large pools of bank loans to be bundled and sold to legions of investors, but some of the nuts and bolts of the mortgage game — notes, for example — were never adequately tracked or recorded during the boom. In some cases, that means nobody truly knows who owns what.”
This is why it is very important to see an attorney immediately when one is served with foreclosure papers. The homeowner has 20 days to respond otherwise very important defenses are waived. Seeing a qualified attorney can make all the difference in the world.
