Ladies and Gentlemen:
First The CFTC Hearings with Bill Murphy and GATA and now we learn that the banks are initiating 10 Million Foreclosures. If you are going through a foreclosure or having trouble with your mortgage, please join United We Will Stand. There are places to get help but not from your bank and not from the innumerable scams being perpetrated.
Simply sign our registry and you will be contacted via email. You will instantly become part of the solution. We must gain the attention of the politicians and the Attorney Generals or this nightmare will never end. DSA
THE LATEST “MODIFICATION” SCAM: “INCONSISTENCY IN YOUR DOCUMENTS”
March 30, 2010
In the past week, we have been literally deluged with calls and e-mails as to the same situation: the “lender” or servicer contacts the borrower (who is in default) offering to do a “loan mod” provided (a) the borrower submits certain paperwork, and (b) the borrower agrees to pay significant sums either toward the promised modification or in connection with a temporary forebearance while the more permanent modification is being processed. In reasonable reliance on these affirmative representations (since they are coming from an agent of the alleged owner of the mortgage loan), the borrower complies by making the payment(s) and by submitting the paperwork. Invariably, however, the “lender” or servicer replies by asking the borrower for more paperwork, then more paperwork, then more paperwork (and more money), until finally the “lender” or “servicer” denies the modification due to “inconsistencies in the paperwork”, without identifying what these purported “inconsistencies” are.
One example involved a borrower who submitted their paperwork five (5) times. Another involved a borrower who paid $12,000.00 toward the modified loan, only to be denied due to “inconsistencies in the paperwork”, followed by a foreclosure and Sheriff’s sale of the property.
What is going on here is a well-though-out scam where the “lender” or servicer, knowing full well they ultimately intend to foreclose but mindful that they have to make an “effort” to work with the borrower before doing so (either due to state law or court rules or to placate some government entity), go through the motions and put the borrower through a lot of effort, and then ultimately deny the modification and proceed to foreclose, using the borrower’s good-faith payments to fund the fees they need to foreclose so these fees do not come out of their own pocket. The frequency of this fact pattern, with borrowers in all different types of financial situations all over the United States and with the “lender” or servicer NEVER putting the “promised” permanent loan mod in writing, leaves no other rational conclusion as to what is really going on.
Not to harp on the same thing, but again, FORECLOSURE HAS BECOME BIG BUSINESS. Two days from now (as we have advised on this website), more than ten million new foreclosures are scheduled to be filed nationally. The government programs have been a disaster. In fact, an in-house attorney for Chase Home Finance LLC advised us that the acceptance rate on HAMP modifications was roughly 2%. TWO PERCENT! 2 loans out of every hundred. Hardly “assistance” for borrowers. That same attorney advised that the highest “permanent modification” rate of any “lender” or servicer was less than 10%.
Bottom line here: whatever the “lender” or servicer “promises” you, don’t trust them. Know that in all likelihood their primary goal is to ultimately foreclose and string you, the borrower, along so that they can garner monies to fund their ultimate foreclosure. Moral of the story? Get your case together and have it reviewed by an attorney, so that if the time comes when you have to sue for breach of the “promised” loan mod contract, or fraud for the lies told by the “lender” or servicer, or under any other theory, you have done your homework and are ahead of the game.
Jeff Barnes, Esq., www/ForeclosureDefenseNationwide.com
Posted by D.Stewart Armstrong in Articles