Jane Almost Gets Her Day in Court

This morning was Jane’s court hearing in Illinois. She noticed up a bunch of motions, including the Motion to Set Aside the previous order because the foreclosure mill attorneys didn’t give her proper notice. It went very well!

Here’s what Jane sent me in an e-mail today:

“Christine:

Wooo, I couldn’t wait to get home and write this up,

I got there a little before 9:00, I went straight to the clerk and said “My name is Jane and I want to let you know I’m here and I have a case today” She said to have a seat and someone would call me. I told her that I was the one that requested the court date, and I wanted to make sure she called my case.

About then the Foreclosure Mill Attorney yelled for me and said “Oh it’s been cancelled, we tried to contact you” (Christine’s note: Again? I can’t help but think this attorney is worried – she has to be in BIG TROUBLE for the stunts she’s pulled for lying on the Certificate of Service about giving Jane proper notice and then asking for a default judgment.)

I turned around to the clerk and said, “They can’t cancel my court date, I’m the one who requested it”.

So the lawyer asked to talk to me outside the room:

Foreclosure Mill Attorney: “We had to cancel today and reschedule for March 2nd or 25th the judge cannot hear contested cases on Thursdays”

Jane: “Were you planning on giving me notice of that?”

Foreclosure Mill Attorney: “Yes, but would you please just tell me what it is you want to do?”

Jane: “The last time I spoke with you, you told me that you could not answer any of my questions, and suggested that I get an attorney, so I will not ask or answer any of your questions”

Foreclosure Mill Attorney: “You can discuss what it is you want, are you wanting to try and keep this house and make payments?” (Christine’s note: I think Jane was smart by not telling Foreclosure Mill Attorney anything. These are the people trying to take her house! I wouldn’t tell her anything that she could use against Jane later.)

Jane: “If I am, I will discuss that with the lender”

Foreclosure Mill Attorney: “You can discuss that with me, I represent the lender” (Christine’s Note: this is a LIE. She represents the SERVICER, not the Lender – the Lender is Quicken Loans and isn’t even a party to this foreclosure.)

Jane: I just shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. She was clearly pissed and marched back into the courtroom!

I went straight back to the clerk and Foreclosure Mill Attorney walked over to hear what I was saying. I told the clerk that I needed the judge to hear the “motion to set aside” today because they’ve already set a sale date. She said to have a seat and she would give it to him.

About 2 minutes later they called me up to the judge. He very politely explained “I cannot hear contested matters on Thursdays. You have some significant motions here and I will need some time to review them and we can come back into court later” (Christine’s note: This is good news – Jane FINALLY has the judge’s attention on the issues in this foreclosure!)

Jane: “I understand, however I need the motion to set aside the previous order, that they didn’t give me notice on, because they’ve already set a sale date based on that order”.

Judge: “All motions and orders in this case will be on hold, until we hear the case at a later date.”

The dumb broad lawyer was steamed!! (Christine’s note: Jane did a great job of being persistent and standing up for herself here. This is what it looks like — don’t be afraid to make the Foreclosure Mill Attorneys angry!) I went to the clerk again, she marched up there too. She had her planner trying to find a good date to come back. The clerk was pushing into April on her calendar. She finally agreed to March 2nd but I could see her planner was clearly booked. Haha!

What a good day – If I accomplished nothing else, the look on that woman’s face made my day!!

Jane”

Jane’s fight gives us all some hope that there are some real legal issues that need to be addressed. As Neil Garfield says, these pretender lenders normally won’t survive the discovery phase of litigation because they can’t substantiate their lawful right to foreclose without documents.

I’ll write more later on what discovery is, for those of you wondering. The short explanation is that it’s basically the part of litigation where the parties share information with the other side to get all the issues out in the open. Usually it becomes evident during discovery who’s got the problems with their case, after documents are produced and depositions are taken. After discovery the parties usually begin discussing settlement or preparing for trial. More on this in another blog post.

The other interesting thing about Jane’s situation is that she is likely helping hundreds of other homeowners. She is in a county in Illinois where this particular judge is rubber stamping foreclosure paperwork in favor of the lender because people aren’t fighting back, which makes me sad. However, it sometimes just takes one person to stand up. This attorney has to appear before this judge likely daily or weekly and if the judge knows they are doing shady stuff on the hundreds of other cases, maybe he will start asking questions on his own about their right to lawfully foreclose on all the other homes they are attempting to steal from the homeowner.

Got questions? Send me an e-mail or leave your comments below.

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