The bloggers are reporting all the good news they can find, but it still seems like the overwhelming majority of people are losing in the state courts. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother, frankly. It’s frustrating as hell sometimes, especially when you know that you’re on the right path. It really is like two steps forward, one step back.

Besides that, it’s also summertime. It’s REALLY hot here in Arizona (despite it being monsoon season, and yes, it’s usually a dry heat except during monsoon….), but apparently people are checking out for the summer across the country. I can’t say I blame them, however. This time last year I was blogging like crazy to get to the point where I am now, and I’m not about to stop blogging. I’m sure this summer will prove to be full of breakthroughs for all of us as we move forward. I’m looking forward to the next big breakthrough, that’s for sure.

I don’t want the masses to lose hope, however. So, in addition to the observations in my recent post about what’s next in foreclosure defense, there are a couple of other things I want to share with you that are worth considering. These are in a random order – I didn’t have enough content to write separate posts about any of these particular things I’ve been thinking about, so I’m posting them all in this one.

So here goes:

1. Be prepared to lose in state court. Do your homework in advance, and be prepared to file an appeal. Fighting foreclosure is a marathon and not a sprint! Until we get more people filing appeals, I think we’ll have to be prepared to lose.

2. Don’t tell the judge or anyone else that you learned about foreclosure defense on the internet. It just makes you look like you’re crazy and just stalling. Do your best to look like you know what you’re doing and play the game like everyone else plays it. Avoid the terms “produce the note.”

3. I don’t know what else to call it…”the-vigilante-practice-of-law-by-people-without-legal-experience” is probably the best way to describe it. I know a lot of you have formed law clubs to study how to fight foreclosure. I’ve been to a couple of these before and I thought it was a bunch of people who meant well but had no idea what they were doing. I’m not trying to be criticial; I’m suggesting that a lot of you are wandering around looking for solutions but may be making things worse for yourselves. I see a lot of you wasting time on things that look to most legal professionals, which includes judges, as a stalling tactic. This is just like #2 above. Get help from someone who knows what they’re doing procedure-wise. Chances are, someone you know will know an attorney. Invite them to speak at your group, or figure out another way to get help. I used to invite attorneys to speak on foreclosure defense routinely but hardly anyone ever showed up, which I found odd.

I see people preparing revocation of powers of attorney, transferring title into trusts, transferring ownership of the house, recording meaningless documents, preparing notarized documents of witnesses, and other similar type stuff. Most of this doesn’t work and you risk damaging your case by submitting these documents as evidence because you look crazy. Sorry, but it’s true. No one else is telling the truth about this.

4. If you decide to stop making payments on your house, for heaven’s sake, SAVE THE MONEY! If you’re considering a strategic default, sock away as much money as you can for the day you have to move out and rent another place to live. I’ve read several stories about how consumers are spending their mortgage money on other things. Be smart about this, people!

5. If you stop making mortgage payments, it’s just a matter of time before they will begin foreclosure proceedings. Sounds like common sense, right? But a lot of people stop making payments on the house thinking the bank will work with them and then are surprised when foreclosure proceedings begin.

If you make partial payments on your own or under a loan modification agreement, they may still start foreclosure proceedings. If someone tells you to stop making your mortgage payments, be wary. This could spiral out of control very quickly and you could find yourself in an untenable financial position. Again, see #4 above.

Make up your own mind about how to proceed. I don’t know how else to say it. But be prepared for the consequences and be ready for whatever comes next.

6. Even if you file a lawsuit, you may still have to move out of the house, so don’t be surprised. The foreclosure mill attorneys are paid a lot of money to take your house and the courts aren’t sanctioning them, they are sanctioning the banks. Foreclosure mill attorneys don’t care because they aren’t the ones who will get into trouble right now. So be prepared for that.

If you lose, (see #1) and have to move, that doesn’t mean the end of the road. You just keep fighting. If you have the means and the guts to stick around and fight anyway, you will not only be rid of an upside down house, the bank may eventually write you a fat check to compensate you for stealing your house. If you look at the Erdley v. Greenberg case here in Arizona, it took that guy three years to win his house back!

Personally, it seems like the best of both worlds…move on with your life while still fighting. I’d rather have the cash to do what I want with rather than worrying about keeping an upside down house. But that’s just my personal opinion.

Got questions? Send me an e-mail: Christine@desertedgelegal.com

DISCLAIMER:

****CHRISTINE SPRINGER IS NOT A LICENSED ATTORNEY. THIS BLOG IS COMPRISED OF HER OPINIONS, OBSERVATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL ADVICE. PLEASE CONSULT WITH AN ATTORNEY BEFORE RELYING ON OR TAKING ANY ACTION BASED ON THE INFORMATION IN THIS BLOG.****

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The class is eight weeks long and costs $999 per person. You can break that up over three payments of $333 via automatic Paypal payments, or you can prepay in full in advance for $750.

Each week I will e-mail you a portion of the training materials and give you access to a video that discusses each portion of the class. The students in July’s class will participate in a live conference every other week to get live access to ask me all of your questions so that everyone can hear the answers.

At the end of the class, you’ll be given a sample audit to perform, and we’ll discuss your results. We’ll also spend some time on marketing and how to find clients and how to work with other professionals.

Got questions? Send me an e-mail: christine@desertedgelegal.com

DISCLAIMER:

****CHRISTINE SPRINGER IS NOT A LICENSED ATTORNEY. THIS BLOG IS COMPRISED OF HER OPINIONS, OBSERVATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL ADVICE. PLEASE CONSULT WITH AN ATTORNEY BEFORE RELYING ON OR TAKING ANY ACTION BASED ON THE INFORMATION IN THIS BLOG.****

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Michael Hirschtick forwarded the following information:

The Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) Program is a government-sponsored initiative overseen by the US Treasury Department and administered by Fannie Mae assisting all Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP)-eligible homeowners in avoiding foreclosure, specifically through short sales or deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure.

HAFA was announced on November 30, 2009 in a HAMP Update titled Introducing the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program.

HAFA directs lenders to assist eligible homeowners in quickly and effectively implementing short sales or deeds-in-lieu by providing financial incentives to lenders that carry out foreclosure alternatives through the program’s guidelines set forth in Supplemental Directive 09-09 Revised (revised March 26, 2010).

The program was introduced in part with the intent to remove the stigma from short sales and help keep communities from being destroyed through massive foreclosures. HAFA in its current state is only applicable to conventional-type, non-Governmental Serviced Enterprises (non-GSE) mortgages and therefore does not apply to loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

These organizations may have plans to release their own versions of HAFA.

Christine here: I think the writing is on the wall…most people need another option to get out of a bad situation with their mortgage besides foreclosure and loan modifications.

By the way, if you need help with a short sale and you’re in Arizona or California, I can help! I’ll even give you a free loan audit for use in the negotiations. Send me an e-mail at christine@desertedgelegal.com or call me directly at 602-350-2151.

Christine

DISCLAIMER:

****CHRISTINE SPRINGER IS NOT A LICENSED ATTORNEY. THIS BLOG IS COMPRISED OF HER OPINIONS, OBSERVATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL ADVICE. PLEASE CONSULT WITH AN ATTORNEY BEFORE RELYING ON OR TAKING ANY ACTION BASED ON THE INFORMATION IN THIS BLOG.****

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If you haven’t read my prior post called “Do You Really Need A Loan Audit?” please do so, because it explains a lot about what I do and why it costs what it costs.

Effective immediately, I am offering loan audit services for no upfront cost, subject to several conditions, BEFORE the law goes into effect.

Not only is this a great marketing tool (“We stopped taking upfront fees BEFORE the law passed!”), it may just end up saving me a lot of wasted time if it turns out I can’t run a business without upfront fees.

However, offering a service with no upfront fee requires me to make even more changes in the way I do business. Unfortunately, one of the downsides is that some people will not pay for the work at all, which results in everyone else paying a higher cost. Also, to take on the additional risk of not getting paid, I have no choice but to increase my fees.

The new cost for a loan audit with no upfront fee is going up to $997 effective immediately. Should you decide you want a loan audit before the law is passed, you can still get the $750 price by paying in advance. That will be an option until the law dictates otherwise; once the law goes into effect, everyone will be required to pay $997.

Another part of this change requires me to be very clear with respect to the people I can help and who I will work for. Too many homeowners say they want to save their homes but never take any action. As much as I want to help people, I am running a business and it’s just not profitable for me to spend time on these homeowners.

Therefore, also effective immediately, homeowners seeking loan audits with no upfront fee must meet the following criteria:

First:

You must not be more than twelve months behind on your house payments.

Why? There are several reasons.

One: If you’ve been in the house for more than a year without making a house payment, generally speaking, you’ve already realized the monetary gain from living rent free for a year. I don’t know of many people personally who have remained in a home longer than that. Most wind up finally being foreclosed upon. It’s usually too late to do anything about a foreclosure at that point.

Two: If you’ve been in the house for more than a year without making a house payment but haven’t taken any steps to get advice from an attorney, a real estate agent, or had a loan audit performed, well…why? If a homeowner wants a loan audit at that point, I’d be wondering why.

There are exceptions to this rule. The first would be that the homeowner will need to have a very good explanation as to why they want to hire me after that time period. The second would be if they are referred by an attorney who determines a loan audit is needed and will guarantee payment for the cost of the service.

Second:

You must be employed or have a source of household income.

If you are unemployed or don’t have any sources of income for your household, you probably have more important things to spend your money on. You don’t have many options if you’re unemployed with no income and that’s a problem that a loan audit isn’t going to fix.

Third:

You will be required to sign and return my disclaimers and a notarized client services agreement indicating you understand the terms under which services will be provided. The only exception to this rule is if you are an attorney and guaranteeing payment.

By the way: I do not contact the lender or do anything on behalf of the homeowner as part of a loan audit. I offer loan audits and expert opinions only.

Fourth:

You will be asked to pay the cost of return shipping of your mortgage documents in advance. That way, if you don’t pay for the audit, at least I’m not out the cost of shipping your loan documents back to you.

If you don’t want to pay return shipping, you’ll need to scan and e-mail the documents to me along with the agreement and disclaimers.

I sincerely hope the no upfront fee option works from a business perspective and from a homeowner’s perspective. I’m not interested in scamming anyone and this is my attempt at making this work for everyone involved.

If not, well…it’s back to the drawing board.

Got questions? Send me an e-mail at Christine@desertedgelegal.com and PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR PHONE NUMBER!

DISCLAIMER:
****CHRISTINE SPRINGER IS NOT A LICENSED ATTORNEY. THIS BLOG IS COMPRISED OF HER OPINIONS, OBSERVATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL ADVICE. PLEASE CONSULT WITH AN ATTORNEY BEFORE RELYING ON OR TAKING ANY ACTION BASED ON THE INFORMATION IN THIS BLOG.****

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To my frustration, I’ve had a tough time finding lawyers who would even listen to me. I never thought it would be as difficult as it has been. I know one great lawyer in LA who gets it, but beyond that, I haven’t heard from any lawyers out there who understand enough to help homeowners without charging a lot of money. Money that a lot of you just don’t have right now.

So, I’ve heard you! And because it’s obvious to me that there are very few resources out there to help you, we’re changing some things here too.

First of all, we will make BIG announcement on Monday about a new resource we’re launching. This will be the culmination of several things Josh and I have been talking about behind the scenes, so please check back on Monday for that news and a special offer.

Second, Desert Edge Legal Services (my company) is moving away from the loan audit process as we’ve been doing it. We have enough information from the court decisions to know that homeowners aren’t winning based on TILA, RESPA, HOEPA, UCC, RICO, etc.

Thus, it seems to me that the analysis of TILA and RESPA aren’t even needed anymore, so we’re not going to focus on TILA/RESPA at all unless you are working with an attorney who tells you he or she wants one, or you’re going to DIY and you’re current on your house payments. Judges seem to take people more seriously if they aren’t behind on their payments or are represented by an attorney.

I’m actually pretty happy about this development, because audits take a lot of time to complete. In addition, because we have had a lot of trouble finding lawyers who understood how to help homeowners, the loan audit as a tool hasn’t been as useful as I would have liked.

It was the best tool we had in our arsenal and better than nothing, but it’s clear to me that the overwhelming majority of you are facing foreclosure on your own and there are few good resources out there to help you.

So, we’ve decided to expand our services – we are now offering a customized review of your documents and an analysis of the chain of assignment to determine what’s going on in your particular case and how you can fight on your own. If you don’t speak up about what’s happening with the fraudulent MERS assignments and the problems with securitization of your home loans, the courts will let a pretender lender take your house without proving they have authority to do so.

So, if you have a pending Notice of Trustee’s sale and are under the gun to do something sooner rather than later, a loan audit isn’t going to help you – but understanding what is happening with the chain of assignment WILL help you go into a courtroom and stall a foreclosure if the fact pattern is there.

Third, we are going to bring on an attorney in some capacity in the spring that can help some of you with representation or find someone in your area who can help you. It’s been my experience that a lot of attorneys have their egos involved and will not talk to me because I’m a paralegal and not an attorney. However, I will be involved with the training of this attorney and the plan is to help more of you for a reasonable fee. I might be wrong on this, but I still think you have a better shot at winning if you have an attorney who gets it.

Fourth, you’ll start seeing more information from Josh. He’s was behind the scenes mostly in 2009, but demand is picking up, so if you ask us for help, you might get a call back from Josh.

Finally, I’ve been kicking around the idea of going to law school part time here in Phoenix in 2010. I won’t be done in time to help our readers with this crisis, but it’s been bothering me that I haven’t taken that final step  – on some level, I feel like I’ve missed the boat on the foreclosure crisis. On the other hand, I also think things happen for a reason, so it will all work out the way it’s supposed to.

If you need our help, as always, send me an e-mail: Christine@DesertEdgeLegal.com. I will spend fifteen or so minutes on the phone with you to see if I can help you and we’ll go from there.

Stay tuned for Monday’s announcement!

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I actually did this several months ago — I closed my bank accounts with the big banks and moved all of my accounts to a local credit union. I reasoned that I might have a better chance of getting a loan from them in the future, and if not, at least my money was being loaned locally. (Unfortunately, the fees at community banks aren’t any cheaper than the big banks.)

Anyway, if you’re mad about the massive profits that were made by the banks during the government bailout, you can do something about it by moving your accounts to a local community bank or a credit union.

If enough of us do this, we don’t need to worry about too big to fail — the banks would be downsized by the market!

The Huffington Post said it best:

The big banks on Wall Street, propped up by taxpayer money and government guarantees, have had a record year, making record profits while returning to the highly leveraged activities that brought our economy to the brink of disaster. In a slap in the face to taxpayers, they have also cut back on the money they are lending, even though the need to get credit flowing again was one of the main points used in selling the public the bank bailout. But since April, the Big Four banks — JP Morgan/Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo — all of which took billions in taxpayer money, have cut lending to businesses by $100 billion.

Meanwhile, America’s Main Street community banks — the vast majority of which avoided the banquet of greed and corruption that created the toxic economic swamp we are still fighting to get ourselves out of — are struggling. Many of them have closed down (or been taken over by the FDIC) over the last 12 months. The government policy of protecting the Too Big and Politically Connected to Fail is badly hurting the small banks, which are having a much harder time competing in the financial marketplace. As a result, a system which was already dangerously concentrated at the top has only become more so.

We talked about the outrage of big, bailed-out banks turning around and spending millions of dollars on lobbying to gut or kill financial reform — including “too big to fail” legislation and regulation of the derivatives that played such a huge part in the meltdown. And as we contrasted that with the efforts of local banks to show that you can both be profitable and have a positive impact on the community, an idea took hold: why don’t we take our money out of these big banks and put them into community banks? And what, we asked ourselves, would happen if lots of people around America decided to do the same thing? Our money has been used to make the system worse — what if we used it to make the system better?

Christine here: what do you think? Please leave us comments below.

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Apparently nothing.

I’ve never thought loan modifications were a good idea. They are a band aid on a much bigger problem: the massive scam that has been perpetrated on Americans through securitization and all the lies the banking industry had to tell in order to make the entire scheme work in their favor.

For awhile, loan modifications were the only option a lot of homeowners had because there was not a lot of information available to them about how to fight foreclosure, or lawyers who could intelligently represent them. Our elected officials still lag behind the rest of us in understanding what’s going on, but that’s not surprising. And I know that a lot of you just wanted a modification with a house payment you can afford, and I understand that too.

The problem is that loan modifications aren’t working. As I’ve mentioned before, HAMP doesn’t have any legal teeth, and since the government didn’t attach strings to the bailout money they received, the banks don’t have a legal duty to modify anything unless it’s a federally backed mortgage.

And now, people are in trial period modifications, making payments as required, yet the lenders aren’t permanently modifying their loans.

Trial period loan modifications are just another scam on us by our government and the lending industry to get as much money out of us now that they can’t make any more loans. They have to figure out a way to keep those massive profits coming.

Don’t be fooled, America: this is just another invention by the banks to scam you.

That’s why it’s so easy to qualify! They don’t do any underwriting before allowing you to get into the program. Isn’t bad underwriting part of the reason we got into this mess in the first place?

They know you’ll keep paying to save your home, and so far, it’s working. They’ll keep you in the trial period as long as they can to keep taking your money. When you get tired of paying into a trial loan mod and stop paying on your house, they’ll foreclose on you and you’ll kick yourself for not keeping your money in your pocket for something they were just going to foreclose on anyway.

I just can’t see how this mess isn’t going to turn into one massive pile of litigation. If our lawmakers are going to tie the hands of homeowners to keep them from getting legal representation for loan modifications or create laws that don’t force the banks to modify loans or respond to a short sale offer, what else can they do besides file a lawsuit?

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The greedy bankers are at it again! I wish I could say that I’m surprised.

The Associated Press reports that the Arizona Supreme Court is being asked to overturn budget legislation that repeals a controversial new state law on legal protections for homeowners after foreclosures.

The suit was apparently filed on Tuesday by the Arizona Bankers Association, who says the repealed legislation is unconstitutional on several grounds, namely because the issue wasn’t included in Gov. Jan Brewer’s special session call for action on budget and tax matters.

I don’t have much more information to report on this at the moment, but stay tuned. I’m sure it will get interesting.

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To summarize, the bill prohibits persons from charging advance fees to borrowers in connection with the modification of the terms of the borrower’s loan, require those who wish to charge a fee for loan modification services (after performing them) to provide a specified notice to borrowers regarding other options available  to the borrower, prohibit servicers from imposing any interest or charge for performing services for borrowers in connection with loan modifications or other forms of loan forbearance of forgiveness; and close a loophole in the California Finance Lenders Law.

As we’ve discussed on this blog before, this bill will probably end the loan modification industry in California as we know it.

If you listen to the steady stream of propaganda coming from the California Attorney General’s office, you’d think everyone who performed loan modifications is a scam artist.

The California Attorney General’s advice to do your own loan modification is highly irresponsible. He assumes that the banks have borrowers’ best interests at heart, which we all know is not true. If you’re worried about scammers, let’s take a look at the banking industry, which is the biggest scam artist of them all.

According to a legal assistant contact in one of our attorney’s offices, loan modification companies and law firms alike are literally closing their doors because of this law. The industry is changing overnight.

The good news for homeowners who want to hire an attorney’s office to obtain a loan audit is that it will allow them to break up the cost of the loan modification over time. Because of the rule against charging upfront fees, the costs of the loan modification will be billed over time as the work is completed.

The downside is that the cost of a loan modification from a legitimate provider will go up because of increased administrative and collection costs.

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