Approximately 250,000 families enter into foreclosure every 3 months due to delinquent home loan payments or delinquent property taxes. Each of these homeowners has one thing in common: they have to make the decision of whether or not to fight for their home. However, if you want to fight the foreclosure and keep your home, it's time to find a foreclosure defense attorney. Here are some reasons why:
The stakes are very high when fighting foreclosure, and disaster is often only narrowly averted. It's a challenge to deal with the courts, the banks and their attorneys, and get the best results. But an experienced professional can help you do just that.
A recent case, for clients I'll call the Bello sisters to protect their privacy, illustrates this well.
The Bellos are immigrants from Africa who own a home together in New Jersey. They were working hard trying to realize the American dream when a loss of income caused them to default on their mortgage payments to PHH Mortgage.
Since New Jersey is a judicial foreclosure state, they were served a summons and complaint, officially putting them into foreclosure. PHH hired an attorney to handle the case and try to take the Bello's home from them.
Falling behind on your mortgage is a terrible situation to be in, but even if a foreclosure sale date is fast approaching, it doesn't necessarily mean that all is lost. You may still be able to stop foreclosure, possibly even permanently.
Depending on your situation, a loan modification, adjournment, emergency motion, or bankruptcy could help you avoid losing your home to foreclosure. Here's how each works:
1. Loan Modification
Applying for a loan modification can stop a foreclosure sale when the application for it is submitted to the mortgage servicer at least 37 days before the sale date. When a bank pursues foreclosure while a loan mod application is under review, that's called dual-tracking, a practice that is prohibited by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's mortgage servicing rules.
When you take out a mortgage to buy a home, your plan is to never miss a payment and live in the house until you pay off the mortgage or sell the property to buy another home. So what happens when the plan goes awry and you miss payments? You're at risk of losing your home to foreclosure, obviously.
However, foreclosure doesn't happen like flipping a light switch. In judicial foreclosure states the foreclosure process is long and filled with legal procedures that most homeowners aren't familiar with and don't understand.
It can be hard to tell when you're fighting for a lost cause, and when you should keep fighting, and how. Here's a look at some of the things that happen, and how to tell if you could still keep your home when they happen.
As you fight to keep your home after defaulting on your mortgage payments, it can feel like the bank is completely unwilling to work with you, that they actually want to foreclose on you and take your home. And, since you're just one person fighting a huge bank that has billions of dollars and the best lawyers money can buy, you might as well just roll over and accept the inevitable, right?
If you've been notified that you're in danger of losing your home, you have probably experienced panic, dread, and fear. There are so many unknowns. Will you be able to keep your home? Will your credit be ruined? Where will you move, and when? How will your life change when you lose your home?
So, you've experienced a hardship that caused you to fall behind on your mortgage payments, but you're committed to doing whatever it takes to keep your home. You know that you'll need the help of a lawyer to have the best chance at success. But, once you've hired a qualified attorney, what do you need to do to help them fight to keep your home?
I know you've heard the term short-sale before, I mean, after 2008, who hasn't? Yet many of you who have heard the term, don't know what it means or how it works. Basically, a short-sale “is when a bank agrees to accept less than the total amount owed on a mortgage to avoid having to foreclose on the property. This is not a new practice; banks have been doing short sales for years. Only recently, due to the current state of the housing market and economy, has this process become a part of the public consciousness.”
Voila, that is all you need to know about short-sales... End of article here...
Just kidding...
The description above sounds like a no brainer (you already knew that!). However, understanding the elements needed to obtain a short-sale isn't quite like takin' a walk in the park . Although short-sales these days are a common practice, many homeowners are given information that is kinda sorta not true (misunderstandings, myths, fallacies, whatever you want to call it) about short-sales. Now, don't freak out because I've come up with a plan to clear some of those common misconceptions for you, so look below and feast your eyes on what you thought you already knew....But was really just wrong.
I'm going to call this segment... the modern day short-sale fallacies.
If you're not quite sure what eminent domain is, or if you just forgot, then let me refresh your memory. Eminent domain is “The compulsory purchase (as in, required by law, obligatory, mandatory, or in other words AGAINST YOUR WILL) to take private property (in this case your home) for public use by a state or national government. However, it can be legislatively delegated by the state to municipalities, government subdivisions, or even private persons or corporations when they are authorized to exercise functions of public character.... I don't know about you, but being forced out of my home by the government doesn't seem like a great idea to me, and now New Jersey homeowners are on boat with (a watered down version of eminent domain) to (possibly) save them from losing their homes? Are you seeing an awkward paradox here...? (WHAT THE HECK NEW JERSEY?!).
Ok, ok, let's stop the dramatic antics, even though eminent domain (in its natural definition) sounds sadistic and sinister, Newark, New Jersey's government is planning to use it for homeowners' benefit. Apparently, there is a new process in the works that would “allow the township to seize underwater mortgages and restructure them on behalf of homeowners to make payments more affordable.” Hmm, sounds intriguing, what else?
By John Voket
I received some important information issued through the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group - ConnPIRG - which is one of a network of these nonprofit consumer agencies operating across the country.
ConnPIRG issued a notice that new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rules are now in effect that will help protect homeowners and homebuyers from the mortgage abuses they say led to the housing crisis.
