The Virtual Loan Mod Pot of Gold for Foreclosure Defenders and Mortgagors
Dear Neil Garfield:
I write in response to your Blog Entry:
You have stumbled upon a serious gaff in the foreclosure defense industry for which you hustle business day and night through your LivingLies Wordpress blog.
WHY I DISDAIN THE FORECLOSURE DEFENSE INDUSTRY
Foreclosure Defender (FD) attorneys essentially commit malpractice by doing battle against the foreclosure instead of the mortgage. They gouge their clients for a $1500+ retainer (gift) plus $500+ a month for as long as the FD can keep the feckless, desperate client in the house.
And inevitably the court/trustee disposes of the house at auction. So the client SHOULD have SAVED all that money, then done a keys for cash deal, and walked from the house with $30K in the pocket, enough to BUY A HOUSE AT AUCTION for CASH.
On top of that the FD almost NEVER examines the mortgage for tortious conduct, contract breaches, and other legal errors, OR mounts an attack against the lender for associated causes of action. In this failure to attack the lender for contract breaches, etc IN THE FACE OF THE LENDER'S ACCUSATION of borrower BREACH of contract, the FD attorney commits blatant MALPRACTICE.
Plus, FD attorneys never suggest that even feckless borrowers don't need an attorney to do a loan modification for them. I consider such dereliction unconscionable and scurrilous.
So now Congress and Legislatures have made it crystal clear that attorneys and other FD "malpractitioners" can no longer gouge their hapless foreclosure victim clients UP FRONT for the scurrilous practice of doing loan mods which the victims can do themselves. Now Government requires that FD loan mod attorneys do the service first and collect payment AFTER the loan mod dust settles. I say HOORAY FOR THE GOVERNMENT. It's about time somebody stanched the blood-sucking that FD vampire attorneys have done for years on their clueless foreclosure victim prey.
HOW DEFENDERS/MORTGAGORS CAN WIN
Lest you think that I write unfairly about the FD mobsters, please allow me to throw all of them a bone (and you along with them). I have the perfect mechanism whereby they can do the equivalent of a loan modification for those foreclosure victims (or 90% of the other mortgagors), AND collect the fees UP-FRONT. I should charge all of you fifty bucks and force you to watch a tedious half-hour video that simply repeats all of the above. But instead, I shall BLURT IT OUT. Ready? Okay, here goes.
1. FIRST- CONTACT ME. Before I get going too vigorously, I'll let you know that YOU CAN CALL ME CALL ME at
727 669 5511 -or Email me
and I'll patiently explain all the details of this method to any FD malpractitioner, mortgagor, foreclosure victim, or referral agent who truly desires to know. And no, I won't charge you a penny for this valuable information.
2. SECOND - EXAMINATION. I have already explained this to you in the past, but it bears repeating. FD attorneys should procure the services of a competent, fastidious MORTGAGE AND APPRAISAL EXAMINER to review ALL of the mortgage related documents (including correspondence, case filings and rulings, and closing documents) to discover causes of action like contract breaches, tortious conduct, or legal errors by the mortgagee, lender, or agents. This service will probably cost you $3000 or less and I know only one company truly competent enough to perform it. CALL ME FOR DETAILS. I CHARGE NOTHING FOR THIS SERVICE, but the examiners have to eat.
3. THIRD - EVALUATE. IF the exam report does not reveal causes of action, you have nothing to negotiate and the foreclosure will inevitably happen. You will lose the house. Do not fight further. Find a graceful way to exit from the house and save your credit rating. The three best ways, all of which can leave you with the ability to get another government guaranteed loan of some kind in 2 years:
a. Deed in lieu of foreclosure - ask the servicer for this. You won't have a judgment lien against you, so it goes easy on your credit
b. Short Sale - Get the house ready for sale and spiff it up the best you can, starting with the outside, and put it on the market with a competent realtor or FSBO if you know how. You might have more time than you think if the lender dawdles. The closer the foreclosure looms the more important that you sell it, but drop price only as a last resort. Most borrowers will have an underwater mortgage, so the house must sell short, for less than the loan balance. The lender will have to approve it. The borrower might need a lawyer to negotiate with the lender to take the deal. Hint: if the house has mortgage insurance on it, you might get the insurer to hammer the lender into approving the short sale.
c. Keys for Cash - I prefer this. Ask the servicer for a cash stipend if you leave the house "broom clean." If you (the victim) have saved money while failing to make mortgage payments, you might have enough in hand to buy an auction house after losing yours to foreclosure.
4. FOURTH - NEGOTIATE. That's right. I've explained this before, too. With the Mortgage and Appraisal Exam report in hand, you FD attorneys (and you victims of bad mortgages and of foreclosures) can sit down an write a stinging demand for settlement, and put it in the hands of the Lender/Mortgagee/Assignee/Holder's attorney. This will start the negotiation process.
a. You foreclosure victims DO NOT NEED AN ATTORNEY to do this, but I recommend hiring a COMPETENT attorney to negotiate the settlement. Otherwise your opponent's attorney might give you short shrift or fail to take you seriously. Sorry for this. Fact of life. It shouldn't cost you more than 3 hours of the attorney's time to read the report, draft the offer demand, and negotiate the settlement. That's about a thousand bucks or less.
b. The foreclosure victim will not have to pay an attorney tens of thousands of dollars to do this negotiation. And this negotiation can achieve a result most FD attorneys can only dream of AFTER dragging out the foreclosure for months on end at big cost to the borrower. Remember that the interest and other costs mount up during the foreclosure process and only stop when a requesting loan mod or a fake bankruptcy.
5. FIFTH - SETTLEMENT or LAWSUIT, possibly HOUSE FREE AND CLEAR. Yep, I've told you this before too. The negotiation will produce one of these results:
a. FLAT NO - the lender refuses to settle and says "Sue Me." If this happens the victim must decide whether to find an affordable attorney, wing it in court pro se, or walk. Most likely the victim won't find a pro bono attorney to fight the battle, but the victim MIGHT find an attorney to take the case on contingency.
b. SUE (possibly get the House Free and Clear, and/or Punitive damages) If you sue with a competent attorney, you will probably win, for one primary reason: the court exists to give redress to the injured. And YOU got injured by the lender. In other words, instead of having the role of the dogmeat as a foreclosure victim, you have the role of the DOG in a tort/breach claim against the lender who injured you. THIS CONSTITUTES THE PRIMARY VALUE OF THE MORTGAGE AND APPRAISAL EXAM. This powerful tool turns you into a DOBERMAN. It allows you to sue the lender and win both compensatory and punitive damages. LOOK at this example of both a settlement AND a lawsuit that let the borrower WIN A HUGE ARRAY OF AWARDS:
This proof of concept shows precisely why YOU must (if you have any sense) get your professional mortgage exam done BEFORE approaching a FD attorney. It also shows why the FD attorney needs to get the exam done and ATTACK THE MORTGAGE, rather than engaging in malpractice by merely fighting the foreclosure.
c. SETTLEMENT (similar to but better than LOAN MOD). Your negotiation will most likely result in a settlement offer, precisely the KIND of deal you wanted from the loan mod to begin with - an affordable, fair mortgage. I would typically consider equitable a deal to reduce the loan balance to the present value of the house minus the borrower's paid-in equity, refinanced for 30 years at a fixed going rate with no balloons Most lenders would prefer that to a lawsuit that exposes their soft and rotten predatory lending underbelly.
WHY DON'T I READ ABOUT A LOT OF SUCH SETTLEMENTS/AWARDS on the INTERNET?
You seldom see such things for two reasons:
1. Most lenders' attorneys have more sense than to buck against a fair settlement because they know what damage a messy, expensive lawsuit will cause to their and the lenders' reputations. When settling, they ALWAYS REQUIRE PLAINTIFFS TO EXECUTE NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS. You could look at the settlement as a form of "hush money."
2. Statistically ALL (let me spell that: A-L-L) FD attorneys do not have the skill, will, and wallet to fight such a battle, AND they believe they earn more by bilking the frightened, feckless foreclosure victims out of an average $10,000 to $20,000 (in some cases up to $200,000) to play a malpractice delaying game that simply drags out the inevitable foreclosure and results in loss of the client's house anyway.
WHY DO I ACCUSE FD ATTORNEYS OF MALPRACTICE?
I say this because FD attorneys have a fiduciary responsibility to examine the contract and related documents when a client comes to them for help fighting a breach of contract accusation. To fail in this duty constitutes malpractice. And that becomes a tort if an injury and damage results to the client.
FD Lawyers: a client comes to you complaining that a mortgagee sued him for breach of the note and demands foreclosure and sale of the house according to the mortgage. Because examination of hundreds of loan-related documents including the loan application, real estate purchase agreement, appraisal, and all the closing documents, you start fretting over irregularities in the loan assignment and the foreclosure process. Maybe you can get the court to dismiss the case on the basis of lack of plaintiff standing (wrong plaintiff), robo-signing, etc. But by such an exclusive focus you have missed seeing the elephant in the room in 90% of some states' mortgages: appraisals that overvalue the property, and fraud by mortgage brokers who dummied income or expense figures in order to get some lender to make the loan.
THAT dereliction of your fiduciary duty constitutes the tort of legal malpractice, according to the legal experts with whom I have discussed the matter.
IF you fail to examine the documents related to the breach-of-contract and foreclosure action for contract breaches, torts, and legal errors, then you have failed in your fiduciary duty to the client. If the client then loses the house and/or a lot of money as a consequence, then the client will have a cause of action against you.
THE POT OF GOLD FOR FORECLOSURE DEFENSE ATTORNEYS
Okay, so let me summarize the POT O' GOLD for FD attorneys at the end of the LOAN MOD rainbow. You get two choices.
1. INITIATE a Loan Mod and languish till consummation to receive your fee, or...
2. Get your fee up front, hire a MORTGAGE AND APPRAISAL EXAM for ANY mortgagor clients (whether or not in foreclosure), then threaten a tort/breach/error lawsuit and reach a settlement that will probably include a deal far better than the typical loan mod (LOW FACE AMOUNT, NO BALLOON).
THE POT OF GOLD FOR MORTGAGORS
And now I'll summarize the POT O'GOLD for ANYBODY WITH A MORTGAGE DEBT (including foreclosure victims):
1. Hire a MORTGAGE AND APPRAISAL EXAM, then get a lawyer to negotiate a settlement and if necessary a lawsuit as above.
2. You typically will easily get a GOOD settlement, and you COULD get your house free and clear and/or a huge WAD OF MONEY for your trouble to cover all your costs and a vacation to some exotic land for a long long time. Plus attorney fees.
Whether you are an ATTORNEY wanting to avoid malpractice and serve ALL mortgagors, or you are a mortgagor wanting a better deal on your mortgage, or your house free and clear...
CALL ME at
727 669 5511,
and I'll give you a detailed explanation and introduce you to the mortgage examination company himself, when you get ready to take action.
NO, my service will not cost you a penny. I have helped people FREE since May 2006.
YES you can subscribe to my Lawmen Group e-letter at http://bobhurt.com. You get that FREE too.
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