Shores Theatre Home

Posts Tagged ‘Mortgage Payment’

Foreclosures are occurring at an alarming rate and have been for quite some time. No one likes to talk about losing their home, but the fact is, more and more Americans are in fact, in foreclosure or have already lost their home.

Need some advice on avoiding foreclosure?

Here is some general information about foreclosures.

Several states have a record number of foreclosures, such as Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

CNN Money reports that adjustable-rate mortgages, especially mortgages that are considered, sub-prime adjustable rate mortgages, continue to contribute to foreclosures.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Americans borrowed $2.2 trillion dollars through attractive adjustable rate mortgages between 2004 and 2006.

These adjustable rate mortgages were hard to pass up with low monthly payments.

Unfortunately, these ARMS (adjustable mortgages) cannot last forever. Experts explain that these adjustable rate mortgages need to reset themselves in order to make up for the difference through higher rates, which means a higher mortgage payment.

You don’t need to be an expert in real estate to figure out that when the banks significantly raise someone’s mortgage payment, you are going to see many foreclosures.

It’s also predicted that as these mortgage loans reset, 1.11 million homeowners will lose their homes. This prediction was reported following a study completed by First American CoreLogic, a firm that documents home mortgage risks.

If you fail to make a payment by the due date, the lender has every right to start the foreclosure proceedings. Many banks will allow you a “grace period,” so as not to start any foreclosure process.

After a certain period of time, the lender will send you a certified letter stating that your loan is in default. Included will be any penalties and any unpaid mortgage totals. It is important that you contact the lender to try and work out a plan to pay the bank back.

Banks are not in the business of owning homes; banks are in the business of lending money. Banks do not want the house back! Contact them and try to work out an agreement to pay them back the unpaid payments.

Your loan will likely be reinstated if you bring the mortgage back to good standing if you pay back any outstanding mortgage payments and fees.

If the lender has given you the allotted time to make the loan current, and you cannot make the payments, the loan will still be considered in default and there will be a scheduled auction.

Following the auction, if there is any money still owed to the lender, the homeowner may be required to pay those debts owed. If there is money left over from the auction, that amount of money will go to the foreclosed homeowner, if all of the fees have been paid to the lender.

With any court foreclosures, the sheriff carries out the sale, which is about 45 days after the county clerk orders the sale. The auction is open to the public which means anyone who has the available funds, may bid on the foreclosed property.

Generally, the accepted bid must be paid to the sheriff no later than 5:00 P.M. on the day of or the day after the auction.

A certificate is issued following the foreclosure sale. If the property is not abandoned at the time of the sale up to the next six months, this is known as the redemption period. Some states will allow the borrower to redeem the property. Any secondary lender may redeem the property within a certain amount of time. In order to redeem the property, the total amount owed including any fees, must be paid.

If there isn’t anyone who redeems the property, the sheriff will then transfer the ownership to the winning bidder at the time of the foreclosure auction.

With Out of Court Trustee Sales, notice of the sale is noted which includes the property description, date, time, place, etc. The auction notice is then recorded with the county.

The trustee mails the notice to all interested parties. This notice is sent out three months before the sale date and will be published in the local newspaper.

No less than 20 days before the sale, the foreclosure auction notice is posted on the property and the county courthouse.

The day before the sale is scheduled to take place and leading up to the sale, the trustee must provide the opening bid of the sale to anyone who inquires about the sale. If not, the sale might have to be delayed for a short period of time.

Out of Court foreclosure sales require every bidder to provide a refundable $10,000 deposit in order to bid. The trustee keeps the deposit of the individual with the winning bid.

The winning bidder has until 5:00 P.M. by the next day to pay his/her bid price.

Following the sale, the trustee then transfers ownership of the foreclosed property within seven days. The proceeds of the sale are paid directly to the primary lender, then to any secondary lenders that exist.

There is no right of redemption following Out of Court foreclosure sales.

Bank foreclosures have occurred in record numbers. If you are an investor, your’e likely to find foreclosures all around the U.S.

Will foreclosures decline in numbers? Only time will tell.

The information provided here within, is not considered professional legal advice. It is always recommended that you seek professional legal advice such as a local real estate attorney.

Feldman Law Center – Eileen Ulery wasn’t a real estate speculator. She was an executive assistant at Arizona State University that bought a condo in Mesa, Arizona for $77,000 in 1997 where she had lived ever since. Several years and a couple of refi’s later, her mortgage balance was up to $140,000 and then the bottom fell out. University budget cuts resulted in the elimination of her job, which she had held for over twenty years. With some severance pay and social security she was able to keep up but once the severance ran out, her mortgage payment was more than she could handle.

After hearing about the Obama Administration’s new “Making Home Affordable” plan she went to the CountryWide (now part of Bank of America) website which directed her to the official government site for the program, makinghomeaffordable.gov. After taking a test at the site to determine her eligibility she was informed that she might qualify for a loan modification.   

Calling the bank in April to start the loan modification process, the bank’s representative said that the bank was not doing loan modifications for “people like her”. The rep then countered with something the bank could do for her; if she could write them a check for $18,000, they would raise her interest rate slightly, and she could save $77 dollars per month. $13,000 would go toward her loan balance and $5,000 would go to the bank as fees to re-do the loan. The monthly savings would come from the reduction of her loan balance.

Jenni Engebretsen, spokesperson for the Treasury, confirmed that homeowners like Ms. Ulery who are current on their mortgages but struggling with the loss of a job are eligible for loan modifications under the program. Eligibility, however, does not mean anything in terms of getting a loan modification done if the lenders are dismissing every do it yourself borrower that is not on the brink of imminent foreclosure.

Rick Simon a spokesman for Bank of America Home Loans, confirmed as much when he said “The bank is now focusing on modifications only for those borrowers who are already in severe threat of foreclosure.” After acknowledging that Ms. Ulery had been offered a refi instead of a loan modification he said, “We’re still putting the systems in place to handle people who are current on their loans. It’s still very, very early in the program.”

Ms. Ulery’s experience in attempting to modify her own loan is not unusual. In fact it’s quite common that lenders will counter a loan modification request with either an offer to refinance or to set up a payment plan requiring higher monthly payments. Both types of offers do nothing for the borrower while providing the lender with higher interest, fees, and higher principle payments.

Asked whether she took the bank up on its offer to refinance her home Ms. Ulery said, “I just laughed. It was a really good deal for them.”

   

“We’re still putting the systems in place to handle people who are current on their loans,” Mr. Simon said, declining to say how many loans Bank of America had modified. “It’s still very, very early in the program

President Obama promise that help was on the way for homeowners like her, people who had lost jobs and could no longer make their mortgage payments.

Yes, she was teetering toward delinquency. She was among millions of homeowners rapidly sliding toward danger for whom the Obama administration had devised an aid program — some already in foreclosure proceedings, others headed that way as they ran out of means to make their payments. But unlike those in imminent peril of losing their homes, Ms. Ulery had never missed a payment

More than three months after the Obama administration outlined a new program aimed at rescuing millions of distressed homeowners by compensating banks that modify mortgages, Ms. Ulery’s experience illustrates the mixture of confusion, frustration and limited assistance that now reigns.

Through many months of wrangling over the fate of the financial system, with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars dispensed on bailouts, distressed homeowners have waited for their own rescue amid talk that it was finally on the way. Modifications of so-called subprime and Alt-A mortgages — those made to people with tarnished credit — actually fell by 11 percent in May from April, according to research by Alan M. White at Valparaiso University School of Law.

The bank is now focusing on modifications only for those borrowers “who are already in severe threat of foreclosure,” he said.

 “I just laughed,” Ms. Ulery said. “It was a really good deal for them.”

 

MESA, Ariz. — She had seen the advertisements for the new government program offering relief. She had heard President Obama promise that help was on the way for homeowners like her, people who had lost jobs and could no longer make their mortgage payments.

But when Eileen Ulery called her mortgage company — Countrywide, now part of Bank of America — the bank did not offer to alter her mortgage. Rather, the bank tried to sell her a new loan with a slightly lower monthly payment while asking her to pay $13,000 toward the principal and a fresh $5,000 in fees.

Her problem was that she did not yet present a big enough problem to merit aid.

Yes, she was teetering toward delinquency. She was among millions of homeowners rapidly sliding toward danger for whom the Obama administration had devised an aid program — some already in foreclosure proceedings, others headed that way as they ran out of means to make their payments. But unlike those in imminent peril of losing their homes, Ms. Ulery had never missed a payment.

“I don’t know who this bailout is helping,” she said. “We’ve given these banks all this money and they’re not doing what they say they’re doing. Something’s not working right. They keep saying they’re doing all this, but we don’t see it down here at this level.”

More than three months after the Obama administration outlined a new program aimed at rescuing millions of distressed homeowners by compensating banks that modify mortgages, Ms. Ulery’s experience illustrates the mixture of confusion, frustration and limited assistance that now reigns.

Through many months of wrangling over the fate of the financial system, with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars dispensed on bailouts, distressed homeowners have waited for their own rescue amid talk that it was finally on the way. Modifications of so-called subprime and Alt-A mortgages — those made to people with tarnished credit — actually fell by 11 percent in May from April, according to research by Alan M. White at Valparaiso University School of Law.

A Treasury spokeswoman, Jenni Engebretsen, confirmed that homeowners like Ms. Ulery — current on their mortgages yet grappling with a hardship like unemployment — were eligible for loan modifications under the program. She said mortgage servicers had offered to modify more than 100,000 loans since the department announced the program.

But how many loans have been modified? Ms. Engebretsen declined to say, noting that the Treasury was working with mortgage companies to “fine-tune reporting systems.”

A spokesman for Bank of America Home Loans, Rick Simon, confirmed that the bank offered Ms. Ulery refinancing and not loan modification. The bank is now focusing on modifications only for those borrowers “who are already in severe threat of foreclosure,” he said.

“We’re still putting the systems in place to handle people who are current on their loans,” Mr. Simon said, declining to say how many loans Bank of America had modified. “It’s still very, very early in the program.”

Ms. Ulery, 63, is the face of the latest wave of troubled American homeowners, a surge of people in financial danger not because of reckless gambling on real estate, but because of
lost income.

Far from being one of those who used easy-money loans to speculate on homes proliferating across the desert soil of greater Phoenix, she has lived in the same modest, stucco-sided condo in suburban Mesa for a dozen years. She bought the two-bedroom home in 1997 for $77,500.

For two decades, she worked as an executive assistant at nearby Arizona State University, bringing home more than $1,000 every other week — enough to pay the bills.

Round-faced, wry and given to staccato bursts of laughter, Ms. Ulery regularly visits yard sales, seeking out plates and patchwork quilts for her collections. She takes pleasure in her two grandchildren and her beagle. She enjoys an occasional glass of wine, favoring a $6 merlot that comes in a screw-top bottle.

“I’m not an extravagant-type person,” she said. “I see these big houses all around, and they’re beautiful, but I’m comfortable in my little condo.”

Like tens of millions of other American homeowners, she added to her mortgage balance as the value of her condo swelled, at one point exceeding $200,000. She refinanced to pay off some credit cards and settle into a 30-year, fixed-rate loan. Later, she took out a home equity line of credit to buy a new Hyundai. She refinanced again in 2007, borrowing $20,000, mostly for a new roof.

Over the years, her monthly payment swelled from about $600 to more than $1,000. With planning and self-control — she tracks her monthly expenses on a color-coded spreadsheet — she always came up with the money. “I’ve never been late,” she said.

But the equation broke down last year, when she lost her job in university budget cuts. Ms. Ulery received six months of severance. She arranged a monthly $1,500 Social Security check. But when the severance ran out in October, her mortgage finally exceeded her limited means.

With so many people out of work, and with her doctor counseling rest for a stress-related illness, she did not pursue another paycheck, negotiating to have her university pension begin earlier. She has been leaning on credit cards.

Across the country, millions of homeowners in similar straits have been sliding into delinquency. Some owe more than their houses are worth.

Ms. Ulery is among that unhappy cohort — her house is worth about $122,000, and she owes $143,000 — but walking away is not for her.

“In my family, we don’t do that,” she said. “You pay your bills. And I wanted my home.”

In March, she heard about the Obama administration program. The Countrywide Web site directed her to a government site, makinghomeaffordable.gov, she said. There, she took a test to determine her eligibility for a loan modification.

Was her home her primary residence? Check. Was she having trouble paying her mortgage? Check again, and so on until the screen told her that she might qualify.

In April, she called the bank. The representative said the bank was not doing modifications for people like her, she recalled. He shifted the conversation: if she handed over $18,000, he could lower her payment to $967 from $1,046. Her interest rate would actually increase slightly, with the drop largely because she was putting down more money.

“I just laughed,” Ms. Ulery said. “It was a really good deal for them.”

To which she poses her own question: What sort of deal is it for the American taxpayer? As she sees it, the same banks that generated the mortgage crisis are now getting public money to fix it, while doing little more than seeking new fees.

“I don’t think the government gets it,” she said. “These are the same people you couldn’t trust before.”

 

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Jon Leibowitz was recently joined by California Attorney General Jerry Brown to announce the initiation of “Operation Loan Lies”, a coordinated national law enforcement effort to crack down on mortgage loan modification scams.

The operation has already filed 189 actions by 25 federal and state agencies against fraudulent loan shops that used deceptive marketing to push their shabby or non-existent foreclosure rescue and mortgage modification services. The actions involve homeowners across the country but were announced in Southern California, where the fraudulent companies were based. “These con artists see the high foreclosure rates as an opportunity to prey on people in distress,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said. “They promise to rescue homeowners in troubled financial waters, but after they take their money they throw them an anchor instead of a lifeline.”

In conjunction with the announcement the FTC gave details on four additional lawsuits which brings the total of mortgage foreclosure rescue and loan modification scam cases the Commission has brought since April to fourteen. In the four new lawsuits, defendants are charged with:

Making false claims that they would obtain a home loan modification Making claims that, in conjunction with the loan modification, they would stop foreclosure proceedings Failing to honor promises of refunds to homeowners if the proposed action was not successful

The defendants are charged with doing little or nothing to advance the loan modification process for their clients after receiving fees approximately equal to one month’s mortgage payment.

The specific charges against defendants are as follows:

U.S. Foreclosure Relief made false claims of fast turnarounds for approvals and years of experience with fictitious success rates for their loan modifications. Homeowners received neither. They are also charged with violating the FTC’s Do Not Call Rule due to their repeated contacts with homeowners on the National Do Not Call Registry. Pending a court date, assets of U.S. Foreclosure Relief were frozen. Lucas Law Center made false representations about their capability to obtain loan modifications. They also told homeowners to divert their mortgage payments toward paying Lucas’ fees, a violation of the law. The company did provide refunds to some of their clients but only after repeated complaints and requests for help from the Better Business Bureau, the California Attorney General, the State Bar of California, and/or local authorities. The court froze Lucas Law Center’s assets ahead of a court hearing Loss Mitigation Services assured homeowners that their loan modifications were virtually assured because they were a department of, or affiliated with, the consumer’s lender or mortgage servicer, a complete fabrication. Some homeowners lost their homes while waiting for modifications which would never happens. ·         Apply2Save made claims that they could get loan modifications done in thirty to ninety days when, in fact, they never made contact with the homeowners’ lenders. To stall for time, Apply2Save told their customers that paperwork was lost, often more than once.

Operation Loan Lies follows an April 6, 2009, announcement by FTC Chairman Leibowitz, Attorney General Eric Holder, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan that there would be a crack-down on companies that were set up to defraud homeowners seeking home loan modifications.

The four companies provide valuable lessons in how homeowners can protect themselves from hiring a deceptive company that will not deliver on promises. In the case of U.S. Foreclosure Relief, one warning sign would any talk or intimation of affiliation with the U.S. government. U.S. Foreclosure Relief and Apply2Save both pitched themselves as being able to get approvals for home loan modifications faster than any of their competitors. Homeowners should be aware that the process of modification is two sided and that lenders are currently flooded with applications. Any promises of fast turnarounds should be met with great skepticism. Lucas Law Center advised customers to pay them instead of their lender, an obvious warning about their regard for legal and ethical standards. Finally, Loss Mitigation Services’ claims of affiliation with lenders and guarantees of loan modification approvals because of it were definite red flags. Finding the truth would have been as easy as making a direct call to the lender to verify the claims.



Avoiding the problems encountered by homeowners that were scammed by these firms is as simple as asking the right questions, doing some leg work, and realizing that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Insist on working with a firm that has already done hundreds of loan modifications and can prove it. Visit the office and ask questions until you’re comfortable. A loan modification is a huge and important undertaking. Ensuring its chances of success by doing your homework will keep you out of trouble and give you a much better chance at staying in your home.