Beware any homeowner help plans from the government

Someone help me keep this up. I think this issue warants a closer inspection.

I agree after hearing things like they would lengthen loans to 30 to 40 yrs.....well for someone that is half way thru their 30 yr mtg you'd be paying for a whole 'nother house again by the time you were done!

I dont reside in the US but years ago
the Government here went the whole nine yards
of getting low income people out of the rent
trap and into homeownership.

The Government owned Mortgage Corporation
interest rate was locked at 3% for six years
then reviewable every 3 years depending on income.
The required initial deposit was 10% and
the term of the mortgage was 30 years
but you could pay it off sooner.

It worked okay for me and though I am still
poor in terms of day to day monies
I do now own outright
a property worth quite a bit.

An added note this influenced three of my
four siblings to follow suit and get into
buying their own home.

None of us inherited a bean from our parents
so we are first generation home
owners and this idiotic idea
of owning your own home has been
successfully passed onto our kids.

* Note the Mortgage Corporation was
a state owned entity not privately owned
like your Federal Banking system.

I forgot to add in there that that particular
scheme in turn created a huge
building boom as demand grew for
new homes and of course all the extras like
schools and facilities etc.

actually, anything free from government needs to be questioned...

1. free homes / land while disaster victims recover? (built on chemical garbage dump, many sick / died..normal laws are where not permissable for human use)

2. free vaccines? (do i really have to help you on this one?)

if u look at what they did during depression, which alot of screaming about corrupt banks, wallstreet, government and so forth ( so interesting how that cylce repeats) is the gov't ended up owning their homes.

asset management, anyone?

There aint gonna be no help. It's all a dog and pony show for the sheeple.

Good advice... and not just regarding home ownership.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help you,... lol, and cops are only here to save the children.

Where have I heard this shit before.
[link to www.pierretristam.com]

Person from another country - Why do you think home ownership is such a crazy idea? That's a separate issue from real estate bubbles.

In this case, we are talking about people who already have a mortgage. No matter what the situation is that finds the home buyer in a tight squeeze, from what we have learned, unless the institution foreclosing has the note, saying you owe the money, they may not be able to foreclose. If a homeowner/buyer's mortgage is no longer with the original lender, that means the mortgage has been sold or there was a merger. In any event, there's a good chance they can't prove ownership of shit.

If the feds offer a new mortgage to someone (longer payoff time, lower payments), you can bet there will be some legal fine print saying that the new lender/mortgager can foreclose without producing a note. IOW, you'll sign away the right to demand proof of the debt. The federal gov't exists to protect the banks.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Legal feud shows a foreclosure can take forever

South Florida Business Journal - by Ed Duggan

If car dealers can keep track of titles, banks can track promissory notes, Joseph Lents says.


Somebody has been trying to foreclose on Joseph Lents' Boca Raton home for five years. So far, they have been unsuccessful because he has legally fought them every step of the way.

The original lender, or the assignee, seems unable to produce the promissory note and prove it has the right to foreclose. In an era when Wall Street has sliced and diced mortgages to package them as securities, that could turn into a broader issue.

"I probably have been to the Palm Beach County courthouse 100 times or more over the last five years, just to observe," Lents said. "In 99 percent of the residential foreclosure cases, plaintiffs are asking the court to accept a promissory note copy as the original because it is presumed lost."

Resistance doesn't come cheap. Lents has paid more than $120,000 in legal fees and costs so far to save his 5-acre, $2.5 million home.

Real estate analyst Jack McCabe, CEO of Deerfield Beach-based McCabe Research & Consulting, calls Lents' foreclosure case a legal powder keg that could spark major changes in Florida lending and foreclosure proceedings.

Homeowners "may have a last-ditch opportunity to save their homes from foreclosure by showing up at the hearing and questioning the validity of the debt instrument presented by the foreclosing entity," McCabe said.

He cautions that a Lents win could also translate into radical future changes in the bundling of Florida mortgages into various Wall Street products such as collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and special investment vehicles (SIVs).

Roots of the battle

The Lentses built their home in 1992 and, on May 15, 2001, according to public records, refinanced it for $1.49 million with Washington Mutual Bank (NYSE: WM).

Lents, a retired CPA, lost his corporate job in 2002 when the SEC charged the company he led (Ivesco/Intraco) with a pump-and-dump scheme, according to SEC documents. While the SEC agreed that Lents had not made money - he actually lost money on the transactions - the damage was done. His income stopped and he fell five months behind on his mortgage payments.

"I tried contacting WaMu [Washington Mutual] and couldn't get through to anyone who could help me reset or recast the mortgage," Lents said. He contacted the mortgage broker, Express Financial, which had helped him shop around for the best mortgage in 2001. "They contacted WaMu and were told it couldn't do anything because, even though they were servicing the mortgage, the loan had been sold. It was a Catch-22," Lents said.

In January 2003, WaMu filed for foreclosure against the Lentses.

Where's the note?

The first count of the complaint was curious, according to Lents. It said the $1.49 million promissory note was lost.

"Now, I have audited a number of banks and credit unions in my time, and I can tell you they don't lose million-dollar notes," Lents said. "If auto dealers can keep track of auto titles, surely banks can keep track of promissory notes."

West Palm Beach attorney Brook Fisher filed an objection, and WaMu filed an affidavit, swearing the note had been lost.

The employee who filed the lost note affidavit was deposed. Under sworn testimony, she said she hadn't searched for the note and just signed a stack of lost note affidavits.

WaMu's attorney filed for summary judgment in 2003. However, since the facts surrounding the allegedly lost note were in dispute, the judge set the case for trial and allowed discovery for records and depositions.

Lents acknowledged that he owed the money, but would only pay the legal note holder, whoever that might be.

In October 2003, WaMu dismissed the suit.

Nothing more happened until February 2005, when Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette (acquired in 2000 by Credit Suisse) filed a foreclosure suit against the Lentses.

In a September 2005 mediation meeting, the attorney representing Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette said it had paid a premium for the Lentses' mortgage, apparently purchased as part of a package of non-performing loans.

In a typical case, a foreclosure is not contested by a homeowner, lost note affidavits are accepted and the courts just process the cases as defaults.

In reality, the notes are stuck somewhere in the financial labyrinths created by Wall Street, which chops, slices and dices packages of mortgages into the pools of debt securities.

Legal precedent

There is legal precedent for Lents to win his foreclosure fight.

In 2003, the 4th District Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling for Boca Grove resident Hartley Lord against State Street Bank and Trust Co., trustee for holders of Bear Stearns mortgage securities pass-through certificates, series 1993-12.

The plaintiffs couldn't prove that either the mortgagee or its assignor ever had possession of the missing promissory note, and the foreclosure suit was dismissed with prejudice - meaning it couldn't be refiled.

April Charney, a Jacksonville Area Legal Aid attorney, had proceedings stopped against more than 100 foreclosure clients in July. She argued that Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems had no standing to foreclose as it was only a mortgage registry and didn't hold the mortgage notes, which were still with the original lenders.

Charney argued in a memorandum to the court that Mortgage Electronic was operating as a debt collector - for which it had no license - and still couldn't produce the notes.

Statewide, Mortgage Electronic was estimated to account for about 20 percent of all Florida foreclosures - 870 out of 4,047 - before it suspended all its foreclosures, according to Charney.

The Lentses' case is coming to a head. A hearing is set for Jan. 8 in which Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette is seeking summary judgment. Their attorney, Miami-based Jane Serene Raskin of Raskin & Raskin, will probably be asking for the same thing. (She did not return calls for comment.)

"If the Lentses prevail, no doubt attorneys representing homeowners in foreclosure proceedings would have an excellent tool to prevent or delay the foreclosure and loss of shelter for their clients," analyst McCabe said. "It will be a well-watched case throughout the industry."

LOST MORTGAGE NOTES:

Florida law says a person not in possession of a note must prove its terms and the right to enforce it, including:

* They were entitled to enforce the note when it was lost or gained ownership of the note from someone who had that right.
* The loss was not the result of a transfer by the person or a lawful seizure.
* They cannot obtain possession of the note because it was destroyed, its whereabouts are unknown or it is in the wrongful possession of a party that cannot be found or served.

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT FUNDING GROUP

President: Joseph Lents
Address: 20283 State Road 7, Suite 300, Boca Raton 33498
Phone: (561) 237-2914
E-mail: jlentsfunding@yahoo.com

[link to www.bizjournals.com]

I was told"Dont make a deal or re-fi because of my credit card debt.Refi takes it out of your Homestead protection .

Each credit card co. could come after my home,dont do it if you have these kinds of debts hanging over your head.

That's another issue and you're right. Never take out a consolidation loan/second mortgage to pay off any other debts. The collateral is your house.

We subsidizing our own slavery. GENIUS. I love it.

There you go.

This is the stupidest shit I've heard. God, you people are stupid. Shut the fuck up.