This is the topic for tonight’s Neil Garfield show. Tune in tonight or down load the podcast:
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Tonight’s Show Features Carolyn Trego, Hardest Hit Administrator for the Law Offices of Paul A. Krasker, P.A.
There are dozens of programs available in many of the states that could help thousands of homeowners. The problem is that nobody is making application to those programs. So I am publicizing facts about those programs in an effort to encourage homeowners and attorneys to do their homework and to make proper application. It is probably a good idea to utilize the services of the law firms that have already started to concentrate on these programs. These firms are willing to cocounsel with other lawyers who have been litigating cases or web clients that might benefit from these programs.
The following article was written based upon information provided by a member of the staff of the law firm that appears to be doing a very good job of assisting homeowners, accessing all available remedies — which might include but is not limited to litigation.
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Quite often I run into homeowners who have had a hardship and do not know what help could be available. Two years ago, the federal government gave an additional $2 billion to the 18 states and the District of Columbia that were hardest hit in the economic downturn.
State of Florida was allocated $1Billion Dollars has a hardship fund available only to Florida homeowners called Florida’s Hardest Hit Fund. Most of you Floridians have not heard of the Fund – mostly because it is poorly marketed by the State, but it is real and deserves more attention. I cannot believe others are not screaming this from the rooftops and foreclosure defense attorneys and loan modification companies are not referring all their clients to see if this Fund can solve the deficiency issues (or at least narrow the gap of deficiency).
The owners are not charged a fee to apply for or to receive the available funds. Final decisions are usually rendered within 60-90 days. You can even continue to pursue a long term modification while receiving the funds.
Two types of homeowners are covered: Unemployed and underemployed due to no fault of their own. The funding is to help pay the mortgage arrearages and to help pay the future mortgage payments of qualified homeowners.
Florida’s Hardest Hit Fund has in place two programs: UMAP and MLRP. Homeowners could qualify for one or both programs at the same time. The homeowners who qualify may receive mortgage assistance for future payments up to 12 months (capped at $24,000), or until the homeowner finds adequate employment to resume paying the mortgage (whichever comes first), with up to $18,000 available to reinstate a delinquent first mortgage prior to payments being made. That is a total of $42,000 to eligible homeowners at no cost to them and quick turn-around times. How is it possible that this is not being better advertised and promoted?
Additionally, for a homeowner who is delinquent but is recovering from unemployment/underemployment (who may now have a job) and now can afford their future payments, they can still receive up to $25,000 as a one-time payment toward reinstatement of their delinquent first mortgage balance.
HHF assistance is paid directly to the loan servicer/lender for those homeowners deemed eligible to participate in the program. Eligibility depends on 3 things: Household eligibility, Property eligibility, Mortgage eligibility.
While you can apply online directly to the State website.
To further information, you can contact Carolyn Trego at 877-332-1965 and she will be happy to assist you with your questions and needs. You may also visit the HHF official website at www.FLHardestHitHelp.org to review eligibility criteria and apply.
When applying; please use Referral Code 70099 when completing your application so that you will be directed to the Law Office of Paul Krasker for further assistance.
Filed under: bubble, CORRUPTION, expert witness, Fannie MAe, foreclosure, investment banking, Investor, MODIFICATION, Mortgage, Pleading, Servicer, Title, TRUST BENEFICIARIES, trustee | Tagged: Florida, Hardest Hit Homeowners, homeowners in distress, Krasker, state programs |
Twenty years ago I had a couple thoughts about sharing risk myself, so it’s no surprise that others did. FNMA and FHLMC were created to provide liquidity in the market, so that lenders wouldn’t exhaust their warehouse lines, their funds to lend. Less moolah means the cost of money goes up.
We either can afford to own a home or we can’t, but big business doesn’t want to play it that way. They want something ELSE. If we have to pay an extra 1/8 to 1/4 or even more for a home loan, then so be it and that would have been our choice had we known the consequences of sec’n.
Securitization is a load of dog doo. We didn’t need to know just how bad unregulated big business will get when it can. We don’t need scenarios which could threaten an entire economy, and that’s just what you get with this dog doo. When Fnma and Fhlmc bought
loans, they paid X $$. When the borrower didn’t pay, they took the collateral. Lenders, the big-business ones, and WS weren’t satisfied with that, though they were all making dandy profits. Securitization isn’t risk-sharing, which is partly how it’s sold ; it’s suicide – for all but the pirates and actually, even for them if they were credit default swap parties, I would think. But maybe those swaps is what the AIG’s actually insured. AIG’s contractual obligations were at the heart of this tsunami. Since it caused them the ruin it caused them, I don’t know
how to believe they hadn’t over-committed, something a regulated insurer doesn’t get to lawfully do.
Securitization has to go. The certs don’t pay like the notes, anyway, looks to me. If the amt of p & i paid-in matches the amt paid to cert holders with all those tranches, I’d be pretty darn surprised.* Can’t swear they don’t because I can’t prove it myself. Wish like heck someone around here would.
I don’t know about FHLMC, but FNMA charges the BORROWER for its “g fee”, to guarantee its MBS’s. When a lender knows a loan is going to FNMA, the loan is priced out to the borrower to include the g fee. I heard of the g fee only last year and was stunned, actually, even tho I knew FNMA guaranteed payment. Then I find out the borrower is actually paying it in his rate. I was personally already p.o.’d that the
borrower is not credited with FNMA’s guarantee payments in an amt allegedly due on the loan (pretty sure I have company as to being p.o’d). Now that we know the borrower pays for that guarantee, how’s that sit? The borrower is paying for that guarantee and she isn’t even credited with the guarantee pay-out. FNMA’s G fee is different than private mtg insurance, which I think only pays out after the lender has a bottom line on its loss (but I don’t know for sure.) FNMA’s guarantee pays out at the same time a borrower doesn’t make a payment, which is a monster distinction: the note is still alive to apply that guarantee payment to. The servicer contractually advances the payment and is reimbursed by FNMA. There’s either a disconnect between the notes and the MBS’s or every loan that went thru FNMA which does not reflect those FNMA payments shows a false figure on the amt due in, say, a Notice of Default or a proof of claim. That makes the NOD ineffective (as well as bogus) and is also imo a bogus poc in a bk case, though I can’t cite chapter and verse – it’s on the list. This
may be a path back to either the home or damages. Ignorance of the law is not generally a defense, but ignorance of facts is. No one had any reason to know of FNMA’s guarantee when his home was snarfed and so he just can’t be charged with knowledge of those facts.
But the claimant can. ANYthing which has an impact on a dispute in a court must be disclosed. That I think I can demonstrate, but will have to look around for it.
We don’t need securitization. It’s been nothing but bad. The govt
created F & F to provide liquidity to help lenders and help more people get home loans. The only real reason for securitization is that third parties, not the borrower and not the true lender, can rake in the big bucks, even if sec’n were done lawfully.
Lenders pay one rate for money (except maybe those who actually lend their own funds), they charge another to loan it out to home buyers – they make the spread, including all the things (mostly) which impact the a.p.r.., like points and so on. Okay, that’s capitalism, that’s legit business. But then they found a way to make (or appropriate) a whole lot more money. Just about every dime they make over normal lending income has been a loss to someone else and it’s HURT and maimed.
F & F have dollar amt loan limits. There were other homes for loans which exceeded their max loan amts, like RFC, who apparently blew it, also, with bad loans and or by being default swap parties. But the
system wasn’t broken or inadequate. The banksters just figured out how to get more of the pie, someone else’s pie, by injecting themselves into what should be a straight-forward deal between a borrower and a lender. With the exception of companies which took HAMP etc. (which wouldn’t exist but for sec’n and default swaps, i.e., all this bs) no lender has an obligation to modify a loan per se, altho a lender, like any party to a contract, has an obligation to mitigate damages, which at least New Mexico appears to recognize
(other states must, but it’s NM which has ‘made a production’ of it recently).
Taking someone’s home should be the last resort, not the stinking first. (To the extent they may, courts should be asking the claimant what it’s done to mediate the situation, not be first saying to the homeowner “you’re in default. Kiss your home good bye!” Did you know that for every claim turned into a bk court, the claimant is swearing under penalty of perjury it has tried to mediate? See for yourself – look up a poc. Their story will prob be that the NOD qualifies) Other institutions, non-parties to our loans, particularly loan servicers, now have a financial interest in them and have conflicting motivations about what’s best for the two parties who ARE
parties to the loan agreement. This is a situation created by sec’n. Whether or not one is a candidate for a modification is now determined by someone who’s interests conflict with borrowers’ and lenders’ interests. Any such conflict is dead wrong and shouldn’t exist and wouldn’t exist but for sec’n. And a third party telling one party to a contract, regardless of the alleged reason, to not perform i.e., default, is tortious and tortious interference, esp when that third party is the servicer for one of the parties to the contract and is in a position of trust and most definitely when the implied if not promised inducement, ‘modification’, is not forthcoming.
The point is, the lending system wasn’t broken. WS etal just wanted something else to mess with, some other way to re-invent the wheel and make easy money. Anyone who puts his money into sec’n at this point imo deserves what he gets. Other than picketing, anarchy,
refusng to pay salaries by way of not paying taxes, as Christine opines (the taxes, not anarchy), letter campaigns and such, the only thing to do about it on our end is refuse to sign a MERS’ collateral instrument and refuse to sign for any loan without a written
caveat that our loans won’t be securitized and that any assgt of our coll instrument will be recorded in public record where it belongs.
Most of the people getting loans right now aren’t readers here or other defense sites and aren’t on board, not having been bitten – yet. I suppose since we have no real help from the administration, all we can do is to keep plugging away at the judiciary, our last bastion for some hope of sanity. Fwiw, I don’t think most judges are crooked. They have bents, yeah, but more I think, and I say this with no undue disrespect, they’re just ignorant. I dare say such a thing because, for one, there is no way in heck any agency, and especially one regarding real property rights and interests, is created in and by a dot.
lay opinions
I don’t particularly think that all the loans were designed to fail but that the subprime loans were designed to create reacquiring revenue from refinances. These refinances were created new income and they stripped the equity from the properties to pay all these fees.
Then as the boom created great wealth for some at the same time giving borrowers access to some monies, that financed home improvements, college tuition, or a newer auto than the 10yr old used car most lower income folks were purchasing before having access from refinance cash-outs.
So in about 2005 this thing got all off track further as Fannie and Freddie stop refinancing cash-out over 80% and then prime customers started taking these 2nd mortgage and then everybody started these 80/20 cutting out PMI and stuffing more debt into the loan.
Now as the bubble popped as some anticipated with CDS that it would, others were helped out of the crisis by the know direction of Ben Bernanke who always said and written that he would fully recapitalize the banks. Bernanke conclusion was that what caused the Great Depression drag on so long was that the banks were not fully recapitalized.
I think that as the damage shared that it was put out that the entire financial system would fail and it would be the end of America as we know it. So bank got a get out of jail free pass, and as the Fed printed (electronically transferred) monies to the tune of $16 trillion dollars, it was a number to large to spot how banks were taking advantage of any of these situations.
Banks took lemonade and made lemonade aid. I don’t think that this was a planned event but one that regulators and law enforcement did not and still don’t have the financial experience to battle a rapidly evolving event with the world smartest financial personnel on the planet. Dimon alone got a $39 million bonus for last year ans the bank paid out $20 billion in settlements ans id suing the FDIC. Obama makes $500K with living expensive!
http://mattweidnerlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Petition-for-a-Writ-of-Certiorari-3-4-14.pdf
And just try to meet the requirements to get it, what a joke.
Well now, there’s a billion bucks set aside for ailing borrowers, but we’ll just keep it our little secret. Shhh.
Screw them and their non-existent aid. Lobbyists always pay better that constituents.
Great summation JG.
Neil, organizing and sharing this info is a great idea. A few years ago I found that FHA offered 50k (!) in assistance. I forget the details of course, but it seemed no one was applying for the help. I’ve read that 90% of student scholarships go unused. I had grandiose plans to do something about that but ‘stuff’ happened. Be nice to hear some success stories about the assistance as a result of this info.
In other news, Obama says he is being forced to allow the deportation of illegal immigrants:
“I cannot ignore those laws any more than I can ignore any of the other laws that are on the books.”
Well, I, a former Obama advocate, beg to differ. He seems quite adept as commander in chief of discriminating about which laws to enforce. Either that or he truly doesn’t have the experience to know the laws he should be enforcing. His alleged sympathy toward illegal immigrants is misplaced. (Isn’t all we got an “it was immoral but not illegal”? A conscious effort, a PLAN to benefit wrongfully by sticking it to others, is not just immoral, it’s illegal*) His sympathy should be for American tax-paying citizens who are losing their homes primarily as a result of the criminal act of predatory lending. For the homeowner who was victimized by predatory lending, he’s on his own, shuffled off to one worthless regulator after another. It takes a min of 50k, a law degree, and his very life’s blood to do anything about it. And speaking of life’s blood, it doesn’t look like we will ever not be called upon to spill more of ours for the alleged benefit of citizen’s in other countries. How’s this for headlines: “European Coalition Invades U.S. over Systemic Theft of Private Property”?
*If I recall Christine was big on unjust enrichment. To me, what makes that unjust enrichment cross the line from immoral to illegal is that it was the plan – to be enriched at the expense of others who were mere pawns in the scheme. The banksters created a scenario whereby they would be enriched by the existance of an alleged contract between two other parties to loan money and be repaid with interest knowing that agreement would fail. I don’t understand MS or carie’s stuff, but if they’re right and my sniffer is working, the loans weren’t just designed to fail, they HAD to fail. And given what it’s taking to defend our homes, the banksters only have to deal with a small percentage of failing to fails. Did they leave out agency loans in this scheme, loans which may have actually been made to people who qualifed? Well, if so and they benefit, they got a nice bonus because many people who COULD make their payments no longer could, thanks to what they did to our economy. Traitors, one and all.
MERS HAS TO GO and take securitization with it. The liquidity allegedly provided by securitization is not worth the cost.
lay opinions
This sound very good ,but how about if the bank kill your credit with
raised Credit card minimum charge ( I opt out from class )action and
next the closed HELOC ( I opt out from class action ) and next the
business goes slow because I had to stop construction and mortgage payment .
I will not get any money for expansion because of this 3 Bank problems since 2008 .
I think I am not the only one who got headache with this CC and HELOC problem. I try to sell my business to get money to sue the bank. Any Idea would be appreciate .