As foreclosure filings and threats spike, so too will the number of fraudulent offerings that guarantee you an outcome, require upfront payment or worse — ask you to deed the property to the kindly person who has “all the answers.” Nobody has all the answers, and nobody can guarantee anything regarding foreclosures, modifications, or settlements. If they say they do have such answers, they are lying.
Least of all — the companies that are designated as “servicers” that perform no servicing functions and are not agents of any creditor that owns your unpaid loan account, even if it existed.
The fact that some apparent or actual agency exists between the designated company (“servicer”) and a bank pretending to be serving as a trustee of an alleged REMIC Trust does NOT mean that the REMIC trust owns any obligation that is allegedly due from you. In fact, it does not mean that any trust exists or that even if it did somehow come into legal existence, it ever owned any right, title, or interest in any unpaid obligation due from you nor any note or mortgage lien.
The fact that some lawyer working for a foreclosure mill claims that you owe money does not mean that your obligation still exists. In fact, as I have repeatedly stated on these pages, the elimination of the obligation is part of the process of what Wall Street is calling securitization of debt.
The purpose of offering you a modification or settlement is to get you to agree that the company that has been designated as a service there is now your creditor. This will be used against you in court later. Such agreements often contain provisions that release and even indemnify the servicer for making false claims.
The fact that a different creditor is named as a party that is claiming that you owe them money, will be overruled by a judge who reads the documents as saying that either the named creditor or the named servicer is a proper claimant – and there is no meaningful difference between them.
As a general rule, usually advise lawyers and pro se litigants to start responding to offers of modification and settlement only after they have received the third “final offer.” The first offers are specifically designed (psychologically) to create the impression that the foreclosure mill has decided that your defenses or claims have no merit. This is designed to undermine your faith in the judicial system, your faith in your attorney, and your faith in your lying eyes having read much about the law on the Internet.
Not everything you read on the Internet is true. And even if it is true, the interpretation that will occur in a courtroom is often very different from what you have read. This is why I am encouraging homeowners to seek the advice of local counsel before acting on any information they have obtained from the Internet, including this blog. Any website, salesman, or other source attempting to sell a “magic bullet” is a scam.
The truth, in virtually every case, is that the foreclosure mills are under specific instructions to litigate to the very end to wear out the energy and finances of the homeowner.
If they lose, they are instructed not to appeal, which is why legal research is virtually useless. Most trial court opinions are not published. So when they are exceedingly negative, such as those that I have obtained from senior judges in trials where I was lead counsel, there is no appeal. Therefore, there is effectively no record for any lawyer to review when performing legal research.
Many of the settlements in which I have been associated start with a minimum offer of “cash for keys.” I have seen many such cases end with settlements that included vast reductions in claims of principal owed, plus payment of damages and attorneys fees.
Accepting the initial offer is very tempting to most homeowners because they want the ordeal to end. And they don’t want to spend any more money trying to fight against an opponent with bottomless pockets.
The truth is that many such settlements, although they are proposed by people who have no authority even to discuss the existence, ownership collection, or enforcement, are more beneficial to homeowners than winning through litigation, which involves a very high expenditure of time and energy.
But accepting initial offers of settlement on the part of these fakers is probably a mistake. Accepting such offers binds the homeowner to a new contract, which still fails to compensate the homeowner for their role in the securitization scheme.
The fact is that without the homeowner executing certain papers at the “closing,” the securitization scheme would not exist, and the huge revenues and profits that are distributed throughout the industry would also not exist.
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Some excellent comments on this issue!
The sins of the financial crisis fraud cannot be undone and continue to date. The government threw the victims under the bus. They are doing nothing to correct the wrongs of the past. Nothing. Yes – all should have been done in 2008. It was not. Once those in control spoke – it was over for the real victims. Let us recall those who threw under the bus. We know who they were. They hoped loan mods would rectify. They did not.
At the end of the day, your application for a loan, acceptance and your ultimate payment is the very thing that makes all of this possible. You are the “borrower”, the “principle” – guarantee of the investment. Fannie and Freddie are the guarantors, off the sale and profit from your note payment. Nothing else matters essentially. You are the mortar, the foundation for everything else. All this fancy dancing, is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. How the court or even the law can rule you are not a party to the transaction is bulls**t. Without you, there is no transaction. Clever, I’ll give them that. Just my opinion, even though I know the commercial code does not align with me. It Should…
Every closing document at origination since 1997 should be made to reviewed and a new agreement and fair compensation/commission for every homeowner agreed to. Anything less and we are headed for total collapse..(of course this all should have been done in 2008).