Julie Schmit reports that U.S. foreclosure filings fell more last month than in the last five years after several large banks halted foreclosures amidst widespread allegations of robo-signers and improperly prepared or missing documents.
Data released by RealtyTrac today indicates that national foreclosure filings in November dropped 21 percent from the month before. According to a related story running in today’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel, foreclosure filings in Florida fell a staggering 42 percent in November. Florida remains the state with the second-highest foreclosure rate in the country.
The tides turned from mortgage crisis to foreclosure financial crisis in October 2010. Florida Attorney Roy Oppenheim made the call three days before the bank fraud story broke in the Wall Street Journal. He reflected on that day with leading Asset Protection Attorney Douglass Lodmell in a recent interview on the talk show “Mind of Money.”
On September 28th at a Florida Assets Protection seminar, Oppenheim predicted: “In the next 72 hours the news you are about to hear, not about the mortgage crisis, but what will be called the foreclosure crisis will make most attorneys in this country question what they learned in law school and why they became lawyers.”
“It’s the tip of a very ugly iceberg,” Oppenheim says about the foreclosure crisis
“The crisis has moved from the debtors to the banks. It’s the repercussions of the banks not playing fair–basically cheating with sloppy and fraudulent paperwork including backdated affidavits, forgeries, and notary fraud.”
While yes, banks did this to try to cut corners, what the banks actually did was cut the corners of the Constitution. Banks were missing essential documentation and denying homeowners of their fundamental constitutional rights.
Is 2012 the bottom of the market? Not yet. Most economics are saying in 2019 the homeowners will still owe more than what their homes are worth, considering the banks currently have 107 months worth of inventory in foreclosure.
Millions of people have been illegally foreclosed or are in the process of being foreclosed. The bottom line: banks did not have the right to bring these foreclosures and homeowners now have the ability to push back.
Will this affect fundamental ownership rights? What does it mean for the banks foreclosing? What does it mean for the homeowner who has not paid their mortgage for six months? Oppenheim has answers…
Homeowners and lawyers including Roy Oppenheim say overwhelmed lenders and judges are rubber-stamping foreclosures, overlooking major problems and compromising the defendants’ rights to due process.
“This case is a symbol of the crisis,” said Oppenheim, whose Weston, Florida law firm is representing the Kachkos. “It’s a system that’s run amok. All the rules of civil procedure are being flushed down the toilet.”
Considering we can expect 4.3 million new foreclosures in the next 24 months the questions are: How can you fashion your own bailout? Why should you pay your mortgage if the neighbor isn’t? How can we resolve the foreclosure crisis? Does it make sense to socialize the losses (not the gains) and allow private companies (like the banks) keep profits? As a society, how can we collectively work together to break the foreclosure crisis cycle?
Florida Attorney and Legal Blogger Roy Oppenheim addresses tough questions and more in his most recent foreclosure defense workshop. Oppenheim recaps what’s happened in the past year and gives a sense of where the real estate market is going, where foreclosure defense is going and where the economy is going. He talks about what can we expect (or not expect from the government) as we move forward particularly since this last election.
Some experts are calling this a lost decade. But Oppenheim says it will be a lost generation if the government does not step up to the plate and create better incentives to encourage people to behave in a different way.
If you missed this week’s 26th consecutive monthly Foreclosure Defense Workshop from Oppenheim Law, catch the replay available on Oppenheim Law TV for the next ten days.
