Archive for February, 2012

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Politicians and Banks At It Again! Bring It On!

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012

In my last blog I railed against the Florida Fair Foreclosure Act, which is making its way rapidly through the Florida Senate as the session winds down.

I said it’s being pushed by banking industry shills and should die a quick death.

So of course it was passed by the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee by a 6-4 vote and will now be headed to a full vote before the House and Senate.

Thanks guys! With friends like that…..

But after a moment of reflection and enlightenment, I have this to say to my friends in Tallahassee.

Bring it On!

That’s right! Pass the Bill.

My phones have not stopped ringing these days, as more and more clients are getting ready to lawyer up.

That’s right this bill will only increase the value I bring to my clients each and every day for without an attorney the Legislature will make sure that the “Florida Fair Foreclosure Act” is fair… for the banks … but not for you.

They will make sure that without counsel that you will be stripped of your right to defend your home. Without counsel the new law will ensure that you will go through a legal system that will resemble a steam roller.

It makes me laugh that the Legislature is entrusting the banks to not commit fraud once again. Because the honor system worked so well the last time.

But its sad that the Legislature is interfering with the independence of the judiciary by telling the courts what to do and how to do it.

Please, please try your best to pass the Florida Fair Foreclosure Act, because all you’ll be doing is making sure I’ll have a new stream of clients to defend, and more importantly be able to help the economy by hiring more people.
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Posted in Bank Fraud, Big Banks, Florida Fair Foreclosure Act, Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News | No Comments »

Florida Fair Foreclosure Act? Fair to Whom?

Friday, February 24th, 2012
Gavel on House

Photo by The-Lane-Team

Banks need to get their massive foreclosure backlog off the books. There are over 368,000 cases in Florida. I get that.

Getting these properties into the hands of families who can afford them, that is what I want to see. It’s needed to jump start the economy, and no one wants to see the banks out of the neighborhoods more than me.

But it can’t be allowed to happen on the backs of other homeowners plain and simple. Lenders have tried to thrust these homes back onto the market before, and that’s why they just shelled out $25 billion.

The banks were penalized for being unethical, untrustworthy and fraudsters, and it doesn’t look like they have learned their lesson.

Yet a series of proposed bills now making their way through the Florida House and Senate offer banks unjust control over the foreclosure process, all in the name of getting abandoned homes back on the market.

The Senate version, which would create the “Florida Fair Foreclosure Act”, was passed by a judiciary committee earlier this week by a 5-2 vote. There is a similar bill making their way through the House.

But are they really ‘fair’ to homeowners? Absolutely not.

These bills are being pushed by banking industry shills. They make it easier for lenders to foreclose, and allows them to do so faster.

Have the politicians in Tallahassee learned nothing from the settlement? The $25 billion isn’t even in the mail, yet some are back to their old tricks, turning a blind eye to the plights of their constituents and denying them due process.
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Posted in Florida Fair Foreclosure Act, Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud | 2 Comments »

MERS is Dead! Humpty Dumpty Won’t Be Put Together Again!

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Humpty Dumpty Foreclosure Fraud Oppenheim LawHumpty Dumpty has had his great fall, thanks to an outstanding bankruptcy judge who has all but dismantled the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) thanks to his recent ruling.‪​‪

Last week New York Judge Robert Grossman ruled that all of MERS’ business practices are illegal.

It’s a staggering blow to the banks and their endless efforts to circumvent due process. ‪​‪It has the potential to once again slow down the foreclosure process. ‪​‪

The foreclosure registry was set up by the banks with one purpose in mind, to make securitizing mortgages easier for them.

And homeowners, as is usually the case with matters relating to bundled mortgages, were getting screwed. ‪​
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Here’s the short explanation. MERS allowed the banks to bypass public record keeping, all in an effort to streamline the records that banks were using to foreclose.

Local record keeping regulations might have been cumbersome for the banks to keep up with, but it protected the homeowners and provided transparency. ‪​‪

By allowing the banks to essentially hijack an important part of the record keeping process, namely the recording of each time a mortgage was sold to a different investor, banks had much greater control then than they ever should have been allowed to.
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Banks can talk about streamlining the process as the reason behind MERS all they want, but the effect was that it was much more difficult for homeowners to see who currently owned their mortgage, and it just allowed the banks to be sloppy with their records, and they were. ‪​‪

MERS was separating the notes from the mortgages, again so they could be securitized, yet in the case that was brought before Grossman, their lawyers argued they could still foreclose because in theory, the mortgage follows the note. ‪​
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Posted in Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud, MERS, REMICS | No Comments »

Settlement Or No Settlement; Homeowners You Must Stand Your Ground!

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

If there was anything positive that came out of the prolonged discussions between the states and the banks on the mortgage servicing settlement, it was that banks were reluctant to go full steam ahead in the foreclosure process while talks were ongoing.

But even before the settlement was announced, we saw signs that pointed to more foreclosures in 2012.

According to RealtyTrac, there were 24,783 foreclosure filings in the state of Florida in January, a 14% percent rise from January 2011, the first year-over-year increase in over a year.

Now that the settlement has been agreed to, the training wheels are off.

It’s petal to the metal folks. One thing that the settlement does for the banks is provide them a blueprint for how to proceed in the foreclosure process without getting their fingers stuck in the cookie jar.

Which means borrowers will once again have to defend themselves just as rigorously as they did pre-robosigning.

I’ve been asked if the settlement changes my advice to homeowners, to which I reply, ABSOLUTELY NOT!

You must continue to stand your ground. If you are in foreclosure or about to enter foreclosure, I will say what I have always said, you must fight the banks and force them to kick you out of your home.

The settlement may have changed the rules for the banks, but it shouldn’t change the rules for you, the homeowner. The banks will not transform into wonderful and charitable companies just because the settlement might penalize them.

Make no mistake about it, they will continue to come at you and come at your hard.
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Posted in Bank Fraud, Foreclosure Defense, Mortgage Settlement, Principal Reduction, Robosigning, Roy Oppenheim, Underwater Mortgage | 6 Comments »

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