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Foreclosure Circus Act? Banks Apologize and Homeowners Suffer, Roy Oppenheim Responds

It is not just the daily news, it is the hourly news. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are reporting multiple stories daily about the unfolding developments and ramifications of the recent suspensions by four major companies that service mortgages and how this crisis will undoubtedly slow the housing recovery.

Foreclosure Fraud

Roy Oppenheim wrote a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal in response to its The Politics of Foreclosure editorial that ran Saturday, October 9th. Oppenheim’s letter pointed out how the opinion article missed a number of significant legal, as well as macro-economic issues, that South Florida Law Blog will post if it is not printed by The Wall Street Journal.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article: Foreclosures, Forestalled by reporter Robbie Whelan discusses the cause and effect this moratorium could have on the housing recovery.

Here is an excerpt:

Consumer advocates say the judicial process gives consumers a better chance to work out their problems. But Florida’s court system is so overwhelmed with foreclosures that last year it began calling judges out of retirement to handle hundreds of foreclosure cases a day in a forum that became known as the “rocket docket.”

The New York Times article: A Foreclosure Tightrope for Democrats had some profound quotes worth sharing.

“Irresponsible banks need to be held accountable, but if we have not found a problem with a bank’s process we do not believe that we should impose a moratorium where that can hurt the market and hurt individual buyers,” said Shaun Donovan, secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

 

Advocates for homeowners, however, say that the pattern of sloppiness allows and encourages more serious abuses. They point to a growing number of documented cases in which lenders mistakenly seized homes.

Bank of America apologized last month for foreclosing on a home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The homeowner didn’t even have a mortgage. The bank had failed to notice that the previous owner had repaid the mortgage loan.

Last year the company’s contractors entered the home of a Pittsburgh woman, changed the locks, cut off the utilities and seized her pet parrot. The bank later acknowledged that the woman had not missed any mortgage payments.

Other companies including Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase also have apologized

 

for mistaken attempts to seize homes they didn’t own.

 

Oppenheim Law continues to follow the unfolding developments of this nation’s bank fraud and foreclosure crisis and how it impacts the Florida homeowner. Let us know your comments.

Tags: Bank of America, Citigroup, Florida, foreclosure crisis, Foreclosure Forstalled, Foreclosure Fraud, foreclosures, Ft Lauderdale, GMAC, jpmorgan chase, Oppenheim Law, Robbie Whelan, Roy Oppenheim, South Florida Law Blog, The New York Times, The Politics of Foreclosure, Wall Street Journal

One response to “Foreclosure Circus Act? Banks Apologize and Homeowners Suffer, Roy Oppenheim Responds”

  1. Wcampbell says:

    Roy, I have heard many good things about you and your work on behalf of homeowners. I am a first time homeowner, purchased the home Nov 2005 with a mtge of $260K home value about $150K. Freddie Mac is the investor, chase the servicer my payments up to date and they will do nothing. Can I sue Freddie for breach of contract… for undermining the value of the secured asset? Could I force them to purchase the home back from me at the original price for such a breach?? It is clear now that Freddie is sending unqualified loans back to the originators (loans they should have never purchased in the first place) Can I do the same force the home back to Freddie, get my $100k cash back and give them the house to do with as they wish… I did not refinance nor own a property prior so I realized no gain through the housing bubble. It sounds like they entered the contract with ill intent right from the signing.