Posts Tagged ‘banking’

Foreclosure Clean-Up Gets Police Response, But Not Bank Fraud?

Monday, May 7th, 2012

A group from the Miami Workers Center clean up the area around an abandoned bank-owned house, as police officers wait nearby (Photo Courtesy:Miami Workers Group)

It never ceases to amaze me the glaring duality of the world I live in.

I am constantly reminded that we live in world where you and I have to play by one set of rules, yet the vast financial complex that resides on Wall Street isn’t held to even a fraction of those standards.

The latest example comes way of a small protest in Liberty City last week.

A few members of the Miami Workers Center, a grassroots organization, arrived at an abandoned foreclosed home, a property that like countless others is nothing more than a glorified trash dump.

Their nefarious plot? To clean the home up, and try to make it a little less of an eyesore.

Scary right?

And what did this group, which included a grandmother and an pregnant woman, encounter when they arrived at that home?

About a half dozen cops, who threatened to arrest any of them if they stepped foot on the Bank Of America-owned property.

The protesters, to their credit, didn’t give up and cleaned up the public areas around the home. Not once was a burglary tool spotted.

The officers watched over these men and women like mother hens as they picked up beer bottles and broken glass, among other fabulous ‘accessories’ the home had accumulated over the last few years. (Bank of America took the home in 2010.)

But when the banks not only trespass, but break into my clients homes? How many police officers can I get on the case? Not a single one.
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‘Bad Neighbor Banks’ Take Hold In South Florida

Friday, May 4th, 2012

Fish-Eye Lens

  • Banks make bad neighbors.

It’s been one of my mantras for years, and it’s a statement that is again reverberating across the country thanks to The Sun-Sentinel’s 3-part series “Bad Neighbor Banks”.

Thanks to the Sentinel, 60 Minutes, and the National Fair Housing Alliance, we are seeing the hard data that back up my assertion that banks, once they foreclose and take control of a property, just leave them to rot.

The grass no longer gets cut,the garbage accumulates, and before too long you end up with widespread blight not just in urban neighborhoods, but suburbia as well.

It’s the reason why I fight so hard to keep people in their homes. You and I are just better off when you have homeowners, vested in their houses and the neighborhoods they live in, keeping up their homes.

In the Sun-Sentinel’s series there is example after example of banks not doing even the most basic of maintenance. And their argument is usually, ‘It’s not our job’.

A bank has no investment in the neighborhoods you live in, beyond their own bottom line, and the banks have all but admitted it.

“The bank itself has no economic interest or ownership stake in the properties,” a spokesman for Deutsche Bank told the Sun-Sentinel.

So I ask you again, why would you ever want a bank as a neighbor?

The numbers don’t lie. The Sun-Sentinel found 10,300 code violations in bank-owned homes in South Florida since 2007. In the cities they tracked 40 percent of bank-owned homes were cited last year.

So chances are you are living next to one of these eyesores. And I’m betting you’re not too happy about it.
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An Open Letter to Pam Bondi

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

Florida Attorney General Pam BondiFlorida Attorney General Pam Bondi is now asking for the public’s input on what she should do with the $300 million the state will be receiving directly from the national mortgage settlement.

She is openly soliciting your suggestions through her website from now until May 14th. As a foreclosure defense attorney and one of the people on the front lines of the housing crisis, I have more than a few ideas.

So Pam, please consider this my open letter to you and your office.

First and foremost, here is what you should NOT do with the money. Don’t throw it at principal reduction. It will have virtually no impact on Florida’s communities, it would be like throwing the money into quicksand.

So far, Florida’s efforts to offer financial relief to homeowners have just fallen flat.

Florida’s Hardest Hit program just hasn’t worked, and even recent changes to the program’s requirements will not help it reach enough people.

Move The Banks Out of Your Cities

What you need to do Ms. Bondi, is use the money to make systemic changes to Florida’s housing market.

First, give the money to your towns and cities to clear out Florida’s foreclosure blight. Blight caused by the abundance of abandoned homes the banks own, but refuse to take care of.

I’ve long told my readers that banks are bad neighbors, and the Sun-Sentinel now has the numbers that make my case.

Ms. Bondi, despite what your boss says, banks are the problem and you need to get them out of your cities and towns. Give your local governments the ammo to do it.
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Oppenheim Law: In The News

Friday, April 27th, 2012

Survey: Mortgage Foreclosure Scams Surge

Oppenheim Law In The News

Not only is America’s foreclosure crisis still going strong, it now comes with even more fraud and deception.

With heightened media coverage surrounding the recent national mortgage settlement and refinements to government assistance programs, experts say selling “the schtick” has only become easier for criminals. But there are red flags consumers can watch out for when trying to determine whether or not an organization is legit.

First, homeowners should never have to pay anything up front for a loan modification or information on how to negotiate with their lender, says Roy Oppenheim, whose Florida-based law firm Oppenheim Law has handled more than 1,000 mortgage and foreclosure fraud cases over the past 5 years.

“If you’re paying upfront to a non-lawyer who’s claiming they can modify your loan, that’s a big scam,” Oppenheim says.

Read More from US News and World Report

Short Sales Soar as Home Foreclosures Fall

The foreclosure crisis isn’t over, but a new trend in real estate sales could be the light at the end of the tunnel for many borrowers and lenders. Short sales, which occur when homeowners sell their homes for less than what they still owe, outpaced foreclosures for the first time ever in January,according to a new report from Lender Processing Services, Inc.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced this month that mortgage servicers will be required to review and respond to short sale offers within 30 days and make final sale decisions within 60 days. The new requirements, which take effect in June, have kept lenders busy expanding and training the staff needed to catch up with growing short sale demand.
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