With details of the proposed $25 billion settlement with the nation’s largest banks over the robo-signing fiasco now out in the public eye thanks to the Associated Press, we feel a large sense of disappointment.
There’s no question that this deal will change the mortgage industry for the better. Some homeowners will even have a much better chance of being able to restructure their loans when facing foreclosure under this deal.
No One’s Getting Their Keys Back
Yet, there are many out there who are going to feel little comfort with this agreement. Here’s what the deal is NOT going to do. It’s not going to put people who’ve lost their homes (again because of deceptive foreclosure practices) back in those houses, or give them any real financial security.
According to the deal, about 750,000 Americans, which by the way is about
President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the economy at Shaker Heights High School,Shaker Heights, Ohio, Jan. 4, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
We really haven’t seen President Obama insert himself directly into the housing crisis, but there are rumblings that he may do just that during Tuesday’s State of The Union address.
The fact is that is what homeowners have been clamoring for. A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found 58% of Americans want the government to do more to help people keep homes.
According to HousingWire, Ohio senator Sherrod Brown told reporters today that there was evidence that Obama would address the robo-signing case which involves several major banks. A North Carolina congressman even said there were rumours that Obama would announce a settlement, something HUD secretary Shaun Donovan suggested last week was ‘very close’, as we mentioned in our Week In Review on Friday.
For the record, Obama’s press secretary refused to confirm any details, saying only that the President was “focused on the issue of housing”.
Between Dononvan’s comments and the recent white paper sent out by the Federal Reserve, it seems that more and more top government officials are finally realizing how important the housing market is to our economic recovery, not to mention their own political survival.
In the Huffington Post last September, Roy Oppenheim called housing the “thousand pound gorilla in the room” in the 2012 election, as many of the states with the highest underwater mortgages, such asFlorida, are also key electoral swing states. The pressure on Obama to be more aggressive on the banks is growing in Washington, and it’s about time. (more…)
We called it a band-aid, and at least for some South Florida homeowners, it’s proving to be just that. The Palm Beach Post profiled several homeowners who were among the first to receive benefits from the program. Sheryl Stuart, a Jupiter homeowner whose business went under, applied for help through the mortgage relief program, and is about to see her payments end next month. Hardest Hit only entitles qualified homeowners up to six months of mortgage assistance.
Stuart told the Palm Beach Post that even though she’s found a new job, her salary won’t be able to cover her mortgage payment once she stops receiving aid from Hardest Hit. She’s frustrated that she’s about to be right back where she started when she applied for aid in the first place.
“In this economy, to think you can turn your life around in six months is totally ludicrous,” Stuart said in the article, “The working class is quickly slipping into a black hole.”
The truth is this program, however well-intentioned it might have been, is just not enough. What Hardest Hit is essentially doing is giving homeowners a nice seafood dinner, when they really need to learn how to fish.
It scratches the surface but for people like Stuart it might just delay the inevitable. Unless you’re giving homeowners a solid two years of payment relief, you’re not giving these people time to go back to school, improve their financial standing, and really turn their lives around. (more…)
Now that the holidays are behind us and we’re well into the new year, news that will impact the foreclosure market in 2012 is starting to cross our desk. So what headlines were we talking about this week?
This week we blogged about the Federal Reserve finally coming around and looking out for the homeowners, instead of the banks. A 26-page white paper released by The Fed offered up their suggestions on how to fix the broken housing market. They also finally came to the conclusion that government MUST come down harder on lenders. Some of the ideas offered up by The Fed may be tough for Congress to swallow, but we believe they have a good chance of keeping more people in their homes.
We particularly liked the idea of turning more foreclosed and vacant properties into rental homes (so much better for the neighborhoods) and the need to offer principal reduction to more homeowners. Roy Oppenheim expands on this issue in his latest “From The Trenches” video.
Foreclosures were in steep decline across the country in 2011, including a 67 percent drop here in Broward County, according to RealtyTrac. Thanks to the ‘robo-signer’ scandal, lenders were suddenly much more careful about bringing foreclosure cases to the courts. While that is likely to continue in 2012, Roy Oppenheim told the Sun-Sentinel that things could start to pick up.
“It’s going to pick up, but it’s not going to be insane like it was,” he explained.
Palm Beach County also saw a significant drop last year, 58 percent, while Florida was down 63 percent, RealtyTrac reported. (more…)
Finally!!!It’s a word that is being bantered about the hallways of Oppenheim Law all too often these days, and thanks to the Fed’s recent comments on the foreclosure crisis, it’s been thrown around at rapid-fire pace these last few days.
Through a 26-page white paper which highlighted the “extraordinary problems plaguing the housing market”, officials at the Federal Reserve have told policymakers on several congressional banking committees that the government must step up and take a more active role in fixing the mess that they themselves have helped create.
Up until now the Fed has kept their fingers out of the housing market, but even they now realize the far-reaching impact the foreclosure crisis is having on the overall economic climate. In the white paper they offer up several suggestions, such as reducing the barriers to converting foreclosed homes into rental properties, and loosening the grip on lending standards in order to help the market recover.
The Fed now wants harsher action from Congress on America’s top lenders, and Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin even told a conference at the Association of American Law Schools that the Fed “must impose penalties for deficiencies that resulted in unsafe and unsound practices.”
It must be time to check our subscriber list to the South Florida Law Blog, because it sure looks like our friends at the Fed are on it!
We’ve suggested for a while now that turning foreclosed homes into rental properties is an obvious and logical step. For years banks have collected homes like animals in Noah’s Ark, and now it’s time to put this inventory to good use. 60 Minutes showed us what happened when these homes go empty, so why not put good people in these homes! The government may not like the idea of becoming a landlord, but really isn’t it better than the alternative!! This mass inventory of foreclosed homes can be an asset for our government if more of them are rented out, instead of being a detriment. (more…)
As 2011 got underway we were presented with a fascinating yet disturbing report by the Florida Association of Court Clerks called “Unfair, Deceptive and Unconscionable Acts in Foreclosure Cases”. It brought these horrible practices into the harsh light of day.
“What we got from this is the state has had the opportunity to see where the laws have been broken,’ Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller Sharon Bock said at the time, “and frankly, it is in large part thanks to the work of the defense attorneys.
We cited April Charney from the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid and Peter Ticktin and many others wonderful attorneys who have taken bank officers’ depositions, challenged judges rulings and fought the good fight for the Florida homeowner.
Somewhere along the line, the overly ambitious bankers on Wall Street had the “great idea” of slicing and dicing the interest of the Promissory Note and literally severing it from your Mortgage. Why? Convenience,expediency, and, arguably, greed. And much like Humpty Dumpty after his great fall, the banks couldn’t bring the mortgages and their corresponding Notes all back together again. The banks were accused of fraud and perjury trying to do just that.
If Americans are right, 2012 will finally be the magic year for the housing market. Over 2,000 adults were polled by Trulia and RealtyTrac , and the majority, 22 percent, said most Americans think the housing market will fully recover in the new year. A mere 10 percent thought a recovery would happen this year, while nearly a quarter of those surveyed predicted a bumpy road until 2015 and beyond. (more…)
Some of Oppenheim Law’s most popular videos and blog posts this year were on the topic of deficiency judgements. Understanding deficiencies and the Florida rules which pertain to them are key to avoid getting a deficiency judgment.
The unpaid mortgage debt associated with a residence is a deficiency. A bank can foreclose and force a judicial sale of a home if the mortgage borrower fails to pay the associated mortgage debt. The deficiency is the difference between the proceeds from the sale and the remaining mortgage loan balance. A deficiency can also result from a short sale, which is an alternative to foreclosure.
The rules pertaining to deficiencies differ from state to state. In Florida, if the bank is successful in obtaining a deficiency judgment, it will be recorded in the public records and collectable for up to twenty years. To avoid the possibility of getting a deficiency judgment, before deciding to walk away from your home, hiring a good foreclosure defense attorney is necessary.
At first glance, it looked like Floridaforeclosurevictims were finally getting the help they need from the feds. Reading the fine print it looks like if we had to describe this in one tweet word: #fail. (more…)
President Obama is likely to talk about this in tonight’s State of The Union Address, but we’re not going to wait that long.
