Posts Tagged ‘national mortgage’

Mortgage Settlement Payouts Are Another Blown Call

Monday, October 1st, 2012

Roy Oppenheim’s commentary was originally published on Yahoo! Homes and is being republished on South Florida Law Blog with their permission.

Green Bay Packers vs Seattle SeahawksWell the long national nightmare is over. No, not the fraudclosure crisis. Sad to say that legal mess is still being cleaned up years after the bubble burst.

I’m talking, of course, of the NFL referees lockout.

Believe it or not, as I watched the backpedaling by Goodell and Friends after the Monday Night debacle, I found an odd comparison with the latest installment of what I like to call “As the Mortgage Settlement Turns”.

Here in Florida, and in several other states across the country, thousands of homeowners are about to get notices in the mail, stating they too might be able to claim a piece of the settlement pie.

The basic premise is this, if you lost your home to foreclosure, you’ll get a claims form, if you fill it out and you’re deemed eligible, you could get some money for your troubles.

When you take a long hard look at this process, you’ll probably see, as I have, that this process is inherently flawed from the get-go.

It’s why I’m not assisting my clients fill out these forms. I am not getting involved.

So how does this relate back to the NFL? Well since the lockout started every statement that came from the League was a complete and utter whitewash of the problems caused by the use of the replacement referees.

Rather than apologizing or even acknowledging their mistake, a mistake millions of people saw with their own eyes, the NFL just stuck to a hollow narrative and hoped we’d just accept it and move on. Just as the government and the banks are trying to do now with this flimsy settlement.
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How Some States Are Spending Foreclosure Settlement Money Is Far From Settling

Friday, May 18th, 2012


States are taking settlement money right from under us!

It’s pretty hard to find a single housing advocate or foreclosure defense attorney, myself included, who didn’t find the national mortgage settlement to be, at the very least, flawed.

It may have been a necessary step to getting the housing market back on track, but we know that it didn’t come close to compensating homeowners who had been illegally kicked out of their homes, and in the end, the banks are getting off remarkably light for their robosigning crimes.

Which is why what a multitude of states are doing with some of the banks money is downright revolting.

At least a dozen states are taking tens of millions of dollars in direct payments from the settlement and treating them like a slush fund.

Let me explain.

Part of the settlement included $2.5 billion that was given outright to the states. Florida took in just over $334 million.

The settlement calls for these dollars to be used to “to avoid preventable foreclosures, to ameliorate the effects of the foreclosure crisis, to enhance law enforcement efforts to prevent and prosecute financial fraud, or unfair or deceptive acts or practices and to compensate the States for costs resulting from the alleged unlawful conduct of the Defendants.”

But much like much of the settlement overall, there is nothing in this language that has any real measure of enforcement. Some states are flat out ignoring these instructions and doing whatever they want with the money they are getting off the backs of good honest homeowners.
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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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