Posts Tagged ‘Roy Oppenheim’

Economic Homicide, the Mortgage Interest Deduction and the Rule of Law: 2012’s Top Headlines

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

Top 10Editor’s Note: As we head into 2013, I want to wish all of our readers a Happy New Year from everyone at Oppenheim Law. This has been our most successful year since the South Florida Law Blog was started in 2009. Our posts were seen by nearly 100,000 people, including our readers at Yahoo! Homes, where many of Roy Oppenheim’s blogs first appeared. For everyone who read or shared our content this year, a sincere thank you. Our mission is far from complete, and we look forward to sharing more commentary from the trenches in the New Year.

So without further adieu, here are the headlines that resonated with you over the past 12 months.

#10 — Obamacare, The Foreclosure Crisis and The Rule of Law

During the passing of the healthcare law, it seemed that the president assumed that the government had the ability to force people to buy a product from a private company that they did not necessarily want.

The mandate’s survival in the Supreme Court on a much narrower standard apparently leaves the question far from settled.

I felt that there was little, if any, constitutional analysis done by the president and his team when they decided to pass the mandate, except for the fact that they perceived a compelling need for it.

And that’s how the debate over the healthcare law reminded me of the legal debate during the foreclosure crisis.

Read the full blog here.

#9 — Mortgage Interest Deduction Will Be Capped, and That’s (Probably) a Good Thing

The fiscal cliff contains many, many moving parts, which sometimes tend to get lost in a sea of white noise. But behind all the political grandstanding and theatrics, there are real Main Street issues at play.
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Oppenheim Law In The News: Walmart Mortgages Coming Soon to Aisle 10

Friday, December 7th, 2012

Roy Oppenheim was quoted in the following article, which was originally posted on Lawyers.com by author Michelle Bowman

You buy toilet paper and ammo there, so why not a home? Consumers are indicating they would trust Walmart and other non-banks with their mortgages, and some experts believe that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

While they seem mostly satisfied with the services of the big banks, “continued frustrations with current mortgage processes . . . could drive consumers to alternative home loan providers,” according to a recent survey by a consulting firm whose clients include some of the largest financial institutions in the world.

Survey Cites Mounting Frustrations

Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting Group (CG) surveyed over 600 U.S. consumers in a September 2012 online study and discovered the following:

  • 80 percent of U.S. consumers would consider a mortgage from a non-bank
  • 33 percent (1 in 3) would consider a mortgage from Walmart
  • 48 percent would consider a mortgage from PayPal

The consultants said consumers cited frustrations over several issues with their current mortgage providers, including high interest rates, high payments, and taxes and escrow. Slow execution of the process, difficulty in communication, inability to track the status of their applications and untrustworthy advice were also mentioned.

Already in the Business

In order for Walmart to get into the mortgage business, the company would have to get licensed in each state where it wants to sell the products, says Roy Oppenheim, a founding partner of Oppenheim Law in Weston, Fla., which specializes in real estate, mortgages, and defending foreclosures.

“Walmart already has a bank,” Oppenheim notes. “They cash paychecks, issue debit cards. You can do your taxes there. Walmart is already into the banking industry.”
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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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Politics of Foreclosure? The Wall Street Journal Needs a Reminder

Wednesday, March 21st, 2012

Over a year ago I felt compelled to call out The Wall Street Journal after a particular column really got under my skin.

It’s time to call them out once more. Not for another column, but rather, a lack of one.

In October 2010 their column “The Politics of Foreclosure” made light of the plight many of my clients have undergone, and shrunk the foreclosure crisis down to a mere inconvenience for a few Washington insiders.

You and I, of course, know different.

And as the crisis grew wider and wider, and the expansiveness of the banks fraud became even more apparent, The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board continued to be a haven for outdated ideas, protection of the status quo and disgust for anyone trying to do good by the American homeowner.

When the AG settlement was first announced back in February, the Wall Street Journal called it a ‘bank job’ worthy of the Barker gang.

I found it disturbingly amusing that a settlement that was basically little more than a public spanking for the banks angered them so. The settlement didn’t land a single banking executive in jail, yet the columnists at The Wall Street Journal still treat the banks as the victims in the housing crisis.

The crisis, you know that the banks basically created.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board still believes the banks didn’t illegally foreclose on a single homeowner, something I personally know not to be true.

Either their editorial board is remarkably stupid or just ignorant.

And so I shouldn’t be all that surprised that they have been silent after the Department of Housing and Urban Development released audits that laid out how pervasive the culture of fraud was amongst our nation’s lenders.
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