Southern California foreclosure attorney Jeff Barnes tells me:
Borrowers are being lured into loan mod scams where they are told that they have to be 2-3 months behind in payments before a loan mod will be considered, then when they make application, the foreclosure process has already started (and the claims have been made against the insurances, etc. because the loan is in default) and the loan mod is denied “because of the foreclosure”.In other words, the lure of mortgage modifications are being used to trap homeowners into the foreclosure process.
And see this:
According to the latest data from the Federal Reserve "approximately 3 percent of the seriously delinquent borrowers received a concessionary modification in the year following their first serious delinquency, while fewer than 8 percent received any type of modification," at all! Nonetheless, everyone is hawking loan mods these days. It’s a scary thought that people with no legal experience are pushing people into loan modifications without any discussion of a forensic loan analysis or forensic appraisals. The scariest part, when you modify a loan, you essentially WAIVE any claims you have to go after the lender! Why is this important, because the majority of loans closed in this century have problems that the borrower could use against his lender! In fact, and in most cases, lenders are holding nothing but worthless or at best questionable mortgage instruments. If you sign up for a loan modification, you are in essence validating an alleged debt that you most likely don’t have anymore because it was destroyed in the securitization process.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, a loan modification company cannot guarantee the distressed borrower that their submitted documents for the modification will not be used against them by law enforcement in the future. Prosecutors are going after borrowers for participating in fraud by overstating their true income. What this does is make any submission to the lender vulnerable unless you have the attorney-client privilege over your submission. (The same is true if a borrower submits financial statements to obtain a Deed In Lieu of Foreclosure or Short Sale.) Therefore, a loan modification should be a last resort- a legal maneuver not something done by Joe the Modifier.
The threat of foreclosure is a legal problem, and you start by treating it like any other legal problem. The first basic step it to determine whether the mortgage is legally valid. Wouldn’t you like to know if you could pursue your lender for a better deal before you get their boilerplate modification agreement?
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