Saturday, January 02, 2010

Mortgage Modifications Are Seen as Adding to Housing Woes - NYTimes.com

Mortgage Modifications Are Seen as Adding to Housing Woes - NYTimes.com: "The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good."
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The housing and financial markets collapsed because millions of people bought homes they couldn't afford. Obama & Co. decided the fix for that was to keep people in homes they couldn't afford for a few months longer. It was never a fix to begin with. It was just delaying the inevitable, which in turn is prolonging the recession that Obama & Co. say is over.

2 comments:

M.J. said...

Professor --
The REALLY sad thing is that we ALL know folks who continued to make payments on those homes that they were talked into -- by their realtors and loan officers -- that they could NOT afford -- and NOW their whole lives FEEL ruined...

Forget about the recovery. The young folks will not recover -- for MANY years -- thanks to the help of their elders... including Mr. Obama. THEY also believed in a something called a "dream" -- which was their "dreamhome" -- now a "nightmare" -- and THEY are now "renters."

May 2010 be a lesson well learned?
Peace be with you in the New Year!

Anonymous said...

Instead of buying into the modification nonsense, just challenge the enforceability of the note. The servicers AREN'T working with homeowners with respect to modifications - they're trying to see what additional fees they can extract from homeowners while dangling the loss of the home before the eyes of the owner. The trustees of these bundled notes aren't interested in negotiating either. The person threatened with the loss of their home has been had - so why take it?

Estimates are that up to 1/3 of all of these notes have serious defects which render them UNENFORCEABLE. Servicing agents are bluffing their way through foreclosures on properties they have no authority to foreclose on. Homeowners in Florida began challenging the enforceability of the notes. The backlog of 370,000 pending foreclosure actions and the reality that many plaintiffs simply don't have the right to foreclose has caused the Florida Supreme Court to issue new rules to address foreclosure actions. Among other things, the plaintiff must identify the owner and holder of the note - if they can. Thanks to legal aid in Florida, homeowners have learned to challenge the enforceability of the notes pursuant to the UCC.

The servicers and lenders took many, many shortcuts to the detriment of investors which has rendered a very large number of mortgages unenforceable. Check out the new Florida Supreme Court rules. The "anti-deficiency" statutes being passed in states like Arizona, new rules such as those promulgated in Florida suggest that at least some states are going to ensure that the banks are going to have to share some of that bailout money.

See: http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/pub_info/documents/AOSC09-54_Foreclosures.pdf


Instead of buying into the modification nonsense, just challenge the enforceability of the note. The servicers AREN'T working with homeowners with respect to modifications - they're trying to see what additional fees they can extract from homeowners while dangling the loss of the home before the eyes of the owner. The trustees of these bundled notes aren't interested in negotiating either. The person threatened with the loss of their home has been had - so why take it?

Estimates are that up to 1/3 of all of these notes have serious defects which render them UNENFORCEABLE. Servicing agents are bluffing their way through foreclosures on properties they have no authority to foreclose on. Homeowners in Florida began challenging the enforceability of the notes. The backlog of 370,000 pending foreclosure actions and the reality that many plaintiffs simply don't have the right to foreclose has caused the Florida Supreme Court to issue new rules to address foreclosure actions. Among other things, the plaintiff must identify the owner and holder of the note - if they can. Thanks to legal aid in Florida, homeowners have learned to challenge the enforceability of the notes pursuant to the UCC.

The servicers and lenders took many, many shortcuts to the detriment of investors which has rendered a very large number of mortgages unenforceable. Check out the new Florida Supreme Court rules. The "anti-deficiency" statutes being passed in states like Arizona, new rules such as those promulgated in Florida suggest that at least some states are going to ensure that the banks are going to have to share some of that bailout money.

See: http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/pub_info/documents/AOSC09-54_Foreclosures.pdf

www.floridasupremecourt.org/pub_info/documents/AOSC09-54_Foreclosures.pdf


-IC_deLight