What is going on in with all of the Foreclosure craziness? This has been the question for millions of homeowners dealing with the potential loss of a home right now. People have heard the horror stories of predatory lending, and the other stories of unqualified homeowners working with brokers to deceive lenders to get financed. But many mortgages fall somewhere in between, leaving big question marks in place of answers the housing market desperately needs.

As a greater number of questions are pouring in, however, searching for answers has become a daunting task. MIllions of homeowners are in a struggle to hold onto their loans while batting off multiple lenders. The problem is many of the original brokers and lending companies have since gone out of business or been the subject of criminal charges stemming from their faulty practices. Often times, the loans in question have been securitized into a mortgage-backed trust. The issue underlying this confusion is that no one knows whom the owner of the note and mortgage actually is. This is largely because of one four-letter acronym, MERS.

MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration System), a service created to track mortgage transfers, was created in 1994. MERS replaced the old system of "walking" every important mortgage document to the County Clerk's office. With this shortcut in place, lenders were able to save millions of dollars in local recording fees and started transferring mortgages at a pace that, we would later learn, was far too much to handle. So grueling, in fact, MERS failed to properly follow state and local laws in documenting these transfers. Now when it comes time to foreclose instead of documenting each transfer, MERS allegedly signs the mortgage from the original lender to the most recent owner.Many courts are now deciding whether MERS has actual standing to foreclose.

There are things you can do to be prepared for or stave off a potential foreclosure. One of the most important is to communicate with your lender. If you are facing the prospect of foreclosure, contact a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to determine what foreclosure defenses may be available in your specific case.

The new Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has announced that it will begin testing a new standard mortgage foreclosure form beginning in May. The forms will be major revisions of the two forms that borrowers receive when taking out a new mortgage loan. Consumer advocates believe the old forms are confusing to many homeowners and one of the major initial tasks of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is to "make mortgages more consumer friendly" and to make the costs associated with taking out a mortgage more clear,

The new forms will be overhauls of the forms required under the Truth in Lending Act of 1968 and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974. Consumer advocates believe that the forms are confusing and too lengthy for many homeowners to fully understand. Officials with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have been working diligently on the format and content of the new forms with members of banks and others in the housing industry.

While many people will call these efforts little more than a trivial step toward fixing the foreclosure mess, clear understanding of the costs and ramifications of purchasing a home is an important step. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit and you believe that you were a victim of predatory lending, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to see what defenses may be available to you.

Many of the nations largest insurance companies are joining forces in order to sue Bank of America for "mortgage fraud." These are the insurance companies: Dexia Holdings, FSA Asset Management, New York Life Insurance Company, The Mainstay Funds, Teachers Insurance & Annuity, TIAA-CREF Life Insurance, and College Retirement Equities Fund. MBIA, a holding company who provides financial guarantee insurance, found that in approximately 19,000 Countrywide loan files, at least 91% of the loans are either in default or delinquent, and appear to contain material deviations from Countrywide's underwriting policies.

The issues for Bank of America stem from loans originated by Countrywide which Bank of America purchased in 2008. Many of the Countrywide loan applications for the non-performing loans were replete with omissions. Repeatedly, mortgage origination files did not have verifications showing borrower income, had invalid appraisals, and failed to show what the debt-to-income ratio or the borrowers credit score was.

In the coming months, it is likely that Bank of America will be battling billions of dollars in damages the insurance companies are seeking. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit where Bank of America is the Plaintiff, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today to determine what defenses may be available to you in order to save your home.

One of the major questions that many people have been asking about the foreclosure mess is "Why did banks made millions of loans to people who could not afford their mortgage?" The banks were supposed to verify that applicants had the ability to repay back loans. This process is called underwriting. The banks stopped underwriting because they knew that the risk would be passed to investors through the securitization process.

The banks became sloppy in their paperwork and allowed fraud to run rampant. Banks hired untrained temps to replace retiring veterans to speed up the applicant review process, and took more copies, faxes, and phone calls instead of original documents. Banks today are even trying to foreclose on homes that should not be in foreclosure due to their bad record-keeping. Banks have tried to: foreclose on the same property; foreclose on homes bought in cash; and break into homes believed to be in foreclosure.

A large portion of the foreclosures in the courts today is caused by the bank's failure to properly underwrite the loans that were written. Instead of rejecting loans the banks knew certain consumers could not repay, banks passed on the risk to the investors. Even if some homeowners are to blame for taking on a mortgage they could not afford, banks still should not have been sloppy in their paperwork. Government tax dollars are bailing out the bank for this foreclosure mess!

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today for your free foreclosure consultation.

The Florida Office of State Courts Administration just released the statewide stats from the first three months of rocket docket operations and the numbers are startling. From the period of July 1 through September 30, Florida courts disposed of 65,830 foreclosure cases with almost 71% of those cases being decided in "rocket docket" hearings where cases are decided in a matter of minutes. Palm Beach County was the most prolific at getting rid of foreclosure cases, ridding the county of 9.846 foreclosure cases. In that same time period only 23 foreclosure cases went to trial, less than 1% of the disposed of cases.

The "rocket docket" courts were created to stimulate the Florida housing market by ridding the state of the mass of foreclosure cases and getting homes back onto the housing market quickly. While the numbers of cases being cleared is astonishing, there are 396,509 foreclosure cases still active in Florida courts. Most of the cases being cleared by "rocket docket" courts are those where the homeowner doesn't respond to the foreclosure suit or where they are not represented by an attorney. In most cases, to defeat the "rocket docket" hearing all a homeowner needs is one issue of legal fact!

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit in one of the "rocket docket" courts, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to review your case and determine what defenses may be available to you.

STOP THE PRESS

In what could further aggravate the foreclose process, it was announced today that America's largest Title Insurance Companies will not issue Title Insurance on many homes in foreclosure.

Without title insurance, the home is not able to be sold except to a cash buyer who would not be able to sell it later where financing would be required.

This means the foreclosed home is essentially worthless.

If you recently purchased a foreclosed home, you should check your title policy for exclusions which could limit your ability to sell your home in the future. Contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer to discuss your situation.

The law recognizes many types of fraud. Fraud is when an individual knowingly misrepresents the truth or conceals a material fact to persuade another to act to his or her detriment. The types of fraud that are important when dealing with lenders are categorized as Fraud in the Execution, Fraud in the Inducement, and Fraud on the Court. The terms are defined as follows:

1. Fraud in the Execution- When a borrower believes that they are signing a document(s) and the document that they are actually given to sign is a different document. An example of this would be a lender telling you that the interest rate on the mortgage is 5% but they give you a contract that has an interest rate of 10%.

2. Fraud in the Inducement- A false statement that satisfies the definition of fraud and causes a person to execute a document that they would not have agreed to execute had the false statement not been made. An example of this would be a lender telling you the house was worth $200,000, when in reality the lender recently got it appraised and it was only valued at $125,000.

3. Fraud Upon the Court- When a lawyer or party in a judicial proceeding conduct themselves in a way that undermines or intends to undermine the integrity of the legal proceedings. This occurs when a lender forges documents and submits them to the court.

If you lender did any of these things leading up to the purchase of your home, contact a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer. If your lender committed fraud at any point before the sale of your home was completed there is a chance that you can seek recourse against the lender and even take back the right to defend your home from Foreclosure.

Predatory lending includes a variety of abusive practices by individuals that originate loans. Predatory lending practices may include refinancing that causes the borrower to lose the benefit of special terms in the loan, excessive or hidden fees, mandatory arbitration clauses, inadequate disclosures, failure to verify borrower's financial information, to name a few. No single act of abuse will rise to the level of predatory lending.

In an effort to combat predatory lending, Congress has created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. One of the major goals of the bureau will be to stop predatory lending. This is going to be an extremely difficult task. Individuals that originate loans are very crafty in the ways that they are trying to deceive customers while still following the mandatory disclosure requirements. It is certainly good news that there is finally a bureau dedicated to eliminate predatory lending. But time will tell whether the bureau can actually reduce predatory lending or if the lenders will just continue with more of the same.

If you believe you have been a victim of Predatory lending in Florida you should contact Legal Aid or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer.

The Truth in Lending Act (TILA) is a federal law that standardizes the way that creditors disclose the terms of credit to their consumers. If a lender fails to comply with the strict standards of the TILA the penalties may be severe for the lender. Penalties for violations of the TILA can range anywhere from a monetary penalty to rescission of the mortgage. Rescission of a mortgage gives the borrower back all of the fees, payments of principal and interest, closing costs and any down payments made.

There are only a few violations of the TILA that will give the homeowner the option of rescission. For other violations of the TILA, the failure to disclose will give rise to the actual damages and additional statutory damages not less than $200 for equity loans and $2,000 if the loan is not a home equity loan. For the statutory damages under the TILA, a homeowner may only recover for one failure to disclose, regardless of how many violations there were.

If you recently purchased a home and your lender did not disclose all of the information that is required under the TILA, contact A Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or Florida Foreclosure Lawyer to help identify TILA violations committed by your lender and get you the relief that you are entitled to.

This Act which has been approved by the House of Representatives responds to the sub prime crisis and the predatory lending techniques used by lenders. The Act will impose stricter requirements on lenders including:

-More stringent investigation by the lenders to ensure that the borrowers can repay the loan;
-Prohibition of predatory lending techniques;
-Liability on participants in the secondary mortgages markets;
-Holds creditors responsible for the loans they originate;
-Additional disclosures must be given to the borrowers;

This could bring long needed help to homeowners, but then again it could be just as ineffective as HAMP and HARP have been. We will just have to wait and see. For a summary of the Act go to www.house.gov/apps/list/press/financialsvcs_dem/summary_of_1728.pdf.

The Truth in Lending Act (TILA) is a federal law that standardizes the way that creditors disclose the terms of credit to their consumers. If a lender fails to comply with the strict standards of the TILA the penalties may be severe for the lender. Penalties for violations of the TILA can range anywhere from a monetary penalty to rescission of the mortgage.

The TILA is a very important tool used by Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyers to defend a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit. However, violations of the Act are not always easy to spot. If you feel that your lender did not properly disclose financial information to you regarding your mortgage, contact a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer or Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer.

There are many defenses to a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit. Some of these defenses will defeat a Foreclosure Lawsuit, while others will entitle the homeowner to monetary damages. These defenses include, but are not limited to: a violation of the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), breach of contract, violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), unfair debt collection practices under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), reporting inaccurate information to a credit bureau under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), plaintiff is not a real party in interest, and unconscionability. These are but a few of the available defenses to a foreclosure lawsuit.

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit and would like to properly defend yourself from your lenders, contact a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer for a free consultation.