Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyers Blog

Townhome and condo prices in Jacksonville, Florida have fallen far quicker than prices for single family homes. According to the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors, townhomes and condos are currently selling for a median price of $67,000. That is 63% below the peak in July 2006 of $182,500. Compared to a current median price of $135,000 for single family homes which has only dropped 35% from the August 2006 peak of $210,000.

The dramatic difference in the drops of townhomes and condos compared to the drop of single family homes can be explained by the large amount of townhomes and condos built during the past decade and how quickly those prices increased, followed by a huge amount of foreclosures filed on them that put too many on the market at the same time. The problem gets worst with how difficult townhomes and condos are to sell. Many cannot be bought with a FHA mortgage or even a conventional loan. Since banks will not approve a loan in complexes with 50% percent renters, or associations fees not being paid on 15% of the units, most must be bought with cash. Buying with cash means even more renters because cash buyers are usually investors whom have excessive cash who buy the units with the intention of renting them out.

Prime examples are:
• A condo on Old Kings Road recently sold for $30,000. Four years ago it sold for $141,000.
• Off Southside on Belle Rive Blvd., a condo that sold for $165,000 five years ago went for less than $30,000.
• Two condos sold for 1/3 of what they were bought for a few years ago in the downtown Berkman Plaza.

This is just more bad news for some Jacksonville Homeowners, but there are alternatives to being "upside down." If you are currently "upside down" in your home, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to see what options may be available to you.

Recently a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer read a story about a California doctor who has gotten to see the Bank of America modification and foreclosure processes up close and personal. In a story not unlike ones that many struggling homeowners have faced, the homeowner applied for and was granted a three month trial modification. After making his three scheduled modification payments, Bank of America then denied the homeowner a permanent modification and the homeowner resigned himself to losing his house to foreclosure.

However, just a few weeks later, the homeowner received a notice from Bank of American encouraging him to apply for a second mortgage modification. The homeowner again applied and was approved for a modification. This time he hired a foreclosure attorney to aid him in convincing Bank of America to make his modification permanent. After completing his second trial modification, he was finally sent a permanent modification packet from Bank of America with one arbitrary caveat, the packet must be signed and notarized by a California notary within 10 days.

This presented a problem for the homeowner as he was temporarily teaching at a university in Louisiana and therefore could not get a California notary to notarize his signature. When he called Bank of America to inquire into whether or not a Louisiana notary could notarize his signature he was told "no" and was instructed to send the paperwork in un-notarized. After Bank of America received and reviewed the paperwork, the homeowner was informed his permanent modification was denied because his paperwork was incomplete because his signature was not notarized, which is precisely what Bank of America told him to do!!

The lawyer for the homeowner contacted Bank of America and urged them to change their decision and the bank relented...but he still had to have his signature notarized by a California notary. So, the homeowner had to jump on a plane, fly back to California, have his signature notarized and submit the paperwork to Bank of America. After all that what does Bank of America do...deny his permanent modification again, this time for submitted the complete paperwork six days late...after the 10 day time limit for submitting the original paperwork.

While this is an extreme example of some of the issues with mortgage modifications, many people who have attempted to get their mortgage modified have experienced at least some of the issue this homeowner faced. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today for a complimentary consultation to determine what foreclosure options may be available to you.

You reached the point where you were no longer able to make your monthly mortgage payments because of a change in your financial situation. Months later, maybe even almost a year later, you were served with a foreclosure complaint and you are now one of the thousands of Floridians facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit. All this comes after numerous failed attempts to obtain a loan modification that would allow you to keep your home.

However, while defending the foreclosure action in the court system, you finally obtain the loan modification you have been begging for. You see the light at the end of the tunnel and feel some much needed relief. Do not get too comfortable just yet. The loan modification you have entered into is probably a trial modification in which you are to make monthly payments for approximately 3 months and then a final modification will be considered. You are ok with this because you really want to keep your home.

However, if you are already in foreclosure, the bank may still be pursuing the foreclosure case on your home during the trial modification period. This may be due to a huge lack of communication. The bank's right hand (legal department) may have no idea what its left hand (modification department) is doing. Even though the different departments are within the same company, they may rarely communicate with each other.

In your circumstance, the loss mitigation department that approved your trial loan modification most likely has not and will not communicate you are performing on a trial modification to the department/law firm pursuing the foreclosure. Therefore, the law firm handling the foreclosure action has no idea you have entered into a trial modification and will continue litigating the foreclosure, leading to a final judgment of foreclosure being entered before your trial modification is over.

So what can you do? You could file a stay with the court. The stay should point out that you have entered into a trial loan modification with the Plaintiff and, as such, you request the court to stay all further proceedings in the foreclosure action until the trial loan modification has ended and you have been considered for a final modification. This may prevent the foreclosure action from moving forward.

It is can be extremely difficult to navigate a foreclosure alone. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit and have been offered a trial loan modification, contact a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today for a complimentary consultation to determine what foreclosure options may be available to you.

Just like many couples across the nation, this elderly Florida found them selves unable to make their current monthly mortgage payment and were in need of a mortgage modification. In their case, the husband became ill and their medical bills increased. Therefore, the couple applied for the Federal Home Affordable Modification Program (commonly referred to as "HAMP"), which reduced their monthly mortgage payment to a manageable amount. The first payment was due January 1.

The couple made their first mortgage payment on December 23, 8 days early. After they received notice their February payment was not accepted because the signature line of their check was left blank, they discovered they could be loosing their modification because they made their first payment early. Of course, the couple contacted the bank to ask them to review their file.

However, their initial attempts to correct the situation were unsuccessful and they received a letter in July stating, "payments not made for the correct month, even earlier, would result in the loss of eligibility in the modification program." Luckily, shortly thereafter, the bank reevaluated their decision and has allowed the couple to resume their modification and continue their participation in the HAMP program. The bank has also admitted the error they made.

This goes to show that being approved for as well as keeping a modification can be difficult and confusing. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit as a result of a failed mortgage modification, contact a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer for a free consultation and a review of the remedies which may be available to you.

A Detroit homeowner is bringing suit against her two lenders after she was denied a loan modification, which, if she prevails could start a trend of denied homeowners running to court to sue their lenders. The homeowner, who could no longer afford her mortgage payments after getting a divorce, applied for the Federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) in an attempt to save her home. Her lender, Bank of America, told her she had to be behind on her mortgage before she could be considered for HAMP.

So, taking the advice of Bank of America, she stopped making her mortgage payments. Shortly after missing her payments, she received a letter from Bank of America approving her for a temporary modification but a short time later she received an additional letter from Bank of America saying her modification was denied because she made too much money. As a result, the homeowner has sued both Bank of America, the servicer, and Fannie Mae, the owner, for inducing her default then denying her modification. Bank of America says that Fannie Mae, as the owner of the loan, is the entity that denied the modification.

Hopefully, the homeowner prevails in this suit as millions of homeowners experienced similar circumstances when attempting to get HAMP modifications. Many people have called the HAMP program an abject failure as the majority of those homeowners who obtained loan modifications fell out of their modifications, either forcibly or voluntarily. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to see what foreclosure alternative options may be available to you.

When Chase Bank threatened to sell Mardee Jerde's home in foreclosure, Ms. Jerde's was determined to do all she could to save her home of 16 years. Sure, Ms. Jerde was having trouble making her mortgage payments, but there is a very personal and understandable account of how Jerde got to that point. An explanation Chase is unwilling to consider in granting Jerde a permanent loan modification.

In March of 2008, Marde was involved in a car accident that left her injured and unable to work. She could no longer afford her greater than $1,700 mortgage payment, so she immediately made contacted with her bank. Chase agreed to a trial loan modification, but it wasn't until July 2009 that she was able to make another payment. She made modified mortgage payments of nearly $900 until June of 2010, when Chase came knocking. They sent a letter seeking almost $50,000 in overdue payments and past due amounts.

The craziest part of all of it all is that Jerde upheld her responsibility, and sent Chase the money! She used the settlement money she received from being in the car accident to do make the payment. Chase ultimately denied her the permanent loan modification, leaving Ms. Jerde broke and with few options.

Stories like this make it appear that Chase and other banks will offer a helping hand and then immediately turn their back without upholding their end of the bargain. If you are in foreclosure talks with a bank, don't just send them money because they say it will increase the likelihood of getting a loan modification. If you are exploring the possibility of a mortgage modification with your bank, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today to review the modification paperwork in order to ensure the deal is right for your individual circumstances.

Florida's Supreme Court suspended a lawyer in Boca Raton after the Florida Bar released findings that his mortgage modification and foreclosure defense firm caused the public great harm. The firm has been instructed not to accept any more cases and also cannot access any of the funds in company bank accounts. The reprimand was in response to complaints by nearly 20 of his former clients.

The issue appears to be the firm employed individuals who were not attorney's to work with customers on loan modifications. In Florida it is against the law to charge up front fees for an attempted loan modification if one is a non-attorney, which is exactly what the firm was doing. It would have been okay to collect the near $3,000 per modification fee if a licensed attorney had been involved.

Furthering the egregiousness of this conduct was the firms admission that its non-attorney employees controlled the cases from beginning to end. The Florida Bar has since warned attorneys that other attorney's in the state may be replicating the shady practice as a way to circumvent the rule against non-attorney's charging up front fees.

If you are working through a foreclosure it's important to hire competent representation. Be sure to know whom you are working with when you decide to hire a Florida Foreclosure Attorney to defend your home. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today for a complimentary consultation.

The influx of mortgage foreclosures in the United States seems to have no end in sight. In an effort to motivate mortgage lenders to actually cooperate, the Federal Government offered lenders cash incentives, up to $1,000 per modification, if they would help prevent the loss of a home by permanently modifying a homeowner's mortgage payment. But a certain set of lenders have done so little to help the foreclosure crisis that the Government will no longer offer them those incentives.

According to a release by the Treasury Department, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase & Co. failed in helping people permanently modify their mortgages. Their failure was so abysmal that the government has pulled the plug on the lucrative cash incentive, although the money still lives on for other, more cooperative lenders. Out of the 1.6 million homeowners who began in the program, roughly 850,000 of them have dropped out as of April 2011.

The issues involved reach beyond un-cooperation; the Treasury found that the lenders wrongly disqualified many people from the program. Numerous borrowers have complained that the banks have either lost documents or been completely unresponsive to their modification requests. Banks, however, blame homeowners for not submitting needed paperwork to complete the modification.

On the other side of the coin, those who were actually accepted into the program received interest rates as low as 2 percent for five years, with a median savings of $526 per month. If you have applied for a mortgage modification and believe that you were denied unnecessarily, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today to explore potential remedies or what other foreclosure alternatives may be available to you..

The Florida Attorney General's Office has announced it has filed suit against three loan modification companies for charging upfront fees to homeowners while not providing the services they were hired for. Loan modifications have become extremely popular in Florida, as struggling homeowners have sought help to lower monthly mortgage payments. Charging upfront fees for loan modifications is illegal under Florida law. The companies allegedly told homeowners their mortgage debt would reduced and would be able to successfully prevent foreclosure.

The mortgage modification companies: Home Owner Protection Economics, Inc., DC Financial Group and Deleverage America, Inc., have been order to cease their operations by the court handling the case. In addition, the financial assets of the owners of the companies have been frozen by the court. The companies charged fees varying between $495 and $2000, most of which was for work that was never completed.

This is just one of what should be many suits brought against mortgage modification companies. Unscrupulous mortgage modification companies are one of the fastest growing areas of mortgage fraud and homeowners should be beware. If you are facing a potential Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to see what foreclosure alternatives are available to you.

Federal mortgage giant Fannie Mae has announced that it is opening two new facilities in Florida to provide mortgage counseling services and free homeownership education classes for struggling homeowners. The locations of the offices have been announced as Tampa, FL and Jacksonville, FL and each Mortgage Help Center will assist struggling homeowners in their respective metro areas. The Mortgage Help Centers are intended to help homeowners in the areas hardest hit by the mortgage crisis.

The Tampa and Jacksonville Mortgage Help Centers mark the seventh and eighth Fannie Mae help centers opened across the country. When speaking about the opening of the newest mortgage centers, Senior Vice President of Fannie Mae's National Servicing Organization Jeff Hayward stated "Fannie Mae is committed to doing everything we can to make sure homeowners facing hardships know the options available to them and have access to the help they need."

The centers offer one-on-one consultations with housing counselors and services will be available in both Spanish and English. While the opening of two new mortgage centers to help struggling homeowners, what help will these centers offer the thousands of homeowners how are already facing foreclosure? If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to see what foreclosure alternative options may be available to you.

Senator Al Franken of Minnesota has proposed The Homeowner Advocate Act of 2011. The Act would create the Office of the homeowner Advocate. The primary purpose of the Office would be to protect homeowners that are seeking mortgage modifications through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). The Office's main functions are to assist homeowners with HAMP modifications, provide housing counseling and providing housing lawyers to assist in resolving problems arising under HAMP. If the Act passes, the Office would be funded by money that is already allocated to HAMP administration but not already committed.

If you are being considered for a HAMP modification, it is important to have all of the modification documents reviewed by a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer to ensure that you receive the best possible modification.

CitiMortgage, Inc. is the Defendant in a class action lawsuit that alleges that CitiMortgage denied borrowers permanent loan modifications under the government's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). The class action has been in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The class contains homeowners in Pennsylvania with mortgages serviced by CitiMortgage that entered into trial modifications and complied with the terms of the trial modifications only to later be denied a permanent HAMP modification. The class action complaint alleges that CitiMortgage had a contractual obligation to permanently modify loans that the company serviced if the homeowners qualified for HAMP.

If you are being considered for a HAMP modification, it is important to have all of the modification documents reviewed by a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer to ensure that you receive the best possible modification.

The U.S. Treasury has just released the latest numbers on short sales and deeds-in-lieu completed through the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program. Through the end of February 2011, 4,488 homeowners completed a short sale or deed-in-lieu under the HAFA program. In addition to the completed short sales and deeds-in-lieu, the report shows that 10,177 homeowners have tentative agreements in place with their servicers to complete the transactions under HAFA.

Under the HAFA program, eligible homeowners who are unable to afford their current monthly mortgage payment and are "interested in transitioning to more affordable housing" receive a one-time, $3,000, payment to aid the homeowner in relocating in exchange for completing a short sale or deed-in-lieu. The Treasury report also includes the newest statistics on the much-maligned Home Affordable Modification Program. Since the program began in 2009, over there have been over 1.5 million trial modifications started but more then 746,000 of those modifications have been cancelled.

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit and one of the foreclosure alternative programs has failed you, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today for a complimentary case review.

To view the entire Treasure report click here.

Last week the Attorneys General from all 50 states presented their proposed settlement to the 5 largest mortgage servicers, Bank of America, Wells Fargo; J.P. Morgan Chase; Citigroup and GMAC/Ally, in order to settle the widespread claims of foreclosure misconduct that arose late in 2010. The proposed settlement addresses 5 major areas of concern: loan modifications, foreclosure proceedings during loan modifications, standards of conduct for mortgage servicers, fee restrictions and servicer contact.

The Attorneys General have requested a substantial increase in the amount of loan modifications that include a reduction in the principle amounts of the loans, a move which lenders have been strongly opposed to in the past. Also included in the settlement proposal is the requirement that lenders do not initiate a new foreclosure, or continue to pursue a pending foreclosure while a homeowner is being considered for a mortgage modification. The settlement also addresses one of the most frequent complaints about lenders, they would be required to provide a single point of contact for homeowners who are facing potential foreclosure. Standards of Conduct would also be put in place for lenders in order to avoid improper foreclosure practices, such as "robo-signing", as well as limits on the amount of fees and costs that lenders will be allowed to charge when a homeowner defaults on their mortgage.

This settlement proposal from the Attorneys General goes a long way toward addressing many of the most common complaints and concerns of struggling homeowners, but will the lenders accept it and does it go far enough? That is a question that can only be answered with time. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today to see what foreclosure alternatives may be available to you.

The House Financial Services Committee voted last week to end two federal mortgage programs, both managed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, citing disappointing results as the primary reason for their ouster. The programs, one intended to deliver emergency funds to homeowners who have lost their jobs and another to lower monthly mortgage payments to "underwater" homeowners, have been labeled as massive disappointments by many. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus, whose committee voted to eliminate the programs, stated "Congress needs to stop funding programs that don't work."

The Federal Housing Short Refi Option program, designed to force lenders to write down at least 10 percent of the mortgage principle on homes whose values have fallen dramatically, has been available since September 2010 but has only received 245 applications and modified 44 loans. House Republicans remain adamant that they will end the often-criticized Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) which has fallen far short of initial expectations. HAMP was originally intended to benefit 3-4 million homeowners but to date, only 600,000 borrowers have received permanent mortgage modifications under the program.

While most of the federal foreclosure prevention programs fell short of what many would call even modest success, they have provided at least some benefits for struggling U.S. homeowners. If you are one of the thousands of Floridians facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to see what foreclosure alternative options may be available to you.