There's no doubt that the banks are responsible for the home foreclosure mess. They inflated the value of homes. They made it impossible to get a fixed loan. They wrote contracts that were unconscionable and impossible to complete when they came to term. They invented new ways of scamming people who were told by the same banks that they had to have a home and this (their scam) was the only to do it. Zed, who writes for shitheadery.com, has been involved in this fiasco for eight months. Many of the stories here are written by he and his wife. The remainder are what we piece together and ad to this issue as we find them.
Torture charged in L.A.-area mortgage rescue case As Los Angeles housing advocates launched a campaign warning of mortgage rescue scams, a couple hit by foreclosure are charged with torturing two loan-modification agents they suspected of fraud, authorities said on Monday.
The couple, Daniel Weston and Mary Ann Parmelee, and three other people are accused of luring their two victims to an office where the men were tied up, held for hours and beaten, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney said.
In a scathing report out Wednesday, a government watchdog blasts the Treasury Department for its handling of a $700 billion bailout program and for not adopting all of its earlier recommendations.
Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky, who is in charge of overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), said Treasury's failure to provide more details about the use of TARP funds has helped damage "the credibility of the program and of the government itself, and the anger, cynicism, and dis
Despite some tentative signs of recovery, the U.S. housing market remains vulnerable to further price drops—especially in areas where large numbers of mortgages are headed toward foreclosure over the next few years.
The Wall Street Journal's quarterly survey of housing-market data in 28 major metro areas shows sharp drops in the number of homes listed for sale across the country. But the potential supply of homes is far larger because banks are likely to acquire significant numbers of forec
Successfully modifying loans has proved elusive at times because of multiple factors, including under-trained negotiators, lost paperwork and foreclosure proceedings inadvertently begun before trial loan modifications are complete, panelists at a Mortgage Bankers Assn. conference acknowledged today.
One of the most frustrating common problems is troubled borrowers who accept a trial modification, send in their lowered payments, but then fail to complete the paperwork that enables lenders and
Be careful when looking for mortgage changes None of the government’s efforts to help Americans save their homes has put any legal pressure whatsoever on lenders and their representatives to offer more affordable terms to homeowners stuck in bad mortgages.
With mortgage rates at historic lows, millions of homeowners could get substantial relief if they were just given a new loan at current market rates. But most lenders and investors holding mortgages aren't going along with that solution....
Five hundred thousand troubled homeowners have had their loan payments lowered on a trial basis under the Making Home Affordable Program, said Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner in a morning telephone briefing with reporters. Mortgage payments are now being lowered faster than homes are being sold in foreclosure proceedings, he added, and roughly 40 percent of the 1.2 million homeowners deemed eligible have been helped.
“That’s an important shift,” Mr. Geithner said. “Half a million
A day after the Obama administration proclaimed significant progress in its effort to spare troubled homeowners from foreclosure, an oversight panel on Friday sharply criticized the program and declared it would leave millions of Americans vulnerable to losing their homes.
In a report mild in language but pointed in substance, the Congressional Oversight Panel — a watchdog created last year to keep tabs on taxpayer bailout funds — said the administration’s program would, “in the best c... Read More >>
Advocate for Yourself
Turn to Media, Courts - ProPublica Qualified homeowners are being routinely denied loan modifications through the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable plan [1], but they have little recourse to correct the mistaken denials, housing advocates say. In the absence of an effective appeals process, some borrowers have improvised their own solutions: They turn to journalists or congressmen [2] – or take Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to court.
Elizabeth Warren: Serious Questions Remain The Obama administration's effort to help homeowners avoid foreclosure may not achieve its goal of helping 3 million to 4 million borrowers and may simply delay mortgage defaults for many, a government watchdog group says.
The Congressional Oversight Panel, charged with making regular assessments of the $700 billion financial rescue fund enacted last year, said the Treasury Department should consider whether to improve the current $50 billion program or adopt new programs to meet an expected ri
The number of homes lost to foreclosures rose about 17 percent in the second quarter of this year despite the launch of an extensive government program aimed at helping borrowers save their home, according to government data released Wednesday.
Completed foreclosures reached 106,007 during the second quarter, compared with 90,696 during the first three months of the year, according to the report by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulat
Feds to Cut Your House Payment If your income slumped along with the economy, you've got plenty of company these days. So much so that the government has a program meant to help you out by cutting your mortgage payments to 31 percent of your gross income. But it turns out that qualifying for this benefit will probably take some fancy footwork, a sympathetic partner and a little luck. Here are some pointers for navigating the terrain.
Get to know the program The program in question is the Obama administration's $75 billion Ma
Tens of thousands of financially strapped homeowners who have asked lenders to lower their mortgage payments are instead winding up with higher monthly payments and larger debts on their homes.
Homeowners who were hoping for lower payments are discovering to their dismay that lenders roll late fees, back taxes or other costs into the principal, sometimes turning a difficult payment into an impossible one. Read More >>
Chairman Frank, Ranking Member Bachus, members of the House Financial Services Committee, I am pleased to be back before you today as our Administration and this Congress work toward comprehensive reform of our financial regulatory system.
The Chairman has set an ambitious schedule of hearings that will lead to your markup of legislation and facilitate enactment this year. We have now provided more than 600 pages of legislative language, and I am aware and appreciative of the long hours you ha...
They began to present research in 1999 showing that large banking companies including Wells Fargo and Citigroup had created subprime businesses wholly focused on making loans at high interest rates, largely in the black and Hispanic neighborhoods to the south and west of downtown Chicago.
The groups pleaded for regulators to act.
The evidence eventually led Illinois to file suit against Wells Fargo in July for discrimination and other abuses.
You remember JP Morgan/Chase. It’s the mega-bank (second largest in the country) that took over Bear Stearns as a favor to the Treasury Department last year, and then received $25 billion in TARP taxpayer dollars ...
In this video, Mark Kollar, from this CNN interview and segment. The second video (and I'm speaking from experience) is typical of what a conversation with a bank is like.
Unemployment is now atrtributed to a rise in foreclosure, gaining on the sub-prime fiasco. Since the banks showed no leeway with a problem they caused we can expect nothing from this mess.
And in more great news, we find out that counties have been selling or property tax dept to collection agencies who charge higher fees - more fleecing.
Treasury released a list of servicers that are participating in the Making Home Affordable program and their performance and progress. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the ones receiving the most money from the governement through tax dollars are doing the least to keep people in their homes.
It comes as no surprise that loan servicers would tell homeowners that they have to answer to investors in order to modify loans. It also comes as no surprise that it's not true.
The investors have no direct involvement in it, and have no legal say in the modifications that are allowed.
That's the job of servicers like Wells Fargo. They're the banks that process your monthly payments.
"KURT EGGERT: It's really the servicer that takes the very active role of collecting the payments and determini... Read More >>
I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know that I lve in one of the top 10 cities for closures in the country. You gotta wonder if that's because the value of homes were so artificially inflated around here.
The Making Home Affordable program has been available since early April. So far it's helped a small percentage of the 4-6 million it was designed to help. Why? Another question is: Of the ones it's helped what exactly constitutes help?
The Obama administration's next plan is to shame the loan servicers, mortgage companies, and banks into modinfying loans more quickly and more acurately. The question is: How do you shame people who have no shame, let alone a concept of it.
The servicers should “devote substantially more resources to the program,” the letter said, including beefing up staffing and training. A few of the largest servicers defended their performance, of course, to the Washington Post.
Interesting piece. Especially since some of the quotes are from Ocwen, the same bank one of our contributers, Zed, is in negotiations with. Sounds like a lot of BS.
"People in the servicing industry and in the broader financial industry must understand that if this last effort to produce significant modifications fails ..."
Maybe the pots not sweet enough. Maybe that they're getting taxpayer subsidies to stop screwing people isn't enough. Maybe they'll stop when no one's left to screw.
Since March we've been hearing how much the banks are doing (from the banks) to help homeowners. How much they love Obama's Making Homes Affordable plan and what a great day it is in Amerca's history when homeowners will be saved and banks and loan servicers like Ocwen won't have to screw homeowners anymore.
Ocwen Chairman William C. Erbey, said in an interview (and I use the term interview loosely when I refer to a press release), "We're proud to be able to aggressively implement the President... Read More >>
To expand on the article submitted "Ocwen Sucks", we're in a similar situation with this particular loan servicer.
All along, we have been terrified of moving past a 90 day default period as Ocwen has told us repeatedly that if we did, our file would be closed and move to another department and we'd have to start all over again AND they'd foreclose on us before that happened - in other words, if we didn't "suck it up" and submit payments, we'd lose our home and be on the street.
...
Editor's note:This is a serious issue and this is just the beginning of stories like this. The program is new and the banks are gaming it. There will be many foreclosures before there's help. And people who can pay for there homes will end up losing everything. If you know anyone going through this send them our way and we'll help get the word out.
Over the past six months we've reached out to our Senator, Representative and AG. We have been run ragged by the banks, a scam that took our money
Maybe I'm naive, but I still get shocked at the amount of scumbags allowed to roam free out there. Mortgage companies and banks have been screwing people non-stop for decades and now that there's actually a little help on the horizon for people in distress, a new breed of leeches and predator has cropped up. Refinance and loan modification companies. So much that the Fed has to dedicate a team just for this.
In a scathing report out Wednesday, a government watchdog blasts the Treasury Department for its handling of a $700 billion bailout program and for not adopting all of its earlier recommendations.
A day after the Obama administration proclaimed significant progress in its effort to spare troubled homeowners from foreclosure, an oversight panel on Friday sharply criticized the program and declared it would leave millions of Americans vulnerable to losing their homes.
Never ones to let an opportunity go unexploited, mortgage lenders are taking advantage of a market fueled by low interest rates and massive government subsidies to turn record profits. Their secret: The return of "junk fees."
Banks and loan investors are starting to bite the bullet and lower the principal due on home mortgages for some struggling borrowers, a new report from bank regulators shows.
Tens of thousands of financially strapped homeowners who have asked lenders to lower their mortgage payments are instead winding up with higher monthly payments and larger debts on their homes.
They began to present research in 1999 showing that large banking companies including Wells Fargo and Citigroup had created subprime businesses wholly focused on making loans at high interest rates, largely in the black and Hispanic neighborhoods to the south and west of downtown Chicago.
Foreclosures have skyrocketed virtually every month since the collapse of the housing market. Across the country, people who bought homes at inflated prices and took adjustable rate mortgages are losing the properties to foreclosure in record numbers as home values decline. (To put the sheer quantity into context, consider this: foreclosures are reported to have “fallen slightly” during August, according to the Washington Post, because there were “only” 358,471 foreclosure filings nation
And not by choice ...
Donna Whitaker applied for a mortgage modification on April Fools' Day. The joke was on her: Her bank, JPMorgan Chase, lost her paperwork and then denied her application on May 8 because it was incomplete. She has reapplied twice and each time the bank has claimed it is missing documents that Whitaker says she sent more than once.
Bank of America is the biggest mortgage servicer in the business. And judging by Treasury Department data, its customers searching for loan modifications are the most frustrated. Through the end of July, it had modified just 4 percent of its most delinquent loans eligible for the government’s foreclosure-prevention program – roughly 28,000 out of the nearly 800,000 for which payments were at least 60 days late.
Many of the lenders who helped fuel the subprime mortgage boom are now receiving billions in taxpayer money to modify those same loans, according to a new report by the Center for Public Integrity....
Unemployment is now atrtributed to a rise in foreclosure, gaining on the sub-prime fiasco. Since the banks showed no leeway with a problem they caused we can expect nothing from this mess.
And in more great news, we find out that counties have been selling or property tax dept to collection agencies who charge higher fees - more fleecing.
In many rulings, judges have shown frustration and even outrage. They’ve ruled that servicers have attempted to collect unjustified fees, charged homeowners for unnecessary insurance, failed to properly credit homeowners’ payments and failed to provide evidence to back up fee requests. In most cases, judges demand that servicers fix the problems and unwind the unjustified fees; sometimes, judges award damages and attorneys’ fees. In one extraordinary case, a judge issued $750,000 in emot...
Community organizer Steve Meacham of City Life/Vida Urbana is fighting on the frontlines of the foreclosure crisis. Meacham and his colleagues at City Life employ a community organizing strategy they call the The "shield" is a strategy of legal defense: teaching City Life members about their rights under the law, plus providing access to volunteer legal assistance. The "sword" is a public relations strategy, where City Life organizes protests in front of banks, and eviction blockades in front of...
I Know, hard to believe that mortage servicers would actually harrass customers. Or God forbid add additional fees that might be illegal.
The percentage of “underwater” loans may rise to 48 percent, or 25 million homes, as prices drop through the first quarter of 2011, Karen Weaver and Ying Shen, analysts in New York at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a report today. 
Treasury Secretary, Tin Geithner sent a letter to 25 mortgage loan servicers and met with them all on Tuesday.
The last time Barney Frank tried to make the banks work with struggling home owners 
Not that any administration would ever do anything too little, or just not get something right in the first place...
When Congress was debating the bailout of Fannie and Freddie last July, the official estimate from the Congressional Budget Office was that a bailout would most likely cost taxpayers $25 billion, with only a 5% chance of the price tag reaching $100 billion between them.
Wow this is a real surprise. The subrime d-bags are now specializing in loan modifacation scam.
Our own Zed had a hand in this article. Loan mod scams brought down -but not after screwing plenty of homeowners alraedy getting screwed by the banks.
"As far as I and my family are concerned, the so-called 'homeowners' bailout' isn't working very well. The problem seems to be that when people are dealing with these big banks (our mortgage is with JPMorgan Chase), the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. There seems to be no way to get our papers into the hands of the actual decision-makers. We have submitted our paperwork for a loan modification about 4 times."
"Mr. White found that modifications were rare, and mods that actually reduced a homeowner's principal were even rarer, despite the fact that banks lose far more from selling foreclosed houses than they do from reducing principal on mortgages."
Since March we've been hearing how much the banks are doing (from the banks) to help homeowners. How much they love Obama's Making Homes Affordable plan and what a great day it is in Amerca's history when homeowners will be saved and banks and loan servicers like Ocwen won't have to screw homeowners anymore.
Editor's note:
Maybe I'm naive, but I still get shocked at the amount of scumbags allowed to roam free out there. Mortgage companies and banks have been screwing people non-stop for decades and now that there's actually a little help on the horizon for people in distress, a new breed of leeches and predator has cropped up. Refinance and loan modification companies. So much that the Fed has to