Happy Mother’s Day

Posted by kevin on May 7, 2011 under Foreclosure Blog | Comments are off for this article

I hope that everyone has a great mother’s day.  Make sure you tell your mom (or wife who is the mother of your children) how much you appreciate them.

Been out of the box for a few weeks.  Reason- have been busier than a one armed paper hanger.  Two trials in 6 weeks, 4 motions, 1 appellate brief in, one awaiting scheduling order, and one imminent settlement.

As far as the trials go, I lost one but  got the other case dismissed for failure to adhere to the Fair Foreclosure Act.   They will be back, but my client is in her house for at least another two years.  If you represent borrowers, buying time is a victory in and of itself.  Not only the obvious; that is, your client still has a roof over her head.  But the longer things go, the better the chance that new law will help the cause; the better the chance that the lender will cave and offer an meaningful settlement.

As far as the one that was lost, that was a tough trial which lasted 4 days.  The opposing attorneys were very good.  The Judge allowed the attorneys to try their cases and listened attentively to the testimony.  You cannot ask for more.   Although the judge felt differently,  I believe that there are strong appealable issues.

The appellate brief was on a case involving an older, working class African American couple who were sold by New Century on an ARM that could go up to 15+%.  Initial payments were over 50% of principal, interest, taxes and insurance (PITI) rising to over 85% PITI.  No endorsement on Note which supposedly was sold to hedge fund.  Issues including standing, predatory lending and whether lender is a holder in due course.  Sorry to bore everyone with these technical details but, for a lawyer, this is good stuff.  I think we have a shot on this one.

The settlement was interesting.  Settlements were opening up a little in New Jersey until the recent robo-signing stipulation which, I believe, has enboldened the lenders once again.  Going to trial on this one in early June.  Have dealt with adversary in about a dozen cases.  Since still pending cannot go into detail at this time, but looks promising.

As my video says, the best way to get a good settlement is to fight the foreclosure.  It takes time, but I believe that once  the opposition knows that you will go to the mat, you will get a better settlement offer.  There are no short cuts.