Posts Tagged ‘pinellas’

In March, 2009 the Obama administration announced a new program with the goal of slowing foreclosures and keeping more homeowner’s in their homes.   The program, called the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), generally requires lenders to participate in counseling programs with borrowers and  encourages those lenders to agree to terms that will allow a homeowner to stay in their home in most cases.

The progam has wide application and all Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac approved servicers are ordered through their servicing guides and bulletins to implement HAMP with respect to “mortgage loans owned, securitized, or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (the “GSE Loans”).  Details of the program may be found at Frequently Asked Questions which provides information about the new program.

Mortgage modification activity dropped 5.1% in June, while repayment plans jumped 44.9%, according to the HOPE NOW Alliance’s most recent monthly data. In total, more than 310,000 homeowners completed workouts during the month – a 25% increase over May.

Most homeowners should qualify for a HAMP Modification.  If your lender has not offered you the opportunity to apply for a HAMP modification or if you have questions about how the program operates, visit my website at www.mattweidnerlaw.com!

If You’re Struggling With a Foreclosure or Trying For a Mortgage Modification Consider This

The FDIC took over IndyMac in 2008 after a run on deposits led to the second-biggest failure of a federally insured bank in U.S. history. When no buyers emerged, the government had to manage IndyMac until the following March, when most of its operations were sold to the investor group that owns OneWest. They’re led by Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker, with backing from J. Christopher Flowers’ private-equity firm, hedge-fund manager George Soros and a fund linked to Michael Dell, the founder of computer maker Dell Inc. (See Bloomberg Article here)

Here are some details of the transaction according to an FDIC fact sheet:

•  The FDIC, as Conservator for IndyMac FSB (“New IndyMac”), entered into a letter of intent to sell New IndyMac to IMB HoldCo LLC, a thrift holding company controlled by IMB Management Holdings LP, a limited partnership, for approximately $13.9 billion. IMB HoldCo is owned by a consortium of private equity investors led by Steven T. Mnuchin of Dune Capital Management LP.
•  Uninsured depositors will not be receiving an additional claims dividend at this time. (Sorry little people, you get hosed.)

•  New IndyMac consists of:
o  The retail bank headquartered in Pasadena, CA, with 33 branches located primarily in the Los Angeles MSA with approximately $6.5 billion in deposits;
o  A loan portfolio of $16 billion and a securities portfolio of $6.9 billion;
o  A servicing platform with mortgage servicing rights (“MSRs”) representing an unpaid principal balance of $157.7 billion; and
o  A reverse mortgage platform, Financial Freedom, with $1.5 billion of reverse mortgages and MSRs representing an unpaid principal balance of $20.2 billion.

So for a $13.9 Billion Dollar Price Tag, the fat cats got all those assets described above….sounds like one hell of a deal.  Now let’s look at the same FDIC fact sheet to see what ordinary Americans got out of the deal…

IndyMac Loan Modification Program
•  Mortgages Eligible for Modification
—  46,500
•  Total Modification Offers Mailed to date —  32,274
•  Total Completed Modifications (Verified Income) to date —  8,512
•  Total Additional Verbal Acceptances of Offers to date —  9,480

Not surprisingly, the Internet is alive with stories and accounts of consumers who get no satisfaction from OneWest/Indymac (Sample here).  But instead of focusing on the negative, let’s turn for a minute to see how our friends, the Fat Cats are making out on their Indymac/Onewest purchase.  The headline screams, SCREWJOB!

(See the LA Times Article here)

So if you’re a consumer trying to get a loan modification or short sale through Indymac/Onewest, too bad.  But if you’re one of the handful of private investors who got preferential treatment from the feds and then got the deal of the century on this purchase (comparing assets to purchase price), just party on!

For more information contact Matt Weidner at www.mattweidnerlaw.com

Several of my posts over the last several months have been highly critical of Bank of America in general and very critical of their short sale processing inparticular. I reserve the right to continue being very critical of Bank of America, but I wanted to report some initial promising developments with short sales that have been submitted through the Equator Short Sale System.

Equator-  The Equator website can be found here.

The system promises to bring potential buyers and sellers of properties owned by Bank of America together in an online forum where offers for short sales can be accepted or rejected by Bank of America in a short period of time. It remains to be seen whether this system will actually work efficiently, but anything would work better than the unresponsive disaster of a system (or total lack of a system) currently employed by Bank of America. I say that I am cautiously optimistic that this system will be a more effective way to deal with the short sales that are currently pending because the phone calls and interactions I’ve had with Equator have been effective and the representatives seemed to have accurate information.

They system is a bit tricky to navigate and getting through the process to approval is still going to be problematic. Visit my website for more info and updates.

If you’re facing foreclosure, or are interested in mortgage modification, deed in lieu or short sale issues related to property, especially in Florida, you should be aware of massive, wide scale fraud that permeates the entire mortgage industry.  As the mortgage market exploded and lenders across the country were tripping over one another in a mad orgy to make mortgages, agents and employees of the lenders committed fraud from the begining of the process selling the loan to the homeowner all the way through to the packaging and selling the fradulent loans to end investors.

Lost Notes, False Affidavits of Amounts Due and Owing, Fraudulent Assignments of Mortgage

Now lenders trying to foreclose on these fradulent mortgages must continue the lying process in order to try and collect on the fradulent mortgages.  The lies come in all shapes and sizes from itty bitty lies (I’m a vice president of Indymac Bank and we’re owed $100,000) to big fat whopper lies (I’m an officer of Indymac Bank and I’ve assigned the mortgage to US Bank.)  The attached deposition transcript of Erica A. Johnson Seck illustrates precisely how the fraud occurs and shows how the fraud is ongoing.  If the same questions were asked in every foreclosure case, the same facts would show up in a large majority of foreclosure cases that are currently pending in courts across the state….the person that has signed documents that form the case against the homeowner has absolutely no basis to make the statements or sign the affidavit.  The end result should be a dismissal of all foreclosure cases where these facts are proven.

The deposition is a fascinating read and the entire deposition transcript can be found here.

Click on my website for more information at www.mattweidnerlaw.com

Foreclosures, short sales and deed in lieus of property in Pinellas County was a major issue in 2009. From everything I can see, the problem and issues will be even greater in 2010.  Following are scary numbers about foreclosures in 2009.

Total Number of Foreclosures Filed= 14,212

Total Number of Final Judgments Entered= 3,047

Based on these numbers, there remain more than 11,165 foreclosure cases currently pending from 2009, and based on 2009 rates we’ll be adding at least 1000 more to this number per month.  The number of foreclosures will continue to drag down prices for all real estate in Pinellas County, they will continue to bog down the courts and be a drag on the overall economy.

Three scary points from these numbers:

1)      The 14,000 cases filed represent a fraction of the total number of foreclosures that could be filed based on the delinquency status of borrowers.

2)      The only 3,000 Final Judgments that were entered is only a small fraction of those that could be entered.  Many lenders are purposely not moving for Final Judgment, they’re just sitting on the property, but that backlog in inventory presents many problems going forward.

3)      Of the 3,000 Final Judgments that were entered, only a fraction of that number ended up in the possession of third party purchasers.  Most went back to the lenders, many were cancelled when the borrower filed bankruptcy and in other cases the lenders either worked out an agreement with the homeowner or just didn’t set the sale because they didn’t want possession of the home and the liabilities for taxes, maintenance and insurance.

Of those cases where a Final Judgment was entered

49 were filed before 2006 (a few were filed as long ago as 2002-2003)

468 were filed in 2007

981 were filed in 2008

549 were filed in 2009

Up next, the $786 Bajillion Dollar Question, what’s happening with all these foreclosed properties and where is the crisis going from here?  For more information, contact Matt Weidner at

www.mattweidnerlaw.com

An article in today’s St. Petersburg Times reports that, as discussed in my earlier posts, all residential foreclosure cases will be referred to mediation.  The full article can be found here.