Category: Modification

Foreclosure Dismissed in New York: Statute of Limitations Defense Wins Again

April 28, 2026

This is what happens when the court looks at the timeline instead of just accepting the story. In a recent decision out of Nassau County, New York, the court dismissed a foreclosure action because it was filed too late. Not because of sympathy. Not because of technical tricks. But because the law was applied to the actual timeline. Our team at living lies was hired by a local NY attorney to do a case analysis and we’re proud to announce another win. The statute of limitations had expired—and the bank could not fix it. You can read the court’s decision

TRID may be another easy win for Homeowners

May 5, 2022

since loss mitigation is a statutory condition precedent to foreclosure, there is a failure to comply with the condition that requires loss mitigation exhaustion before pursuing foreclosure, the steamrolling of homeowners is not just wrong, it is also a breach of statutory duty for which the homeowner can seek injunctive relief, damages, and attorney fees. TILA-RESPA integrated disclosures (TRID) is a series of guidelines that dictate what information mortgage lenders need to provide to borrowers and when they must provide it. TRID rules also regulate what fees lenders can charge and how these fees can change as the mortgage matures. But

Homeowners need to understand that they are investors, not borrowers.

January 10, 2022

In nearly all cases that the amount of money paid to a “prior lender” is entirely or mostly fictional in all cases of refinancing and nearly all cases in purchase money mortgages. As long as the same underlying investment bank is the same for both the Buyer and Seller or the same for both the new “Lender” and the old “lender.” * But in cases where the Seller gets money (equity) at least some money is actually produced for closing. And as long as the refinancing produces cash to the homeowner, some money is actually produced at closing. So for

You Can Use This As a Template for How I Would Respond in a Discovery Dispute — Especially with Wells Fargo, Fannie Mae and Wachovia as the Originator

December 14, 2021

In a dispute between the attorney for the homeowner and the attorney for the alleged “lender”, there are a number of devices that are nearly universally applied across the country in order to ridicule and defeat the homeowner. The more you are aware of them, the better you will be prepared to deal with them. Opposing counsel is instructed to accomplish several things (winning being the last of the things on his or her menu). First, the idea is to undermine the confidence of the homeowner and to undermine the confidence of the lawyer for the homeowner in any defense

Magna Bank, N.A. as Trustee for registered holders of certificates issued under the name of the Macandcheese Acquisition Trust, Inc. an inactive corporation, for a nonexistent trust, series 2022-XL-1

December 6, 2021

So a friend of mine left her phone in my car. Here is what I wrote to her: Thank you for leaving your phone in my possession, which as you know is 9/10s of the law. That means that even though you paid for it and you received ownership from the seller, I can now claim it as my property. So by possessing the phone I was able to issue and sell several certificates based upon the possible rental income I would receive from you for access to the phone you already own. * I told the buyers you had scheduled payments

Unilateral Mistake: Equitable Defenses Explained — How homeowners can get the upper hand and defend against enforcement of contract that is different from the one they knew or intended

November 10, 2021

Homeowners are missing out on a huge opportunity for economic gain that balances the power between Wall Street and consumers. Courts of equity are courts of conscience, which should not be shackled by rigid rules of procedure,[51] and inherent in a court’s equitable powers is the authority to prevent injustice engendered by fraud, accident, or mistake.[52] Florida Bar Journal Novembert/December 2021 “Two, Three or Four Prongs? The Contractual Defense of Unilateral mistake in Florida” Second, there is a distinction between the equitable remedies of rescission and reformation that may further blur the lines. The Florida Supreme Court and a few others

About that letter you receive from the company claimed to be your servicer: PennyMac

November 1, 2021

People keep getting letters and they tend to treat the information as real simply because it is in writing. That is the nub of the Wall Street scheme — send out written communication and documents without regard to the truth and people will assume that the document or letter would not have been sent if at least someone didn’t think it was true. SO I was recently sent a copy of a communication that was on PennyMac letterhead. People forget that you can create the letterhead of any company or person and pout it at the top of your document

Modifications Are Part of the Big Lie: Don't send that application for modification if you don't want to waive important rights.

May 7, 2021

The application for modification licenses New Rez aka PHH aka Ocwen to sell, distribute the personal data and transaction data to third parties. Besides the obvious problems with data privacy, this confirms the apparent voluntary participation of the homeowner in a securities scheme that was and still is concealed from the homeowner. By filing the application the homeowner is waiving his right to keep the compensation that was paid for the homeowner’s role in launching the securities scheme or to ask for more compensation. And it creates an assumption of risk by the homeowner that was, is, and always will

Latest Moratorium Extensions Are Two-Edged Sword

January 26, 2021

The new president is facing incoming fire from all directions. If he does not extend the moratorium on foreclosures and evictions, hundreds of thousands of people are going to be homeless. But the extension does not come without costs. https://www.marketplace.org/2021/01/25/biden-acts-on-evictions-foreclosures-but-long-term-housing-crisis-looms/ See also https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/black-knights-first-look-2020-ends-with-1-7-million-more-seriously-delinquent-homeowners-than-at-start-of-year-foreclosures-at-record-low-301211915.html * As you have seen on these pages, I am quite confident that none of the scheduled payments from homeowners are legally due. On the other hand, I am loathe to tell homeowners or tenants that they should withhold payments if they can make them. * The reason is basically extortion or duress. By withholding a scheduled

TONIGHT! Why Lawyers Should Want Foreclosure Defense Cases and What They Are Missing $$$

January 21, 2021

Thursdays LIVE! Click into the Neil Garfield Show Tonight’s Show Hosted by Neil Garfield, Esq. Call in at (347) 850-1260, 6 pm Eastern Thursdays SHARE THIS POST WITH LAWYERS YOU KNOW!!! This show is devoted to convincing the lawyers who will listen that they are missing out on something very profitable and important. Representing homeowners faced with foreclosure papers can and does present an opportunity for large paydays, consistent victories in court, and playing a part in changing the trajectory of home finance in this country and around the world. In 2008 I presented a seminar that provided the essentials of

How and Why to Litigate Foreclosure and Eviction Defenses

December 2, 2020

[contact-form][contact-field label=”Name” type=”name” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Email” type=”email” required=”true” /][contact-field label=”Website” type=”url” /][contact-field label=”Message” type=”textarea” /][/contact-form] Wall Street Transactions with Homeowners Are Not Loans * I think the biggest problem for people understanding the strategies that I have set forth on this blog is that they don’t understand the underlying principles. It simply is incomprehensible to most people how they could get a “loan” and then not owe it. It is even more incomprehensible that there could be no creditor that could enforce any alleged obligation of the homeowner. After all, the homeowner signed a note which by itself creates an

Careful what you say in "Hardship Letter"

October 5, 2020

Modifications are tricky. They are trickier than you think. First of all the offer is made by a company who has no right to act as “servicer” or to change the terms of your contract. By changing the apparent lender or creditor to the named servicer, the agreement is probably tricking you into accepting a virtual creditor in lieu of a real one. But the most important trick is that what they are really looking for is a direct or tacit acknowledgement of the status and ownership of the debt. So if you say that this “servicer” did something or

Thousands of Homeowners Win Against the Banks: Here is Why You Never Hear About It

September 30, 2020

you made all that revenue possible by signing a note and mortgage in favor of someone who was not lending you any money. Nobody told you about that. And nobody told you that you were not entering a transaction in which there was a lender and borrower. There was only a borrower. The simple fact is that the banks are breaking the law every time they attempt to administer, collect or enforce a debt. This is true in all cases where securitization is part of the deal. And securitization is in play 99% of the time even where no mention

Watch that modification agreement. You are being forced to accept a virtual creditor instead of a real one.

September 29, 2020

“Morality is an existential threat to commerce and politics. Although we legislate morality we refuse to enforce it. It is OK to lie to consumers or borrowers but not OK to lie to a financial institution who by the way is lying to you.” Neil F Garfield, October 2009 speech to regional bankruptcy conference in Phoenix Arizona. The proposed modification agreement is an attempt to force or coerce the borrower into accepting a NEW term of the loan agreement that any attorney would advise against, to wit: acceptance of a designated creditor instead of a real one. The transmission of

How did Wall Street make all that money on "securitization."

July 13, 2020

Servicers did not make any advances. They never did and they never will. They said they did but they didn’t. If you read the prospectus carefully you will see that the money from investors is divided into three parts. * The first part is the purchase of a certificate that promises payments to the investor based upon a formula that is independent of any homeowner debt, note or mortgage. It does not commit the Investment Bank to using the funds in any particular way. But the payments are partially indexed on the performance of an arbitrarily chosen group of loans

It's time to reassess the role of investment banks, originators, servicers and other players claiming "securitization" before the next foreclosure tidal wave.

July 10, 2020

Since foreclosures are about to start another meteoric rise, this would be a good time to write a new article on what went wrong the last time, what is going on now, and what is still likely to go wrong this time. * I know that some of the rantings on the internet seem like the spillage of conspiracy theorists and some of them are just that. But overall they are right. * The bottom line is that back in 1993, investment banks latched onto a scheme that had been partially developed by Michael Milken, who went to prison. The new

Moratoriums Extended: That Doesn't Mean You Won't Be Out On the Street Or Living With Relatives

June 9, 2020

Governor Ron DeSantis (R) Florida, issued a new order extending the moratoriums on foreclosures and evictions. * The investment banks on Wall Street like this turn of events because they no longer need to lie orally to homeowners in order to get them to fall behind in payments. Their goal is foreclosure and eviction mostly except for abandoned properties after foreclosure which are called Zombie properties. * Practically everyone who has had an issue with mortgage payments has heard the familiar refrain: “you don’t qualify for a modification because you are not delinquent in your payments. You must be at

The Problem With those Powers of Attorney

April 22, 2020

Just because a power of attorney appears to be facially valid doesn’t mean that it IS facially valid, nor that it is substantively valid. Sign Petition to Change the rules to Protect Homeowners from Fraudclosure. Powers of Attorney are part of the strategy engineered by investment banks on Wall Street. Here is the problem with the POA or LPOA strategy. In summary it is merely part of a larger strategy that seeks to create the illusion of real claims by real parties when in fact no such claim exists and no claimant exists. the claimant never gets the proceeds of

Ocwen Stock Is Riskier Than Investors Know

September 30, 2019

the truth is there for anyone who wants to see it, which means that the entire prospect for Ocwen is that of an actor with only one foot on the edge of a cliff. This article represents the analysis and opinion of the writer. Take no action with consulting a legal and financial adviser. The common stock of Ocwen Loan Servicing is traded actively. The company is backed by the largest banks in the world and its reported income is generally rising. BUT Ocwen has also been positioned by its backers (Goldman, BofA, Citi, etc.) to be thrown under the

SCOTUS Revives Qui Tam Actions

May 22, 2019

Until this decision I had assumed that Qui Tam actions were essentially dead in relation to the mortgage meltdown. Now I don’t think so. The question presented is whether actions brought by a private person acting as a relator on behalf of a government entity can bring claims for damages under the False Claims Act. Such actions are barred by the statute of limitations, which requires a violation to be brought within six years of the violation or three years “after the date when facts material to the right of action are known or reasonably should have been known by

Stop Feeling Guilty — Be A Warrior

April 9, 2019

Shame is the reason why most borrowers don’t contest foreclosures. That shame turns to intense anger when they realize that they were used, screwed, abused and now they are targets in a continuing blitz to embezzle much needed money from their lives and from the financial system generally. The genius behind companies like Citi is… Deception by Branding. “Citi” is not a company, it’s a brand of a conglomerate of companies. Even its subsidiary “Citibank N.A.” is deceptive. First let’s dispel the myth that subsidiaries are equal to their parents. Not true, not even when they are wholly-owned subsidiaries. They

If you think foreclosures are a thing of the past, think again

March 29, 2019

In order to maintain the illusion of legality and an orderly marketplace the banks and their servicers must continue to push foreclosures even if it means going after people who are not actually withholding payments. The legacy of the mortgage meltdown and the brainless government policies that let the banks get away with what they had done, is that the crime not only continues but is being repeated with each new claimed securitization or “resecuritization” of residential loans. As I predicted in 2006, the tidal wave of foreclosures was in fact unprecedented, underestimated and continues to this day. With a

"Lost notes" and the Sudden Appearance of "Original Notes."

March 27, 2019

Think of it this way: If someone wrote you a check for $100, which would you do? (1) make a digital copy of the check and then shred it or (2) take it to the bank? Starting with the era in which banks made what is abundantly clear as false claims of securitization the banks all chose option #1. And they collected incredible sums of money far exceeding the Madoff scam or anything like it. Back in 2008 Katie Porter was a law professor and is now a member of the US House of Representatives. For those of who don’t

Why Regulation is Failing the Mortgage Market

March 26, 2019

A new report from the Federal Reserve Board identifies the central issues confronting regulators — issues that regulators have avoided assiduously. The bottom line is that the FED knows that it lacks accurate information and knows that it is not confirming information given to it by banks who are now all in the background of lending. The real information should be coming from small thinly capitalized private entities that serve as sham conduits for loans. Neither the FED nor any other regulator gets any information on those loans which now account for more than 50% of all loans. This presents