What Are They Looking For In The Foreclosure Reviews?

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EDITOR’S COMMENT: Not sure if this is a new voice or just someone I missed. You should follow the blog entries of this author. The author strongly advises sending a Qualified Written Request before you send your request for a review. I agree with him or her. The more information you have, the more information you have requested, the harder it will be for them to wiggle out of the corner they have painted themselves into. Those homeowners who don’t bear down on these Banks and servicers will get the same treatment they always have —short shrift.

After you contact the Independent Foreclosure Review office, and request your Review package, you will respond to the questions and compile your documents.  Consumer watchdog propublica.org  has an indepth article on the upcoming foreclosure reviews.   To begin your review process, you will receive a Notice and a Request For Review.  Based on the questions posed, we get a glimpse of what information will be reviewed to determine whether you have suffered financial injury that is entitled to remediation.

What Is Remediation?

Defined as the action of remedying something, in essence it is making up for losses, or  putting you back to the position you were in before the wrongful act.  What your remedy will be will depend on your personal circumstances.  Generally, foreclosure cases will involve one of these fact situations:

• If your property was wrongfully foreclosed on and it was sold to a third party who now owns the property your remedy will most likely be financial compensation.  It is unlikely that you will ever recover a property that was sold to a third party.
• If your property was wrongfully foreclosed on and it was not sold to a third party, and it is still owned by the bank or trust, you may be able to negotiate a loan modification or other restructuring to recover the property.
• If your property was not sold at foreclosure, but you have incurred unnecessary financial loss in making efforts to keep your home, your compensation could include all sums you expended in that effort.
• If you were given a temporary loan modification and made payments according to the agreement and were foreclosed on, your compensation could include repayment of the temporary payments that you made with the understanding that you would receive a permanent modification.
• If your loan account includes erroneous charges and fees, you should be able to recover those improper fees.

Obtaining the form

Calling the 800 number to obtain the form proved to be as enjoyable as the loan modification process.  The first employee didn’t know much, and was just an initial screener.  Apparently if you can’t identify a loan number and servicer to determine whether you fall into the two year eligible time frame, they will not send a package.  They try to encourage you to wait until you get a letter, which they claim will be sometime before December 31, 2011.  If you insist, they take your information and represent that a package will be out in 7-10 business day.  Waiting.  In the interim, here is a brief analysis of the form obtained by www.propublica.com

Request For Foreclosure Review–13 Questions

1.  After providing identifying information, you will be asked to confirm that your property was your primary residence.  No investment properties or commercial properties will be considered regardless of how many rules were broken in the foreclosure of those properties.

2.  Were you in bankruptcy when your foreclosure went forward?  If the answer to this question is yes, clearly the servicer violated state and federal bankruptcy law, but it is not indicated how the OCC will compensate you for this.   If you were in bankruptcy, the automatic stay prohibits the servicer from selling your property while you were under the protection of the bankruptcy laws.  If your property was sold in violation of bankruptcy laws, your compensation could be based on what your would recover for a violation of a bankruptcy stay in your state.

3.  Do you believe that the mortgage balance amount at the time of the foreclosure action was more than the amount you actually owed on the mortgage?  This question is intended to determine whether your servicer made errors in calculating your loan balance, and as a result of their mistake, you could not make the payments which led to a foreclosure.  It is unlikely that this question is seeking to compensate your for small errors that did not affect your ability to pay, i.e. a $14 property preservation charge that was inappropriate.

4.  Do you believe that the foreclosure action was pursued because your mortgage payments were inaccurately processed or applied?  Many homeowners have attempted to make mortgage payments that were not properly applied, or erroneously returned.  This is going to require an analysis of your loan history.

5.  Do you believe you were protected by an insurance policy issued by the servicer or an affiliate that would have made your payments in the event of unemployment, disability or illness, but did not do so?

6.  Did you attempt through the court to have the decision to foreclose on your home reversed?  It is unclear why the OCC is asking for this information.  Hopefully it is not to penalize you or to conclude that your foreclosure was in fact proper if a court held that it was.  Many homeowners did not have the assistance of competent counsel to fight foreclosure actions.

7.  Do you believe you provided all the necessary documents required to obtain payment assistance or a mortgage modification before the foreclosure action occurred?  This question is directed to those homeowners who were in loan modification hell–provided all documentation requested by servicers repeatedly and continuously followed up with servicers by phone and by mail only to be given false information.

8.  Was a deficiency judgment obtained against you for an amount that included money that you should have not been required to pay?

9.  Do you believe you were making on time monthly payments in the required dollar amount on your mortgage, or an approved loan modification, trial modification or payment plan, and yet the foreclosure action still occurred?

10.  Do you believe you were denied a modification when you were qualified under the applicable program rules?  This question is directed to those homeowners who believe that they were qualified for the HAMP program, and were wrongfully denied.  Often, servicers incompetently entered data into the NPV calculator and this resulted in improper denials of HAMP modifications.  In regard to servicer programs, it is more difficult to determine whether homeowners were wrongfully denied since their guidelines are not as public as the HAMP guidelines.

11.  Do you believe you paid fees or charges that you should have not been required to pay in addition to your normally scheduled principal, interest, taxes, and insurance payments?

12.  Did you or a co-borrower have your mortgage loan before active duty military service began?

13.  Describe any other way in which you believe you may have been financially injured as a result of the mortgage foreclosure process.  This is the category that permits you to make arguments pertaining to losses that are not included in questions 1-12.  This question needs to be throughly researched and documented.

BUYERS BEWARE

The information regarding the Foreclosure Review process has only been in the blogosphere for 3 days, and the scammer and lawyer wannabe websites are proliferating.  Everyone has an opinion, even if it is uninformed and misleading.  The non attorney bloggers typically vehemently disclose that they are not lawyers and proceed to interpret the law and  give legal advice either online or on the phone while denying that they are giving legal advice.  Don’t take legal advice from anyone who isn’t a lawyer that you have checked out on the state bar website.

In regard to the products being offered to help you with the foreclosure process, my suggestion is that you don’t buy anything from anyone selling unless is is a lawyer you are hiring to prepare your package for you.  Many are trying to sell reports–these reports alone are not helpful to your case.  Many individuals purchased forensic audits, securitzation audits, pre-prepared complaints, and expected that sending these reports to the servicer would shock and awe them into doing the right thing.  Unfortunately, the AG and the FTC have opined that forensic audits are scams.  I have had many clients contact me with reports that they have spend thousands of dollars on that are useless.  If I order these reports in conjunction with my handling of a client’s case, I order the review from authorities that I trust to give me the information we need.

Tags: bankruptcy, borrower, countrywide, disclosure, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure offense, foreclosures, fraud, LOAN MODIFICATION, modification, OCC REVIEW, quiet title, QWR, rescission, RESPA, securitization, TILA audit, trustee, WEISBAND
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