The Gloves are Off!

Unless you're living under a rock, you've heard about the financial collapse and wave after wave of foreclosures all across our country.  A Google search of various words and terms like foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, illegal foreclosure, foreclosure lawsuit, MERS, RESPA, TILA, robo signing, securitization, mortgage backed securities, dual tracking, HAMP, HARP, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, loan modification, force placed insurance, etc. will yield a WEALTH of disturbing information about the amount of fraud and illegal activities banks are getting away with.

Remember those "settlements" we heard so much about where banks were paying millions to homeowners and not admitting any wrong doing?  Most homeowners saw little financial restitution for being victims of fraud and illegal foreclosures and the banks were also able to deduct the majority of those settlement dollars from their taxes as "business expenses" since they were a result of civil and not criminal actions.  Those settlements didn't do jack to punish the fraud and have certainly done nothing to stop it from continuing.

Trust me when I say that not every single person who was or currently is being foreclosed upon is a dead beat expecting to get a free house who bought something they couldn't afford. How do I know?  Simple.

I'm not a deadbeat.
I don't expect to get a free house.
I bought within my means.
I am in foreclosure.

So how did I end up here?  I got laid off. Then my husband got fired and we lost all our remaining income. When I reached out to the servicer asking what would happen if we couldn't make mortgage payments they told me the same illegal thing they have told tens of thousands of people reaching out for help to keep their homes.

We won't help you until you default on your loan

and miss 3 payments.

Yeah, it made NO SENSE to me either.

3 months later (and my credit already trashed by the bank for doing what I was told) I discover a suspect document in public records on the house. So what did I do?  I researched and educated myself and sent not 1 but 2 written requests to have the servicer validate and explain everything which they are legally required to do. The reply I got both times was very fishy. Next thing I know I'm being contacted by their lawyers (many of whom were caught with their hands in the "robo signing cookie jar" and were found to have filed hundreds of illegal foreclosure actions & documents that had to be withdrawn from the local courts). So I ask their lawyers to please validate and explain on behalf of their client. Again the answer was fishy and bam! I was served foreclosure papers about a week before Christmas Day.  Not soon after I retained counsel who smelled "fishy" as I have and here we are today. The gloves are OFF!

What so many people who have never had to defend themselves in this way don't get is just how much these activities actually DO impact them - even if it is subtle. How many vacant, zombie properties are sitting in your neighborhood with overgrown lawns and shrubs bringing down your property values? How difficult was it to get a re-fi on your existing loan or even get a mortgage in the first place after the housing market collapsed? How upside down are you on your house? How hard has it been for you to try and sell your home? How much longer do you have on a predatory loan that will convert in some way soon and make your payments shoot through the roof?

The illegal activities and bullying against homeowners impacts ALL of us, not just those with cases pending in court. What Wells Fargo is doing to me and other homeowners might not be happening to you today and to those who think it will NEVER BE YOU I say this: I never thought it would be me either.