Faces Of Foreclosure

If you decide to dig further yourself, we just found a couple of guides at Amazon.com which are far more reasonably priced than the offers we’ve seen on the internet. We do not have copies and cannot attest to their effectiveness; they are here for information and as options if you, like some of us, are at your wit’s end. Anti-Fraud Risk and Control Workbook by Peter Goldman (Wiley; $42.00). Peter D. Goldmann is founder and President of White-Collar Crime 101 LLC, the parent company of FraudAware and publisher of the monthly newsletter, White-Collar Crime Fighter. He has been the Publisher and Editor of White-Collar Crime Fighter for over twelve years and is recognized as a leading expert in the areas of fraud detection, prevention, investigation, and training. His book includes "basic fraud detection tools and techniques." Forensic Mortgage Loan Audit Software by Forensics Plus ($78.00 new) This sofware purports to audit mortgage loans and uncover violations instantly and supports the findings with laws quoted directly from TILA and RESPA. Hopea vioalations uncovered, APR tests high fee violations all covered by the software. The guide shows you how to conduct a forensic audit with each step is outlined and written. Included with the package are: * Forensic Loan Audit Software-Unlimited Use * Forensic Loan Audit Guide * Forensic Loan Audit Manual * Legal Forms Database If you wish to receive updates on Faces of Foreclosure, please fill in the form below. We will keep you apprised of anything that works (and anything that does not work). Please rest assured that this is confidential; we neither  share nor sell information. * Email First Name Last Name City State   * = Required Field

If you received a home loan between 2001- 2008, a mortgage loan audit may be in order. We are leaning in that direction with our own requests and are researching companies who perform such audits for others.

The #1 goal of a mortgage audit is to determine whether there were violations of federal law.

If these violations are found, then the borrower may be eligible for complete relief of the loan (particularly if it was “predatory” to begin with) or a very favorable loan modification. Complete relief of the mortgage is called as a loan rescission, meaning the lender takes back the “predatory loan” and awards or credits back to the borrower all interest made on payments thus far, loan origination fees, all applicable lenders fees, penalties and attorney’s fees.

Apparently, more than 75% of mortgage loans contain legal errors that may provide defense against foreclosure, enable an aggressive loan modification, reduce your loan balance, or even result in legal action against your lender.

Government laws regarding your mortgage are very strict, yet rarely enforced because you cannot perform the audit yourself, and the lender won’t do it for you–ever! Only a mortgage document audit performed by mortgage industry compliance experts–backed by attorneys–give you the answers you need.

You may want to check for violations of Federal Mortgage Laws prior to accepting a loan modification or refinancing.

Here’s the forensic loan document audit procedure:

1. Interview client and all applicable parties
2. Complete loan document and disclosure review/audit to determine if the loan terms and calculations are accurate, truthful, and met the requirements of the applicable federal statutes. The primary goal is to determine whether there were violations of federal law. If these violations are found, then the borrower may be eligible for complete relief of the predatory loan.
3. Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and Real Estate Settlement & Procedures Act (RESPA)
4. Reverse engineering of your loan terms and Annual Percentage Rate (APR) for possible TILA violations
5. Report with all violations and findings

This can be done by means of a loan modification or a new affordable loan. This allows the borrower to get a new loan with a smaller principal and lower rate, meaning a more affordable mortgage for you the homeowner.

People who may benefit from a mortgage loan audit include:

1. Anyone rejected for a loan modification
2. You believe your mortgage is illegal
3. You can’t refinance your ARM mortgage
4. You need foreclosure defense

After completing a forensic document audit, the most common option is to mediate the loan with your lender and fight for an affordable loan modification based on the legal violations on the loan. This is a win-win situation: The homeowner has their loan fixed and may have their principle balance may be reduced also. The lender does not lose their shirt because they have mediated the matter without employing their full legal staff on the file.

Another note of caution:

Mortgage lenders who were sloppy with important paperwork in the hey-day of the housing boom are now turning to questionable practices to clean up their mess so they can foreclose on homeowners. It all stems from the lenders inability to “produce the note” when they try to take someone’s home.

To get around the break-down in paperwork, these companies hire people to be “fake” Vice Presidents to sign documents from one company to another, so a foreclosure can proceed. The St. Petersburg Times exposed the practice in an investigative report, in which they interview CWN founder Chris Hoyer.

From the St. Petersburg Times, Florida:

Companies help lenders transfer home loans to foreclose
By Susan Taylor Martin, St. Pete Times Senior Correspondent
Sunday, May 3, 2009

PALM HARBOR

Despite the turmoil in the lending industry, Bryan Bly seems to have no trouble finding a job.

On Aug. 3, 2007, Bly signed a document as vice president of Option One Mortgage.

On Feb. 13, 2009, Bly signed a document as vice president of Deutsche Bank.

And on Feb. 18, 2009, Bly initialed dozens of documents – this time as vice president of Citi Residential Lending.

In fact, Bly never worked for any of those. His real employer is Nationwide Title Clearing, a Pinellas County company that helps lenders clean up problems that can complicate efforts to foreclose.

Bly, who lives in a Clearwater trailer park, is one of several Nationwide employees authorized by lenders to sign as “vice president” in assigning loans from one company to another. Assignments are key in determining who actually owns the loan, an issue that has become all-important as banks foreclose on millions of loans that were bundled into securities and sold to investors.

Nationwide says the assignments and other services it handles for lenders help ensure everything is legal and above board if they sell a loan or need to foreclose.

“We’re pretty much sticklers that what we put in the record is legitimate,” says Jeremy Pomerantz, a Nationwide spokesman.

Critics, though, say that Bryan Bly and “vice presidents” like him at similar companies are part of an assembly-line process designed to resolve a big problem: In the rush to “flip” loans as fast as possible in order to make more money, the new loan holders often failed to get the proper paperwork showing they owned the loan and had the right to foreclose.

“The problem is that when lenders foreclose, they have to have all their ducks in a row,” says Rob Napolitano, a New Jersey mortgage expert. “They’re trying to doctor up these assignments in order to create an ownership trail that didn’t exist in the first place.”

Tags: forensic document audits

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 9:06 pm and is filed under in the news, proposed solutions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.