It was also started with the hope that one or more of my favorite crime shows would pick up stories and air them as a “Queen For A Day” fundraiser for families . . . you know: “Save A Home Today” by voting for the family you think needs/deserves the most help. TV and movies have the power to help people through these messes. Incredible TV episodes and movies HAVE been aired addressing lending fraud, but none, that I know of, have directly helped anyone with their mortgage mess. TV spends far more time playing with bachelors and hoarders.

I’m 2.5 years into working to save my home from foreclosure. After two years of battle, and an 8-inch thick 20 pound binder, I was accidentally given a 5-year loan modification.

“Accidental” meaning that after all paperwork was signed, my lender tried to rescind the offer. I took the paperwork to an attorney; he supported my premise that it was a legal and binding document. The lender wiggled but I do have a modification.

Since I seem to have some breathing room, I thought I would take time to give you some notes on what I did to survive this nightmare of fraudulent forbearance agreements and fear of foreclosure during forbearance periods, which is NOT uncommon.

I wrote my way through cancer, so I am writing my way through this, along with volunteering with Marin Family Action to help others save their homes.

When I was laid off from my real estate marketing job in 2009, my life became an ongoing attempt to control my own thoughts and fear so I would not go crazy; volunteering and trying to help others made a huge difference in maintaining balance; I was not alone by a long shot.

Years ago, during drug experimental days in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury, a friend suggested I could stay balanced with classes and tapes of Yoga. He was serious. I started classes which kept me fit and out of psychological trouble through renewed strength and a sense of peace. Of course, given that I’m from San Francisco, we also joined Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation crew and practiced Zen meditation for hours on end. All of this stuff works!

Because I could not get work after 40 years of full time employment, I had to retrain myself in something. I happen to like computers and working from home, so I opted for Starting and Operate My Own Home-Based Business by taking online courses. I couldn’t afford to attend school. Because of the Internet, online learning is easier to do now than ever.

For any business, you need to know Marketing on a Shoestring.

If you have a family and can’t leave home, or don’t have the funds to take courses outside of your home, consider online learning. Online learning does work and during these times you may have to reinvent yourself. Dust off your dreams; see if you can put together a future that is appealing rather than frightening.

A note of caution, please consider carefully, especially if your dream career is photography. Yes, it is a seemingly “romantic” career path. It is also an extremely difficult one because everyone with a tiny camera or cell phone is shooting these days. If you don’t need income (and I’m assuming you wouldn’t be on this site if you don’t), this is a rough road.

I was a professional photographer and won a couple of awards; however, my daughter, who is a banker, has an exceptional eye for composition. Shots from her cell phone often equal or exceed what I take with my “professional” cameras. (The photo above right was taken with her cell in a very dark chapel in Greece.) Photography, like Web design, carpentry, database administrator, accountant, etc. takes a great deal of skill. None of those skills are random.

That link up there will also take you to business classes; if you have never taken, say, a financial planning course or never developed a business plan for a start-up, I highly recommend either or both. They will serve you well no matter what you do in life.

No matter what you decide to do, ALWAYS have a Plan B, a way out. For years, my car was stocked with a year’s supply of basics;  in my case that included a tent, sleeping bag, backpacking stove change of clothes, flares, first aid kit, etc. It came in part from being a camper, but beyond camping that stuff came in handy repeatedly. It also gave me a strange sense of freedom, as in “I don’t need these people.” And in the case of America’s lenders, that is how I feel. On a brighter side, if I decided I wanted to stay in a coastal campground at a moment’s notice, I could.

My goal when I bought my home in 2006 was to figure out a way to pay off my home within five years; due to illness and job loss I was thrown off track, but I’m getting back on that track now. This link takes you to 900+ products to help you with your emergency preparedness and I truly hope some of this works for you to give you peace of mind as you Battle the Banks.

I will be writing more about what is helping me and others get through this and, again, I hope this helps you find ways to stay calm and WIN!

No matter what your situation in life, always stay on top of your credit. Poor credit will affect everything you do and everything you buy on time, whether it’s a house, car, refrigerator, computer, will cost you more. If you do not know how to handle this yourself, click through to Lexington Law Firm to Clean Up Your Credit Report. Before I started paying strict attention to my credit reports, I had a home loan at 12% at a time when it should have been 7%. I sold that house thinking the payments were too high when all I had to do was reduce the interest by getting my credit report cleared!

I read everything I could find, including Rich Dad’s Advisors®: The Abc’s Of Getting Out Of Debt: Turn Bad Debt Into Good Debt And Bad Credit Into Good Credit and Perfect Credit: 7 Steps To A Great Credit Rating starting in the year 2000. Each book got me closer to living debt free and I was so good at it prior to our current financial crises that I was able to travel to 24 countries around the world.

Because Wall Street caused our current Mortgage and credit crisis, in part due to our lack of their deep financial machinations, many of us are having to climb out yet again. My earlier reading provided knowledge that I would in fact climb out and I’m against just about there. You can get out of debt and stay out of debt with almost any of these books, including The Everything Improve Your Credit Book

You hired Randy Shilts to cover gays a couple of decades ago when that was a hot topic.

Millions of hard-working people are being displaced . . . the very people who were your subscribers through the decades.

What about hiring or consulting with someone who has been in the midst of the mortgage mess?

Covering this from reality, instead of inane quotes from self-interested lenders, could increase your readership. Type in “Wells Fargo Mortgage complaints.” Result: 33,800 items; Type in “Bank of America Mortgage complaints.” THREE. Yes. THREE.

Of course, you COULD just be practical and focus on that bottom line since many of us WILL lose our homes. Perhaps Tom Stienstra could do a story on just what gear you will need to live under one of the Bay Area’s freeways. Advertisers: REI, LL Bean, North Face, Kaplan’s (are they still around?)

I’ve nothing better to do until Wells Fargo decides whether or not I have a home. As we are more than 330 days into that, I’m avoiding holding my breath. I have been trying for a remod since December 2008 with that lender. The word “inept” is paramount, immediately followed by “white collar crooks.”

Wells Fargo’s definition of “helping,” must mean “corresponding without resolution.” Wells Fargo’s new campaign: “We are here for you.” Really? Define “here.”

I have five typed pages, single spaced, 12 pt. Calibri of who said what to whom on what date. Haven’t yet talked with the same person twice. One week a letter arrives indicating “we can help,” followed a couple weeks later by a request for more paperwork (’cause they lost earlier submissions), followed by a rep saying “Uh, well, no, the note holders do not want to negotiate” followed by a letter or call that indicates they are “considering my request.” Initially I deemed Wells execs crooked. Now I think they are staggeringly inept on top of being larcenous. There is no indication that Wells knows what they are doing. And they sure as hell are “not here for you” or me or anyone. I’m trying to not “hate” them because it is such a negative emotion and causes “dis-ease.” However, I think I am losing that battle.

Check www.MarinFamilyAction.com. They just might feret out Marin’s white collar thieves in this mortgage mess and have just filed a report with the District Attorney on one questionable group. “Insider trading” seems to have a lot as to who gets what.
Want a duplex in Tiburon worth about $2.5 million for less than $1 million? Might be on the market soon due to lies and subterfuge. I’m serious. This all sounds nuts. Actually, it is nuts. But it is also true.

Hello to everybody. I miss The Chronicle every day and hope you are all well.

Oh, one more thing . . . this from the National Association of Realtors to Realtors:

“You help to stabilize the community, and without homeownership, there can be no stability in communities,” Stevens said. “Together, we must never let overexuberance overtake the housing market again, and interrupt the housing market and the lives of untold millions of Americans. Our goal must be nothing less than to craft a solid, sustainable housing market, a market with a secure foundation for the future.”

Is this before or after writing off the current millions of men, women, children, dogs, cats, etc. who are about to lose their homes? Just asking.

SANTA ANA – The State Bar announced Wednesday that four Southern California lawyers accused of cheating homeowners seeking mortgage modifications have given up their bar licenses, while three more lawyers are close to losing theirs.

The bar made the announcement in its fourth press release in as many months about its efforts to protect consumers from lawyers who take money from homeowners in trouble but then do little or nothing to help stave off foreclosures.

In a highly unusual move criticized by defense attorneys, the bar last month named 16 lawyers it has under investigation for loan-modification scams. Usually, the bar only can identify lawyers in trouble after it has filed formal charges.

In response to the huge number of consumer complaints, the State Bar set up a special task force of five lawyers and eight investigators in its Los Angeles office to look into mortgage modification scams, according to its chief, Suzan Anderson. The task force currently is looking into 738 complaints involving about 200 lawyers, according to Wednesday’s press statement.

Those lawyers who resigned recently are Cameron Edwards, 29, of the Alliance Law Center in San Diego; Ronald Rodis, 45, of Rodis Law Group and America’s Law Group in Newport Beach; and Jeffrey Nemerofsky, 51, of U.S. Advocacy Law Group and U.S. Financial Products, in Laguna Niguel.

The fourth lawyer, James Parsa, 44, “has advertised heavily throughout California for the past several months, offering to help homeowners facing foreclosure,” according to the bar. But Parsa resigned when the bar discovered that he had not reported to the bar his two misdemeanors convictions for sex with an underage girl in 2001.
Other lawyers identified in the bar’s latest news release include Christopher L. Diener, 41, of the Diener Law Group and Home Relief Services in Irvine. The State Bar put Diener on inactive status involuntarily on Oct. 9. He is also being sued by the state attorney general’s office in Orange County Superior Court for allegedly bilking thousands of homeowners out of thousands of dollars each. People v. Home Relief Services, 30-2009-00125949-CU-MC-CJC (Orange Super., filed July 13, 2009)

The bar said it also is seeking to force two more lawyers into inactive status, Paul Lucas, 48, of Lucas Law Center in Aliso Viejo, and Sean Rutledge, 34, of United Law Group in Irvine.

Rutledge is scheduled for a hearing in the State Bar Court in Los Angeles on Friday, but he was recently injured in a serious motorcycle accident, according a colleague and a State Bar prosecutor.
None of the lawyers named in the bar’s release could be reached Wednesday.

However, Rodis on Wednesday referred questions to an attorney, Nancy C. Eng of Darling & Risbrough in Los Angeles, who represents Rodis in a suit by the FTC. Eng would not discuss her client or ongoing litigation.

Paul J. Lucas of Aliso Viejo, did speak earlier in the week.
Besides action from the State Bar, Lucas, 48, founder of Lucas Law Center, is being sued by the Federal Trade Commission. In interviews Monday and Tuesday, Lucas said that his company obtained mortgage modifications for close to 500 homeowners.

Accusations against him are “heavy-handed and politically motivated,” Lucas said. “You can’t beat them,” he added about the FTC.

I am 62 and have owned an over-the-water duplex in Marin County for 13 years. In 2007, I contracted a staph infection in my knee after an arthroscopic surgery at St. Francis hospital. The infection required an additional 4 surgeries to rid the infection, followed by a total knee replacement. I was bedridden for nearly six months followed by six months of rehab.

At the same time I became ill, my neg-am adjustable loan reset, and my mortgage payment tripled virtually with no notice. The bank, at that time IndyMac, and later OneWest, would not negotiate with me at all.

They filed an NOD, and followed with NOS with a sale date in Mid-March. I filed a Chapter 7 the day before the sale. The bank then filed for relief of stay, and submitted an erroneous appraisal to convince the court that there was no equity and therefore they should be allowed to proceed with the sale.

The appraisal was for a 4bd/2ba 2200 sqft property. Mine is a 6bd/4ba 3045sqft property. I advised the Trustee as to the bogus appraisal, but somehow, they approved the relief of stay – BUT only giving them permission to refile an NOD, followed by another NOS – specifically to allow me time (about 4 mos)to sell the property.

Without anyone’s knowledge, and none of the required filings, the bank sold the property for $1.0M. It had appraised in 2007 for $2.7M and the Trustee signed a listing agreement at $2.8M. We appealed the sale, but the Judge decreed that the buyer was in good faith, the sale would stand, and I could recover my losses from the bank.

In the meantime, I have been evicted – out of here by Monday. The trustee also seized my ’57 T-Bird that my Dad bought new, and a 30′ Catalina sailboat that I have owned for 28 years, as now I have no equity and no cash.

The law firm representing the bank has acknowledged misleading the Trustee, and all of these errors are well documented.

To add insult to injury, the property was then sold for $300,000 to a local company . . . sounds like money laundering. We have tried locating the company purchasing these homes at these low costs to little avail; they are flying under the radar, but we will scope them out. This is especially questionable because the area in question has dropped little in value; it is desirable on the world market.

A group in Marin County is behind this gentleman and is encoraging him to file a complaint with his local District Attorney’s office, which he will do if we have to drive him there!

The same group that purchased the above-mentioned home also purchased a home for $387,680 and is now offering it around $200,000 at a foreclosure auction on the assumption that it will create a buying frenzy.

By retreating to outsider angst the left forgets one of the most exciting lessons of the Obama campaign: that ordinary people working for common purpose wield tremendous power. For those of us who work for our income and have modest means, it was unbelievable to watch ourselves become donors to a political campaign and find that those donations made a difference.

On Sunday, October 18, from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. amazing stories were told by people who got their home loan restructured right then and there. Bank of America was dramatically coming through for people — 30 years fixed at 2-3%, mortgage money owed put at the back of the loan, back-taxes taken care of . . . Many of the loans were $500-$1200 LOWER than they were when the person showed up at the doors.

If you have hit a rough time in your life and need help to save your home, consider attending one of their “Save the Home” sessions, or at review their website to see if you qualify. (It does have to be your principal residence, not investment property, and you do have to have income from other than unemployment.)

“Save the Dream” days are grueling, but well worth it. You will see that you are in a very big boat with thousands of very fine other working people in the room. NACA’s staff is extraordinary and phenomenally hardworking. Everyone was impressed with how wonderful NACA’s crew is — about 100 volunteers and about 250 loan counsellors lined up at banks of computers for 14-18 hour days to help people.

Drill is:

1. Fill out forms on line at NACA’s site. Bring all of your papers with you to their meeting(s), especially updated financial information, current paystubs, copy of mortgage billing (including your second, if you have one). They have it all on file, but bring it anyway as it makes it easier for everyone. Bring a book to read. (One woman made substantial headway on the baby blanket she was knitting for her nephew.)
2. Get to the meeting site about 5-6 a.m. (the later you arrive, the longer you will be there as the lines do grow fast). You will stand in line waiting for doors to open. I showed up at 10 a.m. and that was a big mistake; while I did not wait in line because everyone was already inside, it was so late in the day that and I almost didn’t get to see a counsellor; I didn’t get to see a banker at all and have to go back (at 5-6 a.m. and stand in line).
3. Once you are in the doors, you will have to attend a counselling workshop. This process takes 2-3 hours. If you have attended a NACA workhsop already, this is exactly the same, but you will need to do this again to get a voucher.
4. After the workshop, you sit and wait and wait and wait. The food concessions at the Cow Palace were open, but it’s expensive and not healthy food — all fatty and mostly fried — no fruits or vegetables. Because the day is so long, I recommend taking fresh fruit, water and maybe a sandwich to keep you healthy.
5. It is extremely well-organized by section. NACA’s volunteers keep you apprised of the wait time as best they can, but, again, it is a very long day. Quite a few families brought their children; if that can be avoided, I would advise so doing. It’s too much to ask a toddler to sit for 12-14 hours. A close friend just had a heart attack and wanted to go with me because she will now need help for several months; this would have been a disasterous mistake.

While you are waiting, families who have received a solution relate their stories. The stories brought tears to my eyes repeatedly. Losing a loved one is the only thing worse than losing your home. Owning a home is the American Dream; NACA is trying to keep that dream true . . . thus the name “Saving the Dream.”

• A woman’s home was not only saved, her loan went from nearly 11% to 2% fixed for 30 years. Her payments dropped by about $1500/month. (Assistance is based on ability to maintain. The goal is to KEEP you in your home.) Her parting words: “God is good if you believe. Keep trying!”
• One man said his family had actually completely lost their home, had moved out, the home sat empty on the market. His family got their home back on Saturday!
• Wonderful young couple from Las Vegas with three children had been trying to get help for months. In addition to the long drive to San Francisco, they waited three days to get through the process. Their mortgage was reduced by about a thousand dollars a month.

Talked to all kinds of people around me: Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese), Indian (from Fiji and they’d never seen India, which I thought interesting), black families, Hispanic families, Samoan, Armenian (truly — they needed a translator), Vietnamese and those of us defined as “White.” It reminded me of what Ellis Island must have been like with the huddled masses waiting in huge rooms praying for a new life. NACA is giving new life.

This gathering comes at a time when I am researching information on DNA; just yesterday, I attended a geneaology workshop. Until a new theory is proven (if there be a new theory), we all came out of Africa through migratory paths through Asia, Europe and points south; and we can be traced back to Africa through our DNA. I bring this up because I read many blogs attempting to segment people facing financial hardships as “the other,” “those that did something wrong,” “not us.” Guess again. We are all “us.” I hope the people waiting in the room at NACA also realize how alike we all are, take that home with them, and greet their multi-colored, multi-cultural neighbors in a new way.

There is so much proof of our inter-connectedness. Consider the similarities of world art. Years ago, the Russian author Dmitrii Nagishkin wrote Folktales of the Amur: Stories from the Russian Far East. It is beautifully illustrated with images that clearly point out the mixing of cultures, including the East, Far East, Native Americans and down into South America.

NACA, for those who don’t know, was started by Bruce Marks in Boston about ten years ago. It is extraordinary what ONE person can do. We’ve seen the dark side of the carnage created by people like Bernie Madoff and his ilk; here is a bright side. What Marks is doing is akin to what Martin Luther King did. Mr. Marks is levelling the playing field. He is ignoring the rules, ignoring the larceny which surrounds us, and creating a new dream for people . . . or recreating the dream of home ownership at a time in America when millions of people have been thrown out of their homes.

On those blogs I mentioned above, many insist that “it is the families’ fault.” Has anyone figured the odds of 4 million families (10 million people) all making the same mistake.

Many of us met with counsellors at 10 p.m. Because bank reps had gone home around 9 p.m., we have to go back Tuesday as early as possible.

Very tiring, but also exhilirating due to amazing heartwarming stories of people who got excellent help on the spot. Most larger banks were on site. FYI, Wachovia (now owned by Wells) isn’t negotiating at all yet — they are waiting for an Obama Plan in November.

Poor Wells Fargo. Not only are they incapable of working with federal funds to help restructure home loans, they have absolutely NO control over their employees. No one at the bank seems to know what the person next to them is doing . . . and few at Wells Fargo seems to like/respect their employer. I wonder why?

The story: Up until two years ago, Elizabeth Jacobson was the top producing loan officer in the subprime division at Wells Fargo. Today she is speaking out against the practices of her former company.

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

Earlier this summer, she filed a sworn affidavit with a federal court in support of the city of Baltimore’s lawsuit against Wells Fargo for pushing high-interest, subprime loans onto African Americans in Baltimore and the Maryland suburbs, leading hundreds into foreclosure. “We just went right after them,” said Ms. Jacobson, who is white and said she was once the bank’s top-producing subprime loan officer nationally. “Wells Fargo mortgage had an emerging-markets unit that specifically targeted black churches, because it figured church leaders had a lot of influence and could convince congregants to take out subprime loans” . . . Wells Fargo, Ms. Jacobson said in an interview, saw the black community as fertile ground for subprime mortgages, as working-class blacks were hungry to be a part of the nation’s home-owning mania. Loan officers, she said, pushed customers who could have qualified for prime loans into subprime mortgages.

(Note: This happened also to Hispanic families — not necessarily through Wells Fargo Bank but often, sadly, from relatives new to the mortgage industry who talked them into neg am loans when the family could have qualified for a conventional loan. A friend who works at an ethical and responsible bank (unlike Wells Fargo) has been working with those families to get them new loans at reasonable rates and help save their homes.)

In a recent interview with Democracy Now!, Wells Fargo whistleblower and ex-subprime loan officer and sales manager Elizabeth Jacobson speaks out on some of the predatory lending practices allegedly engaged in by her former employer.

1. On the incentives for Wells Fargo loan officers to allegedly bulldoze every would-be borrower into a subprime loan:
   • I was at Wells Fargo for nine years, and I originated loans. Wells Fargo had two separate divisions: the prime division and the subprime division. And you could not originate prime loans if you were in the subprime division. So that’s what I did for nine years at Wells Fargo, is originate the subprime loans.
   • In the beginning years at Wells Fargo when I started, there was no filter system. So, if you had somebody come into your office and you could sell them a subprime loan, even if they qualified for a prime loan, that’s what you did. The compensation worked out that you had a huge incentive to put people into a subprime loan. Even the prime loan officers would make as much money on a [...] subprime loan, referring it over to the subprime division, that they would make doing a prime loan. So there was an incentive for the prime loan officers to refer the business to the subprime side.
2. On her company training putting borrowers into exploding adjustable rate mortgages:
   • Well, when I was hired by Wells Fargo, I had never worked in the mortgage industry at all. I had been a paralegal. So I took everything that Wells Fargo was telling me, that this is the way things were done. I didn’t question the fact that we were putting people in a 55 percent debt-to-income ratio and that we were only qualifying them based on the two years at the lower interest rate. The whole goal was, every two years you’re going to refinance that loan. So, it was sold as a two-year loan. These people were never intended to be in the loan for thirty years.
3. On her experience on the question of allegedly seeking the assistance of African American churches in Baltimore to target their members for subprime loans:
   • A lot of this was information that I would receive on conference calls as a sales manager. And people on the call, the management there, would encourage the loan officers, the subprime loan officers, to go into Baltimore city and target the churches, the African American churches, to get a relationship going with the minister or the reverend at the church and try to get that person to schedule some sort of meeting. They would call it a “wealth-building seminar” to get the parishioners of the church to attend. And any loan that was funded by Wells Fargo, whether a purchase or a refinance, $350 would then be donated to the church. And so, that was the incentive for the church to want to have these seminars there.
   • But what would happen is the only loan officers that would attend these seminars were generally the subprime loan officers. And on these conference calls, at one point, somebody made a joke who happened to be a white loan officer and said, “Well, will I be able to go to these seminars?” And they were told right there on the conference call, unless you were of color, you could not attend these conferences, these wealth-building conferences. So it seemed me—Wells Fargo didn’t come right out and say this; this is just what I saw—is that they wanted the African American Wells Fargo loan officers to sell loans to the African American community.
4. On her resignation from her position as sales manager and top producer in the subprime division at Wells Fargo (originating approximately $55 million a year in subprime loans):
   • I happened to see a news report with the CFO of Wells Fargo, and he was questioned about the subprime division and denied at that point that Wells Fargo even had a subprime division. So here he is, the chief financial officer, where the subprime loans were supposed to be paying for the fixed costs of the company, and he’s denying that Wells Fargo even did subprime loans. That was just the final straw of total disillusionment, and then I put my resignation in.

From the New York Times: “They confirm our worst fears: that this is not just a case based on a review of numbers and a statistical analysis,” said the city solicitor, George Nilson. “You don’t have to scratch your head and wonder if maybe this was just an accident. The behavior is pretty explicit.”

From June 6, 2009 New York Times: “As she describes it, Beth Jacobson and her fellow loan officers at Wells Fargo Bank ‘rode the stagecoach from hell’ for a decade, systematically singling out blacks in Baltimore and suburban Maryland for high-interest subprime mortgages. These loan, Baltimore officials have claimed in a federal lawsuit against Wells Fargo, tipped hundreds of homeowners into foreclosure and cost the city tens of millions of dollars in taxes and city services.”

The foreclosure paradox: Foreclosures breed foreclosures. Cutting you a deal to keep you in your home is a win-win-win, the lender would keep getting payments, the housing market and the economy might begin to recover.

Who is harmed by the lenders’ hideous actions:

REV. ALMALENE “EMILY” WADE: I’m homeless. And it’s just hard. It’s a struggle. It’s devastating. It’s upsetting. It’s unbelievable. But it’s real. I don’t have a home anymore, and I’ll never forget this as long as I live.

This is a house that I grew up in most of my life. I came here in 1961 with my mother and my father. I’ve been here a lifetime. And I went to school here. I went to junior high school, went to high school, went to college. And we used to have a church next door, and the neighborhood was just home. This was just home.

I wanted to do assisted living here. I wanted to help people. And the property wasn’t in the proper condition that it needed to be, so I was advised to take the equity out of the property, some of the equity, and do a loan and start my project that way.

The loan was for $28,000. It’s really sad that all of this was lost over $28,000. The monthly payments was close to like $300 a month, but I was on a fixed income, and it was just—it just got to be too much. Wells Fargo was the mortgage servicer, and that’s who serviced my loan and who I got the loan through. I really, at that particular time, didn’t know all the ins and out of a mortgage loan. I just took it by faith that I was going to be OK.

You’re trusting your mortgage broker. You’re trusting the settlement people. You’re trusting the bank. And what else can you do? You really don’t have a clue. You’re just happy to have someone say, “Yes, we will finance you. Yes, you are approved. Yes, you can go to settlement.”

Published: Friday, 4 Sep 2009
4:17 PM ET By: John Collins Rudolf
The New York Times

THE FORECLOSURE SECRETS GUIDE I apologize going into this because the link takes you to one of those ugly pitch pages AND because I think this PDF publication is overpriced at $197 (or $67 through mid-November). And I shouldn’t say this, but it is also poorly written . . . but the techniques apparently work and it IS a low price if it helps save your home. I saw a piece in action during a Visit to the Sheriff’s Office and I will let you know next week if this helped save Dennis’ home. If you can get through more battling, this may help you save your house. I added the book to the site immediately following a response from a realtor who wrote saying that the bank did not disclose how they applied her late fees. Apparently you have the right to a full disclosure of how fees are applied AND you have the right to ask for ALL of the original documents so that you actually know who owns your house. If we do not fight back. this inept and/or illegal behaviour will continue! The Foreclosure Secrets Guide contains: Ways to negotiate Workout proposals Foreclosure (including links to “Foreclosure Laws by State” and “Foreclosure Procedures by State.” These are crucial for you to know as they can help save your home because many lenders are NOT following the rules and are therefore in default. Legal Defenses of a Borrower. MOST IMPORTANT, i.e. things lenders don’t want you to know, letters requesting validation of debt, FTC and HUD compaints . . . Difference between mortgage and deed of trust

Bobbi Giguere had no luck in securing a loan modification from her mortgage servicer, Wells Fargo. For months, she had sent the bank the financial documents it requested to process her modification. But each time she called to check on the request, she was told to send her paperwork again. “I submitted the paperwork three times, and nothing happened,” said Mrs. Giguere, 41, who has a high school education and worked as restaurant manager before losing her job.

On Thursday, something happened. She questioned a Wells Fargo official about the bank’s lack of response — under oath.

The spectacle of a high-ranking banking executive being grilled by an ordinary homeowner was the result of an unusual decision by Judge Randolph J. Haines of the United States Bankruptcy Court to summon a senior executive from Wells Fargo to appear in Mrs. Giguere’s bankruptcy case.

At the hearing, Judge Haines made it clear that he was acting out of concerns about Wells Fargo’s mortgage modification practices generally. “This is certainly not an isolated case,” he said. “The kind of story I hear from this debtor is one that I and other bankruptcy judges around the country are hearing over and over and over again.”

With consumers complaining about the difficulty of getting any response from their mortgage servicers, the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s plan to provide homeowner relief is being threatened. As they wait for an answer on whether they might qualify, homeowners are succumbing to foreclosure and bankruptcy proceedings and winding up in courts — at times in front of judges who are also frustrated.

Ms. Giguere filed for bankruptcy protection as she was trying to keep her three-bedroom house in a Phoenix suburb, where she lives with her 15-year-old son. Representing the bank at her hearing on Thursday was Joseph Ohayon, senior vice president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Servicing.

Under preliminary questioning by one of the bank’s lawyers, Mr. Ohayon stated that Mrs. Giguere had repeatedly failed to provide a financial worksheet, a critical document in processing a loan modification.

Under cross-examination by Mrs. Giguere (who had a little assistance from Judge Haines), the bank’s defense withered. From her files, Mrs. Giguere produced a letter from Wells Fargo describing the paperwork that she needed to file for a loan modification. In the witness chair, Mr. Ohayon read the letter. “Mrs. Giguere is right,” Mr. Ohayon concluded. “The letter did not ask for a financial worksheet.”

Experts said the hearing in Phoenix reflected rising frustration by federal bankruptcy judges with mortgage servicers, which process payments for banks and the investors who own large pools of loans. In recent months, judges in Ohio and Pennsylvania have chastened mortgage servicers for failing to process payments properly and for errors in foreclosure filings, among other concerns. “The judges are seeing more and more of a pattern of indifference to record-keeping and good business practices,” said Robert Lawless, a law professor at the University of Illinois who specializes in bankruptcy law.

One of the biggest complaints by homeowners has been poor communication by mortgage servicers on the status of their applications for loan modifications. In the case of Mrs. Giguere, Wells Fargo decided back in March shortly after she faxed the bank her application that she did not qualify for the Home Affordable Modification Program.

She did not learn of the bank’s decision until Thursday. “When did you tell the debtors that their loan was no longer being considered for modification?” Judge Haines asked Mr. Ohayon. “We haven’t. They’ve never been told,” said Mr. Ohayon, adding: “Customer communication is something we’re taking a serious look at, your honor.”

The hearing with Wells Fargo did not result in any sanctions against the bank for its failure to provide timely information to Mrs. Giguere about her mortgage modification application. But the bank did pledge to improve its communications with customers and to explore avenues for increasing the ease with which homeowners can seek loan modifications.

Wells Fargo has also scheduled a three-day seminar at the Phoenix Convention Center, beginning on Tuesday, in which customers who have submitted loan modification applications can meet with a bank representative in person and learn whether their application has been approved or denied.

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

Wells Fargo has been criticized for its slow pace in modifying mortgages under the Treasury Department’s foreclosure prevention initiative, which was begun in April. The bank has started trial modifications on about 20,000 home loans under the program, or 6 percent of those who meet the program’s guidelines. JPMorgan Chase, by comparison, has begun modifications on nearly 20 percent of such loans. The banks’ information was issued in a recent report from the Treasury on the progress of the program.

MORE FROM NYTIMES.COM

At the hearing, Wells Fargo blamed a series of revisions in the program by the government for the slow pace.

It has also pledged to renew negotiations with Mrs. Giguere over modifying her home mortgage. Yet difficult financial circumstances make it unclear whether she will ultimately be able to keep her home, mortgage modification or not. She has recently gone on food stamps and is receiving free state medical aid; her $240 weekly unemployment check is her main form of income.

When her home shot up in value, she refinanced it several times, pulling out equity to pay off credit card debt and other expenses. She and her husband are divorcing, and he is no longer willing to help pay the mortgage. With little in savings, she has not made a full mortgage payment since November. “I’m not perfect, I’ll be the first to admit that,” Mrs. Giguere said. “I’ve fallen behind.”

From CNBC Reporter Diana Olick’s blog as a result of news such as the above:

Yes, there are vacant properties out there in some stage of foreclosure. Yes there are empty foreclosed, bank-owned homes that do not appear to be listed for sale anywhere. Yes, there are people still living in foreclosed homes. Yes there are homes where the mortgage is many many months delinquent, and the owners have yet to receive a foreclosure notice. Yes there are people who thought the bank had foreclosed, moved out, and now find they are still the owners of the home and liable for the various tax and municipal charges on the home.

Add their friends and associates and you have at least 10-20 million upset, hurt, angry, disenchanted people. What is this carnage going to do to America’s working families? What is this going to do to this country’s work ethic? Work for what? (The displaced homeowners WERE working families or they would not have been able to purchase homes in the first place.)

Financier Warren Buffet, in talking about our current economy and foreclosures said, “This is war.” Indeed.

This is NOT about empty houses waiting to be re-sold. It is about millions of U.S. citizens being thrown into the streets. A Marin County, California, Supervisor said that because of these losses, more than 1,000 children are sleeping in cars and their parents, unaccustomed to asking for assistance, are too embarrassed to say anything to anyone. If they did tell anyone, they stand to lose their children also as they are unable to providing housing for them.

Why aren’t the one million members of the National Association of Realtors screaming about the homes they sold being taken away from their former clients? Taxpayer dollars are sitting in some stimulus program somewhere; these dollars belong to the very people being evicted. These dollars are purportedly slated to help families STAY in homes. Why isn’t NAR or someone establishing systems to keep people in their homes? Surely, they could figure out how to profit from their “efforts.”

This is either a marketing nightmare or a marketing opportunity for NAR, Realtors®, lenders, etc. What is the matter with all of you? People you displaced will NOT forget. You hurt them. Some are elderly and frail and will not survive this displacement. The dream of living in the U.S. is to have one’s own home. Why aren’t you fighting for the people you sold homes to?

If you need proof of how long an injustice on our own soil lasts, travel around the Southern United States—they are still angry about the Civil War, which ended 144 years ago.

You can’t completely disrupt millions of lives and expect them to be “fine” shortly. Some will never recover. Why aren’t Realtors® marching on Washington? What is the matter with you people?

What do you tell your children about this great country? What is the new American dream? I agree that we have taken acquisition to an excess, but the average home is not an excess. Excess means renting huge, expensive storage sheds with stuff in it you have not seen in one or two years, and which, by the time you take it out, if you ever take it out, is worth less than the storage fees you paid.

Stories are underway and will be online shortly.