“Produce the Note” - 3 Little Words to Save Your Home

WHO OWNS THE NOTE?

Your goal is to make certain the institution suing you is, in fact, the owner of the note (see steps to follow below). There is only one original note for your mortgage that has your signature on it. This is the document that proves you owe the debt.

During the lending boom, most mortgages were flipped and sold to another lender or service or sliced up and sold to investors as secularized packages on Wall Street. In the rush to turn these over as fast as possible to make the most money, many of the new lenders did not get the proper paperwork to show they own the note and mortgage. This is the key to the produce the note strategy. Now, many lenders are moving to foreclose on homeowners, resulting in part from problems they created, and don’t have the proper paperwork to prove they have a right to foreclose.

THE HARM

If you don’t challenge your lender, the court will simply allow the foreclosure to proceed. It’s important to hold lenders accountable for their carelessness. This is the biggest asset in your life. It’s just a piece of paper to them, and one they likely either lost or destroyed.

When you get a copy of the foreclosure suit, many lenders now automatically include a count to re-establish the note. It often reads like this: “…the Mortgage note has either been lost or destroyed and the Plaintiff is unable to state the manner in which this occurred.” In other words, they are admitting they don’t have the note that proves they have a right to foreclose.

If the lender is allowed to proceed without that proof, there is a possibility another institution, which may have bought your note along the way, will also try to collect the same debt from you again.

A Tennessee borrower recently had precisely that happen to her. Her lender, Ameriquest, foreclosed on her in July of 2007. About three months later, another bank sent her a default notice for the mortgage on the house she just lost. She called to find out what was going on. After being transferred from place to place and left on hold for lengthy periods of time, no one could explain what happened. They said they would get back to her, but never did. Now, she faces the risk of having her credit continually damaged for a debt she no longer owes.

FIGHT FOR FAIRNESS

This process is not intended to help you get your house for free. The primary goal is to delay the foreclosure and put pressure on the lender to negotiate. Despite all the hype about lenders wanting to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, most borrowers know that’s not the reality.

Too many homeowners have experienced lender resistance to their efforts to work out a payment structure to keep them in their homes. Many lenders bear responsibility for these defaults, because they put borrowers into unfair loans using deceptive, hard-sell practices and then made the problem worse with predatory servicing.

Most homeowners just want these lenders to give them reasonable terms on their mortgages, many of which were predatory to begin with. With the help of judges who see through these predatory practices, lenders will feel the pressure to work with borrowers to keep them in their homes. Don’t forget lenders made incredible amounts of money by using irresponsible practices to issue and service these loans. That greed led to the foreclosure crisis we’re in today. Allowing lenders to continue foreclosing on home after home, destroying our neighborhoods and our economy hurts us all. So, make it hard for your lender to take your home. Make ‘em produce the note!

STEPS TO FOLLOW

A. If your lender has already filed suit to foreclose on your home:

Use the first form. It’s a fill-in-the-blank legal request to your lender asking that the original note be produced, before it can proceed with the foreclosure. In some jurisdictions, the courts require the original request to be filed with the clerk of court and a copy of the request to be sent to the attorney representing the lender. To find out the rules where you live, call the Clerk of Court in your jurisdiction.
If the lender’s attorney does not respond within 30 days, file a motion to compel with the court and request that the court set a hearing on your motion. That, in effect, asks the judge to order the lender to produce the documents.

The judge will issue a ruling at your hearing. Many judges around the country are becoming more sympathetic to homeowners, because of the prevalence of predatory lending and servicing. In the past, many lenders have relied upon using lost note affidavits, but in many cases, that’s no longer enough to satisfy the judge. They are holding the lender to the letter of the law, requiring them to produce evidence that they are the true owners of the note.

For example:

In October 2007, Ohio Federal Court Judge Christopher Boyko dismissed 14 foreclosure cases brought by investors, ruling they failed to prove they owned the properties they were trying to seize.

B. If you are in default, but your lender has not yet filed suit against you:

Use the second form. It’s a fill-in-the-blank letter to your lender which also requests they produce the original note, before taking foreclosure action against you.

If the lender does not respond and files suit against you to foreclose, follow the steps above.

Mortgage Reinstatement Assistance Program

Hardest Hit Fund

President Obama established the Hardest Hit Fund SM in February 2010 to provide targeted aid to families in states hit hard by the economic and housing market downturn. Each state housing agency gathered public input to implement programs designed to meet the distinct challenges struggling homeowners in their state are facing. States were chosen either because they are struggling with unemployment rates at or above the national average or steep home price declines greater than 20 percent since the housing market downturn.




http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/housing-programs/hhf/Pages/default.aspx

A new program to help ailing borrowers escape foreclosure.

The United States Department of the Treasury is launching, with an official announcement expected next week, a new program to help ailing borrowers escape foreclosure.

The Chief of the Homeowner Preservation Office at the Treasury, Laurie Maggiano, released information on the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) while speaking at the MBA's 96th Annual Convention going on in San Diego. The official launch is expected in the next week or so.

HAFA already holds the support of Fannie, according to a VP at the agency, Eric Schuppenhauer, who believes the new program allows borrowers in imminent default to "make a graceful exit" from their home. HAFA will keep the stigma associated with foreclosure away from the borrowers, he added, and help keep communities intact.

Maggiano adds that HAFA will offer financial incentives to both servicers and borrowers, and associated secondary investors, in order to facilitate a short sale or deed in lieu of the property.

Borrowers will need to be Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP)-eligible and Maggiano released some stats for the crowd's consumption. 2,484,783 homeowners have requested information on HAMP. 757,955 HAMP plans were offered. 487,081 trials are underway.

Other additional incentives to the short sale industry are nearly developed. The IRS will soon offer a 4506EZ form that will enable servicers to pre-fill out the information so that it only requires a borrower's signature. It also will include softer language so as to not put potential participants off.

Mortgage Lender List of Loss Mitigation Contacts That Can Help You Avoid Foreclosure

The contacts should be able to handle Short Sales, Foreclosure forbearance, Loan Modifications, Repayments, Deed-in-Lieu of Foreclosure arrangements, etc.

Altegra Credit Co. Loan Services Loss Mitigation Department
(Home Loan Services)
Gary Fedoronko
Gary_Fedoronko@HLS.ML.com
412-918-7552

American Home Mortgage Servicing fka Option One Loss Mitigation Department
Donald Kelly
Donald.Kelly@ahmsi3@oomc.com
904-996-1748

Ameriquest Mortgage Co. Loss Mitigation Department
(Citi Residential Lending)
Tess Hoo
teresa.hoo@citi.com
714-634-2474 ext 38864

BancorpSouth Loss Mitigation Department
Carla Hall
carla.hall@bxs.com
662-620-3644

Bank of America Loss Mitigation Department
Nick Kieser
nicholas.j.kieser@bankofamerica.com
716.635.7112

Cynthia Mech Loss Mitigation Department
cynthia.mech@bankofamerica.com
716-635-2760

Boshwit Bros. Mortgage Co. Loss Mitigation Department
Andrew Boshwit aboswhit@comcast.net
901-272-0100

Chase Manhattan Mortgage Co. Loss Mitigation Department
(Chase Home Finance)
No Certain Person
800-446-8939

Chevy Case Bank / B.F. Saul Mortgage Loss Mitigation Department
Jeff Huston
jrhuston@chevychasebank.net
301-939-4057

Jana Gantt
jmgantt@chevychasebank.net
301-939-4054

Cimarron Mortgage Co. Loss Mitigation Department
Ronnie Greenhagen
ronnieg@ecimarron.com
601-899-1547 (voice)
601-899-1502 (fax)

Citifinancial Mortgage Loss Mitigation Department
Dianne Whatley
dianne.whatley@citigroup.com
972-657-3090

Citimortgage Loss Mitigation Department
John Godinet
John.j.godinet@citigroup.com
301-696-5069
301-696-4473 (fax)

Leann Luhn
Leann.luhn@citigroup.com
301-696-4267
301-696-4473 (fax)

Colonial Bank Loss Mitigation Department
Gerald Banks
Gerald_Banks@colonialbank.com
800-222-0661

Davison State Bank Loss Mitigation Department
Lori Barton
lorib@thestatebank.com
810-714-3940

EMC Mortgage Loss Mitigation Department
Michael Brown
214-626-3689

Kristen Belmonte
Kbelmonte@bear.com
214-626-5488

Fentura Mortgage Loss Mitigation Department
Lori Barton
lorib@thestatebank.com
810-714-3940

1st Trust Bank for Savings Loss Mitigation Department
(Magna Bank)
Robin Terry
robin.terry@magnabank.com
901-309-7999 ext 4413

First Horizon Loss Mitigation Department
Leigh Ann Hammon
Lhammon@firsthorizon.com
214-441-7329

Shantell Williams
shtaylor@firsthorizon.com
214-441-6013

First Tennessee Loss Mitigation Department
Carol Wilkerson
cawilkerson@ftb.com
865-582-4030

Flagstar Bank Loss Mitigation Department
Jerri A. Willis
Jerri.A.Willis@flagstar.com
248-312-6690 (phone)
888-710-8130 (fax)

GMAC Rescap Loss Mitigation Department, Homecomings Financial and GMAC Loss Mitigation Department
For information on our Loss Mitigation Program, please refer to www.gmacmortgage.com, click on the link ‘Help for Homeowners’ to obtain a workout application and instruction.
To inquire about the status of an existing application, please call 1-866-709-4744.

If you have completed a workout application and have all required supporting documents, please fax to 1-866-709-4744 or, 1-800,211-3539.

Litton Mortgage Loss Mitigation Department
Randy Reynolds
rreynolds@litton.c-bass.com
713-966-8985

John Crandall
John.Crandall@littonloan.com
713-561-8211 (phone)
713-793-4304 (fax

Litton Mortgage c/o Prommis Solutions Loss Mitigation Department
Brad Norwood
Bradly.Norwood@Prommis.com
770-643-7288 Tel.
1-866-480-4949 Fax

MB Financial Bank Loss Mitigation Department
Nannette Makarzyk
Nmakarzyk@mbfinancial.com
847-653-2840 (phone)
847-653-0099 (fax)

M & T Bank Loss Mitigation Department
Judith Palmer
JPalmer@mandtbank.com
716-635-4008 Tel.
716-635-4070 Fax

National City Mortgage Loss Mitigation Department
1-800-367-9305
Ext. 57153

Ocwen Loss Mitigation Department
Cindy White
cindy.white@ocwen.com
404-737-5544

PHH Mortgage Loss Mitigation Department
800-750-2518
MBSLMReferrals@mortgagefamily.com

Real Time Resolutions Loss Mitigation Department
Angela Jump
Angela_Jump@rtresolutions.com
214-599-6376 direct
877-469-7325 ext 6376
214-599-6388 Fax

Resurgent Capital Services Loss Mitigation Department
General Contacts
Jessica Gullick
jgullick@resurgent.com
864-248-8664

Escalated Contacts:
Sherrie Emerson
semerson@resurgent.com
800-365-7107 ext 8615

Karen Gearhart
kgearhart@resurgent.com
800-365-7107 ext 8355

Michael Keaton
mkeaton@resurgent.com
800-365-7107 ext 8756

SunTrust Mortgage, Inc. Loss Mitigation Department
Ann Oley
ann.oley@suntrust.com
804-291-0843

Select Portfolio Servicing Loss Mitigation Department
Joann Goldman
joann.goldman@spservicing.com
801-594-6338

The State Bank Loss Mitigation Department
Lori Barton
lorib@thestatebank.com
810-714-3940

Washington Mutual Home Loans Loss Mitigation Department
David Whitman
904-886-6113

Julie A. Mathis
904-886-1305

Chrissy Lopez
904-886-1313

Shalonda C. Anderson
shalonda.anderson@wamu.net
904-462-2237

Wells Fargo Financial Loss Mitigation Department
Pam Gross
Pam.Gross@wellsfargo.com

Wells Fargo Financial Bank Loss Mitigation Department
515-331-9130 or 866-533-2108

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Loss Mitigation Department
Kimber Dehning
Kimber.Dehning@wellsfargo.com
815-577-9008

Wilshire Credit Corporation Loss Mitigation Department
Jodi Seits
jodi_seits@wcc.ml.com
503-223-5600

Tricia Patterson
tricia_patterson@wcc.ml.com
503-223-5600

Foreclosures probably will reach 3 million this year!!

President Barack Obama’s efforts to bolster the U.S. housing market, the trigger of the worst recession since the 1930s, may be undone by record unemployment and repossessions by lenders.

Foreclosures probably will reach 3 million this year, surpassing the record of 2.82 million in 2009, according to Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc. That would more than offset an estimated 448,000-unit rise in home sales, based on the average forecast of the National Association of Realtors, the Mortgage Bankers Association and Fannie Mae.

The housing industry remains a challenge for Obama as he enters his second year of office and government assistance programs near expiration. Data this week showed home sales tumbled after the expected end of an $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers boosted transactions the prior month.

“The housing market is still on life support, and if government measures are withdrawn too quickly it could sink it, taking the economy down with it,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “Households have such high debt loads, in addition to their mortgages, that any reduction in income, including a job loss, could trigger a foreclosure.”

Employers have cut more than 7 million jobs in the last two years, the biggest employment loss since the Great Depression. The U.S. jobless rate probably will average 10 percent in 2010, according to the median estimate of 59 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That would be the highest yearly rate in government records dating to 1948. Unemployment was 9.3 percent in 2009, the most in 26 years.

Mortgage Modifications

The Obama administration’s primary anti-foreclosure plan, the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, resulted in 66,465 permanent modifications by the end of December, compared with goal of up to 4 million by 2012. In total, 1.16 million offers were extended to borrowers and the terms of about 900,000 mortgages were changed on either a trial or permanent basis, the Treasury Department said in a Jan. 15 report.

“We’re working to lift the value of a family’s single largest investment -- their home,” Obama said in his Jan. 27 State of the Union speech to Congress.

For HAMP to succeed, the program will have to be changed to include principal reductions on mortgages to offset value declines, according to Karen Weaver, global head of securitization research at Deutsche Bank AG in New York, and Laurie Goodman, the New York-based senior managing director at Amherst Securities Group.

Principal Reductions

In its current version, HAMP lowers mortgage payments to about a third of borrowers’ income by reducing interest, lengthening repayment terms and deferring principal repayments.

“If the other measures in HAMP aren’t working, the government will have to look at principal reductions,” said Brian Bethune, chief financial economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

In addition to modifications, the government’s Making Home Affordable program was responsible for refinancing 3.8 million loans in the portfolios of government-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The program, known among mortgage brokers as Obama refis, allows borrows who have balances higher than their home’s value to renew their loans at lower rates.

One in Four

One in four U.S. homeowners holds a mortgage with a balance higher than the property’s value. The number of borrowers with so-called negative equity reached 10.7 million, or 23 percent, at the end of the third quarter, according to a Nov. 24 report by First American CoreLogic, a Santa Ana, California-based real estate research firm. Government programs to help underwater borrowers exclude jumbo mortgages that aren’t eligible to be purchased by Washington-based Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac of McLean, Virginia.

The government spent $230 billion to support HAMP and other housing programs in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Budget Office in Washington. The Federal Reserve has pledged to spend $1.25 trillion buying mortgage- backed securities in an effort to reduce fixed-mortgage rates. That program is set to end this quarter.

The 30-year mortgage rate dropped to an all-time low of 4.71 percent during the first week of December, according to Freddie Mac. It was at 4.98 percent in the week ended yesterday.

The Federal Reserve said Jan. 27 it will keep the target rate for overnight bank lending near zero to help nurture the recovery.

“Household spending is expanding at a moderate rate but remains constrained by a weak labor market, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit,” the Federal Open Market Committee said this week in a statement.

Dropped Reference

The statement dropped the previous reference to real estate that said housing “has shown some signs of improvement.”

National home prices rose 1.5 percent last month from a year earlier, the first annual gain since August 2007, the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors said Jan. 25. The median price fell 12 percent in 2009 to $173,500, compared with a 9.5 percent drop in 2008, NAR data show.

While the tax credit spurred a 4.9 percent rise in home resales last year, the first annual gain since 2005, sales of existing homes in December slumped 17 percent, the biggest drop on record. The tax benefit originally scheduled to expire Nov. 30 was extended into 2010 and expanded to all buyers by a bill Obama signed on Nov. 6. The extension gives buyers until April 30 to have a signed contract on a home, and until July 1 to close on it.

New-Home Sales

Purchases of new homes fell 7.6 percent to an annual pace of 342,000 in December, the fourth drop in the past five months, the Commerce Department said Jan. 27 in Washington. Sales declined 23 percent to 374,000 in 2009, the lowest level since records began in 1963.

The median price of a new house fell 3.6 percent from the year-earlier month to $221,300, the agency said.

Currently, 6.5 million households are either in default or at least one payment behind on their mortgages, according to the Center for Responsible Lending based in Durham, North Carolina.

If enough of those are seized by lenders, it could lead to a “double-dip recession or at least to a slower recovery,” said Julia Gordon, senior public policy counsel for the research and policy group, in testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services last month.

“Housing is going to have a bumpy ride this year because of foreclosures,” Homeowners’ have got to get more involved, educate yourself on the loan modification process, make sure your finances are in order before you contact your lender. Did you know, If you have lost your job or your income has been reduced, “some lenders are working with homeowners’ by freezing their mortgage payment” by 6 months to 1 year..
Join in on mortgage blogs like this one!! Arm yourself before you contact your lender!!

2010 Loan Modification Tips to Avoiding Foreclosure

1. Call the mortgage loan services at off-peak times. Off-peak includes evening in the Eastern Time Zone and late afternoon in the Pacific Time Zone.

2. Prepare documentation in advance. It's fairly easy to get into a trial loan modification, but the mortgage loan services is going to have to fully underwrite the loan before the trial loan modification can be made permanent. That means you'll have to submit tax information, and documents that show how much you earn, how much money you have in the bank, and other information necessary for the mortgage loan services to figure out whether you can afford the loan.

3. Make the trial modification payments on time. It seems as though this should be intuitive, but apparently many people don't realize that you need to have made at least three trial loan modification payments on time before your trial loan modification becomes permanent. If you miss a trial loan modification payment, or pay it late, you could be kicked out of the program

4. Complete paperwork accurately. Lenders are saying that many homeowners are not sending in completed paperwork or are not completing documentation correctly. Homeowners say lenders are losing documents. Your best bet is to scan in your documentation to the computer so you can email it to the lender over and over again. Also, it’s a good ideal to mail your documents to the lender certified mail. Always remember to call the lender/loan servicing company to confirm they did receive your documents.

5. Be aware of the many foreclosure relief scams and wary of anyone asking for upfront fees in order to provide foreclosure assistance

6. Never make a mortgage payment to anyone other than the mortgage loan services . It seems obvious, but many companies claiming to be able to help you get a loan modification will attempt to put themselves in between you and the lender. That's dangerous because if you don't make your monthly payments

Property taxes effect your Mortgage Payment!! Dispute your taxes today!!!

● Look at your 2009 property tax bill. If you can’t lay your hands on it, you can look it up online. Many counties have searchable databases of residential property (addresses for the five largest metro counties are below).


● Check the ZIP code map to see how your house compares with the rest of your ZIP on sales and tax values. Also, what do you know about sales of other homes in your neighborhood? Do home values seem to be going down? If so, the county may have overvalued your house for tax purposes. If you think that’s the case, go to step 3.


● File a form called a property tax return. List what you think your house is worth as of Jan. 1, 2010. Download and print the one-page form here.

Section C asks you to list last year’s “fair market value” on your land and on your house. Then it asks you to list the value of the land and the house this year. This is where you tell the county the value of your property has gone down. You must send the form to your county tax assessor by April 1. (DeKalb and Gwinnett residents must file by March 1.)

● The assessor reviews your return and decides whether it reflects your property value. Usually you will receive a response between April and June.


● If the county turns you down, you have the right to appeal. This gets a little tricky, but ... you also have the right to appeal if the county reappraises your property (whether you filed a return or not). But if the county doesn’t reappraise, and you didn’t file a return, you can’t appeal. This didn’t matter so much when tax valuations often were lower than actual value. Now, however, tax values are often greater than what your house is worth, which means you’ll be paying too much in taxes. So it’s in your interest to file a return.


Find your neighbors’ tax values (or yours)

Metro tax assessors enable you to search for data on individual properties countywide.


Clayton


Cobb


Dekalb


Fulton


Gwinnett


Note: In its first in-depth analysis of property taxes, the AJC limited its research to the five most populous counties in metro Atlanta: Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Clayton and Gwinnett, which account for more than three-fourths of the metro population.


Appeal your appraisal

File your appeal within 30 to 45 days of receiving your notice (counties have different deadlines). First stop: the county board of assessors. If you can’t reach agreement there, next stop is 1) a Board of Equalization, which is a panel of county residents that hears appeals unresolved at the assessor level, or 2) arbitration. There are two kinds, binding and nonbinding. After that, you may appeal to your county superior court. Note that both arbitration and appealing to superior court carry fees.

More info on appeals:


taxguide