"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac terminated their relationships with a top Florida foreclosure attorney on Tuesday, one day after the companies began taking back loan files from the firm that has processed thousands of evictions on behalf of the mortga... Read More
Washington Post- "After Valarie Stovall fell behind on the mortgage on her home near Hagerstown, her lender agreed in April to slash her monthly payment by $300, and she immediately started paying the reduced amount. That's why, Stovall said,... Read More
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) In response to Wells Fargo's statement acknowledging that it "made mistakes" and that affidavits in 55,000 foreclosures filed by the bank did not "adhere" to the law, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray offers the following st... Read More
A complaint McGookey Law Offices, LLC filed on October 20, 2010 was featuredon one of themost recognized "stop foreclosure" websites in the country. Read the complaint here:http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2010/10/24/ohio-woman-sues-bank-of-ame... Read More
WASHINGTON "The foreclosure-document crisis just keeps on growing, and now the FBI is getting into the fray. A federal law enforcement official told the Associated Press that the agency is in the initial stages of trying to determine whethe... Read More
Battle Lines Forming in Clash Over Foreclosures- "About a month after Washington Mutual Bank made a multimillion-dollar mortgage loan on a mountain home near Santa Barbara, Calif., a crucial piece of paperwork disappeared." Read More: http://www.... Read More
Task Force Probing Whether Banks Broke Federal Laws During Home Seizures. Read full Article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101904845.html?hpid=topnews Read More
Nightly Business Report Episode: October 14, 2010 Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems under legal fire. Homeowners fight back against robo-signing. Kevin Depew Editor-In-Chief, Minyanville looks at Quantitaive Easing and The Federal... Read More
"One billion dollars? Six billion? Ten billion? More?After scratching their heads for weeks over how much the foreclosure mess will hurt banks bottom lines, investors got out their calculators Thursday to tally the potential costs and sent ban... Read More
McGookey Law Offices, LLC offers a wealth of experience in business, litigation, probate, and most recently,foreclosure defense. Such experience makes McGookey Law Offices, LLC uniquely qualified to handle your legal situation, and helps us to obtain the best results. Remember when choosing your attorney, "Good Counsel is Key!"
What is Standing Defense?
Of all the weapons to fight foreclosure, that you have in your arsenal, by far the most important and effective is the legal defense of standing. Standing is the necessary element of proof requiring a foreclosing party to show that he or she is the true owner and holder of the promissory note on upon which he or she is foreclosing.
Why is Standing So Important As a Foreclosure Defense? Standing is critical in foreclosure defense involving securitized loans because of the way the securitization process works. Securitization is the process, devised and participated in by a small number of huge financial institutions, of converting a loan into a stock certificate, thereby creating profits many times more than which could otherwise be realized by simply receiving interest alone.
Because the securitization process involves transferring the mortgage obligation to a number of different entities before it ends up in the trust from which securities are sold, often times the documentation falls short of that normally required to evidence transfer of such obligations. The problem then that parties seeking to foreclose on securitized loans have is that, when pressed, it is difficult for them to prove that they are the proper party to be bringing the action; in other words, that they have standing.
For a disucssion, how loan securitization provides an excellent opportunity to use the standing defense, please continue to the next article.
THE STANDING DEFENSE
If you are fortunate enough to know the identity of the trust into which your loan was allegedly placed, you can go online and check the trust prospectus to find out who all the entities are who claimed ownership of your loan. This then allows you to compare the documents produced by the party seeking foreclosure with the chain of title of owners set forth in the trust prospectus.
If the identity of the trust is not readily apparent, then you must find that out either by way of a Qualified Written Request ("QWR"), if you are not in foreclosure, or by discovery if you are. Either way, once you know the identity of the trust, you are then able to compare the representations in the prospectus with the documents which the foreclosing party produces to attempt to show standing. Chances are, that you will then be able to punch holes in that party's claim, successfully fight foreclosure, and stay in your home.
Courts across the country have dismissed cases because the foreclosing party did not prove it was the holder of the mortgage obligation!
Recent amendments to the Truth In Lending Act allow the homeowner to demand to know the identity of the owner of his or her loan and if the request is refused to recover damages!
Why lose your home when you can save it? McGookey Law Offices will customize a plan which will work for you and meet your budget.
What is Loan Securitization?
In our last article, we discussed how loan securitization presented an opening to defend against foreclosure on the basis of standing. In order to understand why this is so, you must understand the securitization process itself. The term "securitization" derives from the fact that essentially, it is the process by which a loan in converted into a security, similar to a stock certificate. Of course, this is not a process involving a single loan, or even dozens. To the contrary, a typical "trust", or loan pool into which a single loan is bundled with others and poured into, consists of a thousand loans, with a total face value of a billion dollars.
After funding a trust with loans, the trustee sells "mortgage-backed certificates" (i.e. stock) in that trust to Wall Street investors for considerably more than the face value of the loans placed in it. And therefore the reason for securitization--to allow the bank to strip away the profit from the loan, normally realied only over a period of years as interest is received, upfront upon the sale of the certificates to the investors.
For a discussion of other weapons you have in fighting foreclosure, please continue reading.
With a securitized mortgage loan (which most loans taken out in the past 5-7 years are), the party claiming to "own" your loan in reality has no beneficial interest in it, since it has been bundled with hundreds or thousands of other loans and sold to investors. Having no beneficial interest, these "lenders" have no incentive to work with distressed homeowners in helping them save their homes. Thus, when you realize that you can't work with them, you must resolve yourself to stand your ground, and fight, if you are to keep your home.
Fortunately, and this is key: the very system which was engineered to maximize the profits of these illegitimate "lenders" in fact produces opportunities for the victimized homeowner to win the foreclosure fight. You have a number of weapons in your aresenal. All you have to do is become aware that they exist, and how to use them.
For a discussion of the most effective weapon you have in fighting foreclosure, please continue your visit to this site.
Located in Cincinnati, OH Our family owned and operated company of home comfort specialists has been serving your neighbors in the greater Cincinnati area.
We pride ourselves in the services we provide to our clients. We are a small office. The attorney that you meet in the initial consultation will be the same attorney who will continue to represent you