WASHINGTON STATE: ATTENTION IF YOUR MORTGAGE IS SERVICED BY OCWEN LOAN SERVICING, LLC!! (STATEWIDE)
On 12/10/2013, the Washington Attorney General entered into a Consent
Judgment with OCWEN FINANCIAL who owns one of the largest, most abusive
Loan Servicers in the nation, OCWEN LOAN SERVICING, LLC. William Erbey
is the CEO of OCWEN. The Consent Agreement was intended to stop mortgage
foreclosure and loan servicing abuses by OCWEN, and OCWEN agreed to
help homeowners with cash payments, modifications, and/or offer
principal reductions. Here are some of the allegations in the
settlement:
Failed to promptly and accurately apply payments made by borrowers or to maintain accurate account statements.
Charged unauthorized fees for default-related services.
Gave false or misleading information to borrowers on loans that had been transferred from other servicers.
On transferred loans with in-process trial and permanent modifications,
deceptively sought to collect payments from consumer under the
mortgage's original unmodified terms.
Failed to provide correct and timely information to borrowers seeking
information about loss mitigation services, including loan
modifications.
Improperly denied loan modification relief to eligible borrowers.
Gave false or misleading reasons for loan modification denials.
Robo-signed affidavits in foreclosure proceedings.
Imposed force-placed insurance when the servicers knew or should have known borrowers had adequate coverage.
Source: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Do not hand over your keys to these scumbag OCWEN Loan Servicers and the
Seattle Attorneys who represent them, Routh Crabtree Olsen, P.S. (RCO,
P.S.) and/or Houser & Allison. OCWEN is a 3rd party debt collector
who simply services your mortgage for the true Note Holder. The
attorneys representing OCWEN and the Bank Trustee are also 3rd party
debt collectors. Your mortgage contract was not with OCWEN or the Bank
Trustee, and likely had a completely different originating Lender. Your
Note cannot be "Assigned" by "MERS" (See your Deed of Trust for MERS
language) or OCWEN LOAN SERVICING as they do not hold or own your
mortgage documents. OCWEN has no rights in your property. In this
mortgage era where your Note has been bought and sold on the open market
an average of 4 - 12 times, no one really knows who owns or holds your
NOTE! Lots of copies of Notes are being floated around but ask for proof
of the ORIGINAL signed Note! Unless someone pops up with the ORIGINAL
wet ink NOTE and says "I hold it", no entity or individual is entitled
by law to foreclose on your home and property! For more information
about this please read the blog articles in the Nationwide Defense
Network website and attorney Jeff Barnes's efforts on behalf of
homeowners. You will learn all there is to know to educate yourself
about mortgage origination, securitization and foreclosure scam by big
banks and loan servicers since about the mid-2000s. You will learn about
all of the important foreclosure legal decisions in the country.
http://www.wzzm13.com/story/news/investigations/13-on-your-side/watchdog/2014/05/05/ocwen-mortgages-foreclosure/8560033/
Also, see the OCWEN SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT signed around by the 50-state attorney generals and OCWEN at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/235647764/OCWEN-LOAN-SERVICING-CONSENT-ORDER-TO-STOP-MORTGAGE-SERVICING-AND-FORECLOSURE-ABUSES.
If you are experiencing no relief from OCWEN LOAN SERVICING in your
problems with its abusive loan servicing tactics or OCWEN's preposterous
loan modification efforts (!), contact Attorney General Robert Ferguson
or David Huey at the Consumer Complaint portal for the Washington
Attorney General's Office website. FILL OUT A COMPLAINT FORM AND TELL
THEM YOU WANT THE RELIEF THEY BARGAINED FOR ON YOUR BEHALF IN DECEMBER
2013 WITH OCWEN LOAN SERVICING! YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR HOME AND BE FREE
FROM HARASSMENT BY THESE UNPRINCIPLED FIRMS.
Showing posts with label judge ruling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label judge ruling. Show all posts
Friday, August 15, 2014
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Judge Rules Against Bank
Judge Rules Against Bank In Mortgage Modification Suit
A recent ruling by a California appeals court clears the way for fraud charges against a lender that promised a loan modification but then foreclosed on the borrower.
The ruling throws into question the legality of hundreds of thousands of foreclosures.
Not only was the ruling a frontal assault on the empty promises made by servicers and banks, the case highlighted some despicable tactics often employed to force foreclosures.
Claudia Aceves, who originally sued U.S. Bank, NA in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, had taken out an $845,000 mortgage with Option One Mortgage Corporation. Option One later assigned the loan over to U.S. Bank.
The interest on Aceves’ adjustable rate note ratcheted up two years after it was entered into. By January 2008 she was falling behind on her payments. Shortly after March 26, 2008 when the loan’s servicer recorded a “Notice of Default and Election to Sell Under Deed of Trust,” Aceves filed for bankruptcy protection under chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code.
The bankruptcy filing imposed an automatic stay on the foreclosure proceedings.
After being offered financial help from her husband, Aceves converted her bankruptcy case from a chapter 7 to a chapter 13 case. Chapter 7, entitled “Liquidation,” would allow Aceves to discharge her debt on the home but not allow her to keep it. Chapter 13, entitled “Adjustment of Debts of an Individual with Regular Income,” has protections for homeowners that allows them to reinstate loan payments, pay arrearages, avoid foreclosure and keep their home.
U.S. Bank, upon learning of the original bankruptcy filing, filed a motion to lift the stay in order to execute a nonjudicial foreclosure and take the house back.
What happens next is indicative of the underhandedness of many servicers and banks.
Aceves’ bankruptcy attorney gets a letter from counsel to the loan’s servicer (American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.) that asks for permission to talk directly to Aceves to “explore Loss Mitigation possibilities.” Aceves calls the servicer’s attorney because she wants a loan modification, which they are promising. But they tell her they can’t do anything or talk to her until their motion to lift the bankruptcy stay is granted.
So, Aceves doesn’t oppose the motion to lift the stay and further decides not to file the chapter 13 bankruptcy. All in the hopes that a modification would be negotiated.
On December 4, 2008 the stay is lifted. And, unbeknownst to Aceves, on December 9, 2008 U.S. Bank schedules the home for public auction one month later on January 9, 2009.
On December 10, 2008 Aceves sends in documents to American Home aiming to modify and reinstate the loan. Then on December 23, 2008 the servicer tells Aceves a “negotiator” will contact her on or before January 13, 2009.
Too bad for Aceves January 13, 2009 is going to be four days after her home is sold at auction. Which it is, with none other than U.S. Bank as the buyer.
But just to cover its promise to modify the loan, one day before the home is to be sold at auction the negotiator for American Home presents a unilateral offer to raise the loan balance from the original $845,000 to $965,926.22 and make the new monthly payments $7,200 as opposed to the original monthly payment amount of $4,857.09.
Aceves told them where to go.
She lost her home and sued. She lost when the Superior Court found that the defendants had met their obligations. The three-judge panel Appeals Court disagreed in its January 27, 2010 ruling.
The crux of the ruling, which in part relied on a decision in a previous case (Garcia v. World Savings, FSB) determined that “To be enforceable, a promise need only be ”’definite enough that a court can determine the scope of the duty.”’
Further illuminating its stance the Court said the point is, “simply whether U.S. Bank made and kept a promise to negotiate with Aceves, not whether the bank promised to make a loan, or more precisely, to modify a loan” is what matters.
As far as the servicer’s offer of a modification, the Appeals Court found that the promise to negotiate is “not based on a promise to make a unilateral offer but on a promise to negotiate in an attempt to reach a mutually agreeable loan modification.”
With all the unkept promises by banks and servicers to negotiate loan modifications that were never entertained, new litigation on top of all the foreclosure cases already being pursued is bound to cloud the future of real estate for the foreseeable future.
Source: Timothy McCandless
A recent ruling by a California appeals court clears the way for fraud charges against a lender that promised a loan modification but then foreclosed on the borrower.
The ruling throws into question the legality of hundreds of thousands of foreclosures.
Not only was the ruling a frontal assault on the empty promises made by servicers and banks, the case highlighted some despicable tactics often employed to force foreclosures.
Claudia Aceves, who originally sued U.S. Bank, NA in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, had taken out an $845,000 mortgage with Option One Mortgage Corporation. Option One later assigned the loan over to U.S. Bank.
The interest on Aceves’ adjustable rate note ratcheted up two years after it was entered into. By January 2008 she was falling behind on her payments. Shortly after March 26, 2008 when the loan’s servicer recorded a “Notice of Default and Election to Sell Under Deed of Trust,” Aceves filed for bankruptcy protection under chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code.
The bankruptcy filing imposed an automatic stay on the foreclosure proceedings.
After being offered financial help from her husband, Aceves converted her bankruptcy case from a chapter 7 to a chapter 13 case. Chapter 7, entitled “Liquidation,” would allow Aceves to discharge her debt on the home but not allow her to keep it. Chapter 13, entitled “Adjustment of Debts of an Individual with Regular Income,” has protections for homeowners that allows them to reinstate loan payments, pay arrearages, avoid foreclosure and keep their home.
U.S. Bank, upon learning of the original bankruptcy filing, filed a motion to lift the stay in order to execute a nonjudicial foreclosure and take the house back.
What happens next is indicative of the underhandedness of many servicers and banks.
Aceves’ bankruptcy attorney gets a letter from counsel to the loan’s servicer (American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc.) that asks for permission to talk directly to Aceves to “explore Loss Mitigation possibilities.” Aceves calls the servicer’s attorney because she wants a loan modification, which they are promising. But they tell her they can’t do anything or talk to her until their motion to lift the bankruptcy stay is granted.
So, Aceves doesn’t oppose the motion to lift the stay and further decides not to file the chapter 13 bankruptcy. All in the hopes that a modification would be negotiated.
On December 4, 2008 the stay is lifted. And, unbeknownst to Aceves, on December 9, 2008 U.S. Bank schedules the home for public auction one month later on January 9, 2009.
On December 10, 2008 Aceves sends in documents to American Home aiming to modify and reinstate the loan. Then on December 23, 2008 the servicer tells Aceves a “negotiator” will contact her on or before January 13, 2009.
Too bad for Aceves January 13, 2009 is going to be four days after her home is sold at auction. Which it is, with none other than U.S. Bank as the buyer.
But just to cover its promise to modify the loan, one day before the home is to be sold at auction the negotiator for American Home presents a unilateral offer to raise the loan balance from the original $845,000 to $965,926.22 and make the new monthly payments $7,200 as opposed to the original monthly payment amount of $4,857.09.
Aceves told them where to go.
She lost her home and sued. She lost when the Superior Court found that the defendants had met their obligations. The three-judge panel Appeals Court disagreed in its January 27, 2010 ruling.
The crux of the ruling, which in part relied on a decision in a previous case (Garcia v. World Savings, FSB) determined that “To be enforceable, a promise need only be ”’definite enough that a court can determine the scope of the duty.”’
Further illuminating its stance the Court said the point is, “simply whether U.S. Bank made and kept a promise to negotiate with Aceves, not whether the bank promised to make a loan, or more precisely, to modify a loan” is what matters.
As far as the servicer’s offer of a modification, the Appeals Court found that the promise to negotiate is “not based on a promise to make a unilateral offer but on a promise to negotiate in an attempt to reach a mutually agreeable loan modification.”
With all the unkept promises by banks and servicers to negotiate loan modifications that were never entertained, new litigation on top of all the foreclosure cases already being pursued is bound to cloud the future of real estate for the foreseeable future.
Source: Timothy McCandless
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