Often we get emails like this one on our website: “My home was recently foreclosed on 8/6 during my short sale process. At the time I had 3 offers the last coming more than a week before the sale date of which was not given to me until 2 weeks prior. My realtor insist I…
Over the past five years, our short sale practice has become ever more streamlined and efficient. We’ve seen time required for approvals drop as all the major lenders in the Virginia market recognize our firm name and even have first name relationships with some of our staff members who have been with us throughout the…
Still no news as of this post on the resurrection and extension of the Mortgage Debt Relief Act passed by President Bush in the final days of his administration. A proposed bill cleared the Senate subcommittee on finance several months ago but it has not made progress through the full Senate or House yet. President…
Attorneys across the country who share the passion to level the playing field between struggling homeowners and mortgage companies often network and discuss market trends, new strategies to defend against foreclosure, and the latest lender tactics. Among the latest chilling experiments by the mortgage industry many stretch the concept of an auction in ways that…
We try not to wander too far afield into the political end of things. But sometimes you just have to give credit where credit is due and point out some of the obvious consequences of laws affecting lenders, borrowers, default, and legal ramifications. Dodd-Frank and the ensuing Quality Management or QM regime enforced upon the…
No list of lenders who most shamelessly obstruct the short sale process is complete without mention of the reverse mortgage lending industry. (“RMLI”) The RMLI has gotten a pass from heavy consumer scrutiny in part because it is a fairly new phenomenon. But the list of abuses is growing and the honeymoon appears to be…
The Senate Finance Committee passed a two year extension of the Mortgage Debt Relief Act. It will be retroactive to 1-1-14. So short selling homeowners whose closings occurred during the first four months of 2014 have a greater hope of not needing to use one of the “work-arounds” we’ve talked about in other blog entries,…
For many of our short sale clients, they waited a little too long to get our help. Nothing breaks our heart more than to interview a new client at the 11th hour and find that the normal techniques for avoiding foreclosure will not work. Most of these negotiated course changes take a few days or…
The American Dream refuses to go away quietly in the night. The aspiration for home-ownership has survived even the dismal recession whose tentacles began to appear in 2007 and a few of which linger to this day. One of our lawfirms’ great celebrations occurs when a short sale client returns to buy their first home…
The House Bill and budget has been sent to the Senate as I write today. It does NOT include an extension of the exemption that expired 12-31-13 for treating forgiven debt as income. There are still advocates for the extension of the exemption and this is the latest information available as of today: Bill Seeks…
