The ModifyMeDown Difference – Leverage for you

If you are dealing with your bank with no end in sight, or are facing a foreclosure sale date, or have already been wrongfully or illegally foreclosed on, then call us. We know what happened, and we know how to fix it.

We are a Nationwide network of experts leveraging the most cutting edge legal tactics, and have programs far superior to any other foreclosure defense or loan mod company out there. Using these programs, we can successfully negotiate a payment reduction, halt or cancel a foreclosure sale, delay evictions and sales, or even overturn a sale .  It all depends on you – what you want. We help you get what you want from your lender.

Finally, the tables are turned!

Here are a few reasons we are different than other companies:

• We prequalify every client to make sure they are a candidate for a home loan modification, or other service.
• We research your original loan documents, note, and foreclosure notices (if applicable) to create a strategy that results in leverage we can use to keep the lender in check.
• We are completely upfront with you. If we cannot help you we will tell you. We get paid for results and cannot take on clients that have a low chance of success.
• We can work with homeowners in most states and negotiate with every lender. We are also experts at qualifying homeowners for the Obama mortgage plan!
• We often times see late fees and interest fees waived.
• Want a principle reduction? Your best chance of getting one is with our strategy of developing leverage.
• We also offer Deficiency Judgement Help, & cramdowns/settling of Second Mortgages

NOTE: On October 1st, 2010, new HAMP mortgage modification guidelines were implemented called the Principal Reduction Alternative or PRA. Under the new PRA guidelines, servicers must evaluate any loan modification that is considered for HAMP and use Principal Reduction as the next step to reduce the monthly payments.

However,  servicers still need some extra incentive, and that is where we come in! Contact us today to discuss the details of your situation.

There are steps you can take – that you must take – to ease your financial stress. Call us to get started with easing your stress. The consultation & phone call are free!

Florida Robo Signing Firm Closing

Former Florida foreclosure king David Stern’s rise was swift, and his fall has been equally fast. Stern announced this week that he would shut down the foreclosure practice at his Plantation, Fla.-based firm by the end of March, according to the Daily Business Review

Stern stepped down as president and CEO of DJSP in November to focus exclusively on his law firm, which handled foreclosure proceedings for big banks and took in a whopping $260 million in 2009. Stern made $60 million by spinning off his firm’s back office mortgage-processing operations in January 2010, according to SEC filings. As Stern’s caseload soared, his staff tripled to 1,200 employees, and a satellite office in the Philippines hummed along crunching foreclosure data during off hours in the U.S.

But concerns about how Stern and other Florida foreclosure mills were handling mortgage records and other documents used in court proceedings grew. In August, former Florida attorney general Bill McCollum announced an investigation into potential irregularities in mortgage paperwork by Stern and three other foreclosure shops.

The investigation caused Stern to lose major clients like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and much was written–The Associated Press and The New York Times both recently ran long stories on Stern–about the stunning downfall of the foreclosure king following the collapse of the U.S. residential mortgage market several years ago.

Thank You

GMAC Halts Foreclosures

More on GMAC’s use of foreclosure mills and the shoddy paperwork we ofter catch them on!

GMAC Halts Foreclosures in 23 States for Review

GMAC Mortgage, one of the country’s largest and most troubled home lenders, said on Monday that it was imposing a moratorium on many of its foreclosures as it tried to ensure they were done correctly.

The lender, which specialized in subprime loans during the boom, when it was owned by General Motors, declined in an e-mail to specify how many loans would be affected or the “potential issue” it had identified with them.

GMAC said the suspension might be a few weeks or might last until the end of the year.

States where the moratorium is being carried out include New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Illinois, Florida and 18 others, mostly on the East Coast and in the Midwest. All of the affected states are so-called judicial foreclosure states, where courts control the interactions of defaulting homeowners and their lenders.

Since the real estate collapse began, lawyers for homeowners have sparred with lenders in those states. The lawyers say that in many cases, the lenders are not in possession of the original promissory note, which is necessary for a foreclosure.

GMAC, which has been the recipient of billions of dollars of government aid, declined to provide any details or answer questions, but its actions suggest that it is concerned about potential liability in evicting families and selling houses to which it does not have clear title.

The lender said it was also reviewing completed foreclosures where the same unnamed procedure might have been used.

Matthew Weidner, a real estate lawyer in St. Petersburg, Fla., said he interpreted the lender’s actions as saying, “We have real liability here.”

Mr. Weidner said he recently received notices from the opposing counsel in two GMAC foreclosure cases that it was withdrawing an affidavit. In both cases, the document was signed by a GMAC executive who said in a deposition last year that he had routinely signed thousands of affidavits without verifying the mortgage holder.

“The Florida rules of civil procedure are explicit,” Mr. Weidner said. “If you enter an affidavit, it must be based on personal knowledge.”

The law firm seeking to withdraw the affidavits is Florida Default Law Group, which is based in Tampa. Ronald R. Wolfe, a vice president at the firm, did not return calls. The firm is under investigation by the State of Florida, according to the attorney general’s Web site.

Real estate agents who work with GMAC to sell foreclosed properties were told to halt their activities late last week. The moratorium was first reported by Bloomberg News on Monday. Bloomberg said it had obtained a company memorandum dated Friday in which GMAC Mortgage instructed brokers to immediately stop evictions, cash-for-key transactions and sales.

Nerissa Spannos, a Fort Lauderdale agent, said GMAC represents about half of her business — 15 houses at the moment in various stages of foreclosure.

“It’s all coming to a halt,” she said. “I have so many nice listings and now I can’t sell them.”

The lender’s action, she said, was unprecedented in her experience. “Every once in a while you get a message saying, ‘Take this house off the market. We have to re-foreclose.’ But this is so much bigger,” she said.

GMAC on the Ropes!

GMAC halts foreclosures for now…This is what we’ve been auditing for (and more) for years!

Ally Financial Inc., whose GMAC Mortgage unit halted evictions in 23 states amid allegations of mishandled affidavits, said its filings contained no false claims about home loans.

The “defect” in affidavits used to support evictions was “technical” and was discovered by the company, Gina Proia, an Ally spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. Employees submitted affidavits containing information they didn’t personally know was true and sometimes signed without a notary present, according to the statement. Most cases will be resolved in the next few weeks and those that can’t be fixed will “require court intervention,” Proia said.

“The entire situation is unfortunate and regrettable and GMAC Mortgage is diligently working to resolve the situation,” Proia said. “There was never any intent on the part of GMAC Mortgage to bypass court rules or procedures. Nor do these failures reflect any disrespect for our courts or the judicial processes.”

State officials are investigating allegations of fraudulent foreclosures at the nation’s largest home lenders and loan servicers. Lawyers defending mortgage borrowers have accused GMAC and other lenders of foreclosing on homeowners without verifying that they own the loans. In foreclosure cases, companies commonly file affidavits to start court proceedings.

“All the banks are the same, GMAC is the only one who’s gotten caught,” said Patricia Parker, an attorney at Jacksonville, Florida-based law firm, Parker & DuFresne. “This could be huge.”

No Misstatements

Aside from signing the affidavits without knowledge or a notary, “the sum and substance of the affidavits and all content were factually accurate,” Proia wrote in the e-mail. “Our internal review has revealed no evidence of any factual misstatements or inaccuracies concerning the details typically contained in these affidavits such as the loan balance, its delinquency, and the accuracy of the note and mortgage on the underlying transaction.”

Affidavits are statements written and sworn to in the presence of someone authorized to administer an oath, such as a notary public.

GMAC told brokers and agents to halt evictions tied to foreclosures on homeowners in 23 states including Florida, Connecticut and New York and said it may have to take “corrective action” on other foreclosures, according to a Sept. 17 memo. Foreclosures won’t be suspended and will continue with “no interruption,” Proia said in a statement yesterday.

10,000 a Week

In December 2009, a GMAC Mortgage employee said in a deposition that his team of 13 people signed “a round number of 10,000” affidavits and other foreclosure documents a month without verifying their accuracy. The employee said he relied on law firms sending him the affidavits to verify their accuracy instead of checking them with GMAC’s records as required. The affidavits were then used to complete the process of repossessing homes and evicting residents.

Florida Attorney General William McCollum is investigating three law firmsthat represent loan servicers in foreclosures, and are alleged to have submitted fraudulent documents to the courts, according to an Aug. 10 statement. The firms handled about 80 percent of foreclosure cases in the state, according to a letter from Representative Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat.

“It appears that the actions we have taken and the attention we’ve paid to this issue could have had some impact on the actions that GMAC took today, but we can’t take full credit,” Ryan Wiggins, a spokeswoman for McCollum, said yesterday in a telephone interview.

‘Committed Fraud’

In August, Florida Circuit Court Judge Jean Johnson blocked a Jacksonville foreclosure brought by Washington Mutual Bank N.A. and JPMorgan Chase Bank, which had purchased the failed bank’s assets, and Shapiro & Fishman, the companies’ law firm. Documents eventually showed that the mortgage on the house was in fact owned by Washington-based Fannie Mae.

WaMu and the law firm “committed fraud on this court,” Johnson wrote. JPMorgan had presented a document prepared by Shapiro showing the mortgage was sold directly to WaMu in April 2008.

Tom Ice, founding partner of Ice Legal PA in Royal Palm Beach, Florida, said a fourth law firm representing GMAC in recent weeks has begun withdrawing affidavits signed by the GMAC employee.

“The banks are sitting up and taking notice that they can’t use falsified documents in the courtroom,” Ice said. “There may be others doing the same thing. They’re going to come back and say, ‘We’d better withdraw these,’” Ice said in a telephone interview.

Alejandra Arroyave, a lawyer with Lapin & Leichtling, a law firm in Coral Gables, Florida, who represented the employee at his December 2009 deposition, didn’t respond to a request for comment. A phone call to the employee wasn’t returned.

Mortgage Market

GMAC ranked fourth among U.S. home-loan originators in the first six months of this year, with $26 billion of mortgages, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, an industry newsletter. Wells Fargo & Co. ranked first, with $160 billion, and Citigroup Inc. was fifth, with $25 billion.

Iowa Assistant Attorney General Patrick Madigan said the implications of Ally’s internal review and the GMAC employee’s deposition could be “enormous.”

“It would call into question whether other servicers have engaged in similar practices,” Madigan said in a telephone interview. “It would be a major disruption to the foreclosure pipeline.”

When we thought we were rich!

Spaniards wrestling with their housing meltdown.

It is the hangover after an epic fiesta, a period Spaniards now refer to as “cuando pensábamos que éramos ricos”—”when we thought we were rich.” – Gotta love their style & honesty!

http://bit.ly/d9g59l