It’s always an awkward moment at best, and one which leaves traces of indecision, guilt, sleepless nights and sheer panic. An anonymous collections caller destroys any momentary peace of mind. Or a doorbell rung at early evening hour by a process server brings an end to months or years of mortgage arrears. Some homeowners threatened by foreclosure simply freeze, paralyzed by not knowing where to go for help or what options are available to them. For them, foreclosure paralysis has set in. They wait for the banks to act, as eventually banks do, unaware that they had options had they sought them, and feeling lost and alone.
The total number of American families who no longer can take great pride in the struggle for homeownership increases on a daily basis. Just Google the phrase “hardship letters”, a seemingly unknown phrase several years ago, and you can find pages and pages of definitions, examples and related businesses all trying to capture the necessary information for you. Bankruptcy filings have defied imagination and we are told that the current level represents more than an 80% increase over 2007.
It is not unusual for new clients to share with me their experiences over the past several years, using credit cards to pay for daily living expenses and amassing debt well over $50,000. Blame the banks, blame the credit card companies and now we learn that we are also to blame the high priced universities allowing hard pressed students and their families to enter their halls of learning.
Ron Lieber writes in his Sunday N.Y. Times “Your Money” column: “So in an eerie echo of the, mortgage crisis, tens of thousands of people are facing a reckoning. They and their families made borrowing decisions based more on emotion than reason, much as sub-prime borrowers assumed the value of their houses would always go up”, He details the familiar tale of a lifetime of hard work, high morals and devoted effort, yet somehow gone wrong. Yet despite the crash, there is hope and there is recovery.
This is what worries me. Our law firm has taken particular notice of the phone calls, e-mails and test messages from clients, neighbors and families seeking nothing more than an option or choice when faced with the complex issues surrounding their receipt of a foreclosure summons, a notice of foreclosure sale and the countless default demands from their lenders and servicers filtering into their lives. The questions posed are familiar, as I have heard them through the months and years, many times. Will filing bankruptcy stop the foreclosure and help me pay my mortgage? Should I hire a company to negotiate my credit card bills? What about the modification company that advertises they can save my home?
When my clients go these routes, they want to take command but cannot afford to learn the answers and many of them return to our offices with devastating tales of loss and frustration. It’s like the Lost and Found box, where we all go when we leave our violin, briefcase or shopping bag on the train or in a taxicab. They expected a return to tradition where anonymous do-gooders take our precious belongings and entrust them to faceless clerks behind counters and windows to hold until the rightful owner is found.
In a similar return to tradition for those of our clients who face foreclosure and default, we turn to our Courts and judiciary who have been empowered by our legislature to carve out foreclosure settlement parts, conferences and judicial solutions to the economic and social chaos created by financial institutions and their sub-prime borrowing standards. The laws in our great state and our judiciary can serve to protect your rights in a foreclosure action. If you are a defendant in a lawsuit, and as defendant, you have the ability to seek copies of the closing and loan papers signed so many years ago. You can reflect upon the legality of the papers you signed. You may also demand copies of underwriting standards and show whether the lender complied with Federal and State statutes. You may even challenge the manner in which the foreclosure action was commenced against you.
These are your rights, and our courts and judges stand ready to afford you each and every right to which you are entitled as a defendant in a lawsuit. We return to our courts to deal with our national foreclosure crisis. A return to what our great country has always done best as a nation of law and order. We experience immeasurable comfort when we read a decision in favor of a homeowner who has stared down the barrel of a foreclosure action and has come out the victor.
These values are our traditions, many of which our clients know very little about. In our law firm, we don’t expect you to know these skills. We urge you to come in and discuss your concerns and express your families’ intentions on keeping your home your own. Two or three years ago, when we began to focus on helping clients in foreclosure and mortgage arrears to keep their homes, we did not have our present laws. Now, with a certain degree of experience and comfort, we most publicly welcome our clients into the judicial process to discuss the exercise of their rights.
This happens across the board, in and among families and neighbors of all persuasion. As you face this decision, some might ask, “Who can’t participate and who can’t come into court?” The more cynical might even suggest that the homeowner created his or her own dilemma. There may be thousands of wrong reasons not to look at the choices now available to save your home. However, you only need one good reason to overcome your mortgage paralysis and that is to decide to fight to “keep home your own”.
