Keep Home Your Own : New York Real Estate Lawyers & Attorneys : Rubin & Licatesi Law Firm : NY Loan Modification, Foreclosure : New Jersey, Long Island

This recent Fourth of July weekend, celebrating 235 years of our nation’s independence, motivates a sense of humility as we face a modern day separation of so many previously interwoven seams in this country. Job loss, credit loss, investment loss - all these economic threads from our lives, perhaps unforgivingly taken for granted during the good times, have now risk been lost by many homeowners who live here. These tattered fabrics are slowly unraveling for our families, neighbors & clients, now facing new crises, challenges and foreclosures throughout our great nation.

Perhaps in New York we may rely upon the wisdom and strength ceded to us in our nation’s great instrument of independence when we summon the courage to keep home our own following the start of a foreclosure action. Our law firm remains focused in bringing protection and defense to the forefront when called upon by clients who will not give up their homes to strangers as plaintiffs. These plaintiffs bear little if any resemblance to the lenders they most earnestly relied upon to transform their dreams into homes.

Justice Schack takes a stand
A most respected and honored jurist has recently, and once again, braved these troubled waters to preserve the integrity of another family's residence. Brooklyn's Honorable Justice Arthur M. Schack, in refusing to permit foreclosure of a Crown Heights, NY home, enforced the laws of our state, protecting the respect for homeownership in the courts. Assignments of loans without procedure, conflicts of interest and erroneous facts would not stand the tests and standards for the loss of a home before this Supreme Court.

Michael Powell of the New York Times first described Justice Schack’s decisions in 2009: “Justice Schack, like a handful of state and federal judges, has taken a magnifying glass to the mortgage industry. In the gilded haste of the past decade, bankers handed out millions of mortgages — with terms good, bad and exotically ugly — then repackaged those loans for sale to investors from Connecticut to Singapore. Sloppiness reigned. So many papers have been lost, signatures misplaced and documents dated inaccurately that it is often not clear which bank owns the mortgage.”

Fighting the taboos of foreclosure
For a practicing foreclosure defense attorney, even in the face of this malignancy of foreclosure epidemic, we witness the enforcement of the laws of this State. We witness a family as it stands up against the taboos of foreclosure and seek to protect their rights in the courts of New York. We witness these great events and bear testimony to others who come after and speak with them of their rights, defenses and ability to keep their homes.

Soon, as word of these decisions spreads, a sense of this Fourth of July, and the message and spirit of this holiday to stand up and rally around the rule of law will also be echoed by new clients. "Do I share in that case..."; "Can I keep my house...." ;"Will my children remain in their bedrooms..?". These questions will be heard and discussed in the offices of our law firm for years to come as the foreclosure crisis spills across our country without caps. The beauty we see in this comes from the honorable families who discard their fears, and fight to "keep home your own".

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In our neighborhoods and backyards, our friends are sure to share many similarities. Whether we live in the outskirts of Buffalo, (which parenthetically is home to the largest foreclosure law firm in New York State), or in a more run-of-the-mill community akin to Garden City, (which is where our law firm is based and houses a much more modest foreclosure defense law firm), we are sure to see a senior citizen who is a neighbor and homeowner, one who moved in many years prior to us and who remains somewhat as the "watcher of the block".
These senior neighbors are reliably quick with a set of very specific instructions on things like where you may park your car and when you can put out your garbage cans or even the days they prefer not to have your lawn mowed. These senior neighbors may also not be quite as vocal, but prefer to remain in the background of community affairs, coming out only on the rare occasion. Would you ever care to guess what’s going on in their backyards and living rooms during these most hard pressed of times?
Last week, unable to cure their own ills of foreclosure, I received two inquiries concerning the plight of our senior citizens and a foreclosure action. The cases were as different as night and day but both cases were almost exactly of the same concern. Similar worries and nightmares were shared by different people in the metropolitan area. I listened with extra care as the case unfolded. My inrterest was immediate, as the new clients were golden-agers, people over 62 years of age, homeowners, and both deeply involved in their own quest to keep their homes.
They told me that they received a notice several months ago. Maybe it was a summons and complaint and they recently appeared in court, without an attorney. After submitting many papers to their lenders, their loan modification requests were denied and their cases summarily transferred out of the safety of the foreclosure settlement part of the case. One of the clients phrased it that her home was "released" from the part and the foreclosure case was moving forward again.
In our law firm, we find this a most unforgivable ending. Our blog “KeepHomeYourOwn” is written and intended to prevent the destruction and chaos of a foreclosure sale. With respect to seniors and the foreclosure process, we spoke with Martin Dekom, Jacob Dean Mortgage, a senior reverse mortgage specialist. We spoke in great length on the topic of terrified homeowners who have paid their bills for decades and now have earned this most unjust reward of foreclosure. He has a solution, it refers to the Brooklyn Dodgers, and he isn’t crazy.
Decom says, "Many older homeowners have a solution in the reverse mortgage. The basic qualification is you must be old enough to remember the Brooklyn Dodgers (that is, you must be of a certain age). This is a program without a monthly payment, available to those 62 and older who live in the house as their principal residence and want to keep their home. The loan only becomes due when the homeowner dies, sells or moves out. Foreclosure is not a part of this process. A homeowner in foreclosure can be saved with a reverse mortgage if the amount owed is 60% or less of the value of the home. This number varies with the age of the borrower: the older the borrower, the more money is available, up to about 80%, with a maximum of $495,000. Cases of negotiated short payoffs can also be developed to save the home and avoid foreclosure.
It can be nerve-wracking, but bear in mind that lenders don’t want the homes; the lenders want their money. Consider three things: experience, cost and cost. Comparison shop before moving forward with a reverse mortgage and keep it in the toolbox as a resource to save your home from foreclosure”
We are currently in the process of discussing a reverse mortgage loan analysis for these clients, in addition to reviewing the court documents and producing a functional defense to help keep their homes. Quick decisions rarely bring value to complex situations. Seniors were fair game in the years of free money, deceptive lending practices and sub prime loans. It is now our obligation and responsibility to peer over our fences and ask of our senior neighbors if help or consultation is necessary as they suffer silently the disease of the distressed loan. Help with reverse mortgages is available at KeepHomeYourOwn.
 

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There is much more ahead in the current mortgage foreclosure crisis. Temporary assistance programs designed to benefit those in desperate need have seen record numbers of applicants. Our scheduled foreclosure sales and related foreclosure court parts have rapidly expanded to meet the growing demands of our nation’s largest lenders. Loan modification companies have been branded outlaws. Non-profit housing counseling agencies and local bar associations offer pro bono services to the homeowner in distress and remain hugely under-funded. Welfare, foreclosure, mortgage defaults and economic shockwaves with record job losses are ripping up the very fabric of American dreams and aspirations.

We are a country torn to pieces. And yet we continue to scan for hopes and rays of ways to keep our homes. Even in the first days of this crisis, homeowners sought out methods and created new initialed programs to save our homes and neighborhoods from the permanent scars of a foreclosed home on our block. Have our bankers and financial decision makers designed anything of substance to tilt the balance of delinquencies back to successful modifications?

One might think that the repayment of the TARP loans by the largest lending institutions would give pause to auction sales, and lend a great weight to the recovery, After all, with Detroit now competing successfully against the biggest of the foreign automakers, and Congress’s measures to strengthen and guarantee absolute continuity for our largest banks, the shockwaves felt during the past several years cannot reoccur. The unexpected has been measured and the Treasury Department has seen us through the worst of times. Have we saved ourselves?

Toxic Loans: Gone Missing?
Where, however, are the millions and billions of dollars of toxic loans gone? Our houses and bricks are still here. Although we are told that our debt crisis has been solved, who has identified the mass exodus from these mortgage delinquencies? Clearly these complex trails of destruction lead to the thousands of pieces necessary for the picture puzzle solution.

From experience, and first hand participation in the trenches of this foreclosure crisis, the pieces connect when a family reaches out with a call to our law firm looking to keep home their own. Perhaps an email describes a homeowner’s many months of non-payment, followed by years of submitting pay stubs and tax returns, letters of hardship and financial statements, only to result in a notice of sale for a week from Wednesday. The harsh reality of a Marshall entering the front door and demanding that you take your children, parents and loved ones and vacate immediately begins the process of connecting the pieces. On the surface of such a call or an email is fear, but beyond the fear of loss is the unremitting intention to prevent the foreclosure sale and the desire to sustain the home which pushed the homeowner to reach out to our lawyers.

Successes, One by One
This is not about your lenders controlling the process and the evictions. It is about our clients beginning to read and witness that the litigation path is a roadway of success and solution. One by one, a home is saved. One by one, a family talks about an order to show cause and a motion to vacate a default judgment. One by one, a family discusses the sewer-service method banks use to take away their homes as readily as they would discuss a trip to the supermarket.

In our law firm, we argue for education and to bring about an in-depth analysis of the foreclosure laws which present opportunities to the many who choose to keep their homes. You are a named defendant in a foreclosure summons because you own your home and you can continue to own your home by engaging the pieces and challenging the lending practices of the past to bring about the modern agreements and settlements so often seen in our courts on a daily basis. The pieces are in the box but there are moments and observations which are not mere research ideas. These pieces fit together but require your hand and intention to “keep home your own”.

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It’s always an awkward moment at best, and one which leaves traces of indecision, guilt, sleepless nights and sheer panic. An anonymous collections call 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. 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”.
 

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“If mortgage delinquencies are not yet clearly improving, it also appears they are not getting worse. However, a bad situation that is not getting worse is still bad” according to Jay Brinkmann, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association. A Newsday article  by Emi Endo offers additional statistics as it reports that “nearly one in seven US homeowners fell behind on mortgages or were in foreclosure from January through March and roughly one in 10 borrowers nationwide, a record high, missed at least one payment in the first quarter of 2010.”

We are living in a homeowner’s house of cards. Our clients have no margin of error in their family’s financial planning. Some kitchen tables, essentially reserved for family gatherings and mealtime sharing for school reports, job talk and daily exchanges are now resting places for unpaid credit card statements, demand letters from creditors and other evidence of mistaken debts taken during times of plenty. Suffolk and Nassau counties sadly share rankings by the Federal Reserve Bank in the top 50 for distressed mortgage ratios.

Success stories amidst the statistics

Yet despite such seemingly oppressive and disturbing statistics, I witness success stories while working with clients who have received summons and complaints from their lenders seeking to foreclose upon their homes and families. These are not missteps of judgment made while blind to the risks and consequences of unforeseen dangers. These were purchases of homes made by fathers and mothers and people of all persuasion who committed to many of the American dreams and ideals that are almost inborn and inbred from coast to coast.

I like what I see and hear when a new client calls and relive their experience and hope. These clients are the people who listened to our political leaders, our Presidents and Governors and bought homes, bought appliances, bought new cars and created jobs, new schools and new neighborhoods. Our clients waited patiently until they could hardly wait another instant and entered the board of real estate. We have now learned that the foreclosure crisis has invaded not only the subprime market but reaches into the nonprime loans and conventional marketplace. In our law firm, we focus in discussing these issues, not as potential bankruptcy matters and insolvencies, but as a platform to advocate and represent our clients who have received notices of delinquencies and foreclosure summons. Our purpose is to save these homes and investments from foreclosure..

New legislation encouraging

Our legislature has adopted laws, and our courts have enforced these laws. These are effective avenues that encourage homeownership retention but require new commitments on the part of our clients. You can keep your home your own, even in the face of months and months of non-payment. Many solutions and settlements depend upon your new commitment to maintain the stability of your desire to keep your home. Our judges have much less tolerance for the one sided and heavy handed position of yesterday’s lender’s demands to auction off your home.

HAMP and Treasury Guidelines, with servicer agreements, favor so many homeowners who partner their wishes with well placed actions and monthly submissions of income, residency and hardship evidence. Foreclosure settlement parts provide a steady hand and experienced leadership to afford the homeowner the necessary confidence and increased support to keep their homes.

This hopeful message leads to the predictable conclusion that our clients’ closings, their dreams of backyard barbecues and gatherings were not errors of our past. The lending criteria were piled with errors of judgment made by financial giants, many of whom have faded away. But each client who visits with us is a reminder of the strength of our dream of American homeownership. Our homes, shopping areas and office buildings remain as a constant reminder that yesterday’s goals are not to be forgotten.

Our lending and borrowing patterns and programs over the past eight years have saddled our neighborhoods and communities with an enormous sea of debt. In the face of this crisis, new rules have emerged. It is much more than wishful thinking when we say that these new commitments which are offered to save your home can reveal solutions and opportunities to keep home your own.

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If you are in the foreclosure process, you will undoubtedly be asked to write a hardship letter by your lender. Banks want to understand your situation, and need to know if you are a suitable candidate for modification. The hardship letter is a way of going beyond the numbers, to evaluate your particular situation. This is an important step for anyone considering a loan modification, as well as for persons trying to sell their house to get out of a mortgage, or simply trying to give it back to the bank.

One thing a hardship letter is NOT is a place for a borrower to make excuses, point fingers of blame or vent anger over being in an unfortunate financial situation. Your lender doesn’t usually care what brought you into the situation. He wants to know what chances he has of getting all or at least some of his money back. If you appear to be a good candidate, your lender probably may be willing to offer some kind of loan modification.

Before you sit down to write your hardship letter, first think about who will be reading it. Your audience likely will be a member of the bank’s loss mitigation team, and it’s not a particularly inspiring job. He or she spends 8 to 12 hours a day working on unpleasant and tragic problems. Your reader will be working on hundreds of cases similar to yours at the same time, and will have read possibly thousands of hardship letters before seeing yours. Your audience will be incredibly risk-averse, and work in a highly pressurized atmosphere of saving every penny they can for the bank.

So what does the loss mitigation team want to know? Two things, actually. First, they want to know your circumstances. Why did you stop making payments? Was it a temporary problem such as being downsized from a well-paying job? Or are you permanently unable to work due to injury or other circumstances? Explain your current situation, explaining why you are unable to repay your loan.

The second point you need to make letter is to show the lender that loan modification is part of your overall solution. Is there a chance you may get rehired, or may get a similar position with a different employer? Are you planning on taking several part time jobs until you can regain full employment? Do you have any other sources of income which may relieve your situation in the near future such as an inheritance, the sale of property or other financial benefits? Showing them a workable plan makes you appear to be a good risk.

Keep your letter short. A single page is best. Avoid a rambling explanation of your circumstances and don’t allow yourself any “woe-is-me” tale telling.

After you’ve written your letter, read it over and see if it focuses on your two points. If you find anything that doesn’t talk about defining your situation and how you propose to resolve it, delete it and read it again. This is the beginning of a conversation you will have with your lender. Stick to the facts and focus on your goal, which is convincing your lender that you are a good candidate for loan modification.
 

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More than 3 million friends, neighbors and families currently share similar messages among their intimate groups of friends, neighbors and family members.  Their common thread is one of homeownership fears, mortgage arrears and home equity loss.  These are the phone calls, e mails and texts we see in a regularly increasing tide of new clients calling our law firm.

Foreclosure worries and an apparent and readily foreseeable fallout most certainly blizzards our radar screen.   For many of the past several years, those on the sidelines watched with great interest and listened as they sat somewhat tucked away from the chaos and crisis.   Never having doubted the American struggle to keep home your own, the monthly payments were not just an “old fashioned” commitment.  

Now, many of these bench warmers are fully engaged after suffering a job loss, hardship or unseen economic downturn.   Process servers and bankruptcy petitions are leading edge indicators when business in those sectors are booming.  This is not a moral crisis faced during a short slump in family earning power. Essentially, many families are forced to recognize that their entire mortgage debt and repayment abilities need an overhaul. 

While most of the analysts continue to debate the reasons for the paucity of progress in loan modifications, a Suffolk County Supreme Court decision scrutinizes the lending practices of the past and sets the barrier in favor of a homeowner who seeks to keep home their own.  Justice Jeffrey Arlen Spinner was assigned an action entitled Emigrant Mortgage v Corcione and on April 16, 2010 published his findings in the foreclosure action. 

The facts are probably not much different for many of you who have visited our office or for those who are in the throes of a foreclosure action.   Perhaps it was a mortgage loan taken within the past several years with hope that shortly after, another refinance would be undertaken to bail out of a loan which had a high interest rate or adjusted or had other terms most unfavorable for long term borrowing.   Shortly thereafter, unexpected hardship, reduced income and real estate downturns create new and unfamiliar landscapes of non payment and credit score failings.   Visits and phone calls produced little, if any realistic hope of a restructure of homeownership debt. The loan modification process fails after scores and scores of faxes, e mails and submissions to your servicer. 

The homeowners in this action sought legal counsel and found refuge in the New York State Supreme Court.   Justice Spinner’s decision unfolds the process, revealing that the bank delayed modification to collect pre-action late charges, tax and escrow advances, lender legal fees and other foreclosure related fees from the defendants.  In a far reaching decision, projecting previously unfound protection for the homeowner, the Court ruled that these homeowners no longer are to be judged by the moral dilemmas attached to a foreclosure action.   Mortgage foreclosure actions are now litigated matters and procedural or substantive federal and state laws will be engaged to protect the rights of the homeowner. 

Our citizens in New York State have been provided with mandatory settlement conferences in foreclosure actions, and these very same laws “mandate that the parties to such an action act and negotiate in good faith……….In short, the conduct of Plaintiff in this matter has been over-reaching, shocking, willful and unconscionable, is wholly devoid of even so much as a scintilla of good faith and cannot be countenanced by this Court.”  

Justice Spinner’s “moral compass” found bad faith conduct on the part of the lender and awarded damages in favor of the homeowners to “serve as an appropriate deterrent to any future outrageous, improper and wrongful activities.”   This decision permeates the air in every foreclosure settlement part that I have attended. Lawyers, hearing officers and court personnel openly debate the long term reliance upon such a decision as the appeal process may ultimately determine the final outcome in this action.   However, the spin and the stir of this decision may have adjusted the compass to point to a plan of recovery. 

 As a result, homeowners and clients who now visit with our law firm or others focused on the protections of the home against foreclosure are encouraged that the failings of the loan modification process do not represent the end of the road.   The compass points to new ingredients of judicial enforcement and social change emanating from the Courtroom of Justice Spinner.   The emphasis on failing and foreclosure is no longer an option for those who choose to seek to keep home your own.

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Could 30 million Americans, completely unnerved and destabilized from the ravages of their home mortgage foreclosures, benefit from a decades old and time proven theory of recovery -  compulsory integration?   Is there anyone who can argue successfully that our country is in troubled economic times and that the present day recovery system is working?  Certainly not says the Rev. Patrick H. O’Connor of the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica.  Jim Dwyer’s Sunday New York Times article, which reinvents the sub-prime mortgage chaos into the food chain in his “When Pizza Becomes Predatory” front page headlines and announces the pastor’s news and analysis of a slice of pizza.  “You have a $2.50 slice of pizza bought with a debit card, and if the person is over the limit, the card is not rejected.  Instead, you have a $35 fee.  So the slice of pizza is $37.50”.

The cancellation of the purchase may not have proven of immediate benefit to the pizza parlor nor the consumer, but in the weeks to come, little would have resulted if the purchase had been declined.   Except of course, to state the obvious, our friend would not have ended up having to see a bill for $37.50 for a slice of pizza. 

Magnified millions of times over, the declination of each request for modification also leads to long standing and potentially permanent chaos in our struggle for a return to stable neighborhoods, job optimism and highly respected middle class values of credit scores and financial responsibility.  It is a given that so many families have taken on mortgage loans which far exceed their ability to repay or no longer bear any relationship to the value of their homes.   Our return to real estate homeownership is not going to be geared towards statistics of whether our local quarterly reports indicate a decrease in homes foreclosed from last year’s figures.  

The stated facts are that the volume of foreclosure activity and bank-seized properties does not benefit from subtle increases or decreases in statistical timelines.   Foreclosures in our communities litter the weekly and local community newspapers, no longer advertising simple sub-prime defaults.  This year we are set to watch out for the defaults for all of our friends who have lost jobs and income. This collapse is most certain to occur, and we witness the margins dip on their spread between rainy day accounts and bill paying.  The refusal of our Federal Government to intercede in mandatory regulation will turn back the recovery process for decades to come. 

Every several months, newly touted solutions grab the attention of the real estate community.  The Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives  (HAFA) have received much attention in the past several weeks, serving those whose goal is to achieve a short sale.  The Treasury Department, in partnership with the major servicers, specify a thirty day window after which we are told whether a short sale may be approved.  What follows are lines and lines of procedures, caps on real estate commissions and time limits to re-sell and avenues to obtain broker price opinions.  The losers in this process will far outnumber those who prosper. 

 During the past several years, TARP,HAMP,HAFA and scores of freshly minted initialed entities entered our daily conversations.  Quietly, we have asked for recognition in our negotiations with lenders and foreclosure conferences in court, to establish well defined reviews of our financial statements and accountable methods for assignments with bank representatives who can discuss our loan modification requests from the “international” and far flung offices of our lenders and servicers.

Continually, we often find deaf ears or untraceable extensions as we seek to communicate with bank representatives.  This has also unfairly resulted in our lenders shouldering an intolerable burden of unpaid debt, with the new law in the state of New York. This law requires that the lenders now must maintain the properties which they have seized in foreclosure actions.  Our lenders backlash against this law and the unfair consequences which may continue to restrict future lending has also missed the mark.  

The argument to punish the lender is as unfair as it is to destroy our neighbors and friends. This spiraling trend of inefficient and costly failures in the loan modification programs also leads to taxable issues for discussion and balance sheet reviews.   When our home loans reach default stage and arrears mount and short sale approaches are looked at by buyers and lenders and sellers, the Internal Revenue Service also looks at this cancellation of debt issues. 

The insanity of failed loan modifications and denial of responsible requests to restructure our monthly debts is a recurring invitation to participate in the destabilization of America.  The humbling realization after working with hundreds of families is that we have the process to recover and we have the alternatives available to prevent forced seizures of our homes. 

Poor results and statistical failures have resulted from the lack of compulsory integration of the HAMP solutions into our requests for responsible loan modifications and foreclosure defenses.   Our courts are now witnessing challenges by homeowners to enforce the present HAMP regulations.   HAMP must become an obsession and dominate the discussions. 

We are short changing both our lenders and our homeowners by permitting anything less than rigid adherence to those stated goals of recovery.  HAMP is not a bargain nor is it a bailout.  It can be an effective method for mandated and compulsory integration.   We have seen the challenges and downfalls in our history for turning our backs to social injustice.  

Years and years of waste and family destruction can be avoided by re-integrating the past successes of mandatory integration of these vital economic recovery programs.   Failure is not an option and cannot be tolerated.   When you are faced with mortgage arrears or the service of a summons and complaint, we must be certain that exercising the right to recover and save your home, be heard in the offices of our lenders and throughout the courts of our state. 

The attorneys who serve the lenders in their quest to foreclose, must refrain from any conversation or discussion with the very homeowners they sue, unless it is to direct these families to private counsel, not for profit agencies or Bar Associations.  These are dangerous lawsuits and any attempt to diminish the severity of the foreclosure action by either the actions of the lender or their attorneys must be viewed with harsh consequences. We cannot measure the cost of failure, for it will linger for generations:   a child evicted from his room, a senior now out on the streets, uncles and aunts now living in new states or unknown shelters.  We hear about divorces, separations – “Addressee Unknown” when we receive Christmas cards back from friends no longer living in their homes.  

Our recent history recognizes us as a strong people, solving this madness. We too can use the strength of our Nation to cure our present day economic ills.  We are not a nation of invertebrates.  We are a people of backbone and when pressed we will rise, conquer and with the ability to listen to all sides, frame mandated and compulsory procedures to solve the foreclosure crisis.

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In my efforts to remain current on all private and government trends and currents, I have come across some interesting, if not required, reading. The United States Department of Treasury, under Help for America’s Homeowners, Making Home Affordable Program, published on March 29, 2010, Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives - Short Sale and Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure Update says regarding short sales: “The options help preserve the condition and value of the property by minimizing the time a property is vacant and subject to vandalism and deterioration. In addition, these options generally provide a substantially better outcome than a foreclosure sale for borrowers, investors and communities.”

Another interesting quote comes for the NY Times Sunday Opinion, April 11, 2010, but this time we read the published statements from a former Secretary of the Treasury and former director of Citigroup…”We all bear responsibility for not recognizing this (financial crisis), and I deeply regret that….” And his colleague, Charles O. Prince III, former chairman and chief executive officer, Citigroup…”I’m sorry that the financial crisis has had such a devastating impact on our country. I’m sorry for the millions of people, average Americans, who have lost their homes. And I’m sorry that our management team, starting with me, like so many others, could not see the unprecedented market collapse that lay before us.”

Apologies, short sales and lost homes, now we are literally “Home Free”. Circumstances being what they were, millions of Americans entered into the housing market during the years of the Bush Administration, with mortgage bankers creating “home free” opportunities- no income, no assets needed or required; no need to consider repayment or the consequences if the market collapsed. No need to pay heed to the model makers in the financial marketplace whose responsibility to oversee and render opinions would have laid bare the recklessness of the mortgage products being sold to our American families.

We now witness the results. Another reading requirement is to view the reports of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. This commission has as one of its duties a direction of its process to enable the government to assist the reform and correction in our financial marketplace. Aside from these apologies, commission duties and recent supplemental directives to move forward with short sales and lost homes and titles, we must return to the solution.

For the past two years, we have made great strides to struggle against the banks’ foreclosure activities and have received tremendous benefits in our New York Courts. Our judges, court clerks and attorneys participate in daily foreclosure settlement parts, implementing the progressive HAMP programs which are evolving into solutions for many homeowners who have chosen to exercise their rights and remain in their homes. Those eligible borrowers have seen a slow and steady up-tick in the number of families destined to survive the unannounced visit by a process server with a foreclosure summons and complaint.

Foreclosure actions are now met with a rising tide of suspicion and investigation in our courts. These lawsuits are now required to proceed with a due recognition that our homeowners and families have a set of rights that cannot be routinely and cavalierly trampled upon by nameless and unaccountable lenders. Those families who entered the front door “home free” and have suffered the indignities and break ups caused by the errant judgment of lenders and financial leaders, now see that these dreams of homeownership will not make them “home free”.

These newly published regulations are not in any way a set of solutions for our homeowners. It is a return to the past failures of our government, by allowing and encouraging another lost home. Washington tested the waters and compiled a series of rules and regulations for mortgage lenders and eligible borrowers to follow which have ultimately allowed hundreds and thousands of families to remain in their homes, communities, schools and neighborhoods. With these latest procedures, it has created a diversion for implementing the solution which is so very vital to the success of the HAMP program.

We are well aware of the current and ongoing tidal wave of defaults and foreclosures, and we are also well educated now to see that the current recovery allows for much optimism. By utilizing the efforts and programs now in place and defending against an unopposed foreclosure action, the current movement towards foreclosure and short sales can be avoided. We must keep your home your own and we can do so. Your visit to our office can provide the opportunities and solutions for success. You can finally be “home free”.

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In a March 2010 publication from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, (Office of Thrift Supervision, Washington D.C., fourth quarter 2009) performance data confirms “the increase in seriously delinquent mortgages was most pronounced among prime borrowers, where the number of seriously delinquent mortgages increased by 16.5 percent.” More reading gives little hope for success with the manner in which loan modification and loss mitigation programs are handled when it is stated that “servicers reported that they expect new foreclosure actions to increase in the upcoming quarters as many of the mortgages that are seriously delinquent may eventually result in foreclosure as alternatives that prevent foreclosure are exhausted.”

Those who have seen limited success in trial payment modifications have not received permanent help. “Short sales continued to grow as an alternative to foreclosure... more than doubling from the same quarter a year ago.” We are not surprised. Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program(TARP) was quoted in the Associated Press article by Alan Zibel that the “lack of planning, has resulted in constant changes that have bewildered the more than 100 participating mortgage companies”.
 

Standing back and looking over our shoulders at these comments and summaries clearly evidences a series of salvage plans, almost doomed to failure from their inception. Millions of families, trillions of dollars, banks, servicers, homeowners and Obama Administration officials are taking aim at the mortgage and foreclosure crisis without any commitment to succeed. This week, many have seen new headlines, with new life boats launched to underwater mortgages and families struggling against the wave of foreclosure actions. The Federal Government publishes eligibility requirements for unemployed borrowers who have not missed more than three payments, are receiving unemployment insurance benefits, all with a mortgage loan of less than $729,750 and provides initiatives for a loan modification to these previously unattended folks.

Without spending much time on that program (are there really unemployed families in such categories??) we have yet another plan for homeowners whose principal residence has suffered the ravages of economic decline. Servicers now are charged with creating solutions which envision the write off of a portion of the borrower’s loan until it reaches a level where statistically, payment can be accomplished and rewards are provided to those who participate and complete three years of timely payments.

Other voices concur. David Streitfeld, writing in Saturday’s NY Times asks, "Will it work this time? Howard Glaser, a housing consultant says, “The housing market is the Vietnam War of the American financial system. The federal government is in so deep, they have to keep ramping up to find a way out.”

We have watched hree years of initialed programs, HAMP, HAFA,TARP,  during three years of Treasury Department. We have listened to FDIC officials and Administrators of National Banks. We have read three years of Mortgage Metric Reports, These all come from extremely educated and experienced federal officials, with well placed initials and highly valued post graduate degrees, all collaborating to provide and originate home retention programs, looking for eligible borrowers to participate in loan modification programs. Yet, the power, speed and intelligence of these plans is tantamount to placing bets on which witch has the fastest broomstick. There is no window at Aqueduct or Belmont or the jai-alai or dog tracks engaging in such wagers. The portfolio of salvage plans are not reaching the servicers and the lenders and the mortgage backed security trustees.

Simply stated, whatever is being done seeps through in mysterious and unaccountable manners and platforms. Calls to our lenders are overwhelmingly met with little success. Recent client visits to our offices have witnessed foreclosure actions that went unanswered for the past several years, with referees and foreclosure auctions on the horizon. Foreclosure defense litigation for these families is a current focus and feels uncomfortable at first.

But for these underwater homeowners, jumping into shark infested waters and hoping to stop the judicial sale of their homes is the only means of survival at this point. Judges, foreclosure settlement court appointed referees and attorneys and court clerks are now called upon to enter this new world of foreclosure defense litigation. It is possible that an imminent sale can be postponed and that your home can be saved.The only guarantee is that if you do nothing, nothing will happen to stop the foreclosure sale. This portfolio of broomsticks, some might argue, is perhaps our best hope in a system where modification files are handled by faceless and nameless, sometimes even foreign, servicer and bank representatives.

However, with the mandated New York State laws and foreclosure settlement conferences, and with committed court personnel, delays can be allowed and foreclosure sales can be halted, even if only on a temporary basis. This allows time for the banks to review our submissions and consider evidence of ability to repay. The fears and paralysis of a visit from a process server and delivery of the foreclosure summons and complaint are genuine, but ultimately can be tempered by a strong commitment for negotiation and investor review. Many mortgage holders have reacted to the federal programs and contracted to participate in reviewing eligibility for success. These plans and blueprints can be modeled to “Keep Home Your Own”.

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Our Federal Government has already failed many American homeowners in its stated effort to halt the massive foreclosures on the books today. Its inability to mandate action has left American home owners scattering like monkeys from a fallen tree. Now, the federal government has enacted an extension of these disastrous programs. It now provides us with yet another initialed program, H.A.F.A., the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program.

After enacting H.A.M.P, the generally ignored Home Affordable Modification Program, one would conclude that the Treasury Department, some thirteen months later would offer additional tools to help an already mortally wounded nation reeling in economic woes beyond its imagination. To the six million families and homeowners who are behind in their mortgage payments and at risk of losing their homes, HAFA should read that they now can be soothed and calmed as the easing of the short sale process will restore order to their lives.

Short sales to the rescue?
In the short sale process, we are told that these borrowers may receive pre-approval by their lenders to sell their devaluated homes at realistically stipulated prices below the amount owed on their mortgage loans. This would allow them to market their homes with a reasonable degree of certainty and with deadlines to keep these mortgages from creating new disasters in their lives on a timely basis.

Skeptical readers however, bear in mind that under HAFA, these families who lose their homes, dreams and credit ratings may be eligible to receive up to $1500 for moving expenses. Some might argue from this that the Treasury Department has changed its direction and its intentions of keeping Americans in their homes through the implementation of its guidelines and regulations that mandate home modification. Instead, it seems the government has reversed itself, by now seeking a no holds barred reimbursement to the lenders, banks and servicers.

These benefactors of the government’s largesse are the same financial wizards who miserably failed their customers by ignoring the existing mandates to modify loans and work out a troubled loan portfolio. The fall-out created by these lenders spreads even further and the screws turn even tighter as new listings enter the marketplace only to find the very same lenders declining mortgage loans because the comparative sales prices have decreased tremendously due to recent short sales.

This presidential initiative, announced only one year ago to encourage loan modifications and thereby making stability of our housing market a number one priority, now proves out to have fallen on the deaf ears of unreceptive lenders and servicers. These financiers seem completely unprepared to alter the delinquencies and foreclosures and the ragged remnants now beginning to unfold in programs like HAFA.

Unemployment still feeds the flames
Michael Winerip's New York Times, "Generation B" article tells how a group of New Yorkers interviewed a year ago after losing their jobs were doing one year later. It comes as no surprise that nothing good happened. An executive who has been unemployed for the last twelve months stated quite simply, "I did not get a job until this January and it's only temporary. I was just renewed for two more months, so that's a relief for now."

His situation might have turned out differently had the Obama directives for renewed hope in the loan modification programs been sustained. Homeownership drives our economy, creates jobs and supports consumer confidence. New washing machines, added dormers and carpenters actively swinging hammers are our ladders of hope.

These dreams have also been scattered by the fall of the loan modification program. FICO scores, credit ratings, and home values are plummeting while delinquencies, bank repossessions and job losses continue to convert new statistics in our lives. Ellen Yan, writing for Newsday,
said it best..."snow slows foreclosures. Not only did it delay traffic, it might have slowed foreclosure-related filings quicker than any loan modification program." Few of us would have ever considered such a radical idea as to employ weather as a national solution.

We acknowledge that excesses ran uncontrolled in our real estate investment models, in our culture, and in our society. These excesses supported many of these delinquent loans. Whether we care to admit it or not, there are few, if any, who can stand blameless today and hawk that the ends justify the means. But this express lane into foreclosure must be stopped and the federal and state laws should be employed because they can be an effective method to solve our homeownership crisis. We must advertise that the solutions are already in place to save our homes. A foreclosure summons is an invitation to participate in the recapture of our goals. We need not turn to wholesale short sales and temporary fixes. We have solutions and procedures which can be discussed and if utilized, can stop the scattering of Americans from the fallen tree of the American home mortgage disaster.
 

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“Huge sums forge their own anchor, and our future advantage, if any, will be a small fraction of our historical edge”. Graham Bowley, in his Sunday NY Times article, quotes Warren Buffett and provides his readers with keen insight into Mr Buffett’s strategies and formulas in the face of the economic hardships during the past several years. Buffett invests much like the J.P. Morgans and Vanderbilts of the early 20th century – stocking up on capital during the good times and investing when hard times bring prices down. Says Buffett, “We’ve put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years. It’s been an ideal period for investors: A climate of fear is their best friend”.

Granted that few of us can draw personal parallels or easy comparisons to a gentleman with a company whose net income is in the billions and a share of his stock in the thousands. On the other hand, when it comes to dealing with collapsing family and personal incomes and mortgage loan payments, the underlying similarities give great hope when faced with a foreclosure or default on your home loan.

Homeowners’ crisis begins with banking excess
The beginning of this century saw unheralded dissatisfaction for the frustrated many who watched as real estate brought huge profits and lifestyle advantages to others who jumped into the market. Financial institutions literally opened the flood gates and developed a mortgage loan product for just about anyone who asked. We now move forward in this cycle, realizing the damages these financial decisions have passed on to homeowners. Mortgage loan arrears, defaults, over-valued homes and lost jobs are daily concerns in our law firm.

Even so, there are a number of touch points which allow for a process of recovery in so many cases. Our fundamental challenge is to avoid the foreclosure sale of your home. The front-line professionals, both lenders and borrowers attorneys, as well as housing representatives, all agree that the banks would much prefer working out a series of steps designed to defer the foreclosure sale. Homeowners should begin this process by meeting with an attorney or with one of the many organizations counseling homeowners in these situations. Loan modification discussions, court foreclosure settlement conferences and trial work-out or forbearance plans are good news solutions to the many clients who so courageously take plans of action.

What does it take to avoid foreclosure?
Lenders often times will take on these added tasks and forego an immediate foreclosure sale if homeowners can provide them with details of hardship, potential income, and prospective job offers. Gathering the paperwork and putting together the often daunting package of required materials can be laborious and frustrating. However, this work will often pay huge dividends. Many observers to this process foresee a huge increase in successful outcomes.

There are no “smoke and mirror” tricks to this process. It requires vast amounts of time, effort and patience, all of which are necessary as the numbers of submitted pleas for assistance to our mortgage lenders and servicers grow each day in unthinkable numbers.

What to do when the process server comes
While loan modifications are an option for many in early stage default, there are increasing numbers of homeowners who are served with a summons and complaint, requiring the intervention of a Judge and court action. Most experts agree that meeting with an attorney as soon as you are served with these court papers and presenting an answer and attendance in the court process also allows for loan workouts.

The laws in New York State provide a well defined extension to the hostile foreclosure sale. It is not uncommon to see these resources used in ways that encourage, through diligent and dedicated effort, a loan workout. Failure to answer the summons promptly can erase the many legal rights that homeowners have been granted and these rights can be exercised with great dignity and respect. There is no stigma attached to appearance in the foreclosure settlement conferences and the court staff and personnel are well sensitized and understanding in these parts.

The difficulty is greatly enhanced when dealing with client’s who have lost jobs and wages. From the lender’s standpoint, the homeowner may have decided that it is a lost cause and there is little hope. This is, without a doubt, the most difficult situation in which to create a pathway for positive solutions. Nevertheless, if properly managed and guided, and the rights of the homeowner are protected by caring counsel, this temporary income loss is frequently reversed. Experienced attorneys can present the new information and adapt to the lender’s review programs even at late stages of the foreclosure process.

The best first step: Having a one-on-one with your lawyer
Recognizing the new levels of tolerance towards mortgage loan defaults, neighbors and friends who have rarely if ever called upon the services of attorneys and housing professionals must now address the “what to do’s” when served with a summons and recognize that this is not an incurable problem.

I often get calls from homeowners I’ve never met who ask my opinion or want suggestions over the phone. I am totally without the benefit of knowing them, or their background. While I am sure there are cases in which opinions can be freely given after a brief conversation, more often than not, a one-on-one meeting is in order. In many cases, a slight pause and the wait until an office appointment can be convened is probably one of the best opinions I can offer.

When facing foreclosure on his home, a homeowner needs to realize that there are tips, benchmarks and strategies that can be discussed to save his home or soften the financial blow of hard times. Looking for courageous options and solutions often turns our conversation from a chaotic pulse of doom and gloom to a rallying point that, as Buffett says, is also an opportunity in this financial crisis.

Your home, your anchor
The huge housing debt taken on several years past, during a time of rising optimism and real estate fever, is not to be ignored. Our homes are our anchors and the loan problems we now face, if evaluated and addressed, are human problems and will be sorted out and solved by the people in government, banks, courts and neighborhoods. There is no confusion; there are no blind corners and there are no painful debates when you are faced with the possible loss of your home, commercial property or investment parcel. The property is your anchor, and if secured properly, will permit you to hold fast and face the storm of uncertainties until you can implement an effective strategy for paused consideration, unique alternatives and loan workout solutions.
 

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Thousands of our friends and neighbors have gone to the front door at dawn to pick up the morning paper, only to be greeted by a process server handing them a foreclosure notice. These people have been compromised by the ongoing failure of our federal and state governments. How? These government entities have failed to partner up with financial institutions and resolve our national housing instability. Without this resolution, every well written summons and every complaint seeking the foreclosure of a mortgage loan will result in a forced, judicial sale of the house. So is there life after being served notice? There can be.

A mortgage plainly states that if you do not pay the monthly payment, keep the house insured and free of violations and a number of other conditions, you will be sued in State or Federal Court and eventually your house will be sold at a foreclosure sale. A homeowner will listen to this at the closing table while signing a thick stack of documents and concentrate on anything but these potential chaotic results.

How federal and state government has failed foreclosed homeowners
There is little doubt that the overwhelming number of mortgage loan defaults do not result in sustainable loan modifications. Over one year ago, a group of 15 Attorneys General, including our New York State Banking Superintendent, joined in a letter dated February 2, 2009 to the Comptroller of the Currency and the Director of Office of Thrift Supervision stating that "the majority of loan modifications in the past year have not led to meaningful payment relief to homeowners. We are concerned that either the institutions supervised by the OCC and OTS have thus far failed to offer homeowners sustainable loan modifications, in contravention to guidance issued by the federal banking agencies...."

Almost one year later, this State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group issued its Data Report No.4, January 2010, and published its findings that the number of homeowners in default continues to grow; loss mitigation efforts are backlogged; principal reductions are rare; and that our lenders and servicers have "not succeeded in turning the corner to reduce the high levels of foreclosure." Newsday, February 11. 2010, Ellen Yan details these striking considerations in her article that the "number of newly started foreclosure cases on Long Island went up last month." Notwithstanding, she writes of some positive trends that are now forthcoming and reports of a successful loan modification for a Nassau county homeowner, even after the lender started a foreclosure proceeding.

Ms Yan described this process in her earlier article that "state law will require settlement conferences for all borrowers in the foreclosure process". She reported that court officials are "hoping to keep these people, more of them, in their homes." Many people who have come face to face with the process server feel no need to reach out for guidance, counsel and assistance. Each foreclosure summons is required to provide phone numbers for counseling agencies and each court house provides a Clerk's Office for homeowners to enter and seek information.

Strategies for life after foreclosure service
Let me provide you with a few positive and success oriented strategies and posture that there is life after service of the foreclosure action. Our law firm has a significant focus on "life after service" and we regularly meet with homeowners who have been served with a foreclosure summons and need counsel and defense to the possible loss of their home. A meeting in our office often gives the security that they seek and enables the confidence that there is a process for solution. The guarantee is that if "you do nothing you will get nothing" so work with an attorney that will help you understand and search out for answers to avoid foreclosure.

The wonderful thing about meeting with us is that the potential to succeed is limitless. I realize that when you greet that process server who explains that he is only doing his job, you most certainly will feel the weight of the world crashing down. You must take action. Look to mentors, neighbors and professionals who have had experience in this area. The statistics are overwhelming--- one out of seven borrowers are behind on their mortgage, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association 3rd Quarter 2009 survey. This absolutely means that you are not alone.

But it also means that someone won't magically appear in your living room to describe what actions you need to consider. To succeed, it means that you must begin the process of rebuilding your financial confidence and recognize, once you begin to search for the solution, that you will be assured of meeting someone who has had a similar problem but has done something to motivate and initiate a process that will defend the foreclosure action, slow it down to the point of engaging your lender in Court at a foreclosure settlement hearing, submitting for a loan modification or if necessary, take all other appropriate actions in the legal process to protect against a foreclosure sale.

The past three years have seen enormous actions from our financial institutions to engage this revolutionary concept of modification rather than foreclosure. There are steps now in process to implement a Treasury Department plan to modify eligible borrowers who have a second mortgage lien. These concepts are bold and innovative and require much on the part of the lender, but also on the part of the homeowner. Remember, that there is life after service and you can head in the direction of a solution.

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We didn’t expect to be in this economic fix. We followed the lessons taught in our school. We took the advice of our parents. We followed the suggestions of our bankers and mortgage lenders. Our life patterns and ever increasing responsibilities allowed us to embrace the core values that we believed would make us succeed. But as the expression goes, "look at the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into now".
Trillions of dollars have been lost in home market values. Millions of families owe more on their homes than they are worth. Thousands of foreclosures actions have been filed. And the most telling statistic of all: each classroom in every school in America may hold at least one student whose family will lose their home.
As the number of new clients seeking help from attorneys grows, we see the ravaging effects of economic chaos: sleepless nights, family break downs, business closings, lost jobs and savings. Simply stated, many of our neighbors no longer have the ability to pay their bills and are losing their homes. Should so many of our citizens have known better? Can so many people be wrong at the same time?
Without hesitation, loan modification and defending against foreclosure actions must be identified by our homeowners, lenders and elected officials as alternatives to a foreclosure sale. We see some signs of our economy "bottoming out" or even on a path to recovery. The reduction of debt and monthly payments loan modification brings allows families the ability to pay and remain in their house. The lender's asset remains protected and intact. Our neighborhoods and localities are preserved and continue to benefit from the avoidance of a foreclosure sale.
The courts provide special parts and rules for settlement conferences in foreclosure actions. When a summons and complaint is served, mortgage holders should not throw up their hands in surrender as if all is lost. There are counseling agencies available, and attorneys who will provide guidance to help save their client’s home.
Clearly, it’s not a case of "we should have known better.” We purchased our homes and refinanced to better our lives. Now we face these challenging financial times and we do know better. We know there are solutions with loan modifications and defending the foreclosure action.
These solutions do not happen automatically but require borrowers to work towards these goals. If you are in foreclosure or in financial distress that may lead to foreclosure action, find an attorney to help you work through your situation, preferably sooner rather than later. You can find alternatives to your dilemma, and when you do, you’ll sleep a lot better.

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