By Julia M. Wei, Esq. Buried in the New Year’s Day bill was SEC. 202, which extended the Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Relief Act through 2013. Except, the section was cryptically called “EXTENSION OF EXCLUSION FROM GROSS INCOME OF DISCHARGE OF QUALIFIED PRINCIPAL RESIDENCE INDEBTEDNESS.” That means for homeowners who were approved for short sales or [...]
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In July, I posted a snippet about the “Homeowner’s Bill of Rights” (“HOBR” or “HOBoR”), also known as the California Foreclosure Reduction act. At the firm’s law blog, I later wrote with more specificity about HOBR explaining some of the requirements that have changed about notices to foreclosure sales — such as: Before a Notice [...]
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By: Julia M. Wei, Esq. Lenders may not be scrutinizing their loan documents as closely as borrowers are these days. Certainly, private lender Hyman Levy had a rude awakening when the appellate court concluded Levy was NOT entitled to default interest when the borrower did not make the balloon payment on a loan of $2.7M. [...]
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With much fanfare, the Attorney General’s office announced today the passage of a collection of bills intended to protect homeowners who are attempting a loan modification. Among the key provisions, the statutes will: -Require creditors to provide documentation to a borrower that establishes the creditor’s right to foreclose on real property prior to recording [...]
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Buying Notes and Deeds of Trusts: Bank Buys Worthless Note, Borrower Awarded Attorney Fees By: Julia M. Wei, Esq. Investors, collection agencies, scavenger funds and institutional lenders buy promissory notes all the time. If the note is secured by a deed of trust against real property, the buyer takes the risk of collection of the [...]
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By: Julia M. Wei, Esq. A series of cases have come down in the last few weeks that have some very serious ramifications for lenders. The most dramatic case is that of Lona v. Citibank, based on a property right here in my back yard. The fact pattern in Lona is that the bank foreclosed [...]
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In other parts of the country, and in bankruptcy court, borrowers have had some success with the argument that since MERS is a “nominee” and “nominee” is not defined in the loan documents, that it does not have standing to initiate foreclosure. That argument has been far less successful in California, in large part [...]
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The law in California on non-judicial foreclosures has been pretty firm for some time – the Trustee’s Sale is FINAL as to a bona fide purchaser for sale if the Trustee’s Deed is issued and recorded within 15 days of the sale. At least until one bankruptcy judge in California’s Central District disagreed. The Relation [...]
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It’s bad enough when people are dealing with their underwater properties, but to then have attorneys tell them to join these “mass action” lawsuits like it’s a silver bullet to stop the foreclosure sale is egregious. Apparently, the Attorney General thought so too and she sued them and the law firms have been placed into [...]
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I have had a surprisingly number of clients run into the problem of an old Deed of Trust (old loan) that was paid off, but remains against title. This can be fairly time consuming to clean up and I’ve written an article about this for my firm’s blog here. A brief excerpt: California Civil Code [...]
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