25 Year Foreclosure Case

[Trippy]

Happy Holidays, everyone! And I apologize in advance if this story has been posted elsewhere:

Florida woman hasn't made a mortgage payment since 1985

[silversopp]

I love how these people see themselves as the victim. "The mean old bank is trying to get money from me."

I see these people as nothing more than common thieves. They're using our flawed legal system to get something for nothing.

[webhick]

I looked at the bankruptcy filing and the majority of the $622k she owes in unsecured claims are for judgments, many of which are for companies that are now defunct.

This woman is nothing but a deadbeat. And I honestly wonder where all her money went if she wasn't paying the most basic housing expense. She certainly didn't spend it putting equity into that dump she calls her residence and didn't pay $23k in legal fees.

[Trippy]

I agree with both of you, Webhick and silversopp. People like her are a large part of what's wrong with this country -- that sense of entitlement. That kind of attitude makes me sick.

[bmielke]

I agree she is a deadbeat.

That said why don't they write the note off? Hit here with a (is it 1099?) for bad debt and walk away. Their lawyer says he gets three inches of documents every month and their have been 7 appeals in 10 years. Legal Fees at this point have to be well in excess of the $54K she owes.

Also how could she deed the property to her daughter without a release from the lender? She apparently did that once before it was deeded back.

Hey Webby do you remember if she filed for Bankruptcy Pro Se?

Also where are the Rule 11 Sanctions on this? You can't tell me that in 25 years she is not repeating new and non frivolous arguments on every filing.

[webhick]

The case is 10-37469-EPK for anyone interested. RECAP was active and working so you can at least view Document #1, 6, and 9 (shut up, those last two looked juicy).

Hey Webby do you remember if she filed for Bankruptcy Pro Se?

She did.

On page 6 of document #1, she claims that her average monthly income is $2142 (I could not only live quite comfortably on $2k/month, I could also start putting money away - especially if I didn't have to pay rent), and that her expenses amount to roughly $100 less than her income. Then she says that her current monthly income is $1154/month (with no rent, I could totally live on that). Odd.

My next goal was to look up and see if there were any liens against the property that would have prevented the "sale." Then I took a detour at the property appraiser's site because I used to do the books for a few real estate people and these things have juicy things. And there were:

In 1986, a year after she stopped paying her mortgage payments, she built a 40 x 20 pool with a value of $8.6k. In 1992, she built a 56x50 three sided dome (whatever the hell that is) with a value of close to $10k. In 1993, she built two outbuildings (a 9x4 and a 22x12) which have a combined value of about $10k.

Better yet, she's got an interesting sale history. In 1992, she sold both lots to Deborah Pyper for $0. Then, if I'm reading this right, in 1996 Erik Clay granted some kind of power of attorney to his mother Deborah Pyper and included the property on that. I should note that some of the dates on that document say 1998, not 1996 even though it was clearly recorded in 1996. Then on that same day in 1996, Erik sold the property to Deborah for $7000. Then he sold it to her again for $0 in 1999. Then in 2004, Deborah sold it back to Patsy. WTF? I've got to be reading those wrong. I've never seen anything like it. If someone else wants to check it out, you can search for the property number 1-29-37-35-0010-00000-1040 at the Okeechobee County Property Appraiser website. Don't bother searching for Patsy's name there. She's got a couple last names listed making the search easier to do by property number.

I did eventually make my way to the county clerk's website but none of the searches were turning up anything.

[bmielke]

The really sad thing is that if she had paid the mortgage like a normal person she would have paid the house off by now. She would own it free and clear, and thousands of hours of the court time as well as attorney time would have been spent elsewhere.

The article says she stopped paying when she got sick one time. She could have tried and worked with the bank instead of going off the deep end.

[Prof]

While the debtor in this case has certainly gamed the system, and has behave in ways I would describe as fraudulent, her success indicates graphically the sloppy bookkeeping, record keeping, and so forth of the loan servicing business. The fact that the lenders have been unable to foreclose in all of this time should indicate to you all that their records never seem to be available to support the foreclosure.

Any consumer bankrutpcy lawyer will tell you that it is often impossible to decipher the servicing company records in order to determine whether the payments made have been properly applied, whether the escrows have been disbursed, etc.

What this case should illustrate to all of you who pay religiously on your mortgages is that, for the 15 to 20 year life of your mortgage, you should keep pristine records showing payments, cancelled checks, etc. Otherwise, there is a very substantial chance that you will be over charged, undercharged, or will overpay.

If you can avoid it, I strongly recommend that you not establish escrows for insurance and taxes but that you pay those yourself (if you are worried about handling a lump sum payment at year end, establish your own savings account for these annual expenses). The number of times the mortgage servicing company will pay late or incorrectly is astounding.

[TerryJo]

Lending banks are now being held accountable for the trap they set, borrowing money they didn't themselves have, while using loose and illegal practices in the process. The MASSIVE lawsuit against Wells Fargo / Wachovia, Indymac / OneWest bank, Citibank, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, GMAC..............can actually, not only put a stop to your foreclosure, but also pause your house payments with no loss to you............

[BY THE MODERATORS: Spam deleted -- Simply filing a lawsuit against a lender does NOT stop a lawsuit unless and until the Court enters an injunction against foreclosure, and they only very rarely do this. Do NOT pay advance fees to people claiming to bring lawsuits as this is just a scam.]

[wserra]

Now, this is somewhat interesting. Spam, but interesting.

This "sue your lender now" stuff is put out by a law firm. Under New York ethics rules, both the site and the above post would have to be marked "attorney advertising" - especially since it's not at all clear that it is - but let's ignore that for the moment.

This stuff is the creation of two California lawyers. The page on this "mass joinder" fails to make it clear at all what they will do. It starts, "The end-result of this litigation could be that 62 million homes become foreclosure-proof". "Could be"? I suppose that it's equally possible that none will. They continue: "As each client joins the Mass Joinder action the lender will receive a pre-trial settlement offer per the following terms. We are not negotiating. We are using Legal Document Demands on Form 998. Principal loan balance reduced to 80% of current market value Interest rate reduced to 2% fixed for life of loan." I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone else here, but it's gibberish to me. "Legal Document Demands"? And the only "Form 998" I know of is part of a Freddie Mac / Fannie Mae application. I can't imagine how they intend to use it for a "pretrial settlement offer".

They continue: "Counsel will be working with legislation to create a potential amnesty program. The results will likely be a universal modification approach." Once again, that makes no sense. "Counsel" don't "work with legislation". And, if legislation were to result, it would of course apply universally, not just to these guys' clients.

On one of the commercial pages, they make the following claim:

Litigation against the following banks will be filed shortly.
[Snip list of large banks.]
All lenders are now being targeted and litigation will be filed as client files are accepted.

Didn't you get the impression that this "mass joinder" litigation already existed? And what can these two CA lawyers do for me in NY? They talk about a "national lawsuit", but the only transcript to which they link - curiously - is a hearing which results in the USDC CACD remanding the matter to CA state court. And just filing a lawsuit does not halt a foreclosure in the absence of an order specifically directing such.

It's fun to beat up on banks. It sounds good to write:

In short, the banks have been exposed as liars and cheats, and it is now clear that they will not restructure loans or agree to any loss mitigation solutions without the threat or the engagement of actual litigation. As some of the nation's top trial lawyers, they have banned (sic) together and are beating the banks. These are the lawyers who previously represented these very banks; the lawyers who -- for years -- have gone to Court and "ended the madness" for many clients; the lawyers who know their way around the courthouses better than anyone. They have been at the front lines of this unprecedented banking fraud, and are now ready to assert your legal rights. This is not loan modification.

But how they will accomplish "national litigation" which is not a class action - and, more importantly, how a "one size fits all" approach can possibly be successful - they don't explain.

I'm curious to read the reactions of the other lawyers here, especially those who deal with this stuff. Prof? JRB?

[Judge Roy Bean]

At first glance the effort is little more than to accumulate a marketable database.

[Nikki]

Throw enough crap against the wall and, eventually, something might stick.

It's possible (although unlikely) that they are trying to set up a massive class action which would result in fees to them (from the banks and servicers putting up cash to make them go away) and no real benefit to any of the actual claimants -- as is the case with many of the "consumer" class action suits recently. As an aside, I recently received a $5.00 credit against one of my charge card accounts as part of a class action settlement -- where the law firm involved received well into six figures for pursuing my (gag) interests.

Alternatively, they're casting a wide net to troll for sucke<<<<<clients who are stupid and desperate enough to pay out a significant retainer. Of course, the clients' benefits will show up some time around the (unrelated) delivery of the packies.

[Prof]

Trolling for clients.

Given the current rules on class actions, I doubt that a class action will lie on the missing note issue for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is factual commonality.

[Dezcad]

Trolling for clients.

Given the current rules on class actions, I doubt that a class action will lie on the missing note issue for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is factual commonality.

Attorney Phillip Kramer explains that it is not a Class Action but a "Mass Joinder" lawsuit. Although after watching this video, I'm not sure what a "Mass Joinder" lawsuit is. Check out the Photoshop job for the background.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFUZIPjr18E

[wserra]

Quatloos calls the shot again. Are we good or what?

Last week, the California AG has shut down the firm of Kramer & Kaslow and others. They are the people who were doing this "mass joinder" nonsense. Going the extra mile, the AG actually seized lawfirm assets when they filed. The specifics: "Defendants deceptively led homeowners to believe that by joining these lawsuits, they would stop pending foreclosures, reduce their loan balances or interest rates, obtain money damages, and even receive title to their homes free and clear of their existing mortgage. Defendants charged homeowners retainer fees of up to $10,000 to join as plaintiffs to a mass joinder lawsuit against their lender or loan servicer."

Fleecing the desperate.