Beware Foreclosure Scams: A Family Case

Posted on July 29th, 2009 by saman

A few months ago, a news report stated that local families oftentimes fall victim to foreclosure scams. Such families share that attorneys promise to help them save their homes for a fee of ten thousand dollars. Thousands are victimized in this way.

After losing one foreclosure fight, one family had to move south to an apartment in Bakersfield, which was not big enough for everyone so everyone had to go separate ways.

This family had to split up and experience actual human tolls that came with foreclosure. This family consisted of two parents and three sons who once all lived within their home southwest of Bakersfield until their actual loan was readjusted and they could no longer afford the mortgage. They ended up putting all their hopes unto an attorney, who told them that he could help lower their rates of interest rate, as well as their mortgage. It turned out that it was nothing but a disaster in the end .

The attorney and the company that he worked with promised to be there for help. However, ten thousand dollars later, this family discovered that the company hadn’t even attempted to contact any lenders, so their home was completely lost.

After four months, their house is still completely empty and the office of the attorney general admits that there are many more family cases just like this. The state has stated that the attorney is being sued, as well as the owner of his company, for defrauding around two thousand homeowners.

The contracts which borrowers had to sign actually violated the laws of California. Plus, the attorney’s firm had basically abandoned every consumer that had paid the ten thousand dollar monthly fees.

The office of the attorney general states that the State Bar has closed down this attorney’s law firm and his company has been forced into filing for bankruptcy. However, the state also filed a lawsuit of two million dollars with hopes of getting money back for the victimized homeowners. But these homeowners know that they will never get their old lives back that they had worked so hard for.

The ten thousand dollars that they had to pay the attorney was practically nothing when compared to their actual lost houses.

Several news agencies have attempted to get in contact with the attorney and his company through the phone, but all of their numbers seem to be disconnected now.

The state warns that nobody should ever give money to anybody to deal with lenders for them. Here are several tips that the office of the attorney general gives:

1- Do not give any money to certain people that promise to work along with lenders for loan modification. This would be against the law since consultants of foreclosure are not allowed to gather money before giving written contracts with the promised provided services and have actually done every service stated within the contract. Advance fees could be charged by certain attorneys or brokers of real estate, however, who have submitted an agreement of advance fees for review.
2- Call lenders yourself. Lenders like hearing directly from people and would be more willing to help you compared to consultants of foreclosure.
3- Do not ignore letters written by lenders. Take contacting lenders on your own unto considerations since a lot of lenders would be willing to help out homeowners that are behind with payments.