More Wrongful Foreclosures and Home Seizures Predicted

Business Week online recently reported that foreclosure filings for the first quarter of 2010 rose 16% from 2009 and lenders are stepping up efforts to take the homes of delinquent borrowers. 

An even more alarming statistic is that bank repossessions rose to 257,944 in the first quarter of this year.  As we have reported, the bank foreclosure industry is one of the few booming industries in this down economy.  The servicers, lenders and their "trash-out" companies have had a difficult time handling the increased volume of foreclosures and repossessions.  Disorganization, sloppy work and a lack of due diligence have lead to a great number of wrongful foreclosures.  We have seen lenders foreclose on the wrong home, foreclose on a home they just sold to a homeowner for cash and foreclose on mortgages that had long been paid off.

Homeowners need to be diligent about reading all the mail that they receive from a lender or a servicer.  You may think that an envelope from Bank of America, Wells Fargo or CitiMortgage is junk mail because you have no loan with them, but don't be so sure.  At least one client of ours claims that Bank of America has been trying to foreclose on her despite the fact that she never had a loan with Bank of America and that the loan Bank of America was claiming it owned had been paid off.

Homeowners need to be diligent about their finances and read their bank statements.  A little caution could go a long way to catching a wrongful  foreclosure in its early stages.  If you are a victim of a wrongful foreclosure or illegal seizure and trash-out of your home, you need to take aggressive action.  We have not seen a lender yet who has responded quickly to a homeowner complaint of a wrongful foreclosure.  We have experienced quite the contrary, as lenders and servicers shuffle homeowner complaints from one customer service representative to another with no resolution of the problem.

Legal Help for Wrongful Foreclosure and Seizure in Any State.  Phillips & Garcia, P.C., a leading law firm in wrongful foreclosure and seizure cases, is now taking cases in any state where there has been a wrongful foreclosure, lock-out and trash-out of a borrower's home.  Although we are licensed in Massachusetts, weassociate with a qualified attorney in your state.