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Collections Law/TILA violations?

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Expert: Creditwrench - 9/1/2009


Question
Refinanced home 3-22-06, our mortgage papers were sent to us to sign and we had to mail them back, therefore, they was no explanation of what we were signing.  Now in foreclosure, discharged of BK of 7-15-09, and waiting for new auction date.  We are in a non-judicial state.  Just recently I was on a site about fighting foreclosure and it talked about a forensic audit.
What was interesting is one person stated that if you refinanced you should look on the HUD-1 statement to see if there are any credits listed for real estate taxes, insurance, title insurance, etc.  There are no credits listed on the statement.
Also it advised to look at the interest rate and that this should be consistent throughout.  The Truth in Lending Stmt. has the rate at 6.671%, the Note and Uniform Residential Loan both are at 6.625%.  Why the difference?  Do we need an audit done?

Answer

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I can't tell you about the difference in the rates but I can tell you that you do need to have a mortgage audit done. Homeowners should have mortgage audits done as soon as the new loan is finalized. They should not even wait until the first payment has been made on the new mortgage. Of course, not many are likely to do that because they are too blissfully happy to get their new home but their failure to do so may lead to problems later on. In your case, yes, you should get an audit done as fast as possible. They are not cheap. Audits done by a good analyst usually cost at least $1,000 and some want much more than that. I use Norm Bradford who is an attorney and gets the job done fast. He guarantees to get you the written analysis in 7 working days. If you send me an email I will give you his phone number and you can contact him directly. Now then, what are you to do with it? In a non-judicial state you have to start the action by filing a lawsuit against the company who wants to foreclose on you and you must have a cause of action to do that. Your fraud audit can provide you with the cause of action and the proof of wrongdoing on the part of the lender. Of course, having a cause of action against the lender may not be what you need if the lender is not the plaintiff. In most foreclosure cases the plaintiff is a mortgage servicer and not a lender. In those cases the servicer is supposedly acting on behalf of the lender who may or may not be the original lender. If the party foreclosing is not the original lender then you will need to use FDCPA to go after them. Even though they never admit it, mortgage servicers are 3rd party debt collectors and therefore fall under FDCPA. You might also be able to use TILA or HOEPA to get causes of action but however you do it you must file a lawsuit against them to get this thing turned around and going your direction. What I do is teach people how to do those things.  

Creditwrench

Expertise

Debt Collections law, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), federal law, how to properly answer court summons for collection cases, how to prepare federal cases against debt collectors, how to deal with debt collection phone calls.

Experience

I've been an active consumer advocate for more than 40 years and have helped hundreds of people win cases against debt collectors as well as helping them defeat demands for summary judgment lodged against them by banks, debt collectors and defeat mortgage foreclosures and keep their homes.

Education/Credentials
Paralegal courses for the most part.
I have been teaching people how to deal with judgments, mortgage foreclosures and other such problems both on and off the internet for many, many years. I am a Richard Cornforth information provider ever since 2000 and worked with many other organizations and causes since 1980. I was Oklahoma State Chairman for the nationwide drive to defeat the Constitutional Convention which was proposed by various factions within our federal government such as the Council of State Governments and the National Organization of State Governors who were working hard to organize a Constitutional Convention to be held in 1995 for the purpose of rewriting our American Constitution to be more acceptable to the United Nations. I worked with Senator Charles Duke of Colorado and Senator Don Rogers of California and many others across the nation to keep them from getting the number of delegate states required to lawfully hold a Con-Con and we were successful. I have worked with many other legislative issues in Oklahoma and have always been very successful.

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