Did you recently have home renovations done by a contractor or subcontractor to improve the quality of your home? Was more harm than good done by that contractor? If so, you are just another homeowner victim in South Florida to be taken advantage of by shoddy contractors and Florida’s construction lien laws.

Here’s a typical scenario: the renovations are not completed on time or done properly so you the homeowner refuse to pay the remaining balance, contractor refuses to do any more work until he is paid the outstanding balance, a standoff ensues which ultimately leads to the contractor placing a lien on your home. At this point, most homeowners feel helpless since they have no recourse to prevent these contractors from filing liens on the homeowners’ property.

Florida’s construction lien laws are very favorable to anyone who performs work on one’s home. In theory, Florida’s homestead laws prevent just about any creditors from coming after your home which is why the lien laws are so tough against homeowners when they hire people to perform work for them.

Florida’s lien laws also have a prevailing party attorney’s fee provision which means whoever wins also recovers all of their attorney’s fees. This means that most naive homeowners choose to pay to remove the lien even though nothing was done in accordance with the original proposal or contract for fear of paying attorney’s fees.

Prior to paying off the bad contractor and hiring a new contractor to fix and finalize the home repairs, a few very important things need to be done to ensure that you preserve your claim against the contractor. After all, if the work wasn’t performed or done properly and a lien was filed, then the homeowners have protections against “frivolous liens”. There are ways to remove the liens and recover attorney fees from the contractors.

Every year, lending giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. files an annual securities report. This year's report, which was filed on February 28, included some very eye-opening information. The bank disclosed that it is currently the defendant in more than 10,000 legal proceedings around the United States. The proceedings stem from the huge array of investigations that have been taking place concerning foreclosure practices. Around the fall of 2010, glaring paperwork errors on foreclosures were brought to public attention. In many cases, those errors cost people their homes. Not surprisingly, the discovery prompted a vast range of investigations into foreclosure industry practices.

If JP Morgan ends up paying out on all of the proceedings, the New York-based bank could end up paying fines of up to $4.5 billion. The legal proceedings have been initiated by a number of different entities. The attorney generals of all fifty states have banded together to investigate botched foreclosures. The United States Department of Justice has gotten into the act, too; many bank regulators have been filing suit, as well. Considering the huge number of involved parties, it isn't especially surprising that the nation's second-largest bank is knee-deep in litigation concerning these foreclosures.

JP Morgan is not alone in its battle, though. CitiGroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and many other banks and lenders are facing legal proceedings, too. For homeowners who are facing foreclosure, this news highlights the importance of seeking a qualified foreclosure defense attorney. All too often, homeowners feel helpless in the face of such troubles. When a bank begins foreclosure proceedings, many people just let things proceed. The assumption tends to be that the bank knows what it is doing. As the huge number of botched foreclosures and the issue of far-reaching foreclosure fraud comes to light, it is clear that homeowners need to protect themselves.

Continue reading "J.P. Morgan Facing Up to $4.5 Billion in Fines over Botched Foreclosures" »

If you do not know about the foreclosure crisis in South Florida, you must have been living under a rock, or living in the wilderness without any communication to the outside world. Several National Banks and Florida Law Firms have been in the news for committing fraud upon the courts and homeowners by filing false affidavits to establish assignments of the loans.

In the mortgage world, assignments are not uncommon. Mortgages are bought and sold on a daily basis. However, for a final holder of the mortgage, note and security agreement to prevail in a foreclosure action, it must produce accurate and truthful evidence of the assignment of those documents to the current holder. That has now been the rub in a voluminous amount of cases currently in the court houses across the state and the nation.

Many lenders and unscrupulous law firms have employed “Robo-signers” to defraud homeowners. These people spend hours on end every day executing these assignment affidavits without having actual knowledge of the contents of the documents they are signing and therefore are committing perjury. This led several lenders to halt the foreclosure process and courts to halt the sale of distressed properties. Unfortunately, the moratorium has been lifted in many states and the banks have resumed foreclosures.

This crisis has opened the door for aggrieved borrowers to attack these fraudulent foreclosures and force the banks into a modification of their loans. Our Palm Beach Gardens law firm along with several other firms across the state has been aggressively defending mortgage foreclosures. Our firm has helped hundreds of families keep their home. Our professional staff has many years of experience in the lending industry. They assist homeowners in mortgage modifications even through the foreclosure process. Our staff of attorneys are well versed in defending foreclosure actions and work closely with our mortgage modification personnel to achieve the best possible result for our clients.

If you are currently under water on your home loan or facing foreclosure, do not give up. You have rights. At LaBovick Law Group we are experienced, aggressive and will use our legal expertise and resources to help protect your most precious asset – your home.

Don’t let the banks take advantage of you during these rough economic times. Stand Up and Fight.

In two letters recently released by, Attorney General Richard Cordray criticized a number of banks and loan-servicing companies, including Wells Fargo & Co.; Ally Financial Inc.'s GMAC Mortgage; Bank of America Corp.; and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Mr. Cordray accused the banks of trying to paper over fraud committed in foreclosures with temporary fixes that don't address underlying problems in the banks' practices.

In light of the fiasco an option for banks would be to allow borrowers to modify loans and make settlements. This would be a win-win for everyone instead of forging ahead with paperwork that could be bogus or flawed. This is a huge issue for the courts in light of a 50-state probe, which includes top law-enforcement officers from all 50 states in response to allegations of robo-signing and massive errors.

It is a but suspect for Bank of America to remain silent on the subject, given that that in 2008 they agreed to an $8.4 billion loan modification program after its Countrywide Financial unit was probed for predatory lending practices. Thus took place only two years ago.

Wells Fargo on the other hand is resubmitting submitting affidavits for 55,000 pending foreclosures,since some of the paperwork might be flawed. One Wells Fargo employee admitted to signing hundreds of foreclosure documents a day without checking for accuracy. When questioned in a Florida deposition, she exclaimed that it was not part of her job description to check for accuracy. This should make homeowners and the bank feel really confident about the validity of the documents signed.

Click on the following link to read more from the WSJ on Big Banks Told Not to 'Fix' a Fraud .

A recent Palm Beach Post article on the drop in foreclosure filings in Palm Beach County indicates that 1,529 bank takeovers occurred in April, a 47 percent decrease from April 2009, according to numbers released by the Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller. Between January and April 2010, the number of Palm Beach County initial foreclosure notices totaled 7,764, a 30 percent tumble compared to the first four months of 2009.

Mr. Paul Baltrun, director of the firm’s Loss Mitigation division, gave Palm Beach Post Real Estate writer Kim Miller commentary on the drop in foreclosures. In the article, Mr. Baltrun stated that one of the possible reasons for the decline in the foreclosure rate is loan modifications. Mr. Baltrun and his team are seeing more people in Florida and across the nation being hands-on in trying to get a loan modification. In addition, the banks are becoming more willing to give homeowners modifications – especially in situations where a modification will enable a homeowner to avoid foreclosure.

"People are being more proactive and seeking workout solutions before their file goes into foreclosure," Baltrun said. Loan modifications made through the federal Making Home Affordable Program provide incentives to banks that reduce mortgage payments through interest rate cuts, principal amount reductions, and prolonging the loan’s life.

Click on the As filings fall, courts finally make dent in foreclosure cases link to read the Palm Beach Post article.

As millions of American homeowners continue to deal with a struggling economy and a poor housing market, more and more of these individuals and families now have to contend with another problem: a breakdown in communication between banks that service mortgages. Not only does this miscommunication bring frustration, it can also lead to mistaken or even premature foreclosure in spite of a pending mortgage modification application.

This communication breakdown can occur between banks or servicers that are participating in the Obama Administration’s Making Home Affordable Program, despite provisions that prohibit servicers from auctioning a person’s or family’s home while a mortgage modification is pending. The article indicates that the lapses in communication that can lead to premature or mistaken foreclosure continue to occur because they go unpunished for the most part. USA Today indicates that the U.S. Treasury Department is reportedly aware of such problems and is “moving to fix them.”

In a ProPublica news report on the topic, the breakdown in communication between servicers generally occurs due to their organizational structure. The ProPublica article points out that one division normally deals with modifications while a separate unit contends with foreclosures, presumably leading to both internal and external communication problems.

"Basically, you have the right hand at the mortgage company not knowing what the left hand is doing," said Mark Pearce, North Carolina's deputy commissioner of banks. Communication glitches and mistakes are "systemic, more than anecdotal" among mortgage servicers, he said.

Although miscommunication between mortgage servicers does occur, having the assistance of an experienced team of mortgage modification professionals that will aggressively ensure that the servicers communicate properly can help prevent such tragedies from coming to light.

If you are a homeowner in need of assistance with a foreclosure, contact an experienced foreclosure attorney to discuss your situation.

Homes can be lost by mistake when banks miscommunicate – USA Today

Disorganization at Banks Causing Mistaken Foreclosures – ProPublica

Link to the Obama Administration’s Making Home Affordable Program