Moratorium on Foreclosures

According to the Washington Post today, 61% of online respondents to a poll it presented on its website believe there should be a moratorium on all foreclosures.  Do you face foreclosure in Ventura County? Even if you don't face an immediate foreclosure, should we have a moratorium?  How would it affect us here in our larger cities such as Oxnard and Ventura?

The Post reports:

The financial incentives show that the problems plaguing the foreclosure process extend well beyond a few, low-ranking document processors who forged documents or failed to review foreclosure files even as they signed off on them. In fact, virtually everyone involved - loan servicers, law firms, document processing companies and others - made more money as they evicted more borrowers from their homes, creating a system that was vulnerable to error and difficult for homeowners to challenge.

Lawyers involved in trying to stop foreclosures, modify loans, and engage in short sales indicate that this "machine" made it impossible to help homeowners.  The entire system appears to have been designed for speed.  Speed is accomplished through a lack of personalization and variation.

One law firm processed 70,000 foreclosures in one year using a team of 12 inexperienced people. That comes out to be 24 loan files foreclosed upon per person per work day. The firm was paid a flat fee of $1,300 for pushing a foreclosure through without a challenge.

Here are other facts that may have affected so many of us in Ventura County:

• Fannie Mae fined servicers each day a loan was not foreclosed upon
• Credit agencies reward servicers with higher ratings based on the speed with which they foreclose
• Completely untrained individuals -- hair stylists and Wal-Mart clerks -- were given high level jobs in the foreclosure process

I encourage you to hire us as counsel if you face foreclosure.  Let me, as an attorney, take on the servicers for you and make sure they consider modification.  Loan modification programs like HAMPA must be considered before foreclosure.  We have to make the lenders and servicers slow down and listen.

See:

http://www.ojaivalleylaw.com
http://www.venturadebtlaw.com
http://www.venturaforeclosurelaw.com
http://www.venturaloanmodificationlawyer.com