October 15, 2010

We previously wrote on this website about various scams being engaged in by “lenders”, servicers, “trustee” banks, and the like with regard to “temporary forebearance agreements” which are, in our view and experience, nothing more than a method for the foreclosing parties to pull money from the borrower to fund their operations and attorneys for an ultimate foreclosure when the “permanent” loan mod request is denied. However, based on the literal slew of e-mails we have been receiving lately, there is apparently a new scam which seems to be intentionally designed to railroad borrowers attempting to work with the foreclosing party into a fraudulently manufactured foreclosure.

The fact pattern is always the same: the “lender”, servicer, etc. reaches out, at least on paper, to the borrower facing or in a foreclosure as to a possible workout with a payment schedule. There is an agreement made, and the borrower makes the first payment on time, receipt and delivery confirmed (e.g. certified mail RRR, Fedex, etc.), but the “lender”, servicer, or whoever made the offer then intentionally sits on the borrower’s payment, does not post it until after the “due date”, and then claims that the borrower defaulted on the agreement and proceeds to foreclosure. To add insult to this injury, many of the so-called “workout” agreements contain waiver of defenses clauses where the borrower gives up the right, by contract, to later contest or challenge the foreclosure.

This is plain, outright, blatent fraud. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever, under any circumstances, for a foreclosing party who sets forth a payment schedule which the borrower complies with to not code the payment as received on the confirmed day of receipt. It thus appears, under the totality of the circumstances and in view of the frequency of the fact pattern, that what the “lenders”, servicers, and others are doing is to falsely lure the unsuspecting borrower into a set of false representations for the express purpose of fraudulently manufacturing a foreclosure while depleting the borrower’s liquid reserves which could have been used to defend the foreclosure.

In view of the recent revelations in the depositions of employees of the law offices of David J. Stern where a multitude of instances of illegal and unlawful conduct were revealed (which actions were engaged in to force foreclosures through the system due to the pressure by the lenders, etc.), we are not surprised at what we are hearing. What needs to be done, however, is to vehemently challenge these fraudulently manufactured foreclosures and, if appropriate under the proper circumstances, assert claims for money damages as well.

Jeff Barnes, Esq., www.ForeclosureDefenseNtionwide.com