Foreclosure Defense

A video with Ted Kaufman (former Sen. Delaware-D) discussing the potential consequencescreated by large financial firms that rushed faulty or irregular foreclosures."Clear and uncontested property rights are the foundation of the housing market.If these rights fall into question, that foundation could collapse." -from a report by the Congressional Oversight Panel

Mortgage foreclosure defense is a new and emerging area of legal interest. This law firm is presently engaged in the defense of persons who are losing their homes to the foreclosure process. A brief description of the process and why it is ripe for court intervention is necessary.

In California, we have a non-judicial foreclosure process. This process is codified in California Civil Code Section 2924 and the codes that follow. It was created many years ago to make the process of foreclosure quick and efficient so that a lender whom had a borrower unable to pay his mortgage could quickly and efficiently take the home back and sell it at an auction on the court house steps.

But, the rules changed in 2002 when a law was passed that allowed the banks to securitize loans. The original legislation was signed into law during the end of the Clinton administration. Only a very few persons actually knew the effect of the law at the time. Several key bankers saw an incredible opportunity to make billions of dollars at the expense of private home owners. These bankers devised a scheme using the lure of the American Dream as bait. They pretended to make home loans affordable. Using variable interest rate loans, neg ative amortization loans, stated income loans and many other cleverly contrived loans, they convinced millions of families that they could afford their dream home. It seemed too good to be true. And, in fact, it was.

Using the new law, they bundled the loans into investment derivatives and sold them, or more correctly stated, sold shares of the derivatives on the stock market. Huge institutions invested billions in the housing boom which everyone saw happening around them. However, soon the loans began to fail, as the originators knew they would.

When the loans began to fail, the banks started foreclosing homes by the thousands. Many banks were starting to fail also. But, because the originators of the American Scheme knew that the mortgages would fail, they bought a type of mortgage insurance from such companies as AIG. Remember AIG? We Americans gave them $300 billion in tax-payer dollars because they were supposedly too big to fail. What did they do with all that money? They paid it to their insureds when the loan went into default. So, if your loan went into default, it was probably paid off by insurance companies like AIG. But, the investor, which was already paid the value of the home in insurance money for the default still wants your home; making it more profitable for to the investor for the home owner to default. They use this non-judicial process to take your home. Once the bank takes your home, they will sell it to another investor or keep if for themselves. They get paid twice. The home owner gets screwed.

The California non-judicial foreclosure process is seriously flawed. It w as never intended to be used in a market where securitization was used to bundle loans to be sold on Wall Street. It was designed to deal with the realities of the 1930s where the bank loaned money to a customer and kept the promissory note in the bank's vault. Now the non-judicial foreclosure process is being used to take homes from people without due process. Simply put, all that has to be done to foreclose your home, is for three documents to be filed with the County Recorders Office: A Notice of Default, a Notice of Sale and a Trustee's Deed. There is absolutely no requirement that the filer prove he has the right to foreclose. The filer need only state that they have the RIGHT to foreclose. The non-judicial system is so flawed that anyone can foreclose any property in California just by filing the three documents. The owner cannot stop it. The non-judicial foreclosure process was designed to be used by honest, honorable and respectable lending institutions not the thieves we have inherited from the securitization process.

Enter the lawyers. Very few lawyers in this state understand how dire and desperate the situation really is. Very few know what to do about the foreclosures. Very few are willing to challenge these wrongful foreclosures.

We are. We believe the courts will one day be educated by lawyers like us, and will understand that the loans which were bundled and sold by investors have not been properly assigned and the investor (owner of the note) does not have the right to foreclose. We can find the investor and sue them. We can force them to produce the original note which they must have in their possession to foreclose.

We are here to help you, the home owner, keep your home. Precious little is left to the modern day American that cannot be taken away by banks, debt collectors, or the government. But, we are here to ensure that everything can be done to help you keep your home and fight off the lecherous and greedy banks from trying to foreclose your home. The first step is to contact us, so we can look closely at your case. Our contact information is listed by clicking on the contact link or call us on the number listed above. We are very friendly and most of all experienced. Edward Peckham has been working as a defense attorney in San Diego since 1972.