Steps Toward Stopping Foreclosure & Seeking Court Relief

In the last several years homeowners have experienced an epidemic of foreclosure fraud, wrongful foreclosure, robosigning of affidavits and assignments, mortgage modification scams, assessment of thousands of dollars of mystery fees, late fees, drive by fees, photograph your house fees, and other homeowner abuse. Because of mortgage securitization fraud and abuse, lenders no longer having risk of loss, servicers being unsympathetic to economic hardship or lying to homeowners trying to get caught up, Congressional ineptitude at dealing with the mortgage crisis in America, and outright greed of so many on Wall Street and elsewhere, homeowners have been subjected to the worst ill-treatment, abuse, and foreclosures since the Great Depression. Millions have lost their homes.

Many of the foreclosures forced upon homeowners in all the states and particularly in Georgia, are fraudulent and unsupported by documentation and illegal under Georgia law. Unfortunately, since Georgia is a non-judicial foreclosure state, meaning no court receives the foreclosure process before the home is sold on the courthouse steps; most homeowners never have a chance to do anything to save their houses.

Surveys and studies throughout the country continuously confirm that may if not most foreclosures are not based on proper paperwork as required by law. In Georgia we feel certain that somewhere a foreclosure has been done properly, we just have not seen one yet. That is why we work with homeowners to fight foreclosure, and seek damages for the homeowner for an actual attempted wrongful foreclosure.

The process in GA is very straightforward. First, if you believe the scheduled foreclosure on your home is wrong and have documentation to prove it; the homeowner can usually go to the Superior Court of the County where the home is located and ask the judge for an injunction stopping the foreclosure. Injunctions or Temporary Restraining Orders are equitable remedies to stop a threatened wrong that will cause irreparable harm to the homeowner if allowed to proceed.

Second, if it is determined that any of the paperwork is wrong, fraudulent, or that the entity trying to foreclose has no right to do so, or that statutory legal procedure has not been followed-either before or after a foreclosure-the homeowner can also file a wrongful foreclosure (or attempted wrongful foreclosure) lawsuit against 1. The entity trying to or who has foreclosed on the home, who by law should be the lender, creditor, or Real Party in Interest; 2. The servicer to whom you have been making mortgage payments; 3. The real estate trust or investor who really is the creditor but is hiding behind the others; and or 4. The law firm handling the foreclosure and wrongfully selling your home on the courthouse steps the first Tuesday of every month.

In a wrongful foreclosure suit the homeowner can allege any number of possible causes of action depending on the circumstances. Some of the claims from our experience include wrongful foreclosure, slander of title, lack of standing, lack of notice, improper advertising, wrongful chain of default, improper assignment, breach of contract, quantum merit, fraud, violating the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA), the GA Fair Businesses Practice Act (FBPA), the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), the Truth in Lending Act  (TILA), the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA), Consumer Protection Act (CPA), GA Fair Lending Act (7-GA-1-7-GA-11), equity stripping, predatory lending, breach of fiduciary duty, quiet title, intentional infliction of emotional distress, conversion, loan modification misrepresentation and fraud, false notarization, false company official (professional liability), civil conspiracy, fraud by forgery of mortgage, fraud by forgery of assignment, fraud by forgery of affidavit, or RICO claims. Damages can be direct, compensatory, punitive, or possibly doubled.

Take a look at your mortgage servicer, creditor, loan modifier, and their cronies. Do you trust them with the future of your family’s home?