Foreclosure Prevention Resources

To supplement our series for Distressed Homeowners, I found some resources to help preserve home ownership, avoid foreclosure, and protect against foreclosure and debt elimination scams.
Before you work with a firm that claims it can help you “rescue” you from foreclosure be sure to familiarize yourself with:

Foreclosure “rescue” and refinance fraud
Fake “government” modification program
Leaseback/rent-to-buy schemes
Bankruptcy [...]

Mortgage Modification Mixups

My law partner, Rick Mitchell, and I are disgusted by the false promises and abysmal performance of the nation’s mortgage lenders who claim to be participating in the “Making Homes Affordable” program.  Homeowners were lured into this program with the expectation that they would get an answer within the “modification period” (usually 3-6 months) and [...]

Carolina Ponzi Schemes

Unfortunately, victims of Ponzi schemes often find themselves filing for bankruptcy protection. While New York-based Bernard Madoff took the lion’s share of Ponzi scheme news coverage in the last year, North and South Carolina unfortunately saw their share of homegrown financial crime too.
Tens of millions of defrauded dollars
The Commodities Futures Trading Commission became aware of one [...]

Reverse Mortgage Fraud

Last week’s Wall Street Journal carried an article about real estate scams targeting older Americans .  It said, “Reverse-mortgage fraud, typically committed by homeowners’ relatives, caretakers or financial advisers, has also been cropping up recently in schemes to unload distressed real estate. Regulators cite cases in which real-estate speculators bought properties on the cheap and [...]

Better Business Bureau Alert: Get Home Solutions

As a member of the Better Business Bureau, we review the organization’s activity updates regularly.  If they affect our clients and prospective clients directly, we highlight them on our blog.
What follows is a quote from the BBB on one of the many fraudulent schemes targeting homeowners at risk of foreclosure:
The “we buy houses” concept is [...]

I want to file a “medical bankruptcy”

We get calls asking for a “medical bankruptcy” nearly every day. There is no such thing. When you file for bankruptcy protection, your medical creditors are in your filing alongside all the others, including credit cards, vehicles, real estate, business loans you guaranteed, etc.