Board Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy
Part 1 of this series advised of free consumer protection resources for homeowners in foreclosure who receive offers to purchase their homes before the foreclosure process finalizes. THESE OFFERS ARE USUALLY SCAMS. Go into foreclosure and get sued at the same time? Why are these presumably well-meaning offers usually scams? In general terms, if you enter into a contract to sell a home … [Read more...]
The past few years have showed us that owners of homes in foreclosure may face a variety of potential pitfalls. So-called real estate investors One such pitfall is a foreclosure scam. These often take the form of solicitations from so-called real estate investors who would like to purchase the homes before the foreclosure process finalizes. The solicitations often occur by direct targeted … [Read more...]
We see it every month: homeowners struggle to pay their mortgages and feed their families but fall behind and eventually are served with a foreclosure notice. If they've been making partial payments instead of saving money to re-launch their lives in a rental property, bankruptcy protection might be the only thing between them and a homeless shelter. How bankruptcy helps you buy time Upon filing … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
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 that their credit would not be impacted by … [Read more...]
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 … [Read more...]
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 then sold … [Read more...]
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 a variation of the mortgage foreclosure rescue … [Read more...]
We get calls asking for a "medical bankruptcy" nearly every day. There is no such thing. Medical bills are similar to credit cards -- unsecured debt 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. That said, medical bills are often a factor in the … [Read more...]