January 22, 2011

Foreclosure Seminar Presented by Urban Financial Services Coalition

Presenters:
Ernest Clarke – Short Sales
Robert Cheasty, Esq. – Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure
Walter Brown, Jr. – Loan Modification

Short Sales
“Short sales are designed by the bank to leave you short”
Remember losing or giving one’s property to a bank is a time period. People do fall and rise up
stronger from the fall.

Things to take to heart:

 Who do you trust, check their credit score. After a financial setback, you can obtain
more property but you will need to team up with a person or group with a strong credit
score;
 If you get attached to your house in your heart, you must develop a strategy to keep it;
 If you can’t make the payments, save the money as you will need some money to move;
 A bank short sale is a way to get a house back from the bank;
 Remember the bank is in the acquisition of assets business. Remembering this point is a
very strong negotiation strategy.

A. A short sale is run by two types of people, scam artists and legitimate businesses. Do
your due diligence and check everything before agreeing to anything.
B. Never talk to anything on the phone, put everything in writing and often.
C. Think about circumstances logically and plan accordingly. Don’t let emotions get in way.
Plan a strategic method of attack.
D. Come to the table with some money and not some sob story as you did promise to pay.
E. In a short sale both parties really don’t like each other.
F. Be very rigid in what you are offering to pay and to accept as an interest rate.
G. Before talking to anyone, you must determine what you want, (keep the house or dump
it for something more agreeable to your lifestyle).
H. A short sale is always an economic benefit to the bank.
I. Not putting everything in writing is the best way to lose on a short sale.
J. Above all, BE CAREFUL!!
When talking to the bank or institution holding the mortgage, DO NOT talk to the local branch
manager, find out who has authority to approve a settlement.

Act quickly and do not talk over the telephone, put everything in writing and courtesy copy the
Chief Executive Officer of the institution. (Note: I would add the Chief Financial Officer to the cc
list).
In essence, become an unnecessary irritant with a legally defensible strategy. They will be
more than willing to get rid of you by resolving the problem

Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure

 Loan Modifications are voluntary on the part of the bank.
 Banks generally have no interest in loan modifications.
 Robert is not a foreclosure specialist, and “there may not be such an animal…”
There are steps that can be taken to forestall what may be unavoidable. But, the bank must
eventually be made whole.
Do not think of your house as a home but as probably the biggest investment you may make in
life. Therefore, do not compound a bad decision.
You must figure what is a good real estate investment for you and act accordingly.
If you are not underwater with the value of the house, then you should fight to keep it.
Some of this home loan mess is not totally the fault of the home owner or the holder of the
mortgage, there was a lot of unscrupulous selling of toxic loans by just a few middle people.
The holder of the note may not know of the blood bath they are about to take.
Find out who is the actual holder of the mortgage and include them in all of the written
discussions concerning, the short sale, surrendering of the deed in lieu of foreclosure, and loan
modification processes.

Loan Modifications
Before talking to the banks, determine what you want to pay on a monthly mortgage and the
interest rate and terms that would make you happy. You can work towards a mutually
agreeable arrangement with the bank. But you must be armed with the facts.
Request by written letter, the “Qualified Written Request Process” This is the first step in the
process.
(see below from the Internet. This was not discussed in the seminar ~ Glenn)
http://www.loansafe.org/qualified-written-request-2

Simply put, a lot of abuse happens in the mortgage servicing arena. Some of the
BS is done by mistake, but many believe that the constant run around, lost faxes,
 missed payments and unexplainable fees are done by design to extract more fees
from homeowners. The good news is that you have some ammo to help you fight
back in case you’re being railroaded into mortgage hell.

Under the Real Estate and Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) there is a little
known consumer protection law that helps borrowers who have special inquiries
and or disputes that are not being answered or met with their mortgage servicer.
Under Section 6 of the Real Estate & Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), a
borrower can request that the lender document all claims for fees.

If you have been charged questionable fees or even if you have not, isn’t it wise to
make your lender prove to you every penny that you owe them?

What a homeowner can do under RESPA is request in writing what is called a

“Qualified Written Request (QWR). In this letter you can as about all
questionable fees, entries, documentation and a life of loan history (all fees and
payments ever made on your mortgage) from your lender.

The mortgage servicer has a maximum of 20 days to acknowledge your request. They also have
a maximum of 60 days to submit to you the documentation requested. It is not legal for them
to charge you for this information. Remember, do not talk over the telephone. All
correspondence MUST BE IN WRITING.

There are mistakes in the statements and fees in the Qualified Written Request, the bank/
mortgage processor must correct these errors before foreclosure can proceed. The QWR will
also identify the actual holder of the mortgage. You may need to go to the Security and
Exchange Commission to get the actual identity of the human investors associated with the
mortgage holder. Once, these persons are identified, cc them in all correspondence about the
mortgage or modifications sort. They may not be aware of the blood bath they are about to
take.

Once you make the “Qualified Written Request,” it is time to pull the second trigger. You must
demand the calculations utilized to produce the “Net Present Value” for your home. Then, you
must verify that they are utilizing the right numbers for income, property value, and occupancy
statement. If you are living in the house, the occupancy must be stated as owner in residence.
DO NOT obtain from them the value of the real estate. This can be retrieved from a reparable
real estate broker. (I recommend using Ernest Clark – Glenn)

Solicit the aid of Congressional, US Senate, State Senate, and State Assembly offices to aid you
in your seeking of relief. Barbara Lee’s representative – ricci.graham@mail.house.gov
Look at the following websites:
 http://hud.gov
http://hopenow.org
http://nidonline.org

Steps to consider by homeowners in trouble:

1. Make “Qualified Written Request” for all fees and transactions concerning home loan;
2. Verify that all assessed fees are correct and accurate. Make financial institution correct
any mistakes found.
3. Do research of QWR with the Securities Exchange Commission to identify all individual
investors;
4. Courtesy copy all individual investors, CEO, and CFO of Banks, and mortgage handlers in
all correspondence on home loan.
5. Communicate only through writing and communicate often ~ at least bi-weekly if not
weekly;
6. Use the website, http://hud.gov, for reference material.
7. Get a HUD approved counseling agency to advocate for homeowner when necessary.
See HUD website for approved agencies.
8. Request that bank(s), and mortgage handler(s) correct all mistakes found on QWR;
9. If bank(s), and mortgage handler(s) are hesitant to make corrections, time to notify
congressional, us senatorial, state senatorial and assembly assisting to write letters on
your behalf;
10. Also contact and file claims with the Better Business Bureau, http://bbb.org, and the
Office of the Controller of the Currency, http://occ.treas.gov, to help getting your file
moving forward;
11. Submit a written request for the calculations for the Net Present Value, NPV, of the
home loan;
12. Review all of the figures used for the calculation of the NPV;
13. Get an independent evaluation of the current value of the house, (NOT THE ASSESSED
VALUE), in the current market; (make sure this number is as low as possible)
14. Make sure the correct income level is used in the calculations;
15. Make sure the correct occupancy is stated, owner in residence/ owner occupied;
16. Make bank, investors, and mortgage handlers aware of mistakes in calculations;
17. If any problems, repeat steps 9 and 10;
18. Even if everything appears to be going okay contact congressional, us senatorial, state
senatorial and assembly offices as the rules are changing on a daily basis;
19. Get a strong prayer partner or much better, a prayer circle;
20. DISTRESSED HOMEOWNERS MUST NOT HESITATE TO TAKE ACTION.
Contacts:

Walter Brown, Jr. DE

Principal – WB Lending Solutions
President, San Francisco Bay Area Urban Financial Services Coalition
walterbrownjr@msn.com
http://ufscnet.org
(San Francisco Section not up – http://ufscnet-sf.org)

Ernest Clark
Seville Real Estate
http://seville-re.com
ernstclark@aol.com

Robert Cheasty
Cheasty & Cheasty Attorneys at Law
http://cheastylaw.com
inquiry@cheastylaw.com