A-11-11 US Bank National Association, etc. v. Maryse Guillaume and Emilio Guillaume, et al. (068176)
(Essex County and Statewide)
Argued 11/30/11

Are defendants entitled to an order vacating the default judgment of foreclosure in part because of deficiencies in the notice of intent to foreclose under the Fair Foreclosure Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:50-56c

Justice Anne Patterson said the revised notice of intention satisfied the Fair Foreclosure Act and denied the Guillaumes’ motion to avoid foreclosure.

In the Superior Court of New Jersey : Chancery Division : Sussex County there is a case that speaks to the heart of the matter of the foreclosure crisis in New Jersey and around the United States of America.

In a nutshell, companies such as Regions Mortgage of Alabama would rather try to steal a house than provide the information for a payoff of the mortgage, or work with the home owner to get the loan  modified.

Even after the home was sold to Fannie Mae, and Regions had no standing to foreclose, they sought to evict a grandmother and grandfather along with their daughter, and three grandchildren.

Yes. After it came to light that the home was sold to Fannie Mae,and Regions Mortgage was given full disclosure of this fact, corroborated by Chase Bank,the Sussex County Sheriff’s Office, Regions Mortgage still sought to evict the family.

Regions Mortgage is doing this with nothing  to gain.

Regions Mortgage seems to have a business model where rather than deal in a forthright manner with a homeowner, they seek to obfuscate , and mislead homeowners into believing that they are working with them, when in reality they have no intention of approving a loan modification.

But it does not end there. The practice of Regions Mortgage whether shameful or unethical in taking such an unreasonable position, is underscored when we discuss circumstances of hardship.

Lenders suggest to a homeowner that they have a better chance of getting a loan modification if they demonstrate a degree of hardship. For people in hardship due to medical costs, or loss of income , there is a degree of hope at this point. Companies such h as Regions Mortgage see hardship as a weakness and a reason to belittle, bully, intimidate and ultimately prey upon a homeowner for financial gain.

On more than one occasion the homeowner sought to payoff the entire loan, however Region’s refusal to provide the information caused deal after deal to fall through.

In light of this, a Notice of Eviction was filed that asserted falsely that Plaintiff Regions Mortgage is entitled to enforce a writ of eviction.

According to the New Jersey Department of Banking, Regions Mortgage is not licensed in the State of New Jersey. Although they are licensed on a Federal level, ther are rules aobut being able to operate in the State of New Jersey that they are not excused from.

Namely, if the deed form the sheriff;s sale says that Fannie Mae owns the home, which it does, Regions has no claim to the house and is not permitted to evict the family.

For Mortgage Lenders, Refusal to Follow the New Jersey Fair Foreclosure Act Began on
Day One
By Adam Deutsch

Nearly seventeen years after being signed into law by former New Jersey Governor
Christie Whitman, the Fair Foreclosure Act has become the focal point of the pending state
Supreme Court case US Bank National Association Trustee v. Guillaume. As the title suggests,
the 1995 law requires lending institutions to follow particular guidelines before and during
foreclosure litigation. Having heard oral argument in late November 2011, it is expected that
within the coming weeks New Jersey’s Supreme Court will issue a ruling on a key provision of
the Fair Foreclosure Act that requires lenders to send a Notice of Intention to Foreclose to
homeowners in default on their mortgage obligation at least 30 days in advance of filing the
foreclosure complaint. A New Jersey Law Journal article by bank advocate Myron Weinstein
written shortly after passage of the 1995 Act makes clear that from day one mortgage lenders
decided to willfully ignore the requirements of the Fair Foreclosure Act.

For the Supreme Court, grappling with the language of the Fair Foreclosure Act will
likely be the easy part of their decision. The Act clearly and unambiguously provides definitions
of what information must be provided in the notice. Homeowners and their advocates have
argued that a failure for the lender to issue a notice that complies with the Act must result in the
dismissal of a foreclosure complaint and possibly the vacating of foreclosure judgments.
Lenders have argued that the mortgage lending business progressed faster than the law and
therefore the interpretation of the 1995 Fair Foreclosure Act should be read more broadly to
reflect changes in the industry. A reflection on history requires a close look at the pivotal year of
1995. This was not only the year the Fair Foreclosure Act as passed, but also the moment when
the mortgage industry made significant infrastructure changes enabling mortgages to be bought,
sold, and securitized nationally.

The marquee event that changed the mortgage industry was the creation of MERS, the
Mortgage Electronic Registration System. MERS was founded in 1995 as an electronic database
intended to facilitate sales of mortgages and track the identity of the mortgage owner. It is
estimated that by 2007, two-thirds of all mortgages in the United States were registered in the
MERS database. It is widely acknowledged that MERS helped precipitate the current
foreclosure crises by making it easier to buy and sell mortgage contracts electronically.
Institutional buyers and sellers traded mortgages on such heavy volume that the value and
reliability of the products bought and sold often remained unknown. The end result has been a
confusing and incomplete trail of paper that often leaves lenders unable to prove that they are the
party entitled to a foreclosure judgment.

Homeowners and their advocates are often amazed at what appears to be a willful refusal
of lenders and their counsel to have followed the simple requirements of the Fair Foreclosure
Act notice of intention to foreclose provision; which requires little more than disclosing the
actual owner of the note who has the right to foreclose on the homeowner’s real property.
Quite often a Notice of Intention to Foreclose states the identity of the loan servicer instead of
the owner/lender. This error may seem minor, but it is critical because homeowners often do not
know who the lender is that owns their loan until they receive a foreclosure complaint.

If youare a homeowner in default who has never been involved in litigation and does not understand
the critical importance of answer a litigation complaint, you may find yourself ignoring a legal
document issued to you by a company you have never before heard of. This in part is the
purpose of the Notice of Intent to Foreclose, to make the debtor aware of who owns their loan
and who is seeking to foreclose.

The widespread attitude among lenders and their counsel to ignore the Fair Foreclosure
Act can be traced back to an article published in the New Jersey Law Journal on December 4,
1995 titled “New Foreclosure Act: More Complexity, Uncertainty.” The article is written by
Myron C. Weinstein, the former chief of the state judiciary’s Office of Foreclosure, and a
longtime advocate and advisor to foreclosure plaintiff institutions and law firms. The article
makes clear that from the inception of the Fair Foreclosure Act, there was a pervasive intent
among foreclosure plaintiffs to resist following the several requirements of the Act, including the
Notice of Intention to Foreclose provision.

Mr. Weinstein’s article expresses a belief that the notice of intention to foreclose
provision will be considered a procedural requirement rather than a substantive one, therefore
implying that a pervasive failure to comply would not result in a coffin nail to foreclosure
lawsuits. This article reflects an early adopted outlook by lenders that has now culminated in a
self fulfilling prophecy. “Lenders, faced with the prospect of the act, will either be less flexible
in granting discretionary workouts to debtors…and institute foreclosure more quickly to
precipitate an earlier cure or an earlier exhaustion of the debtors’ statutory rights.” From day
one, the industry decided that it was the victim of a law which should be ignored rather than
followed.

Nobody knows with certainty how the New Jersey Supreme Court will decide the
Guillaume case. Whether or not the law is upheld in a manner that affords homeowners the
greatest rights interpreted under the Fair Foreclosure Act, the following is clear: Since 1995
there has been a continuing effort among mortgage lenders instituting foreclosure litigation to
ignore the plain language of the Fair Foreclosure Act. For much of the last sixteen years these
efforts went unchecked and it is unknown how many thousands of willful violations of the Fair
Foreclosure Act occurred. It took an epidemic to truly understand and appreciate the magnitude
and importance of the law in question.

In this video press release, Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Jerry Green (D-Union) delivers remarks on his legislation (A-2168) to encourage purchasing of foreclosed properties at a State House news conference. Green’s “New Jersey Residential Foreclosure Transformation Act” would promote the purchasing of foreclosed residential properties from banks and other institutional lenders and allow the purchased properties to count towards a town’s affordable housing requirement.

Click here to see the full story and watch the video

Unlock the content with a "Send":

New Jersey borrowers will receive about $660 million in benefits from loan modifications and other direct relief. New Jersey borrowers who lost their homes to foreclosure between Jan. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2011, and suffered servicing abuse can qualify.

Click here for the rest of the story

Unlock the content with a "Send":

U.S. Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) announced that his office will hold a public Mortgage Foreclosure Prevention Forum on Wednesday, February 15, in Cherry Hill to provide people in New Jersey with resources on foreclosure prevention, foreclosure mediation, and mortgage scams.

At a news conference at the Statehouse yesterday , 2/14/12, Senator Raymond J. Lesniak announced the introduction of legislation sponsored by himself and Senator Barbara Buono which would begin to address the foreclosure and affordable housing crises facing New Jersey.

The bill, S-1566, would establish a central agency under the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (HMFA) to use funds from the State Affordable Housing Trust Fund to purchase and deed-restrict foreclosed properties to be used as affordable housing. The bill would also create incentives for municipalities to transition foreclosed properties to affordable housing, giving them a 2-to-1 match against their affordable housing obligation for affordable units created from foreclosed properties. Lesniak said the bill could result in 10,000 new affordable units and 10,000 less unoccupied, boarded-up properties.

At a news conference at the Statehouse today, Senator Raymond J. Lesniak announced the introduction of legislation sponsored by himself and Senator Barbara Buono which would begin to address the foreclosure and affordable housing crises facing New Jersey.

Robert Menendez (D), seen here in this file photograph, hosted a congressional field hearing to study how the foreclosure crisis is affecting New Jersey homeowners. A landmark $25 billion national mortgage foreclosure settlement was reached Thursday, but details are still being worked out.

Click here for the rest of the story

Unlock the content with a "Send":

New Jersey must work through a backlog of 50000 to 100000 unprocessed foreclosures because of delays caused by an investigation into how lenders handled the filings, said Richard Constable, acting commissioner of the state Community Affairs Department.

Click here for the full story

Unlock the content with a "Send":

National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” on WNYC aired a story this morning about how the federal agency, Freddie Mac actually makes more money by not giving a refinance loan to struggling homeowners.

Freddie Mac, a taxpayer-owned mortgage company, is supposed to make homeownership easier. One thing that makes owning a home more affordable is getting a cheaper mortgage.

But Freddie Mac has invested billions of dollars betting that U.S. homeowners won’t be able to refinance their mortgages at today’s lower rates, according to an investigation by NPR and ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit newsroom.

These investments, while legal, raise concerns about a conflict of interest within Freddie Mac.

“We were actually shocked they did this,” says Scott Simon, who heads the mortgage-backed securities team at the giant bond trading and investment firm called PIMCO. “It seemed so out of line with their mission, out of line with what Congress wanted them to do.”

You can read and listen to the story here.

Freddie’s charter calls for the company to make home loans more accessible. Its chief executive, Charles Haldeman Jr., recently told Congress that his company is “helping financially strapped families reduce their mortgage costs through refinancing their mortgages.”