Foreclosure Defense Mills Exposed

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FORECLOSURE DEFENSE MILLS EXPOSED

The sagging economy and sluggish housing market create the perfect environment for mortgage scams, with desperate homeowners as easy prey for scammers.

 They make the deal sound attractive and legit. You give them money or sign documents you were not supposed to sign. Soon, you realize you’ve been  placed into a worse position then when you started. Furthermore, they try to steer you away from all the free Internet sites which provide the necessary information you need and deserve to choose the right option for your situation. Mark Stopa, a Florida Foreclosure Defense lawyer recently posted a non-committal blog, attempting to avoid a potential libel suit, trying to steer people away from  the free legal information that is provide in thousands of free Internet sites. Of course, he thinks that a Bar card gives him certain “God-like” powers when the advice he charges you for is really free.

Pro-selitigants, utilizing the information obtained on the Internet are winning foreclosure case, see a few examples at the links below:                                                                                     http://livinglies.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/its-good-to-win-take-note-pro-se-litigants-still-winning/                                                                                  http://www.brevardtimes.com/2011/03/pro-se-litigants-turn-tide-in-brevard.html     http://federalsoup.federaldaily.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=29578&FID=7&title=pro-se-litigant-wins-landmark-case             

We are all familiar with the “Foreclosure Mills”. These are the law firms that just “cranked out” foreclosure complaints with little or no regard for the law and supporting documents, often times forging key documents. The Florida Attorney General has taken actions against such behavior. The best known was David J. Stern, see related article.

One of the biggest “legal” scams to come out of the foreclosure crisis is the “birth” of the Foreclosure Defense Mills and the Foreclosure Defense attorneys. Many of them have/had little or no experience in this area of law prior to the foreclosure crisis. They advertise on the internet, including Google Ads and “pop-ups”. They research Public and Court Records and send you “scare tactic letter saying things like “ YOU ONLY HAVE 20 DAYS”.  Some foreclosure defense lawyers charge by the month or by the year. Others require an up-front retainer, sometimes several thousand dollars, plus more money as the case proceeds. And controversially, some even require the homeowner to pay a big bonus or contingency fee if the lawyer wins the case.  They want their money “up-front” and never tell you they can win your case. The “birth” of the Foreclosure Defense Mills is most evident with the Law Offices of Mark Stopa. He admits to having over 1200 clients. What kind of attention do you think your case is going to get with this kind of volume?  

In fact, according to Tampa attorney, Mark Stopa “I fight like hell for people, but I’m also constantly telling my clients that at the end you’re probably going to lose it” So what are you paying for? Anything he can do for you can find on the Internet and file it yourself. Stopa says he generally charges $1,500 a year, which enables clients to “get off really inexpensively” if the case is resolved within 12 months. If not, they can re-up for another year for another $1,500. “Banks want to get the judgment so they can write it off their books, but they don’t want to take title and sell the home,” Stopa said. “The LPS data shows how long it takes before they sell homes. “I’ve seen so many homeowners move out because they lose their case and then the bank cancels the sale, and the home stays empty” says Stopa.  An empty house, losing value every day, then when resold a larger deficiency judgment could be obtained, HOW IS THAT FOR PROTECTING THE HOMEOWNER?

In the State of Florida, the average foreclosure takes an average of 673 daysto resolve, so do the math, there goes $3,000+ for a losing case and a home. Stopa admits that his cases are similar; therefore, it is just a matter of templates and “boiler-plate” pleadings, again all available on the Internet. What makes this “legal” is the fact that the Florida Bar offers little guidance on attorneys’ fees other than that they should not be “excessive.” “Generally, lawyers should be able to correlate between the services they actually provide and the fees that they charge,” says Elizabeth Tarbert, the Bar’s ethics counsel. “Whether or not you can do that when just charging a flat fee, I don’t know.”

I know of more than one case where lawyers did not clearly advise clients that the chance of being subject to a deficiency judgment would ruin their futures. As I understand it, the lenders have 4 years in Florida to move to enforce a deficiency judgment and can then go after your assets, autos, cull your wages/salary, cull bank accounts, go into safe deposit boxes, etc. for 20 YEARS. Then they can renew the judgment for another 20 YEARS. Why aren’t people being advised of this dangerous possibility???? That the banks are warehousing these judgments now means they will begin enforcing them in the next few years and that could go on forever!!!!!!
What’s up with not dealing with this???DO YOU NEED THIS HANGING OVER YOUR HEAD FOR 20 YEARS.  The aforementioned is even acknowledged by Mark Stopa,  he says:

May 2, 2011 at 2:16 pm  “Deficiency judgments are permitted in Florida. Avoiding deficiency judgments is the goal of many homeowners” He doesn’t say it’s HIS goal, only the goal of the homeowner.

Kaufman Englett Lynd or KEL, a multistate firm with offices in Tampa and St. Petersburg, also charges by the year, although its annual fee is around $2,500.

For that “we represent you at every hearing, we work on modifying the loan,” says Jeff Kaufman, a partner in the firm. “We have actual foreclosure audits that we do on every file to determine violations” by the bank or its representatives.

The result, he says, is that “it’s not unusual” for clients to remain in their homes for up to two years, eventually vacating with cash for keys or a deficiency waiver.

Kaufman is highly critical of the practice at some firms of charging a monthly fee, typically $500.

“It’s the biggest scam,” he says. “It’s really in their benefit to make (the case) keep going and going. These cases on average, if you contest them, run from 12 to 24 months and that means $6,000 to $12,000. And the minute the guy stops paying, they’re off the case.”

That’s not the case at the Ticktin Law Group, a Deerfield Beach firm with a Tampa office. When it wins a foreclosure case and quiets title, it charges a contingency fee of up to 40 percent, based on the property’s value and payable via a new mortgage held by Ticktin.

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“If we are able to defeat the bank’s mortgage, then we will have won the equity in the house,” says Peter Ticktin, the firm’s founder. “Our clients that have given us mortgages are very happy with us because they’ve won their houses.”That means the client still makes mortgage payments, only this time to the lawyers instead of to the bank.

Ticktin says his firm is “in it to win it” though he acknowledges that most of its 3,000 foreclosure cases have yet to result in a free house. Apart from the contingency, the Ticktin group charges a $100 “set-up” fee plus monthly fees ranging from $330 to $600. Mr. Ticktin has had recent problems with the Florida Bar, see:    http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/2009/sc07-369.pdfhttp://www.floridasupremecourt.org/clerk/briefs/2009/1601-1800/09-1628_ROR_ada.pdfhttp://www.floridabar.org/names.nsf/0/E8CCEE629A851E1485256A84002ACB43?OpenDocument

In conclusion, there are a great many people, organizations, groups and companies that provide free legal information to assist the American homeowner in these tough times. Lawyers are not God, trust your instincts and protect your home and money in the way you see fit and proper.

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