Junior lenders who consent to a short sale of underwater homes are barred from seeking to collect anything further from sellers under a newly enacted California statute. The law, signed on July 15, 2011, becomes effective immediately. It applies to properties, held by individuals, comprising 1-4 residential units. Senate Bill 458 accords the same restrictions […]
Your Choices For The Underwater House
Gerri Detweiler kicks off a six part series on dealing with a home worth less than you owe at Credit.com. Check her out this week for another point of view on this oh-too-common problem. I’m fond of her piece especially since she includes my lament that I spend my days talking people out of houses. […]
Self Employed, But Not By Choice
One of the thorniest problems I’m confronting in the Great Recession is what advice to offer to those who are self employed only because there is no option. In the past year, I’ve seen half a dozen folks whose small business isn’t really making it. In better times, I would have urged them to acknowledge […]
How Long Til Foreclosure?
Everyone who has made the painful decision to let an unaffordable house go to foreclosure wants to know: how long before they have to get out. While the statutory foreclosure process in California , on paper, takes a little more than 4 months, if the the creditor is perfectly efficient, creditors aren’t perfectly efficient. In […]
Tax Fallout from Foreclosure & Loan Modification
It’s bad enough when the client loses their home to foreclosure, but it’s a double whammy when the tax bill arrives for money they never saw. Scope out the tax traps in the world of indebted clients at a 2 hour workshop for lawyers and tax professionals April 9 at Lincoln Law School. Be prepared […]
Debtor Bites Collector Over Stale Debt
The collection law firm had to pay, not the debtor, when they sued a disabled man on a stale debt without facts to validate the claim. The consumer got an award of actual and punitive damages totaling $311,ooo from the debt collector under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act . The case, McColllough v. Johnson, Rodenburg & […]
Who files bankruptcy?
The latest news from the office of the courts is: lots of people. Sixteen percent more bankrupties than last year in San Jose. The release of the 2010 statistics brought a flurry of journalists to my door. In preparing to talk to a TV reporter who wanted to know what changes I had experienced in […]
Zombie Debt Collectors Must Come Clean
Debt collectors in New Mexico must now warn debtors that a debt they are trying to collect may be too old to be enforced by lawsuit. The warning must also tell the consumer that any payment on the old debt will restart the statute of limitations. This comes about by rule instituted by New Mexico’s […]
New California law protects sellers in short sales
Effective January 1, 2011, a lender who approves a short sale of California residential property may not look to the seller for the shortfall. The addition to the California Code of Civil Procedure at Section 580(e) applies only to properties of one to four units and has an exception if the seller commits waste or […]
Word rant: seizure of mortgaged homes
Perhaps I’m feeling particularly crotchety today, but the use of the word “seize” to describe foreclosures seems to me a bit overblown. Headlines like these abound: California Foreclosures Jeopardize Renters as Banks Seize HomesBanks Seize 288K Homes in Q3,Banks seize record number of homes Webster’s dictionary offered this as one definition of seize: To take […]
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