Entries Tagged 'Mortgage News' ↓
October 2nd, 2009 — Mortgage News
Allen Seymour, Raymond A. Desautels III, Jason Passell, and Judith Piette have been indicted for their roles in a complex case whereby the fraudulent documents were used to defraud homeowners and mortgage lenders in numerous real estate transactions. These transactions included distressed properties in the Worcester County, Massachusetts area. The defendants are charged as follows:
Allen Seymour:
- Forgery (4 counts)
- Uttering (8 counts)
- Inducing a Lender to Part with Property (12 counts)
- Larceny by False Pretenses
Raymond A. Desautels, III (real estate lawyer)
- Inducing a Lender to Part with Property (5 counts)
Jason Passell (real estate paralegal)
- Forgery
- Uttering (7 counts)
Judith Piette (notary public)
- False Written Report by Public Officer (4 counts)
Below is the excerpt from a detailed story as it’s reported by the Mortgage Fraud Blog
Seymour targeted properties in danger of foreclosure. He personally approached the owners of these properties and presented a variety of rescue options. For those homeowners who merely wished to sell their property to avoid foreclosure, Seymour allegedly offered to purchase the property for the amount owed to the foreclosing lenders. For the several homeowners who wanted to remain in their homes, Seymour allegedly presented rescue plans which ranged from “lifetime leases” and “reverse mortgages” to a simple refinance. Some of these homeowners were told they would need to transfer title of the property to an “investor,” and some were not. Seymour allegedly had some homeowners sign innocuous documents to begin the process. These innocuous pages were then discarded and substituted with pages purporting to grant Power of Attorney from the homeowner to Jason Passell.
Simultaneously, Seymour found individuals with good credit who were looking to begin investing in real estate. Many of these “investors” were told they would be helping homeowners in danger of foreclosure. Seymour told several investors that the purchase would only be temporary, and the homeowners would purchase the property back from them after Seymour repaired the homeowner’s credit. Others were allegedly told that Seymour’s company would repair and rehab the properties, and then sell them at a profit, to be shared by Seymour and the investors.
None of the proposals made to these “investors” matched the transactions presented to the homeowner. The investors were not told of the “lifetime leases” and “reverse mortgages” Seymour had promised to the homeowners.
Investigators discovered that nearly $3 million dollars in loans were obtained for these purchases. Loan documents indicate the lender believed the purchase price was far greater than the amount the homeowner was selling the property for, if in fact the homeowner knew they were selling the property at all.
Raymond Desautels, III, conducted all of the real estate closings. The lender wired funds into his legal business account based on the erroneous belief that the homeowner was selling the property for the inflated price. The lender was unaware that the stated price was in fact inflated. Authorities allege that on five occasions Desautels prepared documents indicating the investor had brought their own funds to the closing table, further bolstering the lender’s misunderstanding about the transaction and the purchase price. The homeowners never attended these closings, as their documents were signed using a fraudulent Power of Attorney.
Desautels issued a proceeds check payable to the homeowners, based on the false purchase price. Seymour and Passell, with both this check and false Power of Attorney in hand, then allegedly cashed the check at a check cashing business in Worcester. In a roughly 18-month time period, authorities allege that Seymour cashed well over $1 million dollars in proceeds checks.
After the closing, several investors state that Seymour abandoned them to the mortgage payments. Without Seymour’s assistance, the investors were unable to pay the loans, and these mortgages themselves fell into foreclosure. Some homeowners, promised lifetime leases, have been evicted from their homes by these foreclosures.
September 24th, 2009 — Mortgage News
US Government has designed home affordable program to help people by lowering their monthly mortgage payments for qualifying homeowners. So many US people are getting benefits either refinancing or modifying their mortgage.
There are two different parts of Home Affordable Program that is the Mortgage Refinance and Loan Modification. There are few simple questions that will help you to determine that you are eligible for home affordable program.
The objective of this program is to target those homeowners who are current on their mortgages, but are unable to refinance to a low mortgage refinance rate due to a drop in the value of their home.
The Home Affordable Plan targets those homeowners who have loans held by Fannie Mae and whose owe approximately the same or less than the current home value. Here you can find few questions from which you can come to know that you qualify for the Home Affordable refinance Programs or not:
- The home that is to be refinanced must be the primary residence of the homeowner.
- You can qualify for home mortgage refinance, if you have a Fannie Mae-insured or owned loan. The main purpose of this program is to provide you with a boost to your home equity if you owe more on your loan than the home is now worth.
- Are you current on your mortgage payments? Which is not more than 30 days late on your mortgage payment over the past 12 months?
- Do you believe that the first mortgage amount is same or less than the current value of your house?
September 24th, 2009 — Mortgage News
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said that people are more satisfied with their mortgage lender than they were a year ago.
The body was referring to a recent survey which shows average customer satisfaction rising from 58% this time last year, to 62%.
Moreover CML believes that this result reflects the efforts that the lending industry has been making to improve customer service and communication.
Director General Michael Coogan said
“Lenders have been working hard to communicate effectively with customers and treat them fairly in difficult market conditions and that these efforts are now bearing fruit.”
While the total survey is based on a sample of 1,915 borrowers (out of the 11.1 million mortgages in the UK), the numbers relating to individual lenders are modest.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and its NatWest subsidiary have been named the UK’s most competitive mortgage lenders, by Evaluate Technologies.
Top place has been awarded to the majority state-owned group by following a market survey over the three months.
Lenders were ranked according to the number of times their mortgages appeared in Evaluate’s best buy lists; RBS and NatWest had 20 appearances; HSBC 19 and first direct 14. The HSBC score does not take account of the bank’s recently launched 1.99% tracker deal.
August 26th, 2009 — Mortgage News
The hot news in the air is Google’s emergence in mortgage market, as reported by New York Time. The news reports that LendingTree has recently learned that Google plans to launch a loan aggregation service in late August or early September this year that would compete with LendingTree. Further it found that Mortech intends to make its pricing engine services available for use with Google’s new service and will send information related to mortgage loan offers to be displayed to consumer on Google’s Web site.
LendingTree has obtained screen shots of a trial version of Google’s service that further indicate that it plans to “provide customers with conditional loan offers in addition to lenders’ contact information.”
Google declines to comment on the suit or on its product plans, and provides only this statement: “We’re constantly looking for new ways to help people find what they are looking for on the Internet. As part of that effort, we are currently working on a small ad unit test that will run against a limited number of mortgage-related search queries in the U.S.”
August 25th, 2009 — Mortgage News
Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp., is the 12th-largest US mortgage lender. According to Boston.com, company has filed for bankruptcy protection as regulators question its involvement with Colonial BancGroup Inc. Recent events “have crippled the company’s business operation,’’ Taylor Bean said.
It listed both assets and debt of more than $1 billion. Taylor Bean has already been deprived of the ranks of mortgage lenders approved to do business with government-sponsored mortgage agencies. “Possible fraud” was cited by government. Taylor Bean believes the decision was related to its involvement with Colonial and that it will appeal.
August 17th, 2009 — Mortgage Modification, Mortgage News
The Obama administration still claims that they are on track to help some 4 million troubled mortgage borrowers over the next three years with the help of alteration in the terms of their loans. Although some 60000 borrowers have been benefited from Obama foreclosure prevention program, but some analysts are skeptical.
Moody’s expects that Obama home mortgage modification program will help only half as many people as the government hopes. Moody’s further says that even that figure may be difficult to achieve. Writing in a recent note Chen, Moody’s analyst said that the number of modifications will have to step up substantially in the remainder of this year in order to hit the 1.5 million to 2 million modifications.
The Treasury Department acknowledges that servicers need to speed up their workout activity in order to hit a November goal of 500,000 loan modifications, but officials insist that even with just 235,000 trial workouts made, initial goals for the program could still be met.
A further issue is whether the modifications are enough to keep homeowners’ heads above water, or whether they slide back into default. “To the extent that future modifications help to reduce the default rate, as opposed to just postponing defaults, the lifetime losses could be lower than our projections,” said Amita Shrivastava, an analyst at Moody’s.
August 11th, 2009 — Mortgage Loans, Mortgage News
One plan making the rounds in D.C. is Right to Rent: a program, first floated some two years ago by liberal think-tanker Dean Baker that would allow folks who have lost their home to foreclosure to continue living in the home as a renter.
As Baker sees it, giving the person facing foreclosure the right to rent their home at a market rate for a long stretch, i.e. five to 10 years is a win-win. This way the landlord, i.e. investor or bank gets market rental income, the homeowner isn’t uprooted, property values aren’t further depressed by foreclosure fire sales, and taxpayers aren’t asked to bail out lender or borrower.
In mid-July a Treasury official confirmed the administration is mulling the idea. The House has supplied traction too, recently passing the Neighborhood Preservation Act, which would permit FDIC-insured banks to lease back homes to folks it has foreclosed on. Did you catch that artful spin? This isn’t solely about helping the foreclosed; it’s about protecting your neighboring home’s value.
Read a detailed article at CNN Money
August 9th, 2009 — Mortgage Loans, Mortgage News
According to Business Week, Wells Fargo refinance mortgage rates have gone too high very quickly over the last week. A strong move up in the 10 year treasury yield rate has been observed. This further pushed the 30 year mortgage rate up. On Monday, August 3rd, mortgage rates were around 5.05%, which went as high as 5.45% by the end of the week. There was slight doubt that mortgage rates were going to move up due to the strong move in treasury yield but very few people predicted a move life this.
It’s still not sure that for how much time this type of move will continue. It may end in the next week but one thing is for sure, mortgage rates are not going to be around 5% anytime in the near future. If you were planning to refinance your mortgage or having the first mortgage, you must speed up the process because mortgage rates look like they will hit 6% soon.
August 9th, 2009 — Mortgage News
Actress Angela Logan after playing many roles off-stage to earn a living had done great with mortgage apple cakes. It was when she fell into foreclosure on her Teaneck, New Jersey, home.
It was a flash of desperation,” Logan said. “I thought, ‘Wow. We could sell these cakes, they’re so good.’ ”
Logan named her delicacy Mortgage Apple Cake and determined to sell 100 in 10 days at $40 each to meet a mortgage payment, pay off bills and qualify for a federal program that could lower her monthly payments. The only marketing she did was to advertise the cake to everyone she knew, including her classmates.
“The hardest part was saying, ‘Can you buy my cakes, this is my problem,’ because admitting to your friends that you’re in foreclosure, and that you need their help, that’s a hard thing to say,” Logan said. She figures she’s baked about 200 cakes, i.e. double her goal. And since qualifying for the federal Make Home Affordable program, her monthly mortgage payment is dropping by nearly 20 percent
Other Americans facing a financial crisis can also find creative answers to their cash crunch, Logan says.
Many hobbies have the potential to produce extra cash: teaching a skill like playing an instrument or speaking a foreign language; home repairs for those who are handy; even dog-walking or pet-sitting for animal lovers. So try out something new if you’re also facing financial situation like Logan. Be creative and do your best, you’ll find out a way!
July 31st, 2009 — Mortgage News
Allfinancialservices.net is gaining popularity as a growing mortgage loan services provider in Maryland, Delaware, DC, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Having expert VA, FHA and jumbo loan consultants, variety of mortgage loan packages and competitive mortgage rates, the company serves hundreds of home loan borrowers in the mentioned states, say news.
Here’s an excerpt of the detailed news:
The proof of company’s dynamic working is thousands of satisfied customers. Recession has affected almost every industry. Since, there’re hundreds of companies out there in the markets, it becomes quite hard for first time home buyer especially to find out the best mortgage services provider. Some may offer good service, but with higher rates, at some places you’ll find good rates, but the terms and your loan approval might be a very complex process. Here’s a difference that Allfinancialservices.net make, by providing the best services at most affordable mortgage rates.
