Looks like the Inland Empire may recieve much needed assistance and homewers may be able to avoid foreclosure with a new plan by our governor. 

Gov. Schwarzenegger came to Riverside on Thursday to alert homeowners living in one of the nation’s most mortgage-troubled regions about options that may save their homes from foreclosure.

Schwarzenegger announced a $1.2 million public-awareness campaign a week after saying he had reached an agreement with four large mortgage-servicing companies to freeze interest rates on adjustable-rate mortgages for homeowners who live in their property, are current on their payments and cannot afford to pay higher interest rates.

The governor said Thursday that he is working to add more loan-servicing companies to the agreement, which now includes Countrywide Financial Corp., Litton Loan Servicing, GMAC Mortgage and HomeEq Servicing.

Read the Rest of the Story by the Leslie Berkman of the Press Enteprise here.

Homeowner Story By Jac Mac at LoanSafe.org 

I am hoping that I’ll have better results with Countrywide than I’ve read so I’d like some support and help along the way. I’ve been reading a lot on Moe’s site and he’s offered so much valuable information, I can never thank him enough.

I almost feel smart again.

My story can be found here Worse than a Pimp (Thanks Moe) and it sure did cause a frenzy of nasty replies from what I am guessing are pissed off LOs.

I am a single parent of two children, fifteen months apart, ages 12 and 13 — the 12 year old happens to be autistic.

I refi’d with CW (biggest mistake of my life) into a — let me take a deep breath, 1 mt. 11th District COFI Option Arm, which the broker offered at an initial interest rate of 1.5%.

We went over what the payments would look like and she told me that the deferred interest would never go past $2,000 a year, as long as I paid the minimum and then the full payment alternatively every other month.

Even though I did that, in ten months, the principal had increased a whopping $12,000.

They also got a YSP of $14,000 which wasn’t disclosed on the HUD — it says 3,500 POC ( I just figured out that means Paid outside of closing).

There’s a prepenalty for six months so I can’t refinance w/o being hit with a $27,000 fee.

Now I’m wondering what was the $10,000 origination fee they got as well. Is that in addition to the $14,000?

It seems pretty clear she sold me into a higher rate, option ARM loan to get her fee.

Now I’m losing equity like crazy and I can’t make the principal payments.

I also posted this in response to a thread but would like to put it here so I can update the story as things happen.

after reading about the nightmare everyone else was going through with calling, I’ve decided rather than play phone tag to have my loan modification done in person, at Countrywide’s Financial Center. I am scheduled to go there on Friday and speak to the Loss Mitigation Department so that they can get my financial information.

I popped in there on Monday and spoke with the manager of the center. She was very nice and called the VP of Home Retention right there in front of me, took down my email address to send him a message and told me if I didn’t hear from him by that afternoon I should call her — she gave me her cellphone number.

So, of course, I didn’t hear from him. Tried to call her, but couldn’t get her. Left a message but didn’t hear back. So I called first thing in the morning, and caught her on her cell. She was pleasant, said she’d call me when she got to the office and give me Mr. Durham’s direct number. Supposedly he’s very proactive in Loan Modifications.

When I didn’t hear from her by noon (about four hours later), I took a walk — fifteen minutes, and I was at her office.

She smiled, but I don’t think it reached her eyes. I want her to know if she doesn’t call me back I WILL be at her office and can be there in minutes.

She called the Loss Mitigation Department for me right then and there in her office and had me speak to another woman, Paula Edwards, and she has committed to fax all the documents that need to be sent for me. She’s also offered to look over my loan documents for me. The manager of the office seems sincere but I am jaded.

Ms. Edwards told me that they called in the morning and spoke to a Mister, a bilingual man — I cut her off and told them there WAS NO MISTER and I made it clear to her that I have zero interest in playing phone tag with anyone. I gave her my cell phone number and told her to call me at that number, but told her I’d be doing all of the paper work in office at the center.

Hopefully this will turn out to be a smart decision. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for myself and for all of us struggling to end this nightmare.

Anyone have any suggestions as to exactly what financial information I should bring with me to the meeting on Friday. I am a self employed freelancer who’s suffered a slow period in my market. I own a S Corporation, so I don’t have my 1099s for 2007 yet — only what’s been deposited in my business accounts can be shown by way of bank statements.

I also have two tenants, so I can show the income from the rental units but other than that, I have no pay stubs or anything like that. My mortgage payment has adjusted to 8.0 percent which puts me at a $5,300 full principal payment per month. The minimum is just $2,000 and if I only pay that, you know what that means — negative amortization. If I keep pulling money out of my savings to meet the payments I’ll have nothing left real soon.

I need a fixed mortgage and quickly!

By Moe

How would you like to be charged $20,000 when in fact you owe $2,000? Doesn’t sound like too great of a billing and accounting system. In fact it sounds down right fraudulent and predatory.

Welcome to the new unfortunate fleecing of the homeowner that is infiltrating our court systems and robbing unsuspecting borrowers that are oblivious to these “questionable” fees as they face foreclosure and are caught in a system that seems to be failing to protect consumers.

They call it questionable fees, I like to call it predatory servicing. I’ll inform you how you can combat this a little bit further down in this post.

CNN reported yesterday that;

Countrywide Financial, the nation’s leading mortgage lender, is facing a federal probe into its foreclosure practices, according to a published report.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that the U.S. Trustee, the federal agency monitoring the bankruptcy courts, subpoenaed its records to determine if two foreclosures in southern Florida represented abuses of the bankruptcy system by the lender.

The agency, a part of the Justice Department, announced an effort to move against mortgage servicing companies that file false and inaccurate claims in foreclosure cases.

I have heard many stories of borrowers that were charged fees that had no explanation and could not be supported via the documentation that their lender or servicer was providing. Most of these homeowners just caved in to the demands and agreed to pay these “questionable” fees.

More often then not, it was out of desperation to stop foreclosure and save their home from the big bad wolf.

Borrowers need to understand that they can “demand” a “life of loan history” via a “qualified written request” . This is a law under Section 6 the Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act (RESPA). By law, the lender or servicer is required to acknowledge the request within 20 business days and must try and resolve the issue within 60 business days.

Qualified written request

For purposes of this subsection, a qualified written request
shall be a written correspondence, other than notice on a
payment coupon or other payment medium supplied by the servicer,
that–
(i) includes, or otherwise enables the servicer to
identify, the name and account of the borrower; and
(ii) includes a statement of the reasons for the belief
of the borrower, to the extent applicable, that the account
is in error or provides sufficient detail to the servicer
regarding other information sought by the borrower.

More from the CNN article.

The paper says that in the two cases being examined borrowers who had filed for bankruptcy court protections objected to Countrywide’s claims of what was owed on their home loans. One couple contended that their mortgage payments were current, while Countrywide (Charts, Fortune 500) claimed $2,400 in overdue mortgage payments in that case.

The paper reports that the U.S. Trustee took an interest in both matters after Countrywide did not respond to the borrowers’ objections and judges in the cases ordered the lenders’ claims for various fees stricken from the claims.

A Countrywide spokesman told the paper it does not comment on pending litigation, but added that it had intended to appear at the hearings and was investigating why its outside counsel did not do so.

Countrywide has filed objections to the U.S. Trustee’s probe and subpoenas in both cases, the paper reported, saying that they were overly broad and exceeded the office’s powers. But the bankruptcy judge hearing one of the cases has allowed the regulator’s investigation to go forward.

I am sure that we will see many more of these cases hit our court systems as the mortgage and housing fiasco continues to unwind before our very eyes.

Maybe you have been charged questionable fees, hopefully now you have the knowledge on how to use the law to challenge these bogus charges via “qualified written request” and fight back against your lender.