Warnings Against Fraudulent Foreclosure Practices
WARNINGS Against Fraudulent Companies and/ or Individuals
Most often the minute you are two or three months behind in your payments, or the mortgage company has already filed foreclosure against you, you will start receiving a large quantity of letters (and at times phone calls and personal visits) from many companies and/ or individuals who will offer to help you sell the home. You should NOT SIGN any paper you don’t understand. And even if you believe you understand it, you must contact someone for legal advice.
Most of the time, the people who will approach you are not real estate agents, but private investors. These are some of the tactics they use in order for you to “give” your home over to them. They will claim to:
- Stop you from being harassed by the bank
- Buy the house from you and clean your credit completely
- Offer to deal directly with the bank
- Stop foreclosure immediately
- Promise to get a large amount for you at end of sale
Unless the company or individual proves to be a licensed realtor, you should be very careful what information you give or what papers you sign. Again, DO NOT SIGN any paper.
WARNINGS About Individual Offering You Money If You SIGN or GIVE over DEED to them!
If you are contacted by someone, or you yourself come across advertisement in which you are offered to save your home by signing the DEED over to them, STOP!
You will be told a large amount of money will be given you if you sign the DEED over. These are some of the grave problems you will be getting into:
- You are literally giving away your home. This home has a mortgage and thus essentially belongs to the bank
- This individual WILL NOT RECORD the DEED or file anything in court as he promises to do. He will just be buying time while trying to find someone to sell your DEED to. The new buyer (if ever there is one) will still be making you responsible for anything there is wrong with the house. The bank still recognizes you as the DEED holder and the foreclosure will go on. You will still be responsible for the amount owed to bank.
- If a buyer is found, he will also usually be illegitimately getting the home, for no bank has really been involved in the process of purchase. It has just been a DEAL between three parties: You, the “investor”, and the “duped buyer”.
- Ninety percent of the time these buyers will stop making payments on the home, simply they didn’t qualify for a mortgage to start with, which likely is because of terrible credit and because they have no real money for a down payment. Since the house is still in your name because the “investor” did not deal with your bank, you will still be responsible for damages and for money owed on the house. In fact there is no bank involved: The “investor” is getting paid the monthly amounts from this new buyer, while the investor seeks to legitimize the deal. If this buyer is not qualified or stops making him payments, he will just use your DEED again on someone else. And the amount of money offered, even if it sounds like a lot to you, you must CONTACT attorney or self-help legal clinic to obtain help in dealing with this person.
If you sign over the DEED to anyone in this manner, you no longer have any rights to the home, but you do have same obligation to bank. You will need to hire an attorney (at expensive fee) to try to recuperate the deed.