Foreclosure Defense Secrets.com

While the popular thought these days is to walk away from a bad mortgage and an ever-decreasing property value, you cannot look past the consequences of such an action.  Aside from the obvious damage to your credit, there are tax implications and the danger of a deficiency judgment being sought against you.

When a property is foreclosed, the house is auctioned by the county and usually goes back to the bank as the highest bidder at the auction.  At that point, the bank will either write the property off as a loss and deduct it from their own tax return, or they will sell the property to another buyer and right off the difference in what they are able to sell it for and the amount they originally lent to you.

When the bank rights off this difference in money, the IRS gives them a break on their taxes but inquires as to where that money went.  When the IRS sees that you were given a loan of $300,000 and gave back a house that sold for only $200,000, they want to know what happened to that $100,000 difference.  Even though you don’t actually have that $100,000 in your bank account, for the purpose of filing your tax returns, you are considered to have a capital gain of $100,000 and the IRS requires that you pay 15 percent of any capital gains on a 1099 tax return.

The other worry is that the bank might seek that $100,000 themselves.  The bank could institute another action against you personally asking the court to force you to pay back the loss that the bank recognized when the property sold for less than the amount they originally lent to you.  When a deficiency judgment is entered against you, the bank can come after all of your personal assets and even garnish you wages until the full amount is paid back.

Deficiency judgments and capital gains worries are only a couple of reasons why you need to fight tooth and nail to prevent a foreclosure judgment from being entered against you.  There are simple ways to avoid deficiency judgments, tax worries, and foreclosures as a whole.  Learn these ways at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

Share This

Watching the news, reading the paper, listening to the radio, and even surfing the internet, I am shocked by the lack of coverage that the mortgage foreclosure crisis is currently receiving. The housing market continues to decline, unemployment numbers continue to go up, and banks continue to foreclose. Has everyone forgotten that this crisis still exists?

Perhaps the word “moratorium” has given everyone amnesia. With all the talk of banks putting foreclosures on a temporary hold, it seems like the masses have assumed this problem to be behind us. What everyone is forgetting is that this hold will be lifted on almost all foreclosure actions in January or February of 2009.

If your goal is to keep your home for four more weeks, maybe your problems are behind you. However, if you would rather keep your home indefinitely, or at least long enough to modify the terms of the loan or complete a short sale, you still need to fight the foreclosure in a court of law. All the loss mitigation in the world will not protect you from a foreclosure judgment unless you delay the impending legal action against you.

It is important to remember that this problem is not going away. The only way to save yourself from foreclosure is to educate yourself and choose to take matters into your own hands. Learn how to save yourself at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

Share This

Foreclosures are not slowing down and the housing market continues to fall. The prospects of completing a successful short sale continue to diminish. Your house is worth more to you than it is to anyone else, including the bank. However, that will not stop the bank from foreclosing and taking your house from you. You need to be able to fight the foreclosure process long enough for the bank to modify your loan and allow you to keep your house at a much lower price. Find out how to accomplish this and save your home at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

Share This

It may take over a decade for the housing market to recover, but you can stall a foreclosure for over ten years - or as long as it takes to refinance, increase income, or sell the property. Find out how to save your home from foreclosure indefinitely at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

Share This

The question of why some homeowners are getting bailouts has really been answered by the financial turmoil of the past few months. A huge spike in foreclosures, magnified by derivatives cooked up by Wall Street firms, nearly brought down the global economy. As it stands, we’re still likely to suffer one heck of a hangover in the form of a serious recession.

The foreclosure mess is far from over. Many of the riskiest loans — the ones where homeowners weren’t even paying all the interest that was accumulating on their loans each month, let alone touching the principals — are just now resetting.

Then there’s the whole vicious-cycle effect. As foreclosures rise, banks slash the prices of the homes they recover, putting downward pressure on everybody else’s property values. With more homes “underwater,” more fall into foreclosure when their owners lose a job and can’t sell, or simply decide to walk away.

That’s why the Powers That Be are finally getting serious about working with struggling homeowners. Given how interconnected everything is in our economy, their success in saving your neighbor from foreclosure might ultimately reduce the chances you’ll lose your job.

It may be that a lot of borrowers were complete idiots for agreeing to mortgages that were eight or nine times their incomes (a mortgage that was three times your income used to be considered a stretch in the days before lenders went nuts). Smart borrowers fixed their rates for at least as long as they planned to stay in their homes; dumb ones agreed to adjustable-rate mortgages on their brokers’ assurances that they’d be able to refinance before the payments reset.

The federal government is considering a plan that would help about 3 million homeowners avoid foreclosure. But borrowers didn’t get these loans in a vacuum. Mortgage brokers and loan officers downplayed the risks. So did lenders, who gave the brokers and loan officers fat incentives to push them. The Wall Street machine encouraged looser lending standards and created exotic investment products that wound up multiplying, rather than reducing, the risks. Regulators, meanwhile, stood by and basically did nothing. No one involved is covered in glory.

Neither is anyone getting an entirely free ride. Plenty of people will still lose their homes, and many who get workouts will have to live with trashed credit from the payments they missed before help arrived. The only way to truly protect yourself is to take your defense into your own hands. Find out how to do just that at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

Share This

Not many people are aware, but last April the Senate proposed legislation to prevent foreclosure from accelerating so quickly. Here are a few of the benefits of the Act:

FHA Modernization. To ensure that additional families can access the FHA program, which provides safe, fixed-rate mortgages, significant FHA reform is included to modernize, streamline and expand the reach of the FHA program. Under this bill, the FHA loan limit is increased from 95% to 110% of area median home price with a cap at 132% of GSE limit (currently, $550,000), allowing families in all areas of the country to access homeownership through FHA. Downpayments of 3.5% will be required for any FHA loan and counseling requirements are enhanced to help provide for stable homeownership.

Assisting Communities Devastated by Foreclosures. Homes that have been foreclosed upon and are sitting unoccupied lead to declines in neighboring house values, increased crime and significant disinvestment. To ensure that communities can mitigate these harmful effects of foreclosures, $4 billion is provided to communities hardest hit by foreclosures and delinquencies. These supplemental Community Development Block Grant Funds will be used to purchase foreclosed homes, at a discount, and rehabilitate or redevelop the homes to stabilize neighborhoods and stem the significant losses in house values of neighboring homes.

Providing Pre-Foreclosure Counseling for Families in Need. To help families avoid foreclosure, this bill provides $100 million in additional funding for housing counseling. These funds will be distributed by the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation by the end of 2008 to ensure families can quickly get the help they need. As many as 250,000 additional families connect with their mortgage servicer or lender to explore options that will keep them in their homes as a result of these counseling funds.

Enhancing Mortgage Disclosure. To ensure that consumers are provided with timely and meaningful disclosures in connection with mortgages, the bill expands the types of home loans subject to early disclosures (within three days of application) under the Truth In Lending Act (TILA) including refinancings. The bill requires that disclosures be provided no later than 7 days prior to closing so borrowers can shop for another loan if not satisfied with the terms. The bill requires a new disclosure that informs borrowers of the maximum monthly payments possible under their loan, and also increases the range of statutory damages for TILA violations from the current $200 to $2000 to $400 to $4000.

Preserving the American Dream for Our Nation’s Veterans. To assist returning soldiers avoid foreclosure, this bill lengthens the time a lender must wait before starting foreclosure from three months to nine months after a soldier returns from service and also provides returning soldiers with one year relief from increases in mortgage interest rates. In addition, the Department of Defense is required to establish a counseling program to ensure veterans and active service members can access assistance if facing financial difficulties. Also included is a provision that increases the VA loan guarantee amount, so that veterans have additional homeownership opportunities.

Standard Property Tax Deduction. To make tax relief available to all American homeowners, the bill will provide a standard deduction – $500 for single filers and $1,000 for joint filers – for the 28.3 million non-itemizers who pay property taxes. Present law allows only those who itemize deductions on their Federal tax returns to deduct state and local property taxes from their income.

Mortgage Revenue Bonds. To provide for refinancing of subprime loans, mortgages for first-time homebuyers and multifamily rental housing, $10 billion of Federal tax-exempt private activity bond authority is included in this bill. The measure also exempts interest earned on the bonds from the alternative minimum tax.

Extension of Net Operating Loss Carryback. To aid homebuilders and other businesses hit hardest by the economic slump, this bill will extend a law allowing corporations to apply excess net operating losses to tax returns from prior profitable years and receive any applicable refunds. For 2008 and 2009 losses, the provision would extend the “net operating loss (NOL) carryback” to four years (back to 2004 and 2005, respectively) from the two years currently in law. Measures to prevent companies from abusing the intent of the provision are also included.

Tax Credit for Purchase of Homes in Foreclosure. To encourage the purchase of homes already in foreclosure and of homes on which foreclosure has been filed, this bill creates a $7,000 tax credit for buyers of such homes, to be claimed over two years. Homes in foreclosure bring down the value of property nearby. Encouraging the purchase of more homes in foreclosure will restore property values for all homeowners.

The Act is a good attempt at mitigating future foreclosures, but if you are currently facing foreclosure, you still need to take your defense into your own hands. Learn more at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

Share This

Don’t let this happen to you. You can prevent the loss of your home and the eviction of you and your family. Find out how to protect yourself from foreclosure at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

Share This

Foreclosures have soared 71 percent in the third quarter, to an average of more than 8,500 homes a day. More than three million homes are now expected to be in foreclosure by year’s end, a million more than even the most dire predictions. On top of that, lenders are taking possession of delinquent properties at twice the normal rate which means more than one million homes are likely to be repossessed by the end of the year.

Why is this happening—especially when the last thing most lenders want to do is repossess a house? For one thing, banks are overwhelmed with the sheer number of troubled mortgages. That’s made it more difficult for them to work out loan modifications. Many mortgages also have second liens attached to them, requiring negotiations with third parties which can take months.

The main problem is that so many mortgages have been grouped together into securities and sold off to investors worldwide. These mortgage-backed securities typically carry terms that severely limit the homeowner’s ability to renegotiate a mortgage. So the banks that typically service the mortgage risk being sued if they deviate from these terms.

The only way to protect yourself from foreclosure is to use the legal system to your benefit. You cannot rely on anyone else to come to your rescue. This includes the Federal government, defense attorneys, and especially the lender. For more information about how you can protect yourself from foreclosure, visit www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

Share This

The biggest enemy to a distressed home owner is the person claiming they can help them when they really just want to take advantage of an unfortunate situation. Take some basic precautions against being taken advantage of:

• Don’t sign any documents that confuse you.  Show them to an attorney.
• Get all “promises” in writing.
• Beware of any loan assumption offers where you are not formally released from liability for your mortgage debt and contracts of sale.
• Check with a lawyer or your mortgage company before entering into any deal.
• If you’re selling the house yourself to avoid foreclosure, check to see if there are any complaints against the prospective buyer.  Contact your state Attorney General, State Real Estate Commission, or local District Attorney’s Consumer Fraud Unit for this information.

If you decide to do business with another foreclosure consulting company, be sure that they are operating within the boundaries of the law.  Many people were fooled by dishonest mortgage brokers. It is important when dealing with loss mitigation that they don’t get fooled again.

Share This

The reason we are in the foreclosure mess that we are in is because the Federal government made it too easy for people to own houses.  Massive deregulation and the lack of Congressional foresight created a nation of greedy mortgage brokers, unregulated lenders, and uniformed borrowers.  Now we are supposed to rest our hopes with the same naive officials that led us into this disaster.  I dont like our chances.   

At any one time, seventy percent of the country should own real property of some kind.  In 2006, this number grew as high as eighty percent.  In order fot the market to correct itself, ten percent of the current homeowners need to lose their homes.  You can either be part of the ten percent to have their home taken from them or part of the seventy percent to keep their home.  The choice is yours.  Find out more at www.ForeclosureDefenseSecrets.com.

Share This