Written Charleston Foreclosure Defense Lawyer, Kristina G. Pierce Recently, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (O.C.C.) and the Federal Reserve accepted a settlement deal requiring ten of the largest residential lending banks (Bank of America, PNC, Aurora, MetLife Bank, SunTrust Bank, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Sovereign Bank, U.S. Bank, and JP Morgan Chase) to…
Written by Charleston Foreclosure Defense Attorney, Kristen G. Pierce “Cash for keys” may be a good result for some homeowners facing foreclosure. Cash for keys is exactly what it sounds like–the lender gives the homeowner cash in exchange for the keys to the home. As with many other areas of law, we need to keep…
Written by Russell A. DeMott Charleston Foreclosure Defense Lawyer, Russell A. DeMott You’re served with a South Carolina foreclosure complaint. Then what? It’s not a letter! After practicing law for almost 18 years now, I see patterns develop. One common thing (of many) I hear from clients is, “I got this letter…” And it’s almost…
Written by Charleston Foreclosure Defense Attorney, Kristina G. Pierce If you have applied for a mortgage modification and are considering retaining counsel for either modification or foreclosure defense assistance, read on. First, I want to mention a practical matter: Even if a homeowner hires an attorney, the lender will inevitably contact the homeowner directly, even…
The foreclosure fiasco has left many Americans who always paid their debts in a position where the house payment has become unmanageable by no fault of their own. Of course you know that because you have experienced or heard about mortgage payments sharply increasing with many ARMS–adjustable rate mortgages. There is life after foreclosure, but…
Written by Charleston Foreclosure Defense Lawyer, Kristina G. Pierce If after reading HARP, Part One, you are interested in applying for a refinance of your loan through HARP, you may have some more questions. Below are the answers to some frequently asked questions, which I hope will give you some of the tools to decide…
Written by Charleston Foreclosure Defense Lawyer, Kristina G. Pierce Are you under water or upside down on your mortgage and want to keep your home? If your home is in a state of negative or near negative equity (you owe more than it’s worth), you might consider applying for the Home Affordable Refinance Program, also…
Sometime during the third or fourth week in May, 1.2 million homeowners went to their mailbox and pulled out a notice that their mortgage company, GMAC Mortgage (“GMAC”), filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Actually Residential Capital, GMAC’s parent company, filed along with 50 of its subsidiaries, including GMAC. About 30 seconds after the average…
Written by Charleston Foreclosure Defense Lawyer, Graves H. Wilson, Jr. Having examined quite a few loan modification offers, I have mixed feelings about recommending that my clients accept a mortgage modification. Obviously, if the modification lowers the monthly payment to an amount that the homeowner can afford, it can be an immense financial and emotional…
Written by Charleston Foreclosure Defense Lawyer, Graves H. Wilson, Jr. There is nothing light or humorous about the mortgage foreclosure fiasco or the so called “National Mortgage Settlement.” The settlement documents have now been published. And it’s another sad story. Fifty states and the District of Columbia took part in the settlement process. Forty-nine states…