Topics: Foreclosure - 1502 results

Never turn your back on a home foreclosure with the assumption your property title is dead. It could reanimate as a zombie title, dragging hordes of bills and fines along with it. A zombie title is stalking Joseph Keller, who vacated his home five years ago after receiving a foreclosure notice from JPMorgan Chase. Keller moved in with his daughter, assuming that his old home would be auctioned off any day. But weeks later, JPMorgan Chase changed its mind and …

  Banks are foreclosing on the homes of widows. Financial institutions are refusing to modify mortgages when husbands have died without listing their surviving wives on the notes. Lawyers.com journalist Ed Alpern shows you how banks have gotten away with these practices and how you can fight losing your home to foreclosure. Director of Foreclosure Prevention Litigation at Legal Services NYC Jacob Inwald emphasizes banks are under a legal obligation to attempt to avoid foreclosures and to promote loan modifications. …

As anyone who’s ever dealt with a mortgage – not to mention a foreclosure – knows, getting a straight story from mortgage servicers, the companies that handle loan modifications and foreclosures, can be next to impossible. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is trying to help: On Jan. 17, the federal agency released final rules that aim to better protect consumers from detrimental actions by such companies and require them to give homeowners facing foreclosure more and better information.   …

Ten major banks last week agreed to pay out $8.5 billion to settle allegations that they engaged in abusive foreclosure practices in 2009 and 2010. Of the settlement money, $3.3 billion will go to homeowners whose homes actually went into foreclosure. The remaining $5.2 billion will be used for loan modifications and other relief. Some 3.8 million homeowners were eligible for the review, meaning that the $3.3 billion in settlement money comes to less than $1,000 per family, although some …

As part of the law passed as a last minute escape of the so-called fiscal cliff, Congress extended the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act to the great relief of homeowners who’ve suffered foreclosure.   Injury, but Not Insult First passed in 2007, the act allows mortgage holders to avoid paying income tax on the value lost when they are forced to sell their homes at prices below their market value. Normally, the IRS considers that lost value as a break …