Topics: Real Estate - 1475 results

The residential foreclosure crisis has claimed nearly 4 million U.S. homes since 2008. At the start of 2013, it looks like the worst is over. The number of homes in the foreclosure process has reached its lowest level since the crisis began.   Dodd-Frank Overhauls Mortgage Laws During the housing bubble, many mortgage lenders operated with extremely lax underwriting standards. Often, banks failed to check documentation, to require minimum credit scores and to determine whether borrowers had enough income to …

Two men recently made Walmart into a dangerous place to be – way past Black Friday: One went deer hunting with a gun in a parking lot at a store in Pennsylvania, and another crashed his car into the front entrance of a store in California and then allegedly assaulted customers.   It’s Always Deer Season at Walmart In November, Arcangelo Bianco Jr., 40, who had just gone shopping in the store in Burrell Township, Penn., reportedly decided that a …

In a divorce, assets and debts accrued during the marriage are divided. The most valuable marital asset is usually the house. The largest debt is usually the mortgage. Deciding what happens to the house is often complicated and fraught with emotion. If a house belonged to one spouse before the marriage, it usually falls outside the “marital assets” and remains the property of that person. The other spouse can be compensated for any increase in value he or she helped …

The Department of Justice on Feb. 15 announced a $35 million settlement with Lender Processing Services (LPS) subsidiary DocX, stemming from the so-called “robosigning” scandal of 2010. DocX was in the business of helping mortgage servicers file the legal documents required for foreclosures.   Second Settlement, Same Song The settlement follows the government’s allegations that DocX ran a scheme for six years to forge and file more than one million mortgage documents with property recorders around the country. It follows …

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 …