Federal Reserve BANK CON exposed

Federal Reserve BANK CON exposed Part 2

Louis Farrakhan - FED & Monetary Policy

When all else has failed in 2010;TRY BANKRUPTCY IN 2011

Are you in FORECLOSURE?
Are you overwhelmed by DEBT?
Going through a DIVORCE
Has your Business venture gone WRONG
FILING BANKRUPTCY IS NOT THE END;ITS THE BEGINNING
In the Bible Deuteronomy 15:1..IT READS...At the end of every seventh year you must cancel the debts of everyone who owes you money.
But in our current laws this is not encouraged.
We have one life to live so FREE yourself from debt and give yourself a SECOND CHANCE to FINANCIAL FREEDOM
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Will new rules protect those facing foreclosure?

Will new rules protect those facing foreclosure?

Will foreclosure scandal lead to better laws or just a pause?

MILPITAS, Calif. - Ching Sun has been trying for nearly two years to renegotiate his mortgage and stave off foreclosure on his family's modest home in this San Jose suburb.
So he ought to feel heartened by a push for a national moratorium on foreclosures in the wake of a growing scandal involving some of the largest U.S. lenders.

But Mr. Sun, who fell behind on his mortgage payments after his import-export business collapsed in 2008, is skeptical that a moratorium would do much beyond provide borrowers like him a temporary “breather.” After six fruitless attempts to modify his loan, Mr. Sun received a notice from PNC Financial Services last month that his house is now formally in foreclosure. He and his wife don't know if and when they will have to leave.

“People need something like (a moratorium by Congress), because there is nothing we can do anymore,” Mr. Sun said. But ultimately, instead of merely delaying foreclosures, “we need legislation to prevent them. I think (the banks) should be mandated to do loan modifications. This will be most helpful.”

Calls for a national moratorium have grown louder in recent days, fueled by outrage over revelations that some of the nation's biggest financial institutions broke the law by failing to properly verify foreclosure filings. Court documents revealed the widespread practice by bank employees of rubber-stamping—“robo-signing”—foreclosure paperwork that they did not personally review.

Mr. Sun's lender, PNC Financial, as well as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Ally Financial Inc, are among the institutions that have joined in temporarily halting foreclosures while they review their procedures. (Bank of America said Oct. 18 that it will resume foreclosures in 23 states in coming weeks.)

Foreclosures approaching record levels
Meanwhile, foreclosures have been approaching record levels. From July through September, banks seized 288,345 properties around the country, the most ever in a three-month period, according to data released by RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing service. In the same quarter, some 930,437 U.S. homeowners received a foreclosure-related warning—or approximately one in 139 households, up 4 percent from the April-June period.

Banks have repossessed more than 816,000 homes through the first nine months of 2010, RealtyTrac reported.

“If (the big banks) are concerned (about the foreclosure process), the rest of us should be, too,” Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told TheHill.com's Congress Blog. “A (congressionally imposed) moratorium would give regulators an opportunity to review the procedures that each lender has in place. It would prevent them from moving forward until they could prove they were conducting foreclosures in compliance with the law. In this way, it would be very similar in purpose to the moratorium that President Obama imposed on deepwater drilling in the Gulf following the BP spill.”

A number of lawmakers—mainly Democrats—have also been pressing regulatory agencies to take action. Dean DeBuck, spokesperson for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, said in an email: “Immediately after concerns surfaced regarding Ally foreclosure processing issues, the OCC ordered large national bank servicers to review their procedures to ensure compliance with state and federal law before foreclosing on seriously delinquent borrowers.” The lenders targeted by the OCC include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, HSBC Finance Corp., PNC, and Wells Fargo.

Meanwhile, attorneys general of all 50 states have launched their own probes.

In California, prior to foreclosing on a property, banks are required to do due diligence and make a good-faith effort to contact homeowners, discuss the various options, and work out a solution, according to Jim Finefrock, spokesperson for the state Attorney General's Office. Jerry Brown, the current holder of that office, is locked in a tight race for governor against Republican Meg Whitman.

But the banks' actions in other states suggest that they might not be obeying California's foreclosure laws, Mr. Finefrock said. His office has sent letters to Ally Financial, previously known as GMAC, and JP Morgan Chase, both of which have acknowledged engaging in sham verifications of foreclosure filings, and has ordered them to prove that they are complying with state law “or stop doing foreclosures in California,” Mr. Finefrock added.

Mr. Finefrock said the state is also in discussion with other banks to ensure they comply with state law.

Too little, too late
While Ching Sun welcomes the investigations, he also sees them as too little, too late. “They should have done this a long time ago,” he said. In his effort to get his mortgage modified, he has consulted lawyers and written to Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Federal Reserve and the Better Business Bureau—all to no avail. “I have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting a loan modification,” he said.

Adding to Mr. Sun's frustration is the fact that PNC Financial—formerly National City Bank—has never explained why his applications have been denied. His wife is employed, so they have some income, and their house—which they purchased for $460,000 in 2004—is underwater (meaning the mortgage exceeds the current value) by only 20 to 30 percent.

“Banks will modify loans if they see that it's to their own benefit,” Mr. Sun said. “If you lose 50 percent of your (home's value) or more, they lose a lot of money, so they would never foreclose on you.” But in his case, he adds, “they would rather foreclose on us. … If (the lender resells) the property, anyway, why (not let) the former owner buy it back?”

Stringing borrowers along
Maeve Elise Brown, executive director of Housing and Economic Rights Advocates in Oakland, Calif., echoed Mr. Sun's concerns.

“A moratorium could be very helpful for people in our own state,” she said, “but you have to crack down on lenders for failing homeowners and stringing them along.”

As Mr. Sun has discovered, lenders are not obligated to explain why a loan modification was denied, which encourages many people to reapply even if their chances are nil, Ms. Brown said. “A moratorium doesn't fix the problem of false hope.”

Preeti Vissa, community reinvestment director with the Berkeley, Calif.–based Greenlining Institute, said homeowners would benefit most in the near term from options that reduce the total amount of their loan.

“We know today that principal reduction is the most sustainable part of a loan modification,” Ms. Vissa said. “We're seeing that without that, the homeowner is paying (perhaps just) $15 less a month (on their mortgage), and they end up defaulting in 90 days anyway.”

But she notes that homeowners face severe hurdles in trying to renegotiate their loan principal, because 80 percent of home loans are owned by investors, “and (banks) can't reduce principal without investor approval.”

Ms. Vissa said the current scrutiny on big lenders and a foreclosure moratorium could be opportunities for housing advocates, policymakers and bankers to step back and see what they could do to lessen the foreclosure crisis.

“I see the banks are doing a lot to contact the homeowner,” she said. “About a year ago, you wouldn't have seen that, but there still is a lot to be done. … They are discussing options, but are they really following through and aggressively pursuing the options that keep the homeowner in the home?”

Are you a renter and your landlord is in Foreclosure?

WHAT ARE YOUR RIGHTS?

Federal legislation signed in May 2009 gives important rights to tenants whose landlords have lost their properties through foreclosure.

Renters and tenants are now being affected by foreclosures almost as often as homeowners. The mortgage industry crisis that started in 2006 has resulted in thousands -- no, make that millions -- of foreclosed homes. Most of the occupants are the homeowners themselves, who must scramble to find alternate housing with very little notice. They're being joined by scores of renters who discover, often with no warning, that their rented house or apartment is now owned by a bank, which wants them out.
Who Are the Renters?

Renters who lose their homes to foreclosures don't fit a single profile. Many of them live in smaller buildings, condos, and single-family homes. They're located in cities and surrounding suburbs, in low-income and upscale neighborhoods. In short, foreclosed homes are everywhere, and they're rented by people with widely varying incomes, including some with "Section 8" (federal housing assistance) vouchers.
Who Are the Defaulting Owners?

The typical foreclosed home may have originally been owner-occupied, but more often it's owned by investors and speculators who were hoping to profit from the rents. Caught between the slump in housing values and the rise of mortgage interest rates, these owners could not feasibly sell or extract enough rent to cover their monthly costs. In droves, they lost their investments. For example, in Minneapolis and its surrounding suburbs, 38% of the 2006 foreclosures involved rental properties; in Minneapolis alone, 65% were rentals.
Who Are the New Landlords?

When an owner defaults on a mortgage, the mortgage holder, often a bank, either becomes the new owner or sells the property at a public sale. If the bank becomes the owner, it may pay a servicing company to handle the property. But don't expect close attention -- these companies are focused on financial matters, not mundane things like maintenance.

Some renters find themselves with a new owner even before the foreclosure. Lawyers in Massachusetts, for example, contend that many new rental property owners are investment trusts that specialize in purchasing troubled loans directly from banks, then foreclosing, evicting, and selling.
New Owners Means No Maintenance

Many tenants have no idea that their building has been taken at foreclosure. They continue to pay rent to the former owner, who often pockets the money but is hardly inclined to maintain the building it no longer owns. In the meantime, the new owners simply refuse to be landlords, never making repairs or even paying utility bills. Because the banks are stuck with increasing numbers of foreclosed properties that they can't sell, they remain non-landlords for some time, making life impossible for their tenants until those tenants are evicted.
Renters in Foreclosed Properties No Longer Lose Their Leases

Before May 20, 2009, most renters lost their leases upon foreclosure. The rule in most states was that if the mortgage was recorded before the lease was signed, a foreclosure wiped out the lease (this rule is known as "first in time, first in right"). Because most leases last no longer than a year, it was all too common for the mortgage to predate the lease and destroy it upon foreclosure.

These rules changed dramatically on May 20, 2009, when President Obama signed the "Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009." This legislation provided that leases would survive a foreclosure -- meaning the tenant could stay at least until the end of the lease, and that month-to-month tenants would be entitled to 90 days' notice before having to move out (this notice period is longer than any state's non-foreclosure notice period, a real boon to tenants).

An exception was carved out for the buyer who intends to live on the property -- this buyer may terminate a lease with 90 days' notice. Importantly, the law provides that any state legislation that is more generous to tenants will not be preempted by the federal law. These protections apply to Section 8 tenants, too.

Importantly, tenants who live in cities with rent control "just cause" eviction protection are also protected from terminations at the hands of an acquiring bank or new owner. These tenants can rely on their ordinance's list of allowable, or "just causes," for termination. Because a change of ownership, without more, does not justify a termination, the fact that the change occurred through foreclosure will not justify a termination.
Does It Make Sense to Evict Tenants?

New owners may want to terminate existing tenants because they believe that vacant properties are easier to sell. Common sense suggests otherwise. In many situations a building full of stable, rent-paying tenants will be more valuable (and command a higher price) than an empty building. Emptied buildings are also prone to vandalism and other deterioration -- after all, no one is on site to monitor their condition. When entire neighborhoods become a wasteland of empty foreclosed multifamily buildings, their value drops even further. It's hard to understand why new owners choose to pay lawyers to start eviction procedures instead of paying a modest fee to a management company to collect rent and manage the property while they wait to sell.
"Cash for Keys"

To encourage tenants to leave quickly and save on the court costs associated with an eviction, banks offer tenants a cash payout in exchange for their rapid departure. Thinking that they have little choice, many tenants -- even Section 8, protected tenants -- take the deal. It doesn't help them much as they join the swelling ranks of newly displaced tenants (and former homeowners) who are competing to find an affordable new rental.
What Can a Foreclosed-Upon Tenant Do?

Thanks to the 2009 federal legislation, most tenants with leases will keep their leases, and month-to-month tenants will have at least 90 days to relocate. Tenants with leases have no legal recourse against their former landlords, because they are in the same position vis a vis the new owner as they were with the old: The lease survives and ends as it would had there been no foreclosure. Similarly, month-to-month tenants always know that they can be terminated with proper notice, and 90 days is longer than any state's termination period.

However, a lease-holding tenant whose rental has been bought by a buyer who want to move in to the property ends up less fortunate than before the new law -- he may lose his lease with 90 days' notice, a result that probably would not have happened had the owner simply sold the property to a buyer who intended to occupy the property. (Normally, the new owner has to wait until the lease ends, absent a lease clause providing for termination upon sale, though such clauses may not be legal in all situations.)
Suing in Small Claims Court

A lease-holng tenant who has to move out so that new owners may move in might consider suing their former landlord in small claims court. Here's how it works.

After signing a lease, the landlord is legally bound to deliver the rental for the entire lease term. In legalese, this duty is known as the "covenant of quiet enjoyment." A landlord who defaults on a mortgage, which sets in motion the loss of the lease, violates this covenant, and the tenant can sue for the damages it causes.

Small claims court is a perfect place to bring such a lawsuit. The tenant can sue the original landlord for moving and apartment-searching costs, application fees, and the difference, if any, between the new rent for a comparable rental and the rent under the old lease. Though the former owner is probably not flush with money, the awards in these cases won't be very much, and the court judgment and award will stay on the books for many years. A persistent tenant can probably collect what's owed eventually.


If you are renting and your landlord is in Foreclosure and you are afraid that you and your family will be evicted;We can help you keep your place of residence.
Call Lee@678.532.7028
We can help in all 50 states

Dubai: Real Estate Crash Sends Prices, Rents Falling

There's a half-off sale in the world's tallest building.

Even with an address at the iconic Burj Khalifa, rents for residences in the tower are not immune from Dubai's real estate crash. Indeed, nearly a year after it was inaugurated with a massive water-and-fireworks display, about 825 of the tower's 900 ultra-luxury apartments remain unoccupied, according to Better Homes, a real estate brokerage in Dubai.

The cost of renting a studio with floor-to-ceiling windows, marble fixtures and wooden floors has dropped to $1,815 a month from $3,025, while a one-bedroom apartment is available for $2,722 (it used to be $4,536), the brokerage says. Two-bedroom residences are expected to get $4,310, down from $7,183. Interested parties "call every few days and go for a viewing," says Imad Ben Khadra, a Moroccan expatriate who owns two 1,000-sq.-ft. one-bedroom apartments he purchased in late 2008 for about $950,000, both of which he is trying to rent out. "We got some offers [from prospective tenants], but nobody confirms.
Varun Chaudhary bought two two-bedroom residences in the Burj for about $1.5 million in 2005 even before construction began. He saw the value leap from $762 per sq. ft. to $3,811 per sq. ft. at the heights of the boom. Today, those values hover just above his purchase price. But he says he isn't worried about his investment. "These properties will recuperate faster than other properties because it's an icon, because it's only one in the world," he says. "You just have to say 'Burj Khalifa.' That's the address; you don't have to explain. It's a style statement in itself.

Still, the Burj, with its one-of-a-kind address and amenities like the first-ever Armani Hotel, is only the most high-profile example how Dubai's once flying real estate market has crashed. Overall in the emirate, property prices have dropped an average of 50%. Some half-built projects, located away from the main highway that runs through the city, may never be completed because their values have dropped too much, analysts say.

But it's the units that will be completed that are looming as a problem. The Dubai economy must still digest a flood of housing units coming on line or soon to be opened, which will further dampen prices. Through September, 27,000 residential units have been put on the market, and another 9,000 are expected to be completed by the end of the year, according to real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle. For 2011, the firm forecasts that about 30,000 new units will come on line. A glut in commercial property has forced landlords to offer previously unheard-of incentives such as free rent and allowances to finish out shell construction space. "They built the infrastructure for a much larger economy than it can [now] attract," says Wissam Haroun, a Syrian expatriate who owns entertainment and technology companies in Dubai.

Worried about the glut, Dubai's Real Estate Regulatory Agency recently said it was canceling or in the process of canceling about half of all projects registered with the authority. Of about 980 developments, 495 are on the chopping block, according to a Dubai sovereign-bond prospectus made public last week.

Some, however, see opportunity in the depressed prices. "It's a massive change in terms that it's no longer the man on the street or the lady on the street buying property on spec or off plan," says Paul Devonshire, a director with Pramerica Real Estate Investors who specializes in the Middle East and North Africa region. Now, he explains, institutions or more savvy investors are moving in, eyeing distressed or repriced assets.

But the buzz was decidedly subdued at the recent Cityscape Global, the annual real estate exhibition that in the past featured the launch of glitzy projects like the Palm Trilogy, the world's largest man-made islands. The name of the event itself had been changed from Cityscape Dubai in order to expand the focus beyond the city-state. Only a fraction of exhibitors - 200, down from around 1,000 during the boom -showed up to participate.

With speculators gone and credit still tight, Dubai is going about the hard work of adjusting to its new economic reality. Top of the list is paying back creditors that helped finance the boom. Over the past decade, Dubai amassed $109 billion in debt, with about $15.5 billion due this year, the International Monetary Fund estimates. Dubai World, one of the three main holding companies controlled by Dubai's ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, said last month that 99% of its creditors had agreed to alter the terms on $24.9 billion of its debt. Last November, Dubai World sent stock markets around the world tumbling when it announced it wanted a moratorium of its debts. "We are back. Of course we are back," Sheik Mohammed said in a Bloomberg TV interview last month while attending the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Ky.

But, having been through the financial volatility, few seem to want to part with their cash just yet. The Syrian expatriate Haroun, who has lived in Dubai most of his life and plans to raise his family there, says he would like to buy a home. But his forays into the market so far have left him unsatisfied. "People got stupid rich and stupid poor at the same time," he says. "I'm glad I stayed out of it."