Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act

December 20th 2007 President Bush signed the bill ensuring that any debt forgiven on a mortgage secured for a principal residence will not be taxed. This important legislation is one more step in helping homeowners through the fallout of the sub-prime lending boom. We have been advocating such a change to the IRS tax code for nearly 10 years and we are proud of this recent victory.

Short Sales

As short sale occurs when the property is sold for less than what is owed on the mortgage. Many times the lender will agree to a short sale rather then foreclosing on the property. The law Firm can offer you many varied types of loss mitigation, with or without Foreclosure defense. Many times clients will seek assistance with the Short sale from all the wrong places not realizing the crippling effects of an incomplete short sale that never occurs. We normally say the purchase of your home is the single biggest decision you will make in your life time, unfortunately in today’s environment your exit strategy will absolutely be an important decision that must be made with an understanding of your personal situation. A poorly executed Short Sale can have devastating effects for many years into the future. The Law Firm of Consumer lawyers of America has proven experience in this field.

How the process works

We will immediately make contact with the banking institutions to discuss our desire to prevent the property from going into foreclosure. If your property is in Foreclosure you should consider defending that foreclosure until the short sale is complete. The objective of a properly executed Short Sale is having the borrower(s) walk away with no fear of the lender pursuing a deficiency judgment. As the banks are currently overwhelmed this process can take anywhere from ninety  to 120 days from our initial contact with the bank.

Benefits of a Short Sale

If the short sale is successful and we avoid the property from going into foreclosure this will make a difference in how this will reflect upon your credit profile. A foreclosure can damage your ability to secure conventional financing of another home for up to three years. And the immediate effect upon your credit score can be devastating, possibly reflecting in a two hundred point decline. We feel a foreclosure should be avoided at all costs.

Sale of property prior to Short Sale

We work very closely with Local Real Estate Brokers that are well equipped to list the subject property, advise on proper staging and effectuate a sale.

Required Documents

• Last Two years tax returns
• Last two months of bank statements
• Most recent (2) Pay Stubs
• Hardship letter
• Name of mortgage holders
• Customer information Sheet
• Most recent Mortgage Statement
• Home Owners Association contact information

Magic Bullet

We cannot say this enough times, there is no magic bullet. But there are logical things we can do in an effort to minimize the negative results from a bad situation. Dealing with the banks at times seems so frustrating it's unbelievable. But that's what we do and we do as well if not better than most. Attempting any form of loss mitigation without proper representation is very dangerous.  We will deal with the bank in a very methodical way as to ensure our best chance of success. 

Like some Real estate agents that attempt to squeeze in all the hard work it takes dealing with the lenders, your file is not something we will attempt to squeeze into our daily routine, it is our routine.

We are not learning the ins and outs of dealing with the bank on your file. We have worked closely with banking institutions in the past presenting them with all the facts as it pertains to the subject property.  As you can imagine the banks are extremely overwhelmed with the amount of foreclosures that are appearing on their books. It requires working closely with the bank, providing them with an entire package concerning the property and getting it right on the first go around.

The next step

After we receive the requested documents we normally have a decision back within forty eight hours if your property is a candidate for a short sale. Once determined that we can work with you we will meet one additional time to complete a small package of paper work to get the process rolling. Each client is assigned their own processor & negotiator that will be your point of contact.