Orlando Foreclosure Defense

As seen on Fox 35 for Foreclosure Defense

“Orlando Homeowners facing foreclosure may be able to hold onto their homes by making a simple request of their bank: Show me the note.

In essence the homeowner is requiring the lender to show the original mortgage paperwork.

And just like that, the foreclosure proceedings came to a standstill.

Homeowners around the country are managing to stave off foreclosure by employing a strategy that goes to the heart of the whole nationwide mess.

During the real estate frenzy of the past decade, mortgages were sold and resold, bundled into securities and peddled to investors.

In many cases, the original note signed by the homeowner was lost, stored away in a distant warehouse or destroyed.”

Persuading a judge to compel production of hard-to-find or nonexistent documents can, at the very least, delay foreclosure, buying the homeowner some time and turning up the pressure on the lender to renegotiate the mortgage.

One Orlando foreclosure defense attorney says in almost all cases he sees, the lender can’t produce the original mortgage paperwork signed by the homeowner.

“It’s always ‘we’ve lost the note, it’s destroyed, it’s stolen, we don’t know where it is’, but we want to collect on the note’”, said Steven Kramer of the Kramer Law Firm.

Kramer said if pushed, banks usually produce the note, but homeowners can stay in their homes longer and have time to negotiate with the lender to possible get a lower payment they can afford.

“I don’t think it’s a stalling tactic,” Kramer said. “But by forcing the banks to do what they’re supposed to do, to do the right thing and produce the original note, homeowners will get more time.”

Tom Deutsch, deputy executive director of the American Securitization Forum, a group that represents banks, law firms and investors, dismissed the strategy as merely a stalling tactic, saying homeowners are “making lawyers jump through procedural hoops to delay what’s likely to be inevitable.”

Deutsch said the original note is almost always electronically retained and can eventually be found.

Judges are often willing to accept electronic documentation. And lenders are sometimes allowed to produce other paperwork to establish they are the holder of a loan. Still, assembling such documents to a judge’s satisfaction takes time, which to homeowners is the point.

The practice is becoming so common that one Tampa lawyer created the web site Consumer Warning Network to promote the produce-the-note strategy nationwide.” - You can read the full article on My Fox 35 News website at http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/Show_Me_Note021809