Hey. I'm Steve Kramer of the Kramer Law Firm. And today we're going to be talking about some of the defenses to foreclosure. And one of those is that the lender failed to mitigate their damages.
Now if you're dealing with a foreclosure, you probably tried to work something out with the bank. You probably tried to do a short sale or a modification, it's probably been a very frustrating process and you probably feel you've been jerked around by the bank.
The bank loses documents, you get offers on your house for a short sale and you don't get a response from the bank. You just feel like you're talking to a brick wall and you're not getting anywhere.
The thing is that in your foreclosure case - now that you probably been served if we're talking about a defense – you've got an opportunity to raise a defense that the lender hasn't mitigated the damages. They haven't worked with you to come to a resolution. They haven't responded to your short sale offers. They haven't responded to your efforts to modify. They haven't done their job.
And all the while, you've been trying to give them back this house, get the thing sold, work something out.
You're trying to everything you can do and they're just not being receptive. And the thing is your house value maybe decline while your case is going on and you shouldn't be responsible for difference from when the case started and to here, if you gave the bank the chance to take back the property in the beginning and now they don't want it. And now they're claiming they're owed all this extra money.
The point is that the lender has a duty to work with you.
Just like if you had a lease with somebody and you breached that lease – meaning you stopped paying your rent and the lease is for three years – they just can't sit on that property and say you owe me three years of rent. They've got a duty to get another tenant in there, somebody else to pay the rent. And you're going to be responsible for that different possibly but you shouldn't be responsible for the full amount. And that's the same thing we're talking about here.
Even if we're taking the position you're responsible for less it's still one defense that we can raise with the ultimate goal of making sure that you don't owe money at the end. That you get out of the property clean or if you want to keep the property, you have some leverage to make the bank work with you so that you can keep your property.
Why am I telling you this? Because I deal with this stuff every day. And you probably have questions.
I'm Steve Kramer of the Kramer Law Firm. Thanks for watching.
Call 877.493.4847 and I’d love to talk with you.
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Links to Videos with Scripts
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What We Look for in a Foreclosure Case
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The Defenses to Florida Foreclosure
How We Structure our Fees and Why
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