DENVER, COLORADO - FEBRUARY 19:  Financial adv...
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Probably not…

But that doesn’t mean that people aren’t trying it… and it doesn’t mean that people aren’t getting in trouble for it.

Here is the way it works (and it all sounds so legit…):

  • Mr. and Mrs. Consumer buy a house and get a mortgage from MonsterMegaMortgageCompany (MMMC).
  • MMMC sells their mortgage to Investor Pool #1.
  • Then it is bundled and sold to IP#2… and #3 and #4 over a span of a few years.
  • Mr. & Mrs. Consumer start having problems, and despite everything they are facing foreclosure.
  • To try to get help they contact a “Foreclosure Mitigation” Law Firm that fights the foreclosure by filing a “missing title” lawsuit.
  • The law firm (or other entity) charges an up-front fee (maybe $2000) and then monthly fees (maybe $1000 or $1500)… as well as a contingency fee upon settlement of either 50% of the reduction or 75% or 80% of the value if the mortgage were completely eliminated.
  • After stringing along Mr. & Mrs. Consumer for a few months or longer (collecting fees), they fail to actually prosecute the case.
  • Mr. & Mrs. Consumer lose their home…

According to a few of the sources I looked at, their are no recorded examples of any suit of this type EVER being resolved in the consumer’s favor.

The basis of the lawsuit is that if the mortgage holder can’t produce the documents from the mortgage, it will be set aside and the consumer will own their property free and clear.  Sounds nice, huh?

Before getting sucked into something like this, here is a little more reading…

Source 1

Source 2

The State of California is going after one of the firms involved in this practice.  I would expect that there are similar cases in other states.

Times are tough…  scamsters know it, too

People being foreclosed on are all over the place.  They are vulnerable to people that approach them to “help.”  There are a variety of scams and plans that mostly just revolve around generating a profit for the “helper.”

Be careful!  There is help for many home owners that are in trouble… but the easy sounding solutions often aren’t what they are cracked up to be.  If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is…

I would love to lose my mortgage, too… but this isn’t the way…

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