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Meet face to fact with your mortgage servicer to discuss loan modification February 24, 2011 between 11 am and 7:30 pm at the San Jose Convention Center.

Sponsored by HUD, the Making Home Affordable Program, HOPE NOW and NeighborWorks America, admission is free.

You can either bring documents showing your household income and expenses such as your last two paychecks; information about each of your mortgages including lines of credit; statements for each of your other debts; and bank account statements, or, you can access and complete the Request for Modification form found at MakingHomeAffordable.gov.

There are helpful videos at www.youtube.com/user/MakingHomeAffordable.

You can also call 1 888 995- 4673 for more information.

February 15th is the deadline for San Mateo County homeowners to apply for a review of the tax value of their real property.  If today’s market value is less than the assessed value, you may be eligible for a reduction in property tax.

The application for a review is available online at www. smcare.org.  Or call the assessor’s office at 650 363 4500.

There is no charge for the review.  But the deadline is Tuesday, February 15th.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding hearings tomorrow at 10 a.m. regarding foreclosure mediation programs and the impact that Bankruptcy Courts may have on limiting Homeowner and Investor Losses.  A link to the web site where you can hear the web cast of the hearings follows below, along with the names of those testifying during the scheduled hearing.

“Foreclosure Mediation Programs: Can Bankruptcy Courts Limit Homeowner and Investor Losses?”

Senate Judiciary Committee – Full Committee

http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=4960

DATE:February 1, 2011
TIME:10:00 AM
ROOM:Dirksen-226

OFFICIAL HEARING NOTICE / WITNESS LIST:
January 25, 2011

NOTICE OF COMMITTEE HEARING

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has scheduled a hearing entitled “Foreclosure Mediation Programs: Can Bankruptcy Courts Limit Homeowner and Investor Losses?” for Tuesday, February 1, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Senator Whitehouse to preside.
By order of the Chairman.
Witness List
Hearing before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary On
“Foreclosure Mediation Programs: Can Bankruptcy Courts Limit Homeowner and Investor Losses?”
Tuesday, February 1, 2011 – 10:00 a.m.
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226

The Honorable Robert Drain
United States Bankruptcy Judge
Southern District of New York

John Rao, Attorney
National Consumer Law Center
Boston, MA

Larry Britt, Homeowner
Riverside, RI

Dr. Anthony B. Sanders
Professor and Senior Scholar
The Mercatus Center, George Mason University
Fairfax, VA

Andrew M. Grossman
Visiting Legal Fellow
The Heritage Foundation
Washington, DC

The only genuine accomplishment  of HAMP is the reminder that only 31% of  gross household income should be spent on housing.  In every other way, the program has been too little and what it provides is too often illusory.

Certainly here in California, we absolutely lost track of that budgetary rule of thumb.  Housing costs often soared above 50% of income.  We rationalized that the house was an investment, that California real estate always goes up, and our home was our retirement plan.  All of those rationalizations have soured.

The HAMP target for loan modification is a monthly payment, including property taxes, of 31% of the household’s gross income.  Applied to many of my clients, after deducting California property taxes, the resulting mortgage payment is often half of the  contractual payment.   It often seems that  it is that very disparity between contract and budget target that dooms the modification.

But I think the HAMP exercise is the first time too many homeowners have encountered the idea that housing expense should not overwhelm all other necessary expenses.  Further, that first of all, the mortgage payment is buying housing, not a piece of the Golden State, or arrival in the middle class, or any other abstract value.  It’s a roof over your head, first and foremost.

Have a story tip about foreclosures?

Are you a homeowner who got foreclosed upon AFTER participating in a trial/temporary modification? Are you a current or former loan servicer with inside knowledge of why so many homeowners are being denied modifications and getting foreclosed upon? If so, we want to hear from you.

Please contact NBCNewsInvestigates@nbcuni.com or click on the link below.

Substantive information only; no opinions please.

As the spotlight widens on the mortgage servicing/foreclosure documents story, the banks’ retort is essentially:  maybe our paper wasn’t accurate, but the resulting foreclosure was correct.

“We don’t believe the procedural errors in these affidavits led to inappropriate foreclosures,” Gina Proia, a spokeswoman for Ally, says. “We believe the accuracy of the factual loan information contained in the affidavits was not affected by whether or not the signer had personal knowledge of the precise details,” JPMorgan says in a statement.  quoted on MSNBC

Whoa!  I’m interested in the integrity of the process.  Isn’t that the essence of the 5th Amendment to our constitution?   No property shall be taken without due process.

It’s a step down a slippery slope to say, yeah, we swore falsely to facilitate foreclosing on this house but it doesn’t matter.  To whom doesn’t it matter?   And that assumes that the lender’s underlying proposition is correct, that despite not having the note, or verifying what the internal processes report, we are entitled to take your house.

In my bankruptcy practice, I see the junior version of the robo-signing phenomenon, where sworn declarations are filed with the court seeking relief from the automatic stay.  It is clear to me that the person signing them has no personal knowledge of the facts in the declaration:  not only no personal knowledge, but not even a once over familiarity with what’s being signed.  More importantly, a fair number of these sworn declarations are wrong about the payments made, or not made, on the mortgage.

Which brings me to The Big Picture which is soliciting examples of foreclosure errors:

• wrong house,
• wrong loan,
• wrong bank, or
• wrong person.

If you have a personal story to contribute, let’s get it out there and debunk the idea that accuracy and process aren’t important.

The Conyers/Turner/Lofgren amendment to allow modification of home mortgages in bankruptcy will reach the floor of the House perhaps as early as today.

You can use NACBA’s toll free phone number to find your Congressman and be automatically connected with the office.

Here’s how:

1. Phone toll free at: 877.354.4958

2. Put in your zip code

3. When you reach the receptionist:

• State your name
• Say that you are a constituent
• Ask the Representative to vote FOR the Conyers-Turner-Lofgren amendment (#201) to the Financial Services Reform bill.
• This amendment will cost taxpayers NOTHING and will save millions of homes from foreclosure

We need an alternative to the farsical voluntary mortgage modification programs.  Speak up, today, for a meaningful alternative.