Many homeowners have publicly related stories about the trials they endured as they attempted to modify their mortgage through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). One homeowner, however, believes that just telling her story is not enough. She is suing her lender’s servicing unit, Saxon Mortgage Services (a servicer for Morgan Stanley), for having “no intention of permanently modifying her loan payments to an affordable amount despite having her make a slew of trial payments…[to] avoid foreclosure”[1]. Charges include breach of contract and deceptive debt collection. The complaint seeks class action status.
According to the plaintiff, she made all payments on time during a three-month trial period but was not offered a permanent HAMP modification. She alleges that the company requested her to continue making payments in the modified amount while they “dragged out the process for months.” She believes that the company used HAMP to “lure” customers into making trial payments without ever planning to make modifications[2]. According to lawyer Peter Fredman, “Saxon and Morgan Stanley are taking advantage of the good faith and intentions of distressed borrowers.” He added, “If they don’t want to give modifications, fine, they should face the political music and the flood of foreclosures that will result…but tricking [underwater borrowers] into wasting their time and money applying for a modification that Saxon has absolutely no intention of handing out is a deceptive debt collection practice plain and simple.”
Do you think that the plaintiff has a case?
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[1] http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9MF2O100.htm
[2] http://nationalmortgageprofessional.com/news24565/class-action-suit-against-saxon-alleges-illegal-use-hamp
Yes, I know of at least 50 people who had the same thing happened to them, because they thought the lenders were dealing in good faith, but the truth is, their intentions were fraudlent from the start! If you can make the payments during the trial period, then why would you not be able to make them on a regular basis? They, the lender, didn’t care, because they were never going to do the modification in the first place!
I am not a bit surprised. A lawyer told my daughter if she wants the house, “bring the payments current; loan modification is a joke.”
I know very well the lies of Saxon mortgage, they lied and played with me for over a year, then told me i had a Loan Mod (Hamp), then sold me to a new servicer and I had to start the process all over, it will be another yr end of April 2011, and i still do not have a loan mod,well let me rephrase that, I have in my hand a signed document, but the company contends that i DON’T have a loan mod yet……this has gone on for three yrs,…..i have had my senator involed, local politicians,, and nobody seems to be able to help me…..I wish I could afford a lawyer, because I would love to do a Forensic Audit of my loan, then make them produce my ORIGINAL SIGNED DOCUMENT….It is criminal what is going on……but hey, lets bail out the bank again…..I would definitely sue Saxon in a minute……how do I get in on this Class Action Lawsuit????
The banks have been screwing the American public since “THEY” started this mess. They are the ones who created the loans that got us into this mess. Then when it all came down the mortgage brokers who gave them out took the fall-for simply doing there job. “Here’s a new loan that will allow more people to buy houses” is what they told the brokers who then gave them out to more people who could otherwise never have been able to buy that house. Sure brokers could have used more sense and advised people on how big a risk they were taking but ultimately the banks were behind it all. So then our government “of the banks, by the banks, and for the banks” rewards these greedy X@!*&%’s by handing out billion dollar bail outs. The best thing we could have done would have been to let those responsible take the fall and yes close their doors. This would have given opportunity for smaller banks-banks who did not fall into their trap by giving out these dangerous loans-and entrpreneurs who built this country to now become the super powers of the financial world. Who knows maybe they would have brought with them the good concsious that kept them strong and that this industry needs.
Every step of the way since, these mega banks have been manipulating the system to their advantage and making someone else look like the fall guy.
When is our government going to open their eyes and put an end to this fleecing of the American public?
I have told all my political representatives that nobody (Dem., Rep., Green, whatever) will get a second vote until some bankers who knowingly wrote predatory loans and then sold them in the secondary market end up in prison, or at least banned from all fiduciary occupations for the next 100 years. How many times do we have to get screwed by the same scoundrels?
Obama’s apologists explained how they had no authority to force banks to write down mortgages or give smaller salaries, but I believe he has the authority to issue regulations that no bank that got bailed out can be sent any Federal direct deposits, and that nothing can be procured from a company with excess overhead consisting of an executive compensation more than 20 times the pay of the lowest-paid employee or contractor in the same company with the same length of service.
Everything this person says is, I have no doubt, correct. We went through years of nightmare events with Saxon. I do not have money for an attorney,either, but wish I did. They do not hold the Note to my home and never did….I do have proof of that. I wish I could sue them for all of the money and interest piling up for no reason…they had no grounds to file the foreclosure, and didn’t even hold the note…still fighting.
We applied for a modification. We were denied. Then Wells Fargo said we could qualify under the Forebearance Agmt. Our payments were cut in half. We are senior citizens and cannot afford to be on the streets at our age. We only wanted to reduce our interest rate from 7% to a lower percentage. We didn’t sign the Forebearance because of what we discovered on the internet. The Forebearance did not include we would be approved; nor any of the requirements, also nothing in our favor just the bank’s favor. We saw red flags.