Tag Archives: Foreclosure

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

USA.gov.: learn more – frauds&scams, permanent res, voting info for uniformed&overseas,student aid, tornados


Learn more about frauds and scams so that you don’t become a victim.

Learn more about the options and steps to becoming a permanent resident.

Visit the voting assistance guide for uniformed and overseas citizens.

 How can I prepare for a tornado?

Learn more about federal student aid and how to apply.

What is Fix a Leak Week?

According to a new settlement, some Servicemembers and Veterans may receive housing relief.Relief could affect those who were:

  • Wrongly foreclosed upon
  • Wrongfully denied the opportunity to reduce their mortgage payments through lower interest rates
  • Forced to sell their homes for less than they were worth due to a change in station

As part of an effort to reduce barriers and costs for refinancing, FHA will cut its fees for refinancing loans already insured by FHA. An estimated 2-3 million borrowers could be eligible for this savings.

Get further details about these new provisions for military homeowners.
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Call AG Rob McKenna: Hold Wall Street crooks accountable


Original Post on 12/01/2011

Call Attorney General Rob McKenna: Hold Wall Street criminals accountable!

Call your Attorney General and demand criminal penalties for unscrupulous mortgage servicers.

Call Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna at (360) 753-6200.

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna has a chance to make sure some of Wall Street’s biggest criminals don’t get away with cheating millions of foreclosure victims. But we need you to make a call right now.

Less than a month ago, the lead Attorney General in a 50-state investigation of the mortgage industry, Tom Miller of Iowa, promised a group of foreclosure victims and their advocates that the investigation would “put people in jail.”1

This was in response to revelations from Congressional hearings and news articles documenting pervasive abuses by mortgage servicers — the companies that collect the mortgage payments, impose late fees, negotiate loan modifications and initiate foreclosures.

But now AG Miller has changed his tune, calling the investigation “inherently civil,” not criminal.2 And just last week, when AG Miller once again met with foreclosure victims, he refused to repeat his pledge to prosecute those responsible.3

Call Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna now and demand criminal penalties for Wall Street’s worst — unscrupulous mortgage servicers. Here’s the call info and a sample script:

Attorney General Rob McKenna — (360) 753-6200

SCRIPT: “I am a resident of Washington and I am watching the foreclosure fraud investigation very closely. I want to make sure that the Attorney General reaches as strong a settlement as possible with the banks. The settlement must include principal reduction for millions of homeowners and imposes criminal penalties on those who broke the law.”

It’s clear that AG Miller and the other 49 Attorneys General are being pressured by the big banks to agree to a settlement that lets them off the hook. But we can’t let them get away with cheating millions of Americans. We need to fight back.

That’s why we’re teaming up with our friends at National People’s Action for a national call campaign targeting the attorneys general of every state. Join thousands of activists across the country in calling your state’s attorney general to demand that Wall Street’s biggest criminals are held accountable for their crimes against foreclosure victims.

Call Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna now and demand criminal penalties for corrupt mortgage servicers.

Attorney General Rob McKenna — (360) 753-6200

Thank you for fighting back against criminal Wall Street banks.

Mark Anthony Dingbaum, Campaign Manager

CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. “‘We Will Put People in Jail’ — AG Tom Miller,” YouTube.com, 12-14-2010

2. “Foreclosure Deals to Start With Big Lenders, Iowa Says,” Margaret Cronin Fisk and Prashant Gopal, Bloomberg.com, 01-03-2011

3. “Groups say Iowa AG Retreats From Promise To Be Tough On Robo-sign Banks,” Yepoka Yeebo, The Huffington Post, 01-27-2011

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

You beat Bank of America in Washington …Michael Whitney, Change.org


Can an online petition save a house from foreclosure? It did in Seattle.

Vera Johnson is a single mom from Seattle who was on the brink of foreclosure — despite the fact that she qualified for a loan modification under federal law. But Bank of America reps gave Vera the run-around, making her resubmit endless forms, claiming time and again to have lost paperwork Vera had sent in multiple times.

After 18 months, Vera was fed up. So she started a petition on Change.org asking Bank of America to grant her loan modification.

More than 16,000 people — mostly Washingtonians — signed Vera’s petition. And Bank of America representatives just told Vera they would grant her a permanent loan modification.

http://www.change.org/start-a-petition?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&alert_id=PtmFtDmZny_BImiguPOnn

“I’m overjoyed, and thankful to the thousands who took action on Change.org to help me keep my home and business,” Vera said. “The success of my campaign shows that homeowners can take power back from banks if we work together.”

Making change happen in your community is easy. Start a petition on WWW.Change.org — step-by-step instructions are right here.

Thanks for being a change-maker,

– Michael and the Change.org team

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Chase forecloses on Oregon soldier … Jess Kutch, Change.org


Tell Chase: Don’t foreclose on soldier’s family

Sign the Petition

In one month, soldier Aaron Collette will return from Iraq for two weeks’ leave. By the time he does, he won’t have a home — and neither will his family.

Tim Collette, Aaron’s dad, did everything right. He put $100,000 down on his home in Bend, Oregon, when he purchased it in 2006.

In 2008, after the economic crisis devastated his small flooring and countertop business, Tim realized he needed a loan modification and went to Chase Bank for help.

Chase told him he had to miss two payments to qualify for a loan modification. But once Tim did that, they began foreclosure proceedings instead of helping him.

Local non-profit Economic Fairness Oregon has been helping Tim stand up to Chase, but they need a surge in public support right now to save his home. Please sign their petition to help Tim and his family keep their home.

Banks across the state — and country — are taking advantage of homeowners in Tim’s situation all the time. Economic Fairness Oregon is pushing state legislators to pass a bill that will address the housing crisis and help people like Tim stay in their homes.

In the meantime, Tim needs public support to pressure Chase to stop the foreclosure.

When news of this story broke earlier in June after Senator Merkley spoke about it on the Senate floor, Chase agreed to delay the foreclosure and told the press they’d work to find a solution for Tim and his family.

But as soon as media attention faded, Chase called Tim and rescheduled the foreclosure for August 9 — just 10 days before Aaron returns from Iraq.

Every day that this issue is not resolved Aaron has to worry about his family and where they’ll live even as he’s risking his life in Iraq.

Sign here to tell Chase that we’re still watching and urge them to honor their promise to find a solution for the Collette family:

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-chase-bank-dont-foreclose-on-soldiers-family

Thanks for taking action,

– Jess and the Change.org team

P.S. To start your own campaign against an unjust foreclosure, just click here and follow the steps to create a Change.org petition.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Our homes

1 Comment

Mortgage lenders are recklessly foreclosing on homes. Some are even breaking the law.

Help protect your home, or your friends’ and family’s, with this simple tool:

Click here

Dear Barbara,

The big banks are at it again. First they targeted minority communities with subprime loans and other predatory lending schemes, helping to make Black Americans and Latinos 70% more likely than Whites to be in foreclosure.1

Now we’re learning that the very same banks and mortgage lenders have been foreclosing on homes around the nation without verifying that they have the right to do so.2

The stories are horrifying: in Ohio, a bank foreclosed on a man after insisting for months that it didn’t hold his loan and refusing to accept his payments.3 In Florida, Bank of America tried to take a house away from a man who never even had a mortgage.4 The more we learn, the worse it gets.

If you’re a homeowner, one possible way to protect yourself from the banks’ bad behavior is to demand your note and make them prove they own your mortgage. A new online tool makes it easy. Check it out and please share this information with your friends and family. It could help to save your home or that of someone you love:

http://www.wheresthenote.com/colorofchange

The banks have been trying to write off their failure to properly verify ownership as a mere technicality. But it’s much more serious than that, and Attorneys General in all 50 states have banded together to investigate the illegal foreclosures, and several elected leaders have called for criminal charges to be filed against the banks.5,6

You would think that it would be easy to produce the documents needed for the banks to verify ownership. But during the real estate boom, banks cut corners with paperwork in order to make as many loans as possible, and then sold the loans to other lenders in complicated financial maneuvers designed to maximize the banks’ profits.

Now it has come to light that banks have been paying “foreclosure mills” to take homes away as quickly as possible, before homeowners even realize that anything might be amiss. And it appears that these foreclosure mills are operating without actually following the law — foreclosing without the proper legal documentation.7 In some cases, notaries responsible for verifying the documents aren’t even reading them.8 And in other cases, the documents are just being fabricated — made up to cover the banks’ tracks.9 This is foreclosure fraud. It’s not legal, and it’s not right.

Given their role in creating the foreclosure crisis through predatory practices and deception, banks should be doing what they can to avoid foreclosures and keep people in their homes. This could be done by lowering interest rates, or better yet — reducing the principal to reflect the crash in housing prices. Foreclosures are only further devastating communities already hard hit by record unemployment.

But the banks seem uninterested. It appears that they would rather commit mortgage fraud to protect their bottom line. That’s why it’s up to us to make sure that they’re following the law to the letter. And if enough of us do so, we’ll help to create a new financial environment where banks are held more accountable to homeowners and the legal system. If you have a mortgage, protect yourself and your family by demanding your note, and please share this information with your friends and family. It takes just a moment:

http://www.wheresthenote.com/colorofchange

Thanks and Peace,

— James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Natasha, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
November 17th, 2010

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU — your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don’t share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/