The grant will allow the Department of Neighborhood Development to support redevelopment of up to 275 foreclosed homes in Dorchester, East Boston, Roxbury, Hyde Park and Mattapan.

Buyers of foreclosed properties in those neighborhoods may be eligible for low-interest loans or grants of up to $50,000 for purchase and renovation costs.

“This award accelerates our ability to impact the foreclosure challenges that were facing,” said Mayor Thomas M. Menino in a statement. “We’re making important progress, but our neighborhoods are still in danger.”

Boston was one of 482 applicants requesting over $15 billion from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in foreclosure funding. Since passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the city has received nearly $280 million in formula and competitive grants as well as bond allocations.

The NSP initiative was created as part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, designed to boost local economies through the provision of resources to purchase and rehab foreclosed homes. Boston received $4.23 million in 2009 during the first funding round, and later received a matching grant from the state. The latest award brings Boston’s total federal foreclosure funding to more than $21 million.

The campaign seeks to allow Boston’s neighborhoods to recover from the nationwide foreclosure crisis through targeted programs that support existing homeowners while adding new buyers to the market, among other things. Under the umbrella of this initiative, DND has overseen the direct acquisition of 33 units of housing, and is in the process of negotiating the purchase of more than 100 others from banks.

In late March of this year in the case of U.S. Bank v. Ibanez, Massachusetts Land Court Judge Keith C. Long issued one of the most controversial rulings in recent years which has called into question hundreds if not thousands of foreclosure titles across Massachusetts.

The Facts

In the Ibanez case, the Land Court invalidated two foreclosure sales because the foreclosing lenders failed to show proof they held ownership of the foreclosed mortgages through valid assignments. In modern securitized mortgage lending practices, the ownership of a mortgage loan may be divided and freely transferred numerous times on the lenders’ books. But the documentation (i.e., the assignments) actually on file at the Registry of Deeds often lags far behind. The Land Court ruled that foreclosures were invalid when the lender failed to bring the ownership documentation (the assignments) up-to-date until after the foreclosure sale had already taken place.

The Ibanez decision has called into serious question the validity of any pending or completed foreclosure where the lender did not physically hold the proper paperwork at the time it conducted its auction. The mortgage industry has criticized the decision as form over substance. The judge is presently reconsidering the ruling, but whatever the outcome, the case will likely end up before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court given its far-ranging impact.

What can you if you are affected by the Ibanez ruling? If you are a homeowner facing foreclosure, you now have a powerful tool to delay or stop the foreclosure sale. Check the Registry of Deeds online to see if your lender has timely recorded the proper assignments, and send a written request for the loan documents. It may be confusing to piece together the chain of custody of your mortgage. If the foreclosure auction has already taken place and you are being evicted, you can request the loan documents in written “discovery requests” filed with the court. You could also file a lawsuit to enjoin the foreclosure.

If you are contemplating purchasing a property out of foreclosure or are selling a previously foreclosed property affected by an “Ibanez” issue, check if there’s an existing title insurance policy on the property, and ask the title company to insure over the issue. Some are willing to do this. Others are not, however. The other option (albeit expensive) is to hire an attorney to file a Land Court “quiet title” action to validate the proper assignment of the mortgage loan, assuming you can track the documents down and they were not backdated. You can also try to track down the foreclosed debtor and obtain a release deed from them, assuming you can track them down and they cooperate.

If you are facing foreclosure and need help getting through the legal paperwork maze, contact City Life/Vida Urbana. They are Boston based. Other efforts are starting up all over eastern Massachusetts, too.

If you are buying foreclosed property, get a lawyer, please! (I know you all hate it when lawyers tell you to get a lawyer, but this is a time when you really need one.)

Ibanez is going to make foreclosure slower and more complicated. But, it may also force lenders into doing things right.

Have you ever read your mortgage documents? If you haven’t, pull them out of that dusty old box and take a look. There is a process; lenders need to follow it. If they don’t, the next person buying the house may not have proper title. Remember that you never buy a house; you buy a title.

Are we headed for a paperwork mess of mammoth proportions? Will Ibanez keep it manageable?

Though he came too late to see any of the speakers’ presentations, much of Monday’s foreclosure prevention seminar at Marshfield Town Hall was familiar to Marshfield resident Jim Nielsen.

And not only because he had been to a similar seminar months earlier. Many of the issues and obstacles discussed by the nights’ presenters were familiar to Nielsen because he has experienced them himself over the past few years.

So, when Joseph Leonard, counsel for the Massachusetts Division of Banks, warned about the complexity of banking infrastructure and the difficulty of trying to maneuver the system without help, Nielsen would have agreed to that. He said he spent at least two years trying to hold off the foreclosure of his own home.

And when Dan Condon, from the attorney general’s office, warned the audience of the scammers and con artists that would try to take advantage of people who are getting foreclosed, Nielsen could have shown the visitors the stack of mail he had received offering him a swift, too-good-to-be-true solution to his problem.

And when Deirdra Hall, from Quincy Community Action Programs, gave a speech about the various ways she could help homeowners try to get their loans restructured, Nielson had been through that, as well. In fact, it was Hall who helped put him on the right track, he said.

According to the Plymouth County Registry of Deeds, in the first six months of 2009, 28 properties in Marshfield received foreclosure notices. In Scituate, where, according to Hall, property values have not dropped as far, the number was 13. Countywide, the number of foreclosure notices was 1,106, up 37 percent from 701 in the same period last year.

Nielsen is a self-employed construction worker – he owns Seacoast Construction. He said he received his foreclosure notice after the interest rate on his adjustable rate mortgage increased at the same time the construction business slowed down.

It got so bad that the bank actually named a foreclosure date. Nielsen’s home was scheduled to go up for auction this July. Notices ran in the newspaper.

At a loss for what to do, Nielsen attended a seminar foreclosure prevention seminar hosted by State Rep. Jim Cantwell, who represents Marshfield and five of Scituate’s six precincts. That meeting was one in a series of similar meetings hosted by Cantwell.

“It wasn’t pretty, people were upset,” Nielsen said.

Nielsen attended the tail end of the July 27 meeting to offer his support to the program that he said had helped put his situation back on track. Because Hall knew the system, he said, she was able to get Nielsen’s foreclosure held off.

“What little (work) it was, it was a lot of help,” Nielsen said. “She knows what to do.”

Nielsen said he was glad to see that the most recent meeting was well attended, meaning that people were getting help. He estimated that the meeting months ago had only been attended by six other people. The July 27 meeting had at least 21.

“If two of us get help because of this, it was well worth it,” Nielsen said, looking around at the group of visitors who were asking advice from the night’s speakers.

There was Joan Dowd of the Marshfield charity, Sowing Seeds, getting information to use when helping residents with housing troubles.

There was the Bridgewater woman, who was in the process of reorganizing her mortgage after her husband had lost his job.

“I wanted to know what my options were,” she said. “This was very helpful, at least we have a contact person we know is on our side.”

There was a Brockton couple that had signed up for a loan they never could have afforded. The loan, they said, was based on an inaccurate valuation of the property.

Both the Bridgewater woman and the Brockton couple asked not to be identified.

Cantwell said the goal of the night was to provide people with information and contacts to avoid trouble. He had invited Nielsen to show his story of relative success to others.

“I’m pleased to learn that we’re helping to keep people in their homes, here in Marshfield and Scituate,” Cantwell said.

Source: WickedLocal

The “Foreclosure Prevention Seminar,” the second program in a series, will start at 6 p.m. in the second-floor conference room of Marshfield Town Hall, off Snow Street. The event will feature representatives from the Massachusetts Division of Banks and Attorney General’s office, as well as foreclosure prevention counselors.  The program is open to all Scituate and Marshfield residents.   Invited guests include Deidre Hall, a HUD-certified home ownership counselor with Quincy Community Action Corp.; John Stephan, an assistant attorney general from the Consumer Protection Division; and Joseph Leonard, counsel for the Massachusetts Division of Banks.

The first part of the free seminar will include talks from officials and experts, and attendees can solicit advice and help afterward.

All are invited to attend the seminar, which is expected to last more than an hour. Those looking for more information can contact state Rep. Jim Cantwellby e-mail at james.cantwell@state.ma.us, or at 617-722-2014.

Today, every homeowner is acutely aware of the rapid decline in property values. The real estate euphoria that took place during the “boom” years at the beginning of this decade has vanished. Prices have plummeted and home equity has simply evaporated. For many owners this loss of equity poses a grave threat. Owners who bought or refinanced a home during the boom, now find themselves “underwater” owing more on their mortgage than their house is worth. Those with adjustable mortgage rates may discover that their monthly payments have risen and are now out of reach. For others the steep economic decline and dramatic job losses have cut income, leaving them no longer able to afford their monthly payments

One in every eight Americans is now late on a payment or in foreclosure, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, (MBA) About half of the new foreclosures were in four states: California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada. While 11 percent of all mortgages in Florida were in foreclosure, the Massachusetts foreclosure rate was 2.8 percent with 12,000 foreclosures in 2008

This foreclosure crisis though is more than a national crisis. It is a community problem that affects our town’s neighborhoods. Middlesex County leads Massachusetts with 1,741 foreclosure filings so far this year. In Billerica there have been 61 foreclosure filings since the beginning of the year, giving it the 23^rd highest foreclosure rate in Massachusetts ahead of 335 cities and towns across the state. Even though there are powerful market forces that are driving this, foreclosures can almost always be stopped.

Foreclosure can be stopped because property owners have a great deal more bargaining than they realize. Taking a property back through foreclosure is always the last resort for banks. The fact is banks do not want to own property. Rehabbing, managing and selling homes are not want banks do. In fact, foreclosure is very expensive for banks. Analysis from Freddie Mac and large banks show that the average cost of foreclosure is $60,000. That is in addition to the loss incurred on the sale which often amounts to 20 percent to 25 percent of the loan’s value. Because of this banks have a strong incentive to work out the problems with the loan and try to find an accommodation with the borrower.

In order to access their negotiating power, owners who are concerned about foreclosure must take two immediate steps, (1) understand and evaluate their options, and (2) take immediate action. The first step in this process is for the borrower to contact their lender. By simply notifying the bank, the borrower is opening a dialogue and beginning the negotiating process. It gives the bank the good news that like them, the borrower wants to do all they can to work out an alternative to foreclosure.

While there several strategies a borrower can use to avoid foreclosure, there are three that are primary, (1) refinance, (2) loan modification and (3) short sale. The new government Home Affordability and Stability plan offers incentives for all three. Borrowers who are current on their payments, but owe more than their house is worth may be eligible to refinance, lowering their monthly payments. Owners who are behind may seek to modify the terms of their loan be extending the length of the term, lowering the interest, or both.

Borrowers who owe more than their house is worth, want to move, or do not qualify for other options can sell their property through a “short sale.” A short sale enables an owner to sell their property for less than the amount they owe on their mortgage. In almost all cases this allows the owner to sell their property quickly, free themselves from mortgage debt completely and take advantage of the Mortgage Debt Relief act to not pay taxes on any forgiven debt.

Foreclosure has a direct, negative effect on both the borrower and the lender. More importantly though, foreclosures drive down property values for the entire community. Homes currently on the market become less sellable, more owners are put at risk and foreclosure becomes more likely, creating a negative, downward spiral in the housing market that effects us all. It does not have to be like this though. A property owner who arms themselves with information and takes action has the power to stop foreclosure in it’s tracks.

If you would like free information on what action you can take please visit or web site at www. ConcordRiverGroup.com or call us at 800 – 494 – 4971 ext 106.

Source – Michael Longo, President of Concord River Group.

So be warned: Foreclosure rescue scams are on the rise, taking thousands of dollars from desperate mortgage holders, or even tricking them into signing over the deed to their homes.

Federal and state officials have said they are cracking down on those scams. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has filed civil complaints against three different mortgage rescue schemes. And both Massachusetts and New Hampshire have laws that limit what any for-profit entity can do to “help” someone facing foreclosure. Still, an informed consumer is a better-protected consumer. And as is the case in any business transaction, extravagant promises are unlikely to be kept. First, those who approach you with an offer to protect you from foreclosure are likely to have their interests, not yours, as a priority. Second, the best and safest thing a mortgage holder can do is to try to negotiate directly with the bank. Given the state of the economy, many of them are willing to discuss ways to modify the payment schedule. Most of them don’t want to take your house any more than you want to lose it. Third, most communities or regions have nonprofit organizations that provide homeowner counseling for free, like Neighborhood Legal Services in Lawrence. But Coakley and other officials also offer reminders to stressed mortgage holders who might be approached by a firm offering to help keep them in their home

• Unless it is an attorney you have hired, don’t give anyone any money upfront. It is illegal to demand it.
• Never transfer the title of your home to another party.
• If you decide to hire a firm, it is required to state precisely how it will help you.
• Do not give personal or credit information to anyone you do not know.
• Remember that your lender must give you a default notice, and 90 days to “cure” it.  

Too many people are victims of the recession. Don’t be victimized again by unscrupulous scammers.

Hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts homeowners might be able to stay in their homes or pay less for their mortgages under a packaged outlined today by President Barack Obama.

The president wants $75 billion to go to homeowners who are behind on their mortgages. But his plan would also lower payments for people who are current and not in trouble. Tim Warren heads the real estate tracking firm, the Warren Group. He says at least 200,000 Massachusetts residents might be able to refinance.

TIM WARREN: So if all of those people were able to save a $100 or $200 because the interest rates were lower, then that would be quite a stimulus for the economy.

Some parts of the package will need approval from Congress. For example, a key part of the plan is to allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages. 

You can listen to the entire interview on WBUR’s website.

Further details are listed below.