The Role Of The Foreclosure Defense Lawyer
The foreclosure defense lawyer’s primary goal is to develop a strategic plan to help you avoid foreclosure, mitigate your losses, and then help you reach your desired goal.
Home Foreclosure defense lawyers work within a very focused area of the law. Yet, their experience base must include a deep working knowledge of not only foreclosure law but other areas such as bankruptcy, contract law, consumer rights, and real estate law.
Advantages of Retaining a Foreclosure Defense Lawyer
A foreclosure defense lawyer will help you make a sound and objective assessment of your current situation. After an in-depth meeting and review of the relevant legal and financial documents, the client will be presented with a set of strategic options along with their relative strengths and weaknesses.
Your Home Foreclosure lawyer may recommend that he begin by negotiating directly with your home lender to modify the loan payment terms.
Depending on the outcome of the lender negotiations, your lawyer may recommend the best option is to consider filing for Chapter 13 Bankruptcy.
Foreclosure and Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy triggers an automatic stay, a type of automatic Cease-And-Desist order that applies against all of your creditors, both secured and unsecured, and which includes your bank from commencing or continuing any foreclosure action on your home. In addition, all collection calls and correspondence from the lender and all other creditors must immediately stop.
Benefits of Bankruptcy Settlement Conferences
Creditor Work-Out Meetings
Most Chapter 13 bankruptcy courts encourage the parties to participate in settlement conferences meaningfully, which some states refer to as creditor-debtor workout meetings.
One of the main benefits of hiring a foreclosure lawyer is you now have an expert negotiator strategically asserting your homeowner’s rights and interests at these conferences.
Creates an Opening to Negotiate a Settlement
The goal almost always remains the same, create an opening toward a negotiated settlement that avoids foreclosure. It also allows your bankruptcy attorney to work with secured and unsecured creditors to reach a multi-year repayment schedule on all your other debts. In these settlement conferences, you may be offered a payback plan that is acceptable and manageable.
Even though your home lender is a secured creditor, workouts are still possible depending on the estimated market value of your home and what you still owe on loan.
Negotiate a Loan Modification Agreement
Depending on your existing liabilities and current and future ability to generate income, your lawyer may be able to convince the bank’s lawyer to modify your loan payment over a fixed period of time during a bankruptcy workout meeting.
Filing a Legal Action Against Your Bank
Sometimes taking an aggressive litigation approach with your bank will force them to reconsider working out a settlement with the homeowner. There are numerous legal grounds your foreclosure defense lawyer may be able to allege in litigation.
Alleging Illegal and Unfair Lending Practices
Your foreclosure lawyer may determine the homeowner’s best course of action is to file a legal action against the bank, alleging that the bank acted illegally by misrepresenting the terms, conditions, and obligations of the loan’s repayment.
Alleging Lender Violated Foreclosure Laws
Your legal action can also allege that the lender or its agents violated state foreclosure laws. In addition, some lawyers insist on the bank producing the original deed, which would prove they are the actual owners of the loan.
Alleging the Bank Cannot Produce the Original Deed
While the bank will likely be able to produce the original deed, all of these demands cost the bank money and unnecessary attorney fees, and if the bank is unable to produce the original deed, the court may have to dismiss the bank’s foreclosure action for based on lack of proof.
While in litigation against the bank, your lawyer will allege legal theories that will assert pressure and hopefully leverage that pressure into offering you a favorable loan modification to avoid legal exposure.
Foreclosure Defense Attorneys
Consider consulting with an online Foreclosure Defense Lawyer.
