Facing foreclosure? Demand that your bank "produce the note."

[pnwmom]

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, (D-Ohio) has some great advice. Video at link.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Rep_Foreclosed_owners_should_squat_in_0130.html

By telling a bank to "produce the note," a homeowner can delay foreclosure by forcing the lender to prove the suing institution is actually the same which owns the debt.

"During the lending boom, most mortgages were flipped and sold to another lender or servicer or sliced up and sold to investors as securitized packages on Wall Street," explains the Consumer Warning Network. "In the rush to turn these over as fast as possible to make the most money, many of the new lenders did not get the proper paperwork to show they own the note and mortgage. This is the key to the produce the note strategy."

And Friday's segment on this growing foreclosure fighting "movement" was not the network's first. Earlier in January, CNN explored one person's strategy in demanding her bank "produce the note," only to find that the lender had "lost or destroyed" the evidence of debt ownership. Such a revelation can significantly strengthen a homeowner's position when asking to renegotiate a mortgage.

That these banks, many of which received billions of dollars in government bailout funds, continue to boot defaulted owners from their homes, makes them "vultures" says Kaptur.

"They prey on our property assets," she said. "I guess the reason I'm so adamant on this is because I know property law and its power to protect the individual homeowner. And I believe that 99.9 percent of our people have not had good legal representation in this."

[TwilightGardener]

1. If I found out that the entity I was making mortgage payments to couldn't

provide the note, or "lost or destroyed" evidence of the debt ownership, then I'd stop making my mortgage payments. Without proof from the lender, how do you know you won't be paying for 30 years only to receive no deed?

[pnwmom]

2. Good point. At the very least , you'd need a good lawyer. n/t

[juno jones]

3. I wish this had been common knowledge a year ago

when I had to go thru this shit.

However, it did come in handy with a series of collection calls my husband got at the first leg of the collapse last fall. They were trying to collect an alleged bill that was over twenty years old. At one point, my husband asked for documented proof of the debt and who owned the note. The company never called again.

I strongly urge anyone faced with this situation to challenge them with this. It may only delay things, but it'll give you some wiggle room.

[Peace Patriot]

4. How about we pass a law that forbids selling the debt and the note, so that we

are secure in knowing WHO we owe the money to, and canceling any debt to any bank or other institution that cannot produce the note?

Talk about National Security! Could there be anything more dangerous than zillions of properties in the US, of uncertain ownership, floating around the world, to God knows whom, as collectible debts? It's a National Security, as well as economic, nightmare. So, you've paid your mortgage off, 20 years from now, or you try to sell your home 10 years from now, after building up equity, and find out that some sheik in Saudi Arabia, or crime syndicate in Asia, actually holds the paper and can take possession, after you've poured hundreds of thousands of dollars down a rat hole!

Thanks for the advice to consumers. But I think we need to go further, if we could ever draw the attention of Congress away from stuffing their own pockets.

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Throw Diebold & all 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!