News, Research & Insights for American Homeowners, Patriots & Constitutional Conservatives
"Tell the truth."
Via William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection, who’s owned this story along with the Breitbart team. Her name is Twila Barnes, she’s 7/32 Cherokee, and she just dropped a truth bomb on the Democrats’ favorite non-minority “minority”: You see, Ms. Warren, some of us have independently done our own research and we know you have no [...]
For going on three years now I’ve watched the State of California more so than any other engage in a debate over loan modifications and lawyers, the key questions being: do you need one, should you have one, are lawyers scamming homeowners, and most notably, since California’s Senate Bill 94 (“SB 94”) became law in October of 2009, when can a lawyer be paid when providing loan modification services.
Throughout this “debate,” the Better Business Bureau has played a role by rating law firms offering loan modification services. If the BBB says that someone is ‘A’ rated then presumably consumers are more likely to turn to that firm for assistance, and obviously, being rated ‘F’ tends to have the opposite effect.
Well, recently a law firm with which I’ve become very familiar over the last three years, CDA Law in Orange County, California, was rated ‘F’ by the BBB, and predictably, within a couple of weeks the firm started losing clients because of the rating.
Before I explain the background for what’s going on here, I want to be clear about a few things:
I also want to be clear that I am not writing this to tell homeowners that in all cases they should retain CDA Law. Every homeowner’s situation, facts and goals are different, and the decision as to which law firm one should or shouldn’t engage depends on the specifics involved.
What I am here to do is state unequivocally to homeowners that it is my considered opinion that the decision not to retain CDA Law should not be based on the firm’s BBB’s rating, because that rating is baseless and entirely inappropriate.
The fact is that upon learning of the BBB’s ‘F’ rating of CDA Law, I offered to write this because I’m all but certain that some number of homeowners who decide to avoid CDA Law because of its BBB rating will end up getting scammed and homes will be lost to foreclosure as a result.
And, at this point in the foreclosure crisis, the fact that I can say that about the chances of a homeowner getting ripped off by a scammer, or wrongfully made homeless by a servicer, is both an unthinkable tragedy and a shameful testament to the failure of our state and federal regulators to protect homeowners from predatory servicers and unscrupulous operators of various foreclosure avoidance schemes.
Okay, so why is CDA Law rated ‘F’ by the BBB?
To understand where we stand today in California as related to lawyers and loan modifications, you have to understand a few things about how it all started back in 2009, when we went through a phase where we were told by banks, government agencies and the mainstream media that everyone involved in loan modifications was a “scammer.”
According to a knowledgeable insider who worked at the California State Bar Association at the time, the State Bar had no history of lawyers committing acts of misconduct related to loan modifications until the very end of 2008 when complaints started to trickle in, and then in 2009, inundate the Bar with 800-900 a month. No one knew what was going on back then. I’m sure just seeing the raw numbers of complaints was shocking, never mind what was being said.
California is the only state with a State Bar that is both a trade association and regulatory agency. Technically, the Bar reports to the state’s Supreme Court, but at the same time the Governor can prevent the Bar from collecting its dues, and as a result the state legislature is known to put pressure on the Bar as well.
Most often, over the last 25 years, that pressure has come in the form of criticism that the Bar is not vigilant enough when it comes to prosecuting lawyers for misconduct.
By Spring of 2009, a joint task force was being set up to go after these “scammers” who were taking advantage of distressed homeowners. Included would be the Office of the Attorney General, the state’s Department of Real Estate, the FTC… and of course, the State Bar.
Then State Bar president Howard Miller saw the task force as an opportunity to show politicians in Sacramento that the Bar was ready to get tough on crime, on behalf of the defenseless victims of the foreclosure crisis.
So, during summer of that year, Howard Miller, made the following statement to the press…
“At least hundreds and perhaps thousands of California lawyers who have been victimizing those who are already victims at the most vulnerable point in their lives… every one of those lawyers will be subject to discipline and some will go to jail.”
How many of the scammers were lawyers? No one had any idea, in fact the State Bar hadn’t even had time to read the vast majority of the complaints, but there was no question that there were many charging up-front fees and claiming to be able to get loans modified, and with increasing and alarming frequency, they were definitely ripping off homeowners.
Back then, I think every major bank played messages to those waiting on hold that said: “You don’t need a lawyer, call (insert bank name) for assistance with a loan modification.” And both the state and federal government’s positions were almost identical: “You don’t need a lawyer, call your bank or a HUD counselor for assistance with a loan modification.”
To anyone watching, one thing was very clear: Neither the banks nor our government wanted homeowners to retain lawyers to help them save their homes from foreclosure.
That the banks took this position wasn’t surprising. Obviously, it would be easier to deal with a homeowner than a homeowner’s attorney. And attorneys in the mix would mean the threat of litigation, which would be both costly and time consuming for banks to defend. And as to why, in 2009, those in our government also assumed an anti-lawyer stance related to lawyers and loan modifications, to me the answer was the obvious one… they went along with the banks.
Miller’s statement always seemed to be a preposterous one to me, and I wrote about it at the time, saying that I found it impossible to accept that there were “hundreds if not thousands” of lawyers scamming homeowners in California or anywhere else for that matter.
Were there some? Of course there were some.
California is a state of enormous size; over 37 million residents, roughly 7 million homeowners and more than 235,000 licensed attorneys, according to the California State Bar Association. There are “some” of just about anything you can think of here. I’d bet money that in California today there are “some” wearing tin foil so that the space ships can’t see them. But were there ever “hundreds if not thousands” of lawyers scamming homeowners having to do with loan modifications? Not a chance.
By 2010 it was becoming increasingly obvious that that what the Bar’s president had told the press about “hundreds if not thousands of lawyers” scamming homeowners was in fact false.
Just consider that as of May 12, 2012, and this is according to the State Bar Press Office, since February of 2009, more than three years after Mr. Miller voiced those inflammatory allegations:
The Banking Committees Get in On the Act…
Other politicians were fast to get in on the consumer protection act as well.
Senator Ron Calderon and Assembly Representative Pedro Nava, each the chairs of their respective banking committees, were both quick to sponsor bills claiming to protect homeowners from the proliferation of loan modification scammers.
Ex-Mortgage Banker, Sen. Ron S. Calderon
Chaired Senate Banking Committee, Sponsor of SB 94
Senator Calderon’s bill, known as SB 94, was the one signed into law on October 12, 2009, with the Mortgage Bankers Association, the California State Bar Association and the California Department of Real Estate all listed among the supporters of the bill.
SB 94 was written to apply to both lawyers and Department of Real Estate (“DRE”) licensees. The language pertaining to lawyers is found in the California Civil Code, and the language pertaining to DRE licensees is in the California Business & Professions Code.
The scams, in all cases, involved homeowners being required to pay an up-front or advance fee, so SB 94 focused on making it illegal to charge an advance fee related to providing loan modification services. So, whether we’re talking about a licensed attorney or DRE licensee, the operative language is identical. Neither is permitted to…
“…claim, demand, charge, collect, or receive any compensation until after the person has fully performed each and every service the person contracted to perform or represented that he or she would perform.”
But, as it pertained to DRE licensees, however, SB 94 went a step further by modifying language contained in Business & Professions (“B&P”) Code Section 10026 to prevent DRE licensees from breaking up loan modification services or fees into component parts as shown below in bold:
DIVISION 4. REAL ESTATE
PART 1. LICENSING OF PERSONS
CHAPTER 1. GENERAL PROVISIONS …………………………. 10000-10035
10026. (a) The term “advance fee,” as used in this part, is a fee, regardless of the form, that is claimed, demanded, charged, received, or collected by a licensee for services requiring a license, or for a listing, as that term is defined in Section 10027, before fully completing the service the licensee contracted to perform or represented would be performed. Neither an advance fee nor the services to be performed shall be separated or divided into components for the purpose of avoiding the application of this division.
As a result, a DRE licensee can only view a loan modification as a single service, and therefore only be paid after that one service has been provided, which would be when the homeowner is either approved or denied for a loan modification… the very end of the process.
However, there is no language in SB 94 that prohibits lawyers from breaking up loan modification services and/or fees into parts, as there is for DRE licensees.
Therefore, while SB 94 precludes lawyers from charging advance fees, the law does allow lawyers providing loan modification services to be paid for a specific set of contracted services upon their completion, regardless of whether at the beginning, middle or end of the loan modification process.
The legal profession refers to this as the “unbundling” of services.
Even though literally hundreds of lawyers from all over California contacted the State Bar to ask about the unbundling of services into separate contractual agreements under SB 94, with compensation being received at the end of each contract, for more than two years, the State Bar remained quiet on the subject.
Of course, it didn’t much matter what the banks or government entities had said in early 2009, many homeowners discovered very quickly that calling their bank directly, or a HUD counselor, did not result in their loans being modified… and on top of that, it was a maddening and even torturous experience. It was becoming clearer every day that having a lawyer to help get your loan modified wasn’t such a bad idea.
It seemed that the storm had passed.
Enter: The Better Business Bureau
In 2010, the BBB reacted to the rhetoric by giving an ‘F’ rating to just about everyone providing loan modification services in California.
Frankly, I always found that policy to be disadvantageous to homeowners because it forced consumers to choose a firm from a basket of ‘Fs,’ and since clearly some deserved the low rating and others didn’t, I reasoned that such a policy actually increased the potential for consumers to make a bad choice.
Having successfully completed more than 3,000 loan modifications for California homeowners over the last four years, not only is CDA Law not a scammer, but they’d certainly appear at or near the top of anyone’s list of most effective firms modifying loans.
Eventually, the BBB apparently agreed, awarding CDA Law an ‘A-‘ rating for a period of time.
And, yes… I am the authority on this issue.
I want the reader to know that what I’m saying is not based on a cursory review of the subject matter. My qualifications to make the statements I’m making about loan modifications and the foreclosure crisis in California at the very least equal anyone else’s. Although it was never my intention that this be the case, on the subject of the foreclosure crisis, I’ve become a leading expert, and I can’t imagine anyone contesting that claim.
In point of fact, this past year I was accepted as an “expert witness” by the California State Bar Court and I provided expert testimony on loan modifications and the foreclosure crisis in an administrative hearing on behalf of an attorney in that court.
I started writing about the foreclosure crisis in 2008. Since then I’ve written close to 700 articles on the political, economic, social and legal aspects of the financial and foreclosure crises. To do that, as you might imagine, I’ve read essentially all of the most widely known articles, reports, or studies that have been published nationwide.
Last year, when I stopped counting, I’d received more than 30,000 emails from homeowners all over the country. I’ve personally interviewed close to 4,000 homeowners at risk of foreclosure along with hundreds of attorneys involved in representing such homeowners.
In 2010, I also conducted a qualitative study of homeowner complaints, which included reading 1200 letters written by homeowners who had either hired a lawyer, a mortgage broker, or no one at all to help them with their loan modification.
I was an invited speaker on the subject of loan modifications at the American Bar Association’s Conference on Consumer Financial Services, appearing on a panel with Thomas Pahl, an Assistant Director in the FTC’s Division of Financial Practices, and I was invited to speak on the crisis again, from the homeowner’s perspective, at the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference in front of a few hundred federal court judges.
Additionally, I’ve been invited to speak at numerous homeowner meetings, and at a luncheon held by the Orange County Bar Association, for whom I also taught a CLE class for attorneys on loan modifications, alongside a compliance and mortgage banking attorney, and an ethics and bar defense attorney.
And I have not let up for what is now going on four years. I continue to write my blog, Mandelman Matters, which is among the most widely read on the subject, and I continue to make my email and phone number available online, which means I get hundreds of calls and emails each month from homeowners at risk of foreclosure, and attorneys involved in foreclosure defense in almost all 50 states.
Lastly, I have no dog in this race, as they say. I’ve never been in the mortgage or real estate industries, never been paid a nickel by a homeowner, nor for referring anyone anywhere. I’m not personally at risk of foreclosure… today, anyway… and I have no direct financial incentive to say anything specific about the crisis or about CDA Law.
Now back to the BBB…
This past fall, members of the state legislature told the State Bar that they needed to clean up the back log of disciplinary cases, and once again, politics appears to have played a role in the Bar’s use of inflammatory rhetoric and behavior.
Suzan Anderson, Supervisor of the State Bar’s Special Team on Loan Modification Fraud, while speaking at the State Bar’s Annual Meeting last September, announced that the Bar would now be taking the position that lawyers helping clients with loan modifications would not be permitted to unbundle services related to loan modifications.
Ms. Anderson said that it was now the position of the California State Bar that lawyers working on obtaining loan modifications on behalf of their clients could not be paid until the end of the loan modification process, even though no such language is found in the statute. Not only that, but a disclaimer at the bottom of her presentation’s front page stated that this was not the official position of the State Bar, so once again the Bar wasn’t willing to make it a policy.
Following the State Bar’s annual meeting, prosecutors at the Bar began using the threat of SB 94 to get attorneys who were offering loan modification services to accept some sort of disciplinary action for unbundling their services. These attorneys were only accepting payment for services upon the completion of contracted services, and they therefore were complying with both the language contained in SB 94 and the bill’s legislative intent, according to its drafter. None that I knew personally ever charged advance fees.
The State Bar has provided no basis for their new opinion, nor have they allowed the issue to be argued in front of a judge. Maybe the basis is their misreading of the statute. Maybe it’s because the banking lobby has pressured the state legislature to do everything possible to stop homeowners from hiring lawyers to help them get their loans modified.
Or, maybe it’s just a feeling they have… I really don’t care. The Bar’s made up of lawyers and they’ve had almost three years to figure it out, so unless they’re remedial readers, I’m done giving them a free pass.
Never mind for a moment what the law says, the fact is that lawyers could not offer to help homeowners with loan modifications if they couldn’t be paid until the end of the process, and the reason should be very easy to understand.
Homeowners applying for a loan modification… by definition… are experiencing a significant financial hardship and as a result, many end up filing bankruptcy at some point in the process.
That means if a lawyer were not paid along the way as services were completed, then he or she would often work for six months or a year to get a loan modified… and then, upon advising the client to file bankruptcy… have his or her bill for services placed into the bankruptcy as unsecured debt to be discharged. The lawyer would never be able to receive payment for what could easily be months of time spent working on getting the loan modified.
It’s an unresolvable conflict. Work all year. Advise your client to file bankruptcy. And then tear up your bill for your year’s work on the loan modification. Do you know anyone that could or would work under such a condition?
The State Bar, if asked, says that they’re not trying to prevent homeowners at risk of foreclosure from being able to hire lawyers to help them get their loans modified. But, that statement strains credulity when their so-called interpretation sets up the type of conflict as is found with SB 94.
What the State Bar started doing last fall is clearly politically motivated and very wrong. And at this point, the issue is going to have to be settled by the courts as there is already one lawsuit filed by an attorney against the State Bar over their interpretation of SB 94, and most assuredly others are going to be filed very soon.
By the way, it’s interesting because as I mentioned, outside of threatening lawyers with charges of unbundling services under SB 94, the Bar has never actually brought such charges into court. Instead, the State Bar only threatens attorneys with violations of SB 94, but then offers the lawyers some sort of deal to avoid have charges filed, and in all cases to-date the lawyers have taken the deal rather than take on the risk and expense of fighting the State Bar in court.
Once the lawyer accepts the discipline deal offered by the Bar, his name goes onto the Bar’s regulatory scorecard that they can then show to whichever members of the state legislature are interested, as proof that they are cleaning up their backlog of cases and being tough on the lawyers they regulate.
But, let’s be honest about this… we know which members of the state legislature we’re talking about here, right? Why, the members of the senate and/or assembly banking committees, of course. Do I know that to be a fact? No. But, if anyone is feeling lucky, let me know and I’d be happy to see if we can’t arrange a little wager. Who else do you think it could be… telecommunications? Agriculture? Please…
It’s really quite scandalous.
The California State Bar has been getting away with using attorneys that offer to help homeowners obtain loan modifications as their political piñata for far too long. It’s an example of a state agency abusing its power for political purposes and it must be stopped before its behavior causes any further harm to California homeowners.
Three years after SB 94 was signed into law, and its become abundantly clear that Miller’s statements were made for political purposes, without any regard for the truth or consideration of the harm such statements could cause.
Miller was all too aware that the State Bar was under attack by some in the state legislature for not aggressively disciplining lawyers, and he saw what was going on related to loan modifications and the foreclosure crisis as a way to look like a tough regulator of the legal profession.
The BBB Strikes Again…
One of the ways the Bar has endeavored to made life difficult for lawyers offering to help homeowners obtain loan modifications is by telling the BBB about what I would call their incorrect and baseless interpretation of SB 94.
And if you’re a lawyer helping homeowners with loan modifications, it’s not at all unusual to wake up one morning to find your firm has been rated ‘F’ by the BBB.
Why? Because you’re unbundling loan modification services, of course. Contracting to perform services A, B, C & D… and not being paid until those services have been completed to your client’s satisfaction. Just like the language in SB 94 says you can do.
And just so everyone knows… I’m far from alone in this view. Most or all State Bar Defense and Ethics attorneys in California share my view, as do numerous legal scholars and literally hundreds of other licensed practicing California attorneys.
We’ve learned a lot since 2009, or at least we should have…
In 2009, when President Obama announced his Making Home Affordable plan, most people in this country believed it would work. Obama was the smart president… the man of the people.
It hasn’t worked though, at least nowhere near as he said it would, and we’ve also learned that he is as Wall Street friendly as they come… at least that’s how he behaved during his first term.
During the summer of 2009, when someone’s loan didn’t get modified, a lot of lawyers and others got the blame… many were even wrongly branded “scammers” as a result. But, today we should all know what was actually going on, right? It was the servicers that were at best giving homeowners the run-around and failing to modify loans as required under the president’s program.
And as State Bar Deputy Trial Counsel Victoria Molloy said back in 2010…
“If an attorney is hired to assist in a loan modification, and they make good faith efforts, whether they’re successful or not, presumably they’ve earned their fees.”
We know that today, but we didn’t know it then. There were never “hundreds if not thousands” of lawyers scamming homeowners, that number was closer to 18. The damage, however, was done, and many California homeowners who chose to go it alone lost their homes as a result.
Without question, that erroneous statement made by the Bar’s president continues to cause significant harm to the legal profession and to the numerous licensed and ethical attorneys in California who want to help, or do offer to help homeowners get their loans restructured.
Beyond those egregious outcomes, the State Bar’s lie has also caused irrevocable harm to California homeowners who have either not been able to find lawyers to represent them when seeking loan modifications, or have been too scared of being scammed by the fictitious thousands of illicit lawyers to try.
California has roughly two million homeowners either already in foreclosure or seriously delinquent, far more than any other state. Whether the media wants to admit it or not, our state is literally drowning as a result of foreclosures, with our state’s budget deficit now at $16 billion and potentially rising.
And there should be no question, in light of the recent National Mortgage Settlement, among many other factors, that mortgage servicers are quite capable of abusing the rights of homeowners seeking to modify loans.
With all of that being the case, it would seem obvious that what the State Bar continues to do to prevent the legal profession in California from helping homeowners modify their loans is unconscionable and must be stopped.
The BBB is just acting as a witless and willing accomplice in this plot to deprive homeowners of lawyers should they find themselves at risk of foreclosure. They’re certainly not protecting anyone by rating CDA Law ‘F.’ In fact, they’re only harming homeowners by doing that.
Over a four-year timeframe, and having helped over 3,000 homeowner get their loans modified, CDA Law has had only 15 total complaints with the BBB, as follows: 2009… 2, 2010… 7, 2011… 5 2012… just 1. It’s not an easy business, dealing with servicers and homeowners at risk of foreclosure. Not everyone will be happy.
But, in CDA’s case, complaints are under one-half of one percent, and every one has been answered… some of the complaints were made by homeowners who got their loans modified with CDA Law’s help, but they didn’t like the terms offered by their servicer.
At the same time, if you do visit the BBB’s website, be sure to check out the TrustLink positive comments made by 243 of CDA’s very satisfied clients who are still in their homes because of the work done by the attorneys and support staff at CDA Law.
And, by the way… SB 94 has not stopped scammers in California… they are as plentiful as they ever were. Throw a dart at Google’s front page after searching for loan modification or anything close and I can all but assure you of getting robbed.
And the State Bar knows what I’m saying is true, because at the end of 2010, Suzan Anderson, Supervisor of the State Bar’s Special Team on Loan Modification Fraud, speaking last December to David Streitfeld of The New York Times about SB 94 said the following: “I wish the law had worked.”
Yeah, well don’t we all.
I look forward to the day when this area of the law can no longer be muddied by mortgage banking industry lobbyists and the politically motivated opinions of members of banking committees.
California is the only state having this debate, by the way. The other 49 states figured things out ages ago, if they ever had the debate in the first place, and the FTC’s MARS rule, which allows lawyers to accept retainers into their trust account, receiving amounts as earned.
Soon enough, the courts will rule. I have no doubt that California’s courts will uphold the rule of law, and not succumb to the wishes of the banking elite.
Banks have lawyers that help them, and should I ever find myself at risk of losing my own home to foreclosure, I want to be able to hire a lawyer to sit on my side of the table as well. I don’t need the State Bar or the state legislature “protecting” me from scammers, imaginary or otherwise, if by doing so they are going to take away my absolute right to legal council.
Feel free to email me with questions or comments at mandelman@mac.com.
Martin Andelman
Mandelman Matters
C'mon.
To cleanse the palate, good news for Chris Matthews: His already legendary crumble on “Jeopardy” wasn’t the worst game-show performance on American television this week. Wait, no — let me think about that. Okay, Matthews’s performance was worse, but this is a very, very narrow second. “Magic hand”? Is Reed College some sort of school [...]
Oof.
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"I think I’m a different kind of a, quote, 'liberal' in that I think people should be true to themselves."
Cheer up, Jon. If they weren’t calling you a Nazi for that, they’d be calling you a Nazi for appearing on Fox. After multiple Lovitz posts, the first half of this segment will be familiar to you, but at least watch the second half for when Kelly plays devil’s advocate by giving him the Elizabeth [...]
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Zero.
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Obligatory.
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Oh my.
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If you want transparency ...
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On the pages in this section you’ll find accurate, straightforward information and guidance specific to the State of Arizona related to such topics as loan modifications, short sales, foreclosure defense litigation, bankruptcy… and other topics related to getting through the foreclosure crisis.
We’ve created these Arizona specific pages in response to the proliferation of scammers polluting the Internet with misinformation and outright lies intended to sell something to homeowners at risk of foreclosure that they don’t need. These sites are literally everywhere, and some are very good at appearing credible, when in fact they are nothing more than elaborate cons.
Well, we’ve taken great care to make sure that the information you’ll find here is always correct… always impartial… always based on real facts… and always easy to understand.
In case you’re not already familiar with me, my name is Martin Andelman and for going on four years, I’ve been writing the widely read blog Mandelman Matters. Over the last three and a half years, I’ve written more than 650 in-depth articles covering the political, economic, social and legal aspects of the financial and foreclosure crises.
I decided that I had to do more to help stop homeowners from getting ripped off, by providing the state specific information homeowners need to make the right decisions for their individual goals and circumstances. Moving forward on the best possible path… that’s what my state specific pages are all about.
And just so you know, I’ve never been in the mortgage business or the real estate business, but for more than twenty years I’ve been a writer that specializes in making complex subjects easy for people to understand… oh yeah, and people say I’m funny. I have in-depth experience writing about subjects that fall under the broad headings of accounting, insurance, financial services and law.
You can read a lot more about me HERE, HERE, and HERE.
You may want to start by getting to know my trusted attornies for the State of Arizona, Michael Fleishman and Donald Lawrence.
No one pays to be listed as a trusted attorney on Mandelman Matters… that’s just not how it works. The lawyers I list as trusted… are simply those I trust. And when I say that, I mean that I would trust these people to represent me, or to watch my house while I went away on vacation for the summer.
In order to write close to 700 articles on the economic situation we’re facing today, I had to learn everything possible about the mortgage and foreclosure crises. Not only did I read dozens of books, research reports, court decisions, and more… I also had to interview a lot of people and many were attorneys from all over the country. Over time, some became good friends. So, when homeowners would call me to ask if I could recommend a lawyer, I would refer them to one that I had gotten to know well, and trusted.
As Mandelman Matters trusted attornies, Michael Fleishman and Donald Lawrence have agreed to take calls from Arizona homeowners who have questions about foreclosures, and help them by providing answers regardless of whether the caller decides to hire their firm or not. So, if you want to talk with someone who knows foreclosure in Arizona, please don’t hesitate to call them.
For Fleishman Law’s contact information, CLICK HERE.
For Donald Lawrences’ contact information, CLICK HERE.
And, if you’re looking for State Resources, CLICK HERE.
Need to know more about Arizona Foreclosure Laws, CLICK HERE.
Want to read my latest post about Arizona on Mandelman Matters? CLICK HERE.
First official comments on the Mack endorsement, and more.
Earlier today, I had an opportunity to speak with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney about the campaign and the economy, as well as Romney’s official endorsement of Connie Mack in the Republican primary for the US Senate race in Florida. Governor Romney is traveling in Florida today, and while he and Mack have often appeared [...]
On the pages in this section you’ll find accurate, straightforward information and guidance specific to the State of Florida related to such topics as loan modifications, short sales, foreclosure defense litigation, bankruptcy… and other topics related to getting through the foreclosure crisis.
We’ve created these Florida specific pages in response to the proliferation of scammers polluting the Internet with misinformation and outright lies intended to sell something to homeowners at risk of foreclosure that they don’t need. These sites are literally everywhere, and some are very good at appearing credible, when in fact they are nothing more than elaborate cons.
Well, we’ve taken great care to make sure that the information you’ll find here is always correct… always impartial… always based on real facts… and always easy to understand.
In case you’re not already familiar with me, my name is Martin Andelman and for going on four years, I’ve been writing the widely read blog Mandelman Matters. Over the last three and a half years, I’ve written more than 650 in-depth articles covering the political, economic, social and legal aspects of the financial and foreclosure crises.
I decided that I had to do more to help stop homeowners from getting ripped off, by providing the state specific information homeowners need to make the right decisions for their individual goals and circumstances. Moving forward on the best possible path… that’s what my state specific pages are all about.
And just so you know, I’ve never been in the mortgage business or the real estate business, but for more than twenty years I’ve been a writer that specializes in making complex subjects easy for people to understand… oh yeah, and people say I’m funny. I have in-depth experience writing about subjects that fall under the broad headings of accounting, insurance, financial services and law.
You can read a lot more about me HERE, HERE, and HERE.
You may want to start by getting to know my trusted attorney for the State of Florida, Cox & Sanchez.
No one pays to be listed as a trusted attorney on Mandelman Matters… that’s just not how it works. The lawyers I list as trusted… are simply those I trust. And when I say that, I mean that I would trust these people to represent me, or to watch my house while I went away on vacation for the summer.
In order to write close to 700 articles on the economic situation we’re facing today, I had to learn everything possible about the mortgage and foreclosure crises. Not only did I read dozens of books, research reports, court decisions, and more… I also had to interview a lot of people and many were attorneys from all over the country. Over time, some became good friends. So, when homeowners would call me to ask if I could recommend a lawyer, I would refer them to one that I had gotten to know well, and trusted.
As a Mandelman Matters trusted attorney, Cox & Sanchez has agreed to take calls from Florida homeowners who have questions about foreclosures, and help them by providing answers regardless of whether the caller decides to hire their firm or not. So, if you want to talk with someone who knows foreclosure in Florida, please don’t hesitate to call them.
For Cox & Sanchez’s contact information, CLICK HERE.
And, if you’re looking for State Resources, CLICK HERE.
Need to know more about Florida Foreclosure Laws, CLICK HERE.
Want to read my latest post about Florida on Mandelman Matters? CLICK HERE.
But Obama loves JP Morgan.
Why did fundraising for Team Obama drop so precipitously in April? The Boston Globe provides one possible answer. In 2008, Barack Obama attracted a lot of support from the banking industry. This time around, they have deserted Obama in favor of Mitt Romney (via News Alert): When the head of JPMorgan Chase met with shareholders [...]
It all started when I saw that this past February, Wells Fargo had donated $22,000 to establish a suicide prevention hotline in Idaho, apparently the state with the fourth highest suicide rate in the nation. I find that statistic a little odd, but what do I know. I’ve never even been to Idaho.
The United Way for Treasure Valley phrased it as follows on their website:
Wells Fargo stepped up Tuesday with a $22,000 gift to help establish an Idaho Suicide Prevention hotline.
“Wells Fargo is pleased to invest in this important community initiative to address a critical need in our state,” said Dana Reddington, Idaho Region president for the banking firm.
Wells Fargo “stepped up” with a $22,000 “gift.” Is that how that should ideally be phrased? I suppose it’s fine. But, having spent the last few days writing and talking about Norm Rousseau, who took his own life this past Sunday after a protracted battle with… no, not cancer… much worse. You know, we can in many cases cure certain kinds of cancer.
Norm’s protracted battle was with Wells Fargo, and no one has even come close to finding a cure for them. So, on Sunday morning, just a few days ago, he lost the will to continue the fight after staying up all night trying in vain to fix the engine in a motorhome he was hoping to house his family in after being evicted on yesterday morning.
Look, I only spoke with Norm once for about an hour, so I shouldn’t really speak for him, but I just wanted to say that I’m pretty sure that he would have gladly traded his battle with Wells for… maybe not pancreatic, but let’s say prostate cancer… for sure. I think so, anyway.
In fact, I’d probably make the same trade at this point were I given the choice. I’m thinking that the cure rate for prostate cancer for a male in his 50s is much higher than the cure rate for a battle with Wells Fargo these days. I don’t know… maybe I’m nuts… it’s not my core point here, so just forget it.
Anyway, I understand Wells Fargo wanting to give a gift that establishes a suicide hotline… it’s a gift the bank can use too. And I do understand giving that sort of gift.
I’ve been married for 22 years, and although I hate to admit what I’m about to say, I’m hoping some of you guys have done it as well. Maybe not the women, I really don’t know.
So, I was thinking about my birthday, it being only a few weeks away, and what I wanted to ask for in the way of a gift.
When my wife and I first got married, I always bought her birthday presents that were clearly hers alone… jewelry, clothes, I don’t know… a new tennis racquet, a mountain bike, golf clubs… those sorts of things. Nothing that I had anything to do with as far as usage went.
But the longer we’ve been married, I’ve noticed that I’ve started drifting towards gifts that aren’t really just hers, but sort of ours… kind of. I’m not entirely certain, but it’s possible that one year for her birthday I may have bought her our new breakfast nook table and chairs set. That wasn’t cool, I thought to myself.
I shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing, right? That’s not the way you stay happily married, or even breathing and walking upright, depending on your spouse’s comfort level with firearms.
It occurred to me that I might just be turning into my father, perish the thought… and that could not be considered anything short of terrifying. Turn on the sirens people… crash positions… we’re going in hot and hard.
Truth be told, I couldn’t even remember what I had bought her last year for her birthday, and that was not giving me a very reassuring feeling. Maybe since we need a new air conditioning unit for the house, maybe that’s what I should want for my birthday this year.
When I was really a young boy, maybe six or seven years old, I remember my father asking me if I wanted to go with him to Sears one evening after dinner.
I jumped at the opportunity of course, after all, a trip to Sears meant two things: A chance to sit on and pretend to drive several different riding lawnmowers… and a bag of hot cashews from the stand that sat in the middle of the store on the bottom level. Good times.
So, we get to Sears, my father and me, and I head straight for the riding lawnmowers. Remember that part of Forrest Gump when even though he’s already a zillionaire, he goes back home and the City Fathers give him “a fine job,” and he’s riding a lawnmower around this field cutting the grass? Yeah, well I understood that part of the movie. I completely agreed… Forrest looked like he did have a fine job there.
So, anyway… after a few minutes when my father had run out of patience with the lawnmower engine sounds I was making with my mouth, he said let’s go and we headed on into the store. The smell of hot cashews used to hit you right as you walked in the door of the Sears where I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and both my father and I were huge fans of the toasty warm aromatic nuts.
So, we got us a small bag before heading off for the guaranteed-to-be-boring part of the excursion, at least as far as I was concerned. The part when we’d have to actually shop for whatever it was he wanted to find… the reason we were there, you might say.
He explained that we had come to buy my Mom a birthday present, which was the next day.
“Let’s get her a board game, Dad,” was the first thing that came to my young mind. Well, why not… it was something I understood and knew I could get some utility from… and heck, she’d probably have liked it quite a bit too, especially if there was spelling involved. Mom loved to spell anything anytime, and she was darn good at it too.
But, Dad said no. He had something else in mind, as we headed on over to the dreaded, “Housewares” department.
Housewares was the section that had the most things I didn’t understand, and I braced myself and took a deep breath, just as I might have done were I about to be placed into solitary confinement while doing time on Alcatraz.
We got there and I did a 360 to take in my surroundings. Sure enough, I was absolutely surrounded by “Housewares,” and an old man who could have played Santa Claus at Christmas if you spotted him a fake beard and some hair, waddled over to offer his assistance to my father while doing a quick comb through of his thinning hair, completely ignoring me, of course.
This was the 1960s, and I was still to be seen, but not heard in many circles. Unlike today, when we let our 8 year olds pick out the family car.
I heard my father say something about a chair of some kind… but after that it was pretty much just a blur. For a boy my age during The Wonder Years of the 1960s it was genetically impossible to stay attentive during conversations of such banality.
Soon they had focused in on a particular chair. It was metal with yellow vinyl, sort of a highchair with steps that slid out from underneath, a feature my father was saying would be highly valued by Mom, who was only 5’3” and apparently couldn’t reach certain things without a step ladder. I hadn’t known about her shortcomings before that day, as she was plenty tall to reach everything I needed her to reach.
So, it was probably only a few minutes later, although it seemed a good hour or two, and we were paying with Dad’s Sears charge card, and then heading back to our station wagon, a 1963 Plymouth, dressed in a sickly hospital green color that my father said he liked, although I didn’t see how that could be possible.
We pulled around and there was that aging rotund and balding salesman, waddling towards us and carrying a decent size box, inside which, I assumed, would be the chair even though the box didn’t seem large enough to hold the chair. As he was loading the box into the wagon, the man told my father that there would be, “some assembly required,” to which my father replied, “Sure.” Dad actually seemed happy to hear of it.
My Dad owned a small grey metal Craftsman toolbox that he kept in the front hall closet that was strictly off limits as far as I was concerned. He’d pull it out any time those words were spoken, “some assembly required,” or whenever there was some sort of disaster in our hundred year-old home.
Dad faced each job with an air of confidence that said clearly that he was unquestionably capable of handling any job that was thrown his way and he would do so with whatever was in his small grey metal toolbox. It was a toolbox akin to Mary Poppins’ carpetbag, if you remember the movie with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. It was as if he was expecting to be able to reach in and pull out a belt sander and a table saw.
The problem invariably was that whatever he needed he didn’t have and whatever he thought he could do, he really couldn’t, at least not in the time he had thought that he could. And if hung around too long or stood too close, he’d end up blaming me for whatever wasn’t in his toolbox, growing more frustrated by the minute until he got the job done, which sometimes required a two or three day affair.
After the first couple of hours, there was no talking to him, and when the project had finally been completed he’d sit in front of the fireplace or television and sip what I later learned was Jack Daniels, but what he used to call Dry Sherry.
My father was, after all, a Harvard man. And you can tell a Harvard man… but you can’t tell him much.
So, being a child of above average intelligence, as soon as we walked in our front door, I shot upstairs to my room, claiming homework or a bath was calling, the sort of tasks that I knew would trump helping Dad assemble the chair, or anything else he had in mind… so he went to work in the basement assembling Mom’s birthday surprise.
Yes, my brilliant, PhD, Harvard, college professor father had just thrown down maybe $19 on a metal stepstool/chair in yellow vinyl from Sears. And he was so proud the next evening when, finally assembled after maybe six or seven hours of hard work, he presented it to her after we had finished dinner.
Mom had made cupcakes, as she was prone to do, and she started to light a match in order to light the little candles, one in each cupcake, except for the one that was for my little sister, Karen, who wasn’t even 2 years old at the time, and to my way of thinking, clearly didn’t qualify as any sort of human member of our family. Certainly not one who needed a cupcake.
Mom struck the match but it failed to light and that was all the chances Mom got on things like lighting matches. Dad reached out and took them into his much more capable hands. He struck the match… nothing. Mom smiled and looked away, you could tell she couldn’t have been more pleased at that moment.
Next match was the pressure match and lucky for Dad it was a winner and the candles were soon aglow as we sang…
Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday dear Barbara/Mommy… Happy birthday to you!
I grunted as Mom gave Karen her own cupcake, sans candle. “She can’t eat that, she doesn’t even know what it is,” I said with the sort of superiority only a six year-old older brother can muster.
“She can lick it,” Mom said smiling at the useless drooling infant that had Zwieback toast crumbs all over her face and in her hair.
I looked at the thing they called my sister thinking, “Later, when no one is looking, I’ll drag you down the stairs head first, you little parasite,” or at least the six year-old version of that sentence.
Karen grabbed the cupcake, squished it a little, mashed it icing side down onto her highchair… and promptly threw it straight onto the floor. Yeah, she was small and didn’t say much, but I knew she had done that just to torture me.
“Maaaaaam,” I yelled out as I jumped for the cupcake, hoping against hope that my mother would at that moment take leave of her senses and allow me to eat it off the floor. No such luck.
“Hand it to me,” she said in that voice. And I did… resistance I knew, was futile.
So, with the festivities now over, we went into the kitchen to examine the gift and there it was… that glorious yellow vinyl and metal, half highchair, half stepstool… sitting poised for action… right in front of the sink.
You see, as I was about to learn, Mom was always standing over that sink washing dishes, and so my father thought the ideal birthday gift would be a chair high enough so that she could sit while washing the dishes, the stepstool functionality being an unanticipated bonus.
Of course, my Mom, being a mom of the mid 1960s, was beyond gracious at all times. It was as if she liked everything. Like, someone could have served her a bowl of dirt, and she’d have said thank you.
“Oh, look at that,” she said.
Now, even at six years old I was sensing something in her voice that felt like danger had just entered the room. I swear, the temperature fell by 12 degrees… all of a sudden you could see your breath in our kitchen.
Dad was oblivious, explaining every single one of the chair’s highly valued features and functions. “And, I bought it at Sears,” he explained as part of his wrap-up. “So, if anything goes wrong, we can return it and they’ll give us a new one.”
Dad absolutely adored that about Sears. He even bought his sport jackets at Sears when they would go on sale, of course, and I grew up assuming it was for the same reason… Sears’ famous return anything anytime policy.
“Isn’t that something,” Mom was saying. She had decided that moment was a good one to start sharpening a giant kitchen knife, but then apparently thought better of it and set it down gingerly.
“Well, thank you Julian,” she said in a voice that I would one day learn to call condescending. “That was very considerate of you.”
And that was it… Mom’s birthday was over for another year. I knew not to ask her how old she was. I ‘d learned the hard way the year before that a young man doesn’t ask a lady that question. So, I just gave her a kiss on her cheek, said Happy Birthday Mom, and ran up to my room to see if I could sneak in a few minutes of black & white T.V. before they yelled up… “Turn off the T.V. please,” after which I’d drift off to sleep dreaming of riding lawnmowers and the like.
Less than a week passed until one day after school, I heard the doorbell, and ran to see who rang it. A large truck was parked right in front of our house, on the side it read, “Sears Appliances,” or something very close.
“Maaaaam,” I called out. It’s a man in a truck from Sears.”
My Mother came out in her apron, admonishing me for yelling for her to come in front of an adult, and then in her adult voice sweet as pie said, “Oh, hello, yes please, come in,” to the man in the Sears uniform.
And two hours later our kitchen had a brand new dishwasher installed… a Kenmore.
I didn’t connect the dots at the time, but inexplicably Mom made cupcakes again that night, highly unusual as it wasn’t anyone’s birthday, and this time she let me have the bowl of icing to lick and scrape on top of it all. She was unusually happy and I was in sugar-induced nirvana.
After desert, we all walked into the kitchen and Mom started explaining all of the features and functionality of the new Kenmore dishwasher.
Dad listened, barely smiling occasionally, and then as I was sensing his patience was running thin he said right in the middle of Mom’s Kenmore demonstration that I was more than happy to watch, “Okay, are you finished? I’ve got some work to do,” and with that he turned and walked towards the stairs.
Mom just kept going on about the Kenmore in a sort of sing-song voice, and as Dad started up the stairs, she was full on singing her words now and kind of dancing after him…
“And it’s from Sears… so if anything goes wrong… we can always return it,” Mom sang as if she were Judy Garland playing the role of a housewife in a movie.
I thought that I recognized the melody… “Home on the Range,” sort of.
Seconds later we could hear the door to Dad’s study close, I thought, perhaps a little harder than usual. Mom walked back towards the kitchen humming, and without any advance notice, as she passed by me on her way to get started loading the new dishwasher, she set a second cupcake topped with icing right in front of me without saying a word.
And somehow I knew as I stared at the icing on my cupcake, there would be no percentage in asking questions.
It would be many years before I had any real appreciation for what had gone on that year… the year my Mom had two birthdays. And the year my father had stared death in the face… and lived.
Yes, he was the Harvard man, the brilliant college professor… the breadwinner of our family… the owner of the tools… who never shirked his duty when “some assembly was required”… the one who always drove… and lit our matches when required… the patriarch.
But, make no mistake… that night Mom had let him live… let him off with a song about a Kenmore dishwasher from Sears… a song that sounded a lot like “Home on the Range.” Now that I’m all grown up and married myself, I fully realize that a blow to the back of the head with a shovel would have been much less painful.
And I can’t quite remember when I noticed it again, but that yellow vinyl and metal chair/stepstool from Sears remained in our basement for the next twenty years… for all I know is still down there today.
Mom was never one to throw important things like that away.
I’m like that too. So, I’m going to remember Wells Fargo’s $22,000 gift to establish a suicide hotline forever, and I hope that not only will you remember it too, but that you’ll also keep forwarding the story of Norm Rousseau to others for years to come, so they can remember what happened too.
Because although I only spoke to Norm for an hour or so… I know for sure that wherever you believe he is right now, he’ll smile through eternity if his battle and his death produced that kind of result.
Over the last two days, more people read Norm Rousseau’s story than anything I’ve ever written on Mandelman Matters. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about that until I realized that maybe if his story spread and wasn’t forgotten, then maybe one day there wouldn’t be other stories like his for me to write.
And I can tell you that it sure would make his wife happy, give her some peace, even. Nothing can change what happened. But, yesterday she said that all she wants is for what happened to Norm never to happen to anyone else.
Here’s the link to NORM’S STORY. Do more. Do everything possible to stop this from ever happening again. Stopping even one… matters a lot.
Do more. Give a gift that keeps on giving.
Mandelman out.
CLICK BELOW FOR:
State of Florida Foreclosure Law
The link above will take you to the page dedicated to Florida’s foreclosure laws. But, always remember… often people have a hard time understanding exactly what our laws mean just by reading them, so we always recommend that you contact an attorney and ask any questions you may have.
In Florida, the Mandelman Matters “trusted attorney,” is Cox & Sanchez. You can reach them by clicking below, and they are happy to answer your questions about Florida foreclosure or anything related, so don’t worry about calling or sending them an email.
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Not a "good ol' boy."
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