Stop Mortgage Foreclosure

In this situation, the attorney was hired by a Homeowner’s Association (HOA) to collect on a debt for property upgrades the homeowner clearly did not need (and has proof). The evil one is the HOA President — a Realtor — who sold the homeowner their property and collected a commission, and who now hopes to put them into foreclosure and secure a commission on that sale too. This question does not ask what wrong the Realtor is doing though. It asks what the Realtor’s attorney (acting under powers from the HOA) is doing wrong when they write a letter to the homeowner’s mortgage bank to notify them that the attorney is foreclosing on the property — and the attorney is ONLY BLUFFING.

This strikes me as Deceptive Trade Practices or possibly Fraud or Malpractice. As Officers of the Court, Attorneys are held to a higher standard of ethical behavior than the average layman or non-attorney. There would be action possible to bring the attorney before a review board of the State Bar for blatantly LYING in the conduct of their business. And the State Bar could impose sanctions such as fines, reprimand, censure, or in extreme cases, taking away the attorney’s license although this infraction would probably not qualify for a penalty that stiff. And these would be ethical issues before the State Bar.

But what, if anything, on a CRIMINAL level would the attorney be guilty of?

Threatening to have someone thrown out of their home is one of the most harrowing experiences one can go through, so there should definitely be cause to sue for something like harassment and/or mental anguish, particularly when the attorney was bluffing and the entire debt was based on fraud by the Realtor to effect property upgrades that would help her sell more properties in the HOA on a quicker basis in a down market. The Realtor is in desperate need of money and is late in paying her own mortgage so she is engaging in desperate real estate practices to exploit others with her realtor’s license.

The attorney sent this foreclosure notice to the bank almost 1 month ago but has yet to file a lien on the property (County records are being monitored daily and new liens are reported within 24 hours). And versus sending a notice directly to the homeowner, the attorney only copied the homeowner on the letter the attorney sent to the bank. Therefore, the attorney may never have even sent the letter to the bank so as to avoid accountability while scaring the homeowner, contributing further to their deception and manipulation.

But might there be some other foreclosure procedure that the attorney is pursuing BEYOND the filing of a lien on the homeowner’s property which the homeowner cannot see at this time? Could the attorney argue that they ARE foreclosing on the homeowner, even without filing a lien on the property as of yet?

You are fighting an uphill battle The HOA spread the cost over all the home owners they enjoy the power without the cost I too have gone thru what you are In the end I lost I let the HOA take the stupid thing and my bank foreclosed on them It was all over the earthquake cost Any way i heard they talked of one home owner that cost them over $30,000 GOOD
I know I well never put myself in that position again
Just play with them as long as you can and cost them as much as you can They well feel very powerful for a time But move on and learn
For some reason it never affected credit score Now live in a nice S/F home Few month back ran across the main fool I dealt with Good God he looked as if he as aged 50 years in tha last 15 years
I really lot nothing would have made money except I keep paying the bank till I as forced to move out They were the ones that lost $30000 So I guess i did win over those silly SOB’s

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 7:32 am and is filed under foreclosure procedure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.