Posted on 08/28/2010 1:36:39 AM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
The Vetter family in Lewisburg first learned their house was being auctioned on the courthouse steps when they read it in the newspaper the day before. They’d paid a home loan modification company to help them avoid foreclosure, but later discovered the company had hundreds of complaints against it for doing nothing to help the consumers who had paid them.
The gray brick house on a 1-acre lot is well-kept. It’s empty and has a for-sale sign in the front yard. Kathrynne Vetter pointed out where her 4-year-old daughter’s pool and swing set used to be, and where her rose garden once grew. "It's just sad that someone would do this to a family. It was home," Vetter said. Vetter said she and her husband lost the house in June with almost no notice. "It was sold on the courthouse square for foreclosure," Kathrynne Vetter said.
Kathrynne Vetter had lost her job as a medical transcriptionist a few months before. She and her husband wanted a lower mortgage payment, one they could afford. They turned to a company called Premier Legal Advocates and paid them a fee of $998 upfront to negotiate a lower mortgage payment for them. They found out too late it's not a real law firm. Hundreds of former clients have posted comments on consumer websites claiming they lost their houses to foreclosure because Premier never contacted their mortgage companies.
Vetter said her mortgage company had never heard from Premier Legal Advocates. The company, which is based in California, has an F rating with the Better Business Bureau. The owner is listed as Brian Pascal, a man who the Better Business Bureau said has owned several similar companies in the past. Vetter said she checked the company out before she and her husband signed up. Nothing bad showed up, perhaps because the company had recently changed names. "When I first looked them up, it was a B rating," Vetter said.
In fact, she said she found the company listed on government website about loan modifications. Now the company appears to be out of business. The phone number rings busy all the time.
The Tennessee Division of Consumer Affairs said that in Tennessee, home loan modifications companies are, for the most part, unregulated. About all a consumer can do is file the same kind of complaint they would file if they are unhappy with merchandise they bought.
The Vetters know it will be a long time before they'll own another house, because their credit took a massive hit. But what really hurts Kathrynne Vetter is watching her little girl cry and ask why they can’t go home.
There are a number of nonprofit organizations in Tennessee that help consumers prevent foreclosure. You’ll find a list on this website: http://www.thda.org/foreclosure/foreclosure.html
Doesn’t add up. After they contacted them and gave them the money, didnt they think that someone would contact them through the process? Good grief.
That makes no sense.
They obviously stopped making payments in order to get foreclosed on.
So while they applied to have their loan “modified” they figured they didn’t need to make payments?
And they didn’t notice the bank making demands for payment after they stopped making them?
Don’t believe it.
Or that they would have to continue making payments...
This loan modification company is probably owned and operated by couple of take your money, do nothing lawyers.
They may have been advised to stop making payments to give the lender more incentive to renegotiate their loan. Of course the scammers apparently had no intention of doing anything on their behalf.
More hope and change.
No, my stupid ex-sister-in-law is being foreclosed the first Tuesday of the month here in GA. It’s a public outcry to the highest cash bidder. Here was her brilliant plan to the mortgage company:
“If you can find the note and prove I owe it, then I’ll pay it.”
Well, they found the note. And were sufficiently p*ssed off enough to go ahead and foreclose. Stick a fork in her; she’s done.
Trustee’s Sales are handled like this one. Used when a Deed of Trust secures the Note. Mortgages are handled differently, I believe.
In Tennessee, the notices are posted at the courthouse and the auction occurs on the steps if it ever gets that far. In the old days the notices were literally tacked to the building
The same procedure is for tax liens but they hardly ever go that far.
When the note and the deed of trust are separated (as most of them were during the last 8 years), the note becomes unsecured, like a credit card debt. Foreclosure under the deed of trust is not permitted as the deed of trust is a nullity when it becomes separated from the note.
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