New Jersey Lemon Law Lawyer Blog
FORECLOSURE INVESTIGATION
There is a possible foreclosure freeze in New Jersey.
There have been many internet reports of major lending institutions such as JPMorgan, Chase and Bank of America and other large mortgage companies making misleading or fraudulent statements to evict struggling borrowers from their homes.
The Indiana Attorney General, Greg Zoellersaid, was indicating that the initial phases of an investigation would be whether or not industry employees or ‘robo-signers’ were authorized and signed thousands of foreclosure documents without reviewing the files as they are legally required to do under most laws. There are also allegations from plaintiff’s attorneys that lenders forged signatures and wrongly notarized documents.
There have also been reported lawsuits that the foreclosed homeowner is alleging that the mortgage company did not have appropriate assignment of all of their rights to begin the foreclosure.
As a practical matter, this means that each person who is subject to a foreclosure lawsuit, whether it be New Jersey or any other state, needs to make appropriate and very careful evaluation of the allegations and the paperwork submitted by the lending institution, whether it be Bank of America or some other large lender. You need to take a very close look at the paperwork and make sure that all is in order. This might be difficult since as a layperson you might not understand the exact paperwork that is needed to file a foreclosure. However, in many states, there are various services that are available to the public for help on this matter.
As a very basic matter, you need to take a close look at the entity or individual who is attempting to take your home. You then need to see whether or not they provided, with the filing of the court documents, whether or not they had the correct right to take your home. This means that if you are unsure as to the business who is attempting to take your home, please look at the paperwork and see if they have the appropriate assignment of rights from a prior lender.
It is very important to do something rather than just sit back and do nothing, assuming that you have no defense. Just because you have not made your mortgage payments on time is not an automatic determination that a bank is entitled to take possession of your home. You should be careful and take all required steps to make sure that whoever is trying to take your home is doing it properly.