The foreclosure crisis hits seniors hard

Midday with Dan Rodricks on WYPR-FM explored a new AARP report that says the number of older Americans seriously delinquent on loans jumped more than 450 percent in the last five years.

Some 3.5 million older homeowners are underwater on their mortgages.  Older African Americans and Hispanics are the hardest hit. A show earlier this week looked at how the mortgage crisis has effected the country’s senior citizens and left millions of them fiscally vulnerable in retirement.

Dan’s guests were Vicki King Taitano, director of the Foreclosure Legal Assistance Project at Maryland Legal, and Susan Reinhard, senior vice president and director for the AARP Public Policy Institute. To hear the show, click here.

5 signs of a foreclosure rescue scam

Maryland Legal Aid’s Vicki King Taitano, director of the Foreclosure Legal Assistance Project, was interviewed by Black Enterprise for an article about foreclosure rescue scams.

“I think people need lawyers. And I hope attorneys will volunteer or take more cases and represent people in mediations and foreclosures because when people are represented I think they do much better,” Taitano said.

To read the entire article, click here.

Legal Aid experts quoted in MSNBC special report on mediation and foreclosure

“Mediation is a joke,” said a Maryland Legal Aid client interviewed for a special msnbc.com investigative report on a new mediation law meant to forestall foreclosure in Maryland. A year after the law went into effect, fewer than 1,000 borrowers had applied for mediation, and just 56 borrowers had received a loan modification as of the end of May, said the report, “Mediation efforts fail to stem foreclosure tide.”

The report focused on Prince George’s County, where the market flew high in the boom years:  “It’s where movers and shakers were going,” said Vicki Taitano, director of Maryland Legal Aid’s Foreclosure Legal Assistance Project. “People (were) really thinking like they were getting the American dream, establishing themselves.”

But the “combination of predatory loans and a weak economy have had a ‘rather lethal effect’ in Prince George’s County,” the report said, quoting the manager of systemic investigations for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

To read the report, click here.

Foreclosure prevention program not up to speed

While Maryland Legal Aid attorney Gretchen Reimert has helped some clients avoid foreclosure in a new mediation program that went into effect a year ago, the program is off to a slow start, the Washington Post reported today.

“It’s a program that is still new, but it also can use some improving,” Reimert told the Post. Reimert is a staff attorney in Legal Aid’s Foreclosure Legal Assistance Project.

“She and other attorneys are hoping that state lawmakers revisit the legislation to make it more beneficial to homeowners,” the article said. “The state, meanwhile, is holding workshops to let homeowners know about the program. The foreclosure mediation program is also mentioned in promotional mailings, and homeowners who call a state housing hotline are told about it.”

To read the article, click here.

Foreclosure activity at a low point

Maryland Legal Aid’s Foreclosure Legal Assistance Project director Vicki Taitano was quoted in the Washington Post May 13 about the falling rate of foreclosure activity in the D.C. area. “For some troubled borrowers, the delays [in the foreclosure process] have given [borrowers] hope of hanging onto their homes,” Taitano told the Post. “Those who fell behind on their mortgages because they lost their jobs, for instance, have more time to look for work.” To read the article, click here.

More consumers pay credit cards before mortgages

A growing trend in today’s down economy is cash-strapped consumers paying credit card bills before mortgage payments–in part, because the consequences of skipping a mortgage payment seems far off, as legal wrangling over foreclosure can go on for months, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

Maryland Legal Aid’s Blake Fetrow, chief attorney of the Metropolitan Maryland office in suburban D.C., said he regularly counsels families to take care of bills first and creditors second.

“That’s a very personal thing,” Fetrow told the Post. “Is it going to be the heat? Is it going to be the water? What do I have to leave off to make i through this month?”

To read the article, click here.

Frederick Co. couple victims of foreclosure scams

A Frederick County couple thought they had saved their home from foreclosure, but they’re living in a garage, WBAL-TV investigative reporter Barry Simms reported last night. Their lender is the target of a nationwide federal investigation, and as if that weren’t enough, the couple says things got worse when they hired an attorney, who they paid $15,000. Finally, they went to Maryland Legal Aid, which helped them win a judgment of $355,000–money that they’ll probably never collect.

“The real crime is someone stole their house, stole all their assets, and there’s no way to get it back,” Legal Aid staff attorney Kathleen Hughes, who handled the couples’ case. To see the report, click here.

New York courts vow legal aid for foreclosures

New York court officials outlined procedures Tuesday aimed at assuring that all homeowners facing foreclosure were represented by a lawyer, a shift that could give tens of thousands of families a better chance at saving their homes.

Jonathan Lippman, New York’s chief judge, wants all homeowners facing foreclosure in the state to have legal representation.

Criminal defendants are guaranteed a lawyer, but New York will be the first state to try to extend that pledge to foreclosures, which are civil matters. There are about 80,000 active foreclosure cases in New York courts. In more than half of them, only the banks have lawyers.

“It’s such an uneven playing field,” Lippman said. “Banks wind up with the property and the homeowner winds up over the cliff, on the street. It doesn’t serve anyone’s interest, including the banks.”

A lawyer for every defendant will also serve the courts’ interests, the judge said, by making proceedings more efficient.

To read the entire article, click here.

Foreclosure mess affects local firms

Vicki King Taitano, director of Maryland Legal Aid’s Foreclosure Legal Assistance Project, was quoted in The Daily Record today.

The topic: “Robo-signing” of documents where attorneys have not reviewed or read the foreclosure documents they signed (or, in some cases, didn’t sign).

“In some of the robo-signer cases there’s a potential that there are things wrong,” Taitano said. “We’re not supposed to be quickly signing these documents and getting it done, we’re supposed to be giving people the opportunity to have modifications and a chance to stay in their homes.”

To read the article, click here.

Small tax bill sends Baltimore home to tax sale

Maryland Legal Aid’s Baltimore City co-chief attorney, Joe Rohr, was quoted in a recent Baltimore Sun article  about tax sales. Rohr explained that low-income homeowners facing foreclosure can’t afford to pay debts that accumulate leading up to a tax sale (often over small municipal bills). “The clients who come to us, who are eligible for our services, aren’t able to pay that kind of money in lump sum,” he said. To read the article, click here.