Lender refusing to work with Attorney in negotiations
I have recently seen 2 cases in which two different banks refused to work with our office if the client was represented by a Foreclosure Defense Attorney. We have tried several techniques, to no avail. Is this a new policy for certain investors, or a fluke in the system. I would appreciate any advise that you may have to offer.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Steve Capen on
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Seterus just asked me Friday to have the attorney call and authorize them to speak with me and my team.
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Permalink Reply by Sean Underwood on
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One of my clients has 5 properties that she has listed with me and is trying to negotiate by way of short sale.
Due to the magnitude of her deficiency, she hired a foreclosure defense attorney.
Seterus is one of the lenders that I am working with.
They demanded a notarized letter, from the defense attorney, that stated who the defense attorney would allow to speak on the borrower's behalf. The letter had to state the names, company they held their license with, address of entitled person, contact numbers, etc.
Even the Title Company, who drew the preliminary HUD, had to be placed on this letter.
Once I submitted the letter, I negotiated the deal.
We are set to close this month.
Talk to Seterus about this option.
Best of luck,
Sean
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Permalink Reply by Wendy Smith on
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It makes sense to me that once a foreclosure defense attorney is involved, the servicer should no longer communicate with the defendant/borrower or defendant's agents. Not all, but some, foreclosure defense attorneys drag out or stall the foreclosure process so long costing the investor thousands of dollars. There are ads and solicitations from law firms promoting something like $1500 "retainer" then $300 - $500 per month and they can stall the FC process for minimum a couple of years. These firms put the h/o on direct debit and have a steady stream of income. In FL, in some counties, we are so backlogged that an attorney can receive monthly payments for months & months while not actually doing anything.
I know of one attorney that has about 90 files (according to him) that he is handling in this manner. Can you imagine, 90 times even the minimum payment of $300 ... per month?
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Permalink Reply by Julie Wilkinson on -
Dear SSE
I have recently had a very similar situation recently. We have approval from our first lien holder (GMAC). We needed approval from the second lien holder BB&T, but we're not getting it because they had filed a separate lawsuit against the sellers for the amount of the note. The short sale attorney was too busy to handle and respond to the lawsuit so the sellers hired outside counsel a foreclosure defense attorney. BB&T's attorneys would not return phone calls to either the SS attorney or the Forecl. Def Att. We sat their for 3 weeks to a month. I was getting really frustrated that the SS attorney could not or maybe I should say would not do more to get things moving, especially since we had to go back to GMAC for an extension. THe SS attorney kept saying I can't talk to anyone else because I can only talk to their attorney. Well why the hay can't her SS staff talk to someone else??? So being the determined person I am I spent most of my day calling up the BB&T corporate ladder until I found someone who was sympathetic to the situation and had the authority to help, Actually through the grace of God I found this person.He was in the "Recovery" Dept. He asked me to send him a 3rd party authorization, a copy of my listing,and the approval letter from GMAC Within 1 day he looked over my paperwork, called his bank attorneys and said make this happen. Those attorneys called our SS attorneys immediately, and we are now looking to close within the next 10 days. I strongly believe that in our hour of need (the attorneys all sit back and wait) we need to move mountains by finding the right person who has the authority to make decisions and make things happen. THe SS attorney could not believe what I was able to do. I have now done this on 3 occassions. The old saying its not what you know but who you know that really works. You just have to spend some time finding them. Be nice, be sincere, be appreciative of their help and have your hard luck story and just do it.
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Permalink Reply by Katia Refeca on
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Julie, You are correct. Climbing up the corp ladder in the companies involved does get the job done, when no one else will go the extra mile at the lender's end. I have had to escalate to CEOs, Boards of Directors, and Fannie Mae, to get my short sales closed. I do it all in writing; email, fax.. telex if I have to, to get the info to anyone who will take it on and make it happen. It works!
My broker has encouraged us to use a local attorney to help with the short sale negotiations, but I find that all they do is stall, add fees and don't really guarantee anything to the sellers. In the past 6 months, I've done short sales, with GMAC, Seterus, Wells Fargo, Bank of America without attorneys and I have received short sale approval with in 1 month of submitting an offer to them and closed shortly thereafter.
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Permalink Reply by Joyce Hathaway on
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Julie
Well said...I had similar with an IRS lien...took me a week but they finally called me...and said the only reason was because I had called everyone and left clear and factual voice mails
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Permalink Reply by Amelia Keene on
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Because the attorney's are taking so long and putting huge fees on the HUD. We all know that the approvals come through 10 times faster when we do short sale negotiations ourselves. I have short sale clients with attorneys and 4-6 months later they are still negotiating. I truly think their fees lower the Net to the lender.
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Permalink Reply by Scott Taylor on
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I know there is certainly a need for foreclosure attorney's but it always seems to SLOW things down quite a bit. When a seller asks for a referral to an attorney I can't help cringing because I know what lies ahead. =0
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We have been able to get around this by getting the Foreclosure Defense attorney to write a letter stating that they are giving us authorization to speak with the lender while the case is ongoing.
We have done this on two files recently (Bank of America, Seterus)
Wells Fargo, is changing their loss mitigation process, I have seen major changes in the last month and I have been reading that other people are having the same problems! We actually have one in progress now where the sellers have counsel for Foreclosure and Divorce. The judge signed a court order that the house will be sold through the short sale process (relative to the divorce) Wells Fargo could care less. They still will not speak with the sellers or our office.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Benita on
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send me a quick e-mail "hello" at [email protected] and I can go over in detail how I get around this.
Also curious to hear if you are an agent or a negotiations company.
Send me a quick hello and I will share some contacts and thoughts going forward.
Best of luck to EVEYRONE here dealing with the banks!!!
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Permalink Reply by William C. Black on
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This could be due to some attorneys that do not know what they are doing and file for a restraining order to stop a foreclosure because that is what they know- nothing about negotiating a short sale. If I was to be listing a property I would really need to now what that homeowners intent is as well as what the "plan" is from the attorney. I have been a Business Development Consultant for a law firm and we have about 200 short sales under management and this has never been an issue- But then again we are the only ones that speak with the banks as the negotiators though.
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As I was told when I first got into the business,
Attorneys are to real estate transaction what barnacles are to a ships.
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