“The laws across states use different legal theories as the basis for mortgages, and they balance the rights of creditors and borrowers very differently,” explains Assistant Professor of Real Estate Andra Ghent of the W. P. Carey School of Business in a recent papercalling for a unified regime. “The variations started early in America’s history, and they’re not really based on economic reasons, but they’re still having a major influence on what’s happening now with the housing market.”

An earlier research paper in December 2011 by Federal Reserve Officials found that these borrower-friendly laws delay but do not prevent foreclosures.

More recently, however, research at Federal Reserve of Boston has found that foreclosure mediation efforts adopted by a handful of states including New York and New Jersey have seen some success.

“For homeowners, the home is the biggest investment they have. It is not surprising that states want to make sure that all steps are taken to ensure that they remain in their homes,” said the Fed’s Tracy.

“Many systems work well under normal circumstances when they are not stressed. But it is difficult to scale up in rare situations when there is a huge demand on resources and this is a resource-intensive process,” he said in response to critics of the process.

Todd Soloway, a real estate attorney with Pryor Cashman, says that while the majority of the borrowers do end up losing their home to foreclosures anyway, the courts ensure a sounder financial system. “The judicial process puts the onus on bankers to make sure everything is in order. Ultimately it would benefit both the borrower and the lender. It will not only keep the borrower in their homes, but also force lenders to be more responsible in their lending.”

Others argue that the delays in foreclosure process have actually helped the housing market by slowing the foreclosure frenzy on the part of banks. “Banks were competing to foreclose the fastest. Now the market is more resilient,”says Peter Ticktin, of Ticktin Law Group that uncovered the robosigning scandal in Florida. “Maybe we have greater costs and time, but there are more people in their homes, less inventory to depress the markets and the law is sacrosanct.”

– Written by Shanthi Bharatwaj in New York.

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Is a South Florida mental health hospital responsible for a patient’s suicide? The man’s heartbroken sister thinks so and has filed a lawsuit. Investigative reporter Carmel Cafiero has the special assignment report, A Sister’s Sorrow.

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LAKE WORTH, Fl — If you’ve ever bought a used car, chances are you’ve purchased a CarFax, a vehicle history report many consumers rely on to make sure the car is in good condition.

But a local car dealership is now suing CarFax saying their reports aren’t always accurate.

Until last year “Off Lease Only” in Lake Worth, the largest independent car dealer in Florida relied on Carfax to determine whether a car had a clean history. But now “Off Lease” which sells more than 600 cars a month is suing CarFax in Federal court.

The dealership alleges that Carfax reports aren’t always accurate, or sometimes changed for no reason. Off lease’s General Manager says they became aware of the problem about eight months ago.

The lawsuit mentions two examples where vehicles were given passing marks by Carfax at auction, but subsequent Carfax reports said they had “structural damage.” and that according to Peter Ticktin and Ejola Cook the attorneys representing Off Lease this is just wrong. The alleged discrepancies also pose problems for buyers who later try to sell their car, only to find a different CarFax report from the one they first received.

CarFax tried to get “Off Lease” lawsuit dismissed but in May a Federal judge ruled the lawsuit could move forward saying Off Lease accurately accused car fax of unfair and deceptive acts.

CBS12 reached out to CarFax for a comment but they did not return our call.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The deadline is approaching to apply for the Independent Foreclosure Review. It’s the government’s effort to try and make it up to homeowners who were wrongly foreclosed upon.

Josh Bleil is a attorney with the Ticktin Law Group, the firm that unearthed robo-signing, where mortgage servicers were fraudulently signing foreclosure documents. He thinks the program has good intentions, but is flawed.

“It’s multiple layered as to why I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be or have the impact or relief people hope it does,” Bleil said.

The review is free, but only for homeowners who went through a foreclosure in 2009 or 2010. Your mortgage servicer also has to be one of the 27 participating. You’re required to fill out an initial form, and will be asked to provide evidence that you were wrongly foreclosed upon. Bleil thinks that will just lead to more frustration for the borrower. And that’s not all.

“I think another problem with the program is that it’s never been clearly defined what the homeowner who was wrongfully foreclosed on is going to receive. From what I’ve read, they’re not going to get their homes back.”

But Bleil said those who have already lost their home have little to lose by going through this process.

“For someone who wants to have their case reviewed by all means do it, just know what you’re getting yourself into.”

He also thinks there could be more relief on the way.

“I don’t see this as the end, because the problem has not been solved.”

But it is close to the end for this program. The deadline to apply is July 31.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency did not return NewsChannel 5′s request for an interview for this report.

Read more: http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/impact-5-independent-foreclosure-review-deadline#ixzz1yAIHtnUG

DEERFIELD BEACH — Attorney Peter Ticktin believes you can go home again. And he wants that to be the case for victims of the so-called ‘foreclosure-gate’ mortgage scandal.

“In our country, we used to have a conscience — that was the bank,” said Ticktin, founder Deerfield Beach-based The Ticktin Law Group. “And then that disappeared. Ruinous competition for bad loans forced even the legitimate banks to compete, so, originating banks like World Savings, Countrywide, and even little banks are not there any more. What happened to America was we lost our checks and balances,”

Ticktin, whose firm The Ticktin Law Group is defending homeowners victimized in the “Robo-signing” mortgage scandal, says it has been detailed detective-like work that led his team to discover the fraud perpetrated on the people.  But taking on challenges like this is not new for the Bronx-born attorney.

Ticktin has been a farmer, a builder, and at one time, he owned and operated small heavy equipment. He was the CEO of a small public company, The Pony Express, and he puts the emphasis on Business in the category of Business Law for his clients.

During his legal career, he has been a leader in the area of HIV litigation and has been involved in cases ranging from monkey bites to the intricacies of pharmaceutical products liability. He came to national public attention when he won a two-week trial that was televised on Court TV, regarding the unauthorized procurement of a child’s organs in the only case on wrongful organ procurement to be tried.

In 2010, Ticktin discovered the Robo-Signers who were signing perjured affidavits for the banks to expedite their foreclosure cases. The revelation of the Robo-Signers caused a major slowdown of mortgage foreclosure suits throughout the country.

“Fifteen to 20 years ago if anyone were to lie on an application for a loan at an FDIC bank, they would go to jail for five years if they had a clean record,” Ticktin said. “It was considered bank robbery without a gun. The real shift that occurred, the change in the paradigm came with advent of mortgage-backed securities. Before that, the bank would buy the paper. The bank wanted to know one thing: ‘Tell me about the borrower. Can they pay?’”

Ticktin said that taking on the servicers of the banks has not been easy.

“When we started to defend mortgage foreclosures we did it with one condition: To fight it to win,” Ticktin said. “Real litigators leave no stone unturned.

“What we’re looking at is a clever plan for these servicers of these banks to take these homes away from these people, using false documents. It was, ‘The hell with the legal system.’ They perpetrated a fraud on the court using perjured affidavits. The people who were employed didn’t have any experience, but they suddenly found themselves with titles such as VP or officer in charge of foreclosure, and these are people who didn’t even know what foreclosures really are.  Many of them were young and inexperienced, innocent bumpkins, committing one perjury after another, they didn’t even know if they were doing something so wrong.  Who of these young people would even think these banks like Wells Fargo, Deutsch Bank, Bank of America would do this?”

Ticktin said it was a continual path of greed that led to the housing market debacle.

“What happened was the brokers started making so much money, it got attractive to get into the business,” Ticktin said. “There were 5800 of them in Florida in 2001, but 17,000 by 2006 in Florida.   The stated income is where the lies were.  Nobody would check. It was as if you were fogging the mirror.

But Ticktin wants to clear the vision and get the victims the justice they deserve.

“That’s why we need to get the word out to the victims of the foreclosure scam,” Ticktin said.  “Other firms may be causing delay, but we are defending the people.  We want to make this right.”

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Five big banks — Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), Citibank (C) and Ally Financial (formerly GMAC) — and U.S. states are “very close,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said Wednesday.

Separately, two officials briefed on internal discussions say a proposed deal could be announced in weeks. Negotiators are finalizing a draft of the agreement, which must be reviewed by state attorneys general. Under the deal, banks would pay states and the federal government, which would fund programs to compensate homeowners.

Talks have dragged on more than a year between major U.S. banks and state attorneys general about foreclosures completed without all the paperwork done properly.

In October 2010, major banks temporarily suspended foreclosures following revelations of widespread deceptive foreclosure practices by banks. That has backlogged millions of foreclosures that must be cleared before the housing market can fully recover.

A settlement would be for privately held loans, not ones held by Fannie Mae (FNMA) or Freddie Mac (FMCC).

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