Bank Foreclosures Information

Information, Articles and News About Bank Foreclosures

November 6th, 2008

Facing Foreclosure? Get Aid from this New Court Program in Middlesex County

Middlesex County courts have just launched a new program that brings lenders and homeowners together for negotiations. This kind of program will soon be duplicated in other courthouses within the state by mide-December.

The said program is spearheaded by Judge Frank and Francis Ciuffani, who reached out to about 70 lawyers in the Middlesex County Bar Association who, in return, volunteered to represent homeowners in negotiations. However, these volunteers have a limited scope, only for those who contested foreclosure actions.

Negotiations really matter for it can lead to changes in terms of loans or refinancing. In some cases, this can mean thousands of dollars being forgiven. Unfortunately, some great debts cannot be saved by any mediation anymore. It greatly depends on the capacity of a homeowner to pay.

Another good thing about the new program is that it is mandatory for people to contest foreclosures. A lot of people do not combat foreclosure actions. In fact in New Jersey, uncontested foreclosures are about 95 percent of the total actions. Sometimes, they just make a move when it is already too late.

The said program aims to help people before they ran out of options. Even if there has been a default judgment already to someone who has stopped paying mortgages, one can still ask for mediation.
Not all the benefits go to the homeowner because even banks are helped by making a loan “perform” again, Therefore, the program works both ways – clearly showing that the courts always remain neutral.

The growing number of foreclosures every year is not favorable therefore homeowners must step up in fighting foreclosures, now that there are a lot of easy ways doing it.
Homeowners in Middlesex County should understand first that they will have to go through one of these nonprofit agencies for some counseling regarding their financial state: New Jersey Citizen Action (Highland Park), Faith Fellowship Community Development Corp. (Sayreville), Puerto Rican Action Board (New Brunswick).

There is no guarantee for all happy endings with the new program; but as always, trying matters.

Related Posts:

September 2nd, 2008

New Jersey Bank Foreclosures- Not so bad, Not so Good

New Jersey Bank Foreclosures continue to increase. Data released by New Jersey State’s Office of Foreclosure showed that there were 47,668 filings for foreclosures in the year ending on 30th June, 2008. This, in comparison to last year’s figure of 26,132 filings is a steep rise.

James Hughes, an economist with the Rutgers Uni. predicted that the foreclosure problem and declining property prices could well continue until 2010.
Home owners who are involved in the foreclosure process across the country have doubled in the 2nd quarter of this year as in comparison to the same time period last year, with New Jersey Bank Foreclosures rising up rather dramatically, data from a recently released report show.

With the senate passing the housing relief bill, approximately 400,000 home owners might see help in avoiding foreclosure on their properties. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two government supported mortgage institutions are also to receive aid due to the bill.

A call to the lenders has been made by Rep. Barney Frank (Massachusetts) and Rep. Maxine Marks (California) to either stall or cancel existent foreclosures and give the bill time to take effect, waiting to see which borrowers could qualify under the program Rep. Barney Frank is also the Chairperson of the House Financial Services Committee. Bonita Holmes, who works as a counselor for Citizen Action said that they’ve had 290 cases relating to foreclosures in the first six months of the year, the total number of cases they handled throughout the whole of last year was 182. New Jersey Citizen Action which works with home owners trying to avoid foreclosure hope that the bill provides them with added tools to work on improving the current New Jersey Bank Foreclosures scenario.

The director of the accounting organization J.H.Cohn, Patrick O’Keefe said that despite there being a rise in New Jersey Bank Owned Foreclosures, the state does not feature among the list of top states suffering under the mortgage crisis. He went on to say that the housing market wasn’t particularly suffering due to foreclosures in the state.

Related Posts: