On January 1 of this year the California Homeowners Bill of Rights went into effect.
The Homeowners Bill of Rights makes the foreclosure process in CA more fair and transparent then it has been since at least 2008.
The purpose of this law is to provide protections of homeowners facing foreclosure and to reform some of the aspects of the foreclosure process. Its objectives are for example to ensure that homeowners have a meaningful opportunity to work on such matters as a loan modification without having a simultaneous foreclosure process going on at the same time. This, now illegal practice is called Dual-Tracking, it is now a banned activity and a homeowner can sue the lender or servicer for doing this and obtain injunctive relief and damages for economic losses.
Once a homeowner submits a modification application the foreclosure process is stalled while the loan servicer reviews the application and makes a decision. Even if the lender denies the loan modification it still cannot foreclose until any applicable appeals period has expired – which is generally 30 days from the written denial.
Another major frustration that previous borrowers had was dealing with a multiple of bank representatives and the frustration of never having a single contact with the bank to work with who was familiar with their loan modification application. Now lenders must provide homeowners with a single point of contact.
Many of you may have heard of the National Mortgage Settlement Program wherein many State Attorney Generals entered into a financial settlement agreement with five major banks. This new law extends the reforms provided to those banks to virtually all mortgage lenders and servicers.
Below is a link to the California Attorney General’s web site page for a further reference on this law for you any one you know who is having difficulties in dealing with their home foreclosure process:
If additional help is needed here we invite you to call for a no-obligation inquiry to us on how we might of help.
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