Starting Your Battle?

(This list was composed by Don S. (PA) to help those of you who are new to the process:

I’ve revised it, and it now has 16 points of “process” to consider doing to help your situation along.

Veteran posters … please let me know if I’ve missed anything and I’ll add it.
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If you want to keep your home, you have to fight for it … but ALSO, you’ll have to learn how this game is played. Unfortunately, this IS a game to them. It’s how they can manipulate things to get as much money as possible. After all, that’s what their stockholders DEMAND … profit, profit, profit. That means getting money (your home equity) from YOU.

Please try and read ALL of this AND scan back through previous posts. There’s a link near the top of this page “Previous Posts” in light blue. Click on that. It’s also at the bottom of the posts.

1) If you haven’t made a journal/diary of your BOA experience start NOW. Record every instance every time it happens in detail. This is critical for a court case, but can also be helpful for Attorneys General and Agency complaints and for your politicians, should they get involved.

2) Sit down and write out as complete a timeline as you can from the beginning of your experience with as much detail as you can recall. Take time to do a thorough job. Equally valuable as “1)”.

3) Call your State and Federal representatives, Congressman/woman, State Assemblyman/woman and inform them of your situation. Calling is preferred over emailing. It puts a human element into the contact. Ask for help. Don’t hesitate. It’s their job to oversee your community and the goings-on in it. It’s why you elected them. INSIST that they help you if they try to wiggle out of it. Mine were VERY cooperative and helpful.

4) Get any attorney you can find to advise you from church, synagog, friends, family, neighbors. Retain one if you can afford it or call legal aid if you can’t. These are “contractual negotiations” that involve Statutory Law and a lawyer will navigate that best. Tempt them with the possibility of getting a piece of a class action suit.

5) Call the Hope Hotline 877-300-5454 or Money Management International direct 888-881-7558. Use MMI (or a similar NON-profit) literally EVERY TIME you call BOA. A representative will be with you through your calls and the nightmares on hold. They will also keep a record (although it can’t be released without a subpoena from a court). But if it goes to court, you can get it that way. It’s also better to have the BOA people hear you’re not alone on the phone.

6) Call and call and call and call until you get results and cooperation. If you’re using MMI, they’ll ask for supervisors. If you’re not, YOU ask for them. I know from a full year of this garbage how much it cuts into your personal (or even work) time and how traumatic it is, but big corporations BANK on you getting frustrated and giving up. DON’T GIVE UP. Hold their feet to the fire.

7) Keep up your payments as close to on time as you can. This is ALL about the MONEY. It’s a contract and your end is feeding this behemoth monster your hard earned cash. You agreed to it when you signed the mortgage. Courts (and BOA negotiators) will want to see your willingness to pay, as will your politicians and regulatory agencies. It’s your “good will” that you’re willing to work it out.

8) Find as many people as you can in your State that are going through this AND keep in contact with forums like this. The ONLY power any of us have over this monster is NUMBERS. It is literally “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.” One-by-one they can take us down, but as both national and State groups, they’ll have a hard time of it.

9) Once you’ve contacted your politicians and they’ve started to help you, tell all your friends, family, co-workers and anyone else who knows you to write to them and THANK them for helping you get through this difficult time. DO NOT have them criticize, complaint or tell stories. Just a short thank you will make it clear to your politicians that people are watching their performance. No need to get into detail. They’ll KNOW they’re being watched just through a simple thank you.

10) File a complaint with your State Attorney General and the OCC (http://www.occ.treas.gov/customer.htm). Research your State and complain to any applicable agency. Be sure not to “rant” and provide information in the form and with the content they request.

11) Contact your telephone company and request call records to and from BofA, or get all your calls and highlight them. Add that to your package of evidence.

12) Compose a letter asking news agencies to look into this problem. Describe your situation BRIEFLY, then forward it to every news program and news agency you can think of. There are lists of contacts throughout this blog. Key Point: News people are a bit “legalistic” in covering stories and require documentation and facts. Although they respond to emotional pleas, they will likely ignore incoherent rants, finger-pointing and unproven accusations. Be factual in your letters. The emotions will come across even if you try not to.

13) Learn about, compose and send a RESPA qualified letter to the bank and other regulatory agencies, and include anyone (politicians) who might be monitoring your case. The Federal government REQUIRES banks to provide you with DETAILED information on your mortgage.

RESPA is explained on these two government sites –

http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/rmra/res/reslettr.cfm
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/homes/rea10.shtm

Samples of letters can be seen (copied) here –
http://www.nololawlibrary.com/foreclosure/7-2d.shtml
http://www.foreclosureindustry.com/2009/08/qualified-written-requests-respa-and-mortgage-servicing/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11903044/Respa-Letter

Insert your personal information, rewrite the opening paragraph(s) to describe your personal concerns, and customize the “demands” to your own case, preferably with the help of a lawyer.

DO NOT send via email, and use the Postal Service, registered mail, return receipt requested. Copy all related people/parties the same way.

14) Lastly … and this is tricky … this is ALL about contract law, which is called “Statutory Law.” It literally has NOTHING to do with Right and Wrong, but what contract law expressly states. This is NOT “Common Law” that talks about the rights of a human being. This is about your “fictitious corporate self” that’s a party to the contract … NOT YOU as a human being. Statutory Law only sees the “contractee,” not the human being. Statutory Law couldn’t care less whether you live in that house or not … just whether the contract is fulfilled.

READ your mortgage and READ your restructuring agreement. Everything that’s happening to you is based on THOSE, not Right or Wrong … or have someone who understands legal language read them and explain what they mean.

Contract violations are what Class Action Law Suits are based on … contractual violations, and that’s all a court will listen to.

Remember, this is a nation (now, anyway) of laws, courts and parties to contracts … NOT common decency or even Common Sense. Work to save your home. Complaining gets you no where. Working hard and learning “the game” they play is the only thing that works.

15) One other thing has emerged … try to get over any embarrassment. For most people, this is not your fault. You have no control over the financial environment and you are merely exercising your rights. In fact, you should be BOLD about exercising them. Don’t let anyone convince you that “you were just asking for it.”

16) Consider stretching your budget to file an INDIVIDUAL lawsuit, rather than being lumped in with a class action. Jamming up a bank’s legal department with multiple suits is far more effective than allowing them to combat one class action. A class action puts you in a barrel with all the other fish.

But if you can’t file individually, keep in touch with people in your State. You can’t simply “put-your-name-on-a-list”. It’s not that easy. You have to work to FORM a class action suit. For the moment, no Federal class action exists and they MUST be State-by-State. Band together and hunt hard for an attorney who will take it on.