As readers of my Blog know, there has been very, very little help provided by any government programs that theoretically are to help troubled homeowners keep their homes.  Even less help has been provided by the lenders.  The original Hope For Homeowners program failed to get lender cooperation. This was followed last year with the Home Affordable Mortgage Program (”HAMP”) which also has failed to deliver any substantial help to upside down borrowers.  And now, effective April 5th, the government will open their newest program, the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program (”HAFA”).  Significantly, this Program is being introduced as a part of the HAMP program but it has nothing to do with helping people keep their homes. Rather, it is designed to assist lenders in getting the existing owners out through a short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure. 

The sad reality of HAFA is that it effectively gives the lenders what they wanted… a politically correct reason to deny modifications (which they don’t want to do) and a faster way of getting the existing owners out (which they do want to do). So, for upside-down owners, there’s no help in HAFA.  But for our economy, the results may be even worse.

Today’s real estate market, especially in California, is operating on an artificial economy.  The lenders are holding back putting all of their foreclosed properties on the market. This keeps the supply down and keeps prices up.  The lenders could put more properties on the market but that increase in supply would cause prices to fall since demand by buyers is not growing. The result of this is that the lenders have been slowing down the foreclosure process so they don’t get more properties that they’ll just hold back.  But since all of these must eventually get sold, this means that it will be many years before our real estate economy is not driven by the lender’s inventory of foreclosed homes. And, thanks to HAFA, it may now get much worse.

Under the rules of HAFA, all lenders that participate in the HAMP program must participate in HAFA. This means that if a lender denies a homeowner a modification under HAMP or the modification fails or is not accepted, the lender must offer the homeowner a short sale or a deed in lieu of foreclosure and our government (we the taxpayers) will pay the lenders and borrowers to participate.  This will speed up the change of ownership.  But what will be the effect on the already over-supplied real estate economy?

According to the lending industry information service, Mortgage News Daily, as of the end of 2009, only 4.3% of all HAMP modifications resulted in permanent loan modifications. Over a million trial modifications are in process. Unless the permanent modification numbers increase dramatically, we could be facing an additional 950,000 short sales and foreclosures coming on the market.  This would be a disaster as these get added to the already over-supply driving down the values of property. Existing buyers, investors, and lenders would be scared away from an unstable market and the problems in the economy would become even worse.

Is there any solution?  Well if the objective is to help people keep their homes through loan modification, then there needs to be a way to compel lenders to reduce principal amounts owed. If lenders continue to refuse, then Congress should pass the Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Reform which the Senate shut down last year. Alternatively, compel lenders (particularly BofA) to waive deficiency recourse so that everyone can move on.

Sadly, there remained no Hope for Homeowners in that program and Making Home Affordable has not made homes more affordable. HAFA gives up on the hope of helping owners stay and instead will only help owners go. Unfortunately, this may hurt us all.

If you have any questions concerning your rights and obligations concerning real property, foreclosure, or any related issues, please feel free to contact me at stevebeede@bpelaw.com or contact my office at 916 966-2260 for a confidential appointment by phone or in person.

For upside down property owners, 2009 was a year of frustration and hype with little if any assistance. 2010 will likely be the same. Two key factors have become clear: 1) the unwillingness of lenders to cut principal balances for existing owners; and 2) the lack political will of our government to force any such cut. Back in 2008 when Hope for Homeowners was first ballyhood across the nation, the concept was that lenders would make more money by reducing existing loan balances and keeping owners in their homes than they would make if they foreclosed and put the property back on the market as an REO. The problem was that lenders disagreed. Lenders believed they would be better off getting what they could now and getting the property in the hands of a more financially stable owner. With loan modification failure rates running over 50%, there could be some validity in that belief. When President Obama was elected in 2009, he gave us the Obama Real Estate Recovery Plan the most valuable tool of which was the proposed Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Reform which would allow Federal judges to “Cram Down” principal values if the lenders wouldn’t. Unfortunately, the Senate wouldn’t go along and so the Plan failed. Instead, the government put forth the “Home Affordable Modification Program” which to date has produced very few home saving modifications.

So what to expect in 2010?  Here are my predictions:

1)  For Existing Property Owners  - Government will continue to tinker with the HAMP program to try to get more lender cooperation. The key obstacle will remain principal reduction. As lenders continue to refuse to make cuts, pressure is building to re-introduce the Bankruptcy cram-down legislation.  Look for increased lender cooperation with HAMP to avoid the cram-down but it will likely be too-little, too-late to avoid large scale foreclosures in 2010;

2)  Foreclosures - As of the new year, there are over 400,000 homes in pre-foreclosure nationwide, over 125,000 in California alone. Without an effective modification program, more owners will realize that it is time to move on and will either walk-away or attempt a short-sale to minimize credit and tax damage.

3)   Short Sales are the Market - For 2010 and probably for several years after, Short Sales will become the primary means of transferring homes.  Lenders have managed to stabalize prices by holding back on foreclosures and listing REO’s but there is a tremendous backlog of upside-down properties that need to be dealt with. Short Sales offer both seller and lender the best solution. The big obstacle - lender demands for recourse against the seller - is changing. Even BofA has dropped their recourse demands. Short Sales will be the path to market recovery although don’t expect prices to start climbing. Right now inventories are low so there has been some upward price movement due to supply and demand. As lenders get their short sale act together, and Realtors become more effective at negotiating and packaging these deals, more properties will come onto the market. Though this will keep prices down, more properties will be sold and we’ll all get through this housing bust faster.

4)  Commercial Real Estate - the big unknown - in 2010, our attention will shift away from upside down homes (that issue is being resolved) and will turn to fears of business collapse and loss of jobs. According to commercial broker, Grubb & Ellis, we’re approaching the highest vacancy rates since the dot com bust, with office vacancy reaching almost 20%.  With banks still fearful of lending and individuals fearful of spending, this double-whammy put more and more companies out of business and with them went a loss of jobs that has continued the downward spiral.  While few expect that these conditions will create a Depression-style generation of non-spenders, clearly the debt-fueled spending of pre-2006 is over. Bob Bach, senior vice president and chief economist at Grubb & Ellis put it clearly: “Retailers and owners of retail real estate will need to adapt to a ‘new normal’ in consumer attitudes that may last for some time, including more conservatism and attention to value as households rebuild their savings.”

2010 PRESENTS NEW OPPORTUNITIES - So what should you do going into 2010?  Get good advice. We are in a changed economy that is going to be with us for a long time. If the only economy you’ve known is the “go-go” days before 2006, get educated. Our economy operates on booms and busts which generally happen every 8-10 years.  You cannot simply sit on the sidelines and wait for things to get back to where they were. They won’t…. at least not for a long time.  But this new economy is full of opportunities for those willing to work hard and be creative. The US Dept of Labor estimates that more than half of all new jobs will be in in professional and related occupations and service occupations. Learn more at their website at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.nr0.htm. I see a rise in demand for Short Sales Specialists;  Consultants in real estate; and small boutique service companies providing cost-effective services to businesses.  Production jobs will continue to disappear.

Lastly, I remain bullish on real estate investment despite having now gone through five down-turns including two crashes.  Throughout history, real estate has been the most stable long-term investment providing both shelter and income potential. This will remain so.  The danger in all investments is expecting continued growth which, if that happened, would not make it an investment at all.  Investment is the taking of “risk” in pursuit of the “potential” of gain. The risk will never go away nor the potential. So my advice to you is don’t give up on investing but keep your day job.

If you have specific questions about your loans, liability, foreclosure, or any legal issue, feel free to contact me at sjbeede@bpelaw.com or call us at (916) 966-2260 for a phone or personal appointment.  We offer a $200 flat fee attorney consultation to enable you to evaluate your judgment and tax risks and to plan a strategy to minimize or even avoid them.  Need help Coping with an Upside Down Loan? Checkout Steve’s audio-seminar and e-book at: http://www.stevebeede.com/copingwithanupsidedownmortgage/.  

As readers of this Blog are aware government efforts to help upside down homeowners keep their homes have been a failure.  First, lenders are not willing to make the principal cuts needed to bring loan balances to an affordable level; and second, government lacks the political will to force the issue.  But this does not stop them posturing.  Last year it was “Hope For Homeowners” and this year it is the “Home Affordable Modification Program”. Both promised loan balance and payment reductions. Both have been a failure since Congress has been unwilling to force the issue by passing Bankruptcy cram-down authority.  HAMP has been especially frustrating because lenders have been offering “trial modifications” with reduced payments but then refusing to continue that payment level after the “trial” period.  Instead, it appears to be nothing more than a short-term money grab.  So, as government officials fret about lack of lender cooperation, foreclosures continue to rise and the real estate market continues to be flooded with short sales and REO’s.  But there is improvement in short sale processing that will help stabilize the market.

Short Sales offer benefits to all parties:  the upside down seller minimizes their credit damage and can negotiate issues of deficiency liability;  the lender gets money now and reasonably gets more than they would through a foreclosure, the buyer gets a home at current market values, and most importantly, one more property is removed from the market thus moving us closer to a real estate recovery.  The sticking point remains lender unwillingness to give up on recourse against the seller/borrower but that has been changing in recent weeks most notably with Bank of America dropping its insistence on recourse is all short sales.  So, while this will not help owners keep their homes, it does help them and the market get on with life and move to a recovery.

Processing the massive amounts of short sale Hardship applications remains a time-consuming effort for lenders. Help may be on the way through new companies such as Mortgage Resolution Services (MResolution.com) which are developing standardized processing and lender negotiation systems that promise to expedite the approval.  As always, borrowers should get independent advice from a knowledgeable attorney as to what their potential judgment and tax liability is before going into any short-sale or letting their property go in foreclosure.

If you have specific questions about your loans, liability, foreclosure, or any legal issue, feel free to contact me at sjbeede@bpelaw.com or call us at (916) 966-2260 for a phone or personal appointment.  We offer a $200 flat fee attorney consultation to enable you to evaluate your judgment and tax risks and to plan a strategy to minimize or even avoid them.  Need help Coping with an Upside Down Loan? Checkout Steve’s audio-seminar and e-book at: http://www.stevebeede.com/copingwithanupsidedownmortgage/.  

In my last Blog article, I wrote about how lenders and collection agencies are falsely claiming that modifying an acquisition loan makes it recourse. Under California Civil Code Sec. 580b, loans made to enable a borrower to acquire (purchase) a 1-4 unit property in which the borrower resides are non-recourse. This means if the lender forecloses, they cannot get a money judgment against the borrower for any deficiency between the amount owed and the foreclosure sale price.  Several lenders are now similarly claiming that a Home Equity Line of Credit (”HELOC”) is recourse even if it was used to purchase the home.  This is a trickier question?

By its nature, a HELOC is a cross between a home loan and a credit card secured by the property. You get the funds up fron to purchase the property like any acquisition home loan. Then, as the HELOC gets paid down, you can draw out money again up to the original amount of the HELOC like you would with a credit card.  On one hand, if it is used to purchase the property, it certainly would appear to have all the characteristics of a purchase money acquisition loan and therefore should be non-recourse. However, since additional credit draws would be in effect new loan amounts not purchase money, these would reasonably be recourse loans.  Lenders would have us believe that this additional loan ability makes the entire HELOC a recourse loan. 

I disagree.

For most home purchasers using two loans, the reason was that the first loan would be 80% and thus mortgage insurance would not be required. The 2nd loan filled in the gap between the 1st loan and the Buyer’s down payment, typically 10-15% of the purchase price.  Since these are both necessary for the Buyer to purchase the home, these are purchase money acquisition debt and would be non-recourse (assuming 1-4 unit, owner-occupied).  For the Buyer, the title of the 2nd loan would not seemingly matter. Whether the lender called it a Home Loan, Home Equity Loan, or Home Equity Line of Credit would not make a difference to a Buyer who needed the loan to purchase the home.

As stated in the 1976 case of Union Bank v Wendland, “The antideficiency statutes indicate a legislative intent to limit strictly the right to recover deficiency judgments….the purpose of that antideficiency statute is to discourage the overvaluing of the security, and the risk of inadequate security because of overvaluation is placed on the purchase money mortgagee.“  Since the lender is placing a value on the property at the time of acquisition and is making a loan secured by the value of the property at that time, the anti-deficiency protection of Sec. 580b should apply to the HELOC just as it would apply to any other acquisition loan. The only difference between the HELOC and any other loan is that the lender allows the borrower to take money back out up to the original secured amount.  And unlike a credit card, the debt is secured. So arguably, even further draws back to the original amount could be non-recourse as well. As the court said in the Union Bank case, “…. the protections of the anti-deficiency statutes can not be avoided because of some clever paper shuffling on the part of the lender. To allow such is a circumvention of the anti-deficiency statutes.”

Can a lender get around this by having a provision in the loan documents stating that the loan will always be recourse?  That is unclear.  Court’s do not excuse a borrower from not reading and understanding their loan documents before they sign.  But, given the very unequal bargaining position of the parties, I expect that the Court’s would lean in favor of application of 580b.  We’ll have to wait and see how these cases turn out, if indeed any such cases are actually filed.

Of course, none of the above is going to stop unethical lenders and collection agencies from threatening and scaring borrowers into paying money on non-recourse debt. 

If you have specific questions about your loans, liability, foreclosure, or any legal issue, feel free to contact me at sjbeede@bpelaw.com or call us at (916) 966-2260 for a phone or personal appointment.  Need help Coping with an Upside Down Loan? Checkout Steve’s audio-seminar and e-book at: http://www.stevebeede.com/copingwithanupsidedownmortgage/.  

As regular readers to my Blog should know, under California law (Civil Code Section 580b), if a lender makes a loan to enable a borrower to buy a 1-4 unit property which they live in, the lender has no recourse against the borrower. They can only take (foreclose) the property. They cannot get a judgment against the borrower if the property is not worth the amount owed on the loan. This is called an “acquisition loan”.  If the borrower later refinances this loan by getting a new loan, this protection is generally lost because the new loan was not obtained to acquire the property.  That makes sense.  But what about a loan modification?

Recently, several clients have had lenders (or collection companies) tell them that their loans became recourse because they got a loan modification.  From what I can see, this appears to be false and is no doubt said in an attempt to collect some money even when there is no recourse.

The First reason that this is false is that the loan and security (deed of trust) have not changed. It is still the acquisition loan and the same date of purchase recorded security.  Second, there is a rule in law called “substitution”.  The substitution doctrine applies when an acquisition loan is refinanced by the lender holding the original acquisition debt. The acquisition portion refinanced retains its purchase money character and the anti-deficiency protections of CCP §580(b) apply. (Union Bank v. Wendland, 1976).  Further there is legal authority that the protection extends to situations where the “beneficiary of the purchase-money loan ‘refinances’ the loan, ie: same lender, borrower, and security, but different loan amount.  From these sources, it appears fairly clear that a modification will not alone convert a non-recourse acquisition loan into a recourse loan.  As the court said in the Union Bank case, “…. the protections of the anti-deficiency statutes can not be avoided because of some clever paper shuffling on the part of the lender. To allow such is a circumvention of the anti-deficiency statutes.”

 We recently had a case in which our client had bought a home using 1st and 2nd acquisition loans. When she later sought a $6,000 education loan from the same lender, the lender replaced her 2nd loan with a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) which included the original 2nd loan amount of $76,000 plus the additional $6,000. When the market later crashed and our client was losing her home, the lender claimed that the new 2nd loan was a refinance and thus they had recourse. They then sued the borrower for the entire $82,000.  Clearly the Substitution Doctrine should apply here at least to the $76,000. Unfortunately,  other financial issues have forced our client into Bankruptcy so this will not get resolved, but based upon the Union Bank holding and other cases, we are confident that our client would prevail on her claim that the $76,000 is non-recourse.

Of course, none of the above is going to stop unethical lenders and collection agencies from threatening and scaring borrowers into paying money on non-recourse debt.

If you have specific questions about your liability, foreclosure, or any legal issue, feel free to contact me at sjbeede@bpelaw.com or call us at (916) 966-2260 for a phone or personal appointment.  Need help Coping with an Upside Down Loan? Checkout Steve’s audio-seminar and e-book at: http://www.stevebeede.com/copingwithanupsidedownmortgage/.  

On Monday, October 12, 2009, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 260 which, effective January 1, 2010, will ban negative amortization loans and preclude mortgage brokers from earning special fees on these high risk loans. According to the Bill’s author, Assemblyman Ted Lieu, the intent is to ban the practices that led to the foreclosure crisis that eventually triggered the recession which we now suffer. This will be good news for some but offers no assistance for the millions who remain at risk of losing their homes under their existing negative amortizing loan contracts. Although lenders will stop making such loans, they have been extremely resistant to cleaning up (modifying) such loans.

As those of you who have followed my Blogs know, the negative-amortization loan was a program offered by lenders to make loans to people who couldn’t qualify for normal fixed rate loans. Because they were marketed on a very low teaser start-rate, a great many gullible borrowers signed up believing the promises that they could later convert to fixed rate or “flip the home” for a profit. Both of these incentives were the unintended consequences of our Government’s desire in the late 1990s to expend home ownership and the American Dream.  The result was that millions of people got loans to buy homes they could not really otherwise afford. When the adjustments started happening and the homes couldn’t be flipped, this expansion of the American Dream quickly became a worldwide nightmare that we’re still dealing with.

The sad reality in all of this is that the lenders were very familiar with the dangers of adjustable rate loans from the problems in the 1980’s but it didn’t stop them from taking the fees up front and setting up this house of cards which had to collapse.  Hopefully this new law will stop such risky practices in the future and compel the lenders to be trustee stewards of their investors’ monies and their borrowers’ expectations.

Possibly this new law will add additional fuel to the legal arguments raised by attorneys seeking to stop foreclosures of these high-risk and now illegal loans. Since it is not retroactive, it does not have any legal effect on existing loans but certainly may influence a judge or jury in determining whether a loan was predatory.

If you have specific questions about your liability, foreclosure, or any legal issue, feel free to contact me at sjbeede@bpelaw.com or call us at (916) 966-2260 for a phone or personal appointment.  Need help Coping with an Upside Down Loan? Checkout Steve’s audio-seminar and e-book at: http://www.stevebeede.com/copingwithanupsidedownmortgage/. 

With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 94 and put an end to loan modifiers who charge up front fees.  As reported in the Sacramento Bee today, the action comes following massive complaints to the Dept. of Real Estate comcerning loan modifiers who took borrower’s money - up to $4,000 - and then abandoned them. While not condemning all modifiers, the new law applies to every such company that collects up-front fees. 

Earlier this year, State and Federal crackdowns on loan modifiers limited such services to real estate licensees and mandated DRE approved contracts for any up-front fees. However, many simply ignored the restrictions. More significantly, the earlier law excluded attorneys. As a result, law firms quickly filled the gap by collecting up-front fees and then partnering with loan modifiers to do the actual work. The new law puts an end to this.

While protecting the victims of these scams, the intent of the law is to stop abuse of borrowers in trouble. Legitimate loan modifiers can still operate but they cannot get paid until they have performed all of the services promised in their contract with the borrower.  This does not require that payment only be made if the modification is successful.  Borrowers must pay the loan modification firm for the services they provided, even if the firm cannot get the loan modified. 

Furthermore, the modification firms must tell potential clients that they may be able to get the same services for free from government-approved nonprofit mortgage counsellors. You can find these by Googling under such names as “nonprofit mortgage counsellors” or “debt management consultants”. I would expect that with this latest crackdown, getting access to this free help will become much more competitive so don’t wait. Act now and be persistent.

The new law will expire on January 1, 2013 which coincidentally is the expiration date for the Federal Debt Forgiveness Relief Act.  Apparently the concensus in Washington D.C. and in California is that this real estate mess will be cleared up by the end of 2012 so loan modification protection will no longer be an issue.  We’ll hope that they are right.

If you have specific questions about your liability, foreclosure, or any legal issue, feel free to contact me at sjbeede@bpelaw.com or call us at (916) 966-2260 for a phone or personal appointment.  Need help Coping with an Upside Down Loan? Checkout Steve’s audio-seminar and e-book at: http://www.stevebeede.com/copingwithanupsidedownmortgage/. 

As readers of my Blog are aware, the Federal Government passed a law in December, 2007 allowing debtors to avoid the tax on debt forgiveness which typically occurs through a foreclosure or short sale. Debt forgiveness is considered taxable income by the IRS even though the debtor never had the actual income. The federal Debt Forgiveness Relief Act enables most people who lose their homes between 2007 through-going budget c 2012 to avoid the tax.  Most states including California followed suit although California’s relief expired in December, 2008.

In January 2009, Assemblyman Roger Niello introduced AB 111 to extend California’s law to match the Feds. Unfortunately, in late May the Assembly voted down his Bill… most likely in response to the ongoing Budget crisis. No new Bill appears to be in the works to replace this.  “AB 111 was based on fairness and common sense. The tax revenues from mortgage foreclosures are windfall gains to the state at the expense of California’s most desperate families. The tax revenue exempted by AB 111 would not have been realized if California weren’t at the very epicenter of the mortgage crisis,” said Assemblyman Niello.

If you are burdened by an over-encumbered property that you no longer can afford, be sure to get competent legal advice on your rights and strategies to minimalize or possible eliminate your exposure to a financial judgment and debt forgiveness taxes.  If you have specific questions about your liability, foreclosure, or any legal issue, feel free to contact me at sjbeede@bpelaw.com.  Need help Coping with an Upside Down Loan? Checkout Steve’s audio-seminar and e-book at: http://www.stevebeede.com/copingwithanupsidedownmortgage/

As you know, a key point of President Obama’s Real Estate Recovery Plan unveiled last February was the proposal to allow Bankruptcy Court judges to reduced the principal balance on home mortgages (ie: cram-down”) to current market value.  To the cheers of upside-down homeowners and the jeers of the banking industry, the proposal was quickly brought up in the House of Representatives and was passed in mid-March with a close vote along party lines. Then it was off to the Senate where a vote was expected by Easter. It was not to be.

The banking industry found a much more receptive ear in the Senate.  The Bill’s sponsor, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) fought hard for passage arguing that this was necessary to avoid a wave of future foreclosures. The banking industry countered that allowing the courts to interfere with a mortgage contract would create greater risk in the economy, deter investors, make loans harder to get, and ultimately hurt future homeowners.  The bankers bolstered their lobbying with 12,450 letters to Senators from its members and flooding their inboxed with e-mails.  In the end, pressure swayed enough moderate Democrats to join with the Republicans and defeat the Bill 51-45.  Sentator Durbin plans to continue advocating a cram-down bill in the Senate but for now it is dead. Meanwhile, the hundreds of thousands of foreclosures that have been holding off for this Bill will now likely go forward.

If you are burdened by an over-encumbered property that you no longer can afford, be sure to get competent legal advice on your rights and strategies to minimalize or possible eliminate your exposure to a financial judgment and debt forgiveness taxes.  If you have specific questions about your liability, foreclosure, or any legal issue, feel free to contact me at sjbeede@bpelaw.com.  Need help Coping with an Upside Down Loan? Checkout Steve’s audio-seminar and e-book at: http://www.stevebeede.com/copingwithanupsidedownmortgage/

Much has been written since President Obama proposed giving Chapter 13 Bankrupcty Judges the power to “cram-down” home loans to current market value. Leglislation to do this passed the House of Representatives in March and is now stalled in the Senate.  The general impression in the marketplace has been that, other than for consumer debt such as boats and cars, cram-down was not available.  That might not be true.

Yesterday we wrote about how a little known legal filing under Bankruptcy Code 11 USC Section 506(a) may result in a cram-down of investment property valuation. This “506(a) Motion” as it has come to be called is used as part of a Chapter 13 Repayment Plan to do the consumer debt cram-down but most recently has found favor in reducing certain loans, particularly junior deeds of trust on investment property. See yesterday’s article for more.

An additional Code Section governing Chapter 13 Bankruptcies appears to also open the door for personal residence cram-downs when the loan must be paid off in a short time, such as a 5 year balloon loan. Under 11 USC Section 1322(c)(2), when the last payment of a loan’s original payment schedule for a loan secured only by the debtor’s principle residence is due before the date on which the final payment of the Ch 13 Plan is due, the Plan may provide for modification of the amount the lender claims is owed.  While this will not apply to everyone, anyone with a short term (ie: 5 years or less) payoff date on their loan needs to know about this.

If you or anyone you know is facing loss of their investment property or personal residence, make sure that they are getting competent and comprehensive legal advice that enables them to know where they stand and to formulate strategies to minimalize their risks and hopefully keep their property.

If you think that these cram-down Motions will benefit you in coping with your upside down properties, seek the advice of competent legal counsel as soon as possible to determine if you - and your property - qualify for this treatment.  If you have specific questions about your liability, foreclosure, or any legal issue, feel free to contact me at sjbeede@bpelaw.com.  Need help Coping with an Upside Down Loan? Checkout Steve’s audio-seminar and e-book at: http://www.stevebeede.com/copingwithanupsidedownmortgage/