{"id":272,"date":"2017-11-02T02:55:55","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T02:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/64.91.241.0\/~steve360regrp\/?p=272"},"modified":"2017-11-02T02:55:55","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T02:55:55","slug":"foreclosure-scams-salt-wound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/foreclosure-scams-salt-wound","title":{"rendered":"Foreclosure Scams: Salt in the Wound"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every single day I speak with people who are in foreclosure. These conversations always have several things in common: A stressed, and frustrated homeowner, a bank that has been utterly useless in terms of making the situation any better, and the one that burns me up more than anything else \u2013 someone who has attempted, or worse, succeeded at taking advantage of the homeowner in distress, by attempting to perpetrate any number of scams.<\/p>\n

I want to cover three of the most common scenarios I come across so that if you run into any of them, you\u2019ll know to run away from them just as fast as you can.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Upfront Fees\u00a0<\/strong>I can\u2019t tell you the amount of money that people I speak with have spent on bogus, illegal, upfront fees. It is illegal for anyone \u2013 and I mean ANYONE \u2013 to ask you for an upfront fees in connection with helping you with a home in foreclosure \u2013 particularly for a modification.\u00a0This includes attorneys.\u00a0<\/em>A lot of attorneys will say they are charging you a legal retainer fee for \u201cother services.\u201d If those services really amount to modification services, however, no fees can be charged legally.<\/li>\n
  2. Bankruptcy<\/strong>\u00a0Since I\u2019m on the topic of attorneys \u2026 Remember that they are not exempt from dirty, unethical practice. A dozen times a month I talk to people who have read advertising by attorney\u2019s offices that states that they can \u201cget you out of foreclosure,\u201d the implication being that they can truly solve your problem. Clients file bankruptcy thinking that they are safe, not realizing that bankruptcy is only a temporary solution, that buys you some time to figure things out.\u00a0It is not permanent.<\/em>\u00a0If you come across an attorney who leads you to believe that it is the answer to all your questions, try reporting him to the State Bar. And don\u2019t pay him anything.<\/li>\n
  3. Short Sale Scams<\/strong>\u00a0It is illegal for you to receive any benefit from the sale of your home if it is done through a short sale, unless the bank approves it. And unless you are receiving $3500 from the HAFA Program, or the bank has agreed to a nominal amount of \u201ccash for keys\u201d the bank won\u2019t approve it, trust me. A good friend of mine who was substantially upside down on her property had someone approach her and promise to give her $30,000 if she would allow him to \u201chelp her\u201d with her short sale. Not only is this unlikely, but if you accept money from an agent or investor who agrees to \u201cshare\u201d in the monies earned by them through commissions, you could be breaking the law, and are subject to penalty, fine and imprisonment.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I\u2019ll cover more pitfalls to watch out for in a future post, but if you or someone you know is in foreclosure, these three seem to be some of the most popular. If you should see any shenanigans coming your way, now you will know what to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Every single day I speak with people who are in foreclosure. These conversations always have several things in common: A stressed, and frustrated homeowner, a bank that has been utterly useless in terms of making the situation any better, and the one that burns me up more than anything else \u2013 someone who has attempted, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/360realestategroup.com\/360admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}