Los Angeles Bankruptcy Law Monitor : Los Angeles Bankruptcy Lawyer & Attorney : Christine Wilton Law Firm : Southern California Chapter 13 & Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, Foreclosure

Yep. You read that right. Filing for bankruptcy will improve your sex life. No blue pills; no magic bullet; and no better way to improve your sex life than to powerfully deal with DEBT by filing for bankruptcy.  The reasoning is simple:

The same reason that got you into DEBT is the same reason it's crippling you now, emotionally, and making your sex life miserable or even non-existent; it's your personal identity or EGO!

You got into DEBT to buy things you didn't need with money you did not have in order to look good and be attractive to the opposite sex. You did this in order to get sex.  Unfortunately, you failed to plan for a way out of debt and now find yourself stuck in a hole too deep to dig yourself out of. [No pun intended]

This financial burden weighs heavily on your personal identity ("EGO") and your self worth is tied up in your wallet, so much so that you are emotionally drained according to psychotherapist Phil Tyson, Ph.D. who wrote, Do You Understand the Psychology of Debt?  I've even written about your emotional ties to money in my white paper entitled, Money is a Matter of the Heart.  So, how do I suggest you improve your sex life?  Deal powerfully with your DEBT by filing bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy is a powerful tool that will eliminate the stress in your life that will allow you to get that much needed sleep.  Getting enough sleep actually helps reduce stress. Less stress means your self esteem goes up. When stress goes down and self esteem rises, you will feel better about yourself.  When you feel better about yourself, you're happier and want to have sex. Oh, and you're much more attractive to the opposite sex when you're happy. Therefore, filing bankruptcy will improve your SEX LIFE!

Contrary to popular belief, filing bankruptcy will actually improve your credit score too, and it eliminates your legal obligation to pay your debts permanently.  It's better than debt settlement because you won't owe any money to the IRS on debts discharged in bankruptcy, like you would if you negotiated a settlement of your debts.  In bankruptcy, you can use Exemptions to protect your property from being taken by the trustee and still eliminate your debts.  Most bankruptcy lawyers offer FREE consultations.  You're worth it to eliminate your debts and your sex life will improve.  Now that's just plain sexy.

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If you're a California homeowner considering filing bankruptcy to save your home and potentially litigate against your alleged mortgage creditor, there are some steps you can take now to help your bankruptcy litigation attorney later.

First, gather up all your original mortgage loan documents and have them available for your attorney. Keep these loan documents safe and save every notice, account statement,etc. as this information may become important pieces of evidence later on.

Next, you will want to contact your current loan servicer and obtain some very important information about your loan. You'll do this by making what is called a Qualified Written Request ("QWR") under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act ("RESPA").

The QWR must be sent to a special address for the loan servicer and that address is usually the "correspondence" address found on the back side of your monthly mortgage statement.  It's best to send this request via certified mail so you can record and prove they actually received your request.

Below is a sample of the letter you could write under RESPA:

Dear Sir or Madam:

 

Please treat this letter as a “qualified written request” under the Federal Servicer Act, which is a part of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, 12 U.S.C. 2605(e).  This request is made on behalf of my Clients about the proper application of payments from the debtors to interest, principal, escrow advances and expenses (in that order of priority as provided for in the loan instruments); about your use of suspense accounts in connection with your receipt of the debtors’ payments; about your use of legacy late charges; about your use of automatically triggered property inspections and broker price opinion charges and fees based on pre-petition legacy accounting for pre-petition arrears; and about legal fees and expenses that have been attached to this account in the form of corporate advances.  Specifically, I am requesting the following information:

1.       A complete and original life of loan transaction history prepared by the Servicer from it's own records using it's own system and default servicing personnel.

 

2.       A copy of your Key Loan Transaction history, bankruptcy work form, or XLS spreadsheet of all accounts associated with this mortgage loan.

 

3.       The Transaction Codes.

 

4.       The Code definitions in plain English.

 

5.       Please attach a copy of the MERS Milestone Reports.

 

6.       Please identify the full name, address and telephone number of the current holder of the original mortgage note including the name, address and phone number of any Trustee under the Trust or other fiduciary.  This request is being made pursuant to Section 1641(f)(2) of the Truth In Lending Act, which requires the servicer to identify the holder of the debt.

 

7.       Copies of all collection notes, collection records, communication files or any other form of recorded data with respect to any communications between you and the debtor.

 

8.       An itemized statement of the full amount needed to reinstate the mortgage as of the date of your response.

 

9.       Copies of all written or recorded communications between you and any non-lawyer third parties regarding this mortgage.

 

10.     All P-309 screen shots of the history all of the accounts (principal, interest, escrow, late charges, legal fees, property inspection fees, broker price opinion fees, statutory expense fees, miscellaneous fees, corporate advance fees, etc.) associated with this loan.

 

To the extent that the servicer of this mortgage loan has charged the debtor’s mortgage loan account any appraisal fees, broker price opinion fees, property inspection/preservation fees, legal fees, recoverable corporate advances and other fees or costs that were not disclosed to the debtors, the debtors dispute any such fees and costs and specifically request that the account be corrected.

Once you have the response from the loan servicer, make an appointment to meet with your Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Litigation Attorney to review the documents and start your bankruptcy case. Remember that most consumer bankruptcy attorneys will offer a FREE initial consultation to help you decide if filing bankruptcy is right for you.  Even if you don't intend to file bankruptcy, a qualified written request will provide you with important information about your mortgage and the creditor.

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U.S. Bank misled the Debtor into abandoning bankruptcy by promising to work with the Debtor on a mortgage reinstatement and loan modification. The case, Aceves v. U.S. Bank, N.A., No. B220922 (Cal.App. Dist.2 01/27/11) the California Court of Appeal for the 2d Appellate Division found that the Debtor could have reasonably relied on the bank's promises, the promises were sufficiently concrete to be enforceable, and the Debtor's decision to forgo Chapter 13 relief was detrimental because it allowed the bank to foreclose on the property. Here's my favorite part:

"Contrary to the bank's contention that Plaintiff's use of the Bankruptcy Code was ipso facto bad faith, Chapter 13 is uniquely tailored to protect homeowners' primary residences from foreclosure," the appellate court said.

After the debtor abandoned her case, the lender foreclosed.  The trial court entered a judgment in favor of U.S. Bank and the appellate court reversed on the issues of promissory estoppel and fraud. This means that if the lender promises to work with you and then they later foreclose after you have taken action in reliance on their promise, the lender could be liable for their actions.  Unfortunately, this story does not have the happiest of endings because the court found no basis for voiding the deed of sale or otherwise invalidating the foreclosure.

The moral of this story is that you receive valuable rights under Chapter 13 Bankruptcy that will stop the foreclosure sale through the injunction provision of 11 U.S.C. §362 (Automatic Stay). The bankruptcy court can reinstate your loan and will permit you to cure your default through Chapter 13 Plan payments over 3 or 5 years. Since Congress refuses to allow bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of the loan, you'll have hire an attorney who focuses their practice on predatory lending, mortgage fraud and the securitized mortgage pools to determine whether you have legal claims that could potentially be litigated during the pendency of your bankruptcy case.

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I'm a member of a Credit Union and have several accounts with them.  I've heard of this mysterious 'cross-collateralization' CLAUSE and thought I would do some investigation so we can all sleep better.  Arizona Bankruptcy Attorney John Skiba wrote, Bankruptcy, Credit Unions & Cross Collateralization Agreements, over at JDSupra, which provides a very brief and technically incorrect overview of Credit Union's dirty little tricks to get you to pay all your debts owed to them.  What we all need to know is, Can they get away with it?

The term cross-collateralization is not an agreement on its own, but rather it is a clause contained in other agreements that you might enter into with your credit union.  A contract clause is a term or condition that is written into the agreement that becomes part of the contract.  The trouble with these nasty little clauses is that credit unions are the only entities that think they're a good idea and these clauses are not disclosed to the consumer and buried in the fine print or what we call 'boilerplate' language. I liken this baby clause as happy when you're paying your debts and an incessant whiner when you stop.

Whenever you borrow money to buy say an automobile, or home, you list that property as collateral. The promissory note you sign has certain Truth in Lending Act ("TILA") Disclosures that are required. The problem comes in when you obtain unsecured credit lines with the credit union that contain this cross-collateralization clause that says that they can attach other debts to any collateralized loans obtained from this credit union.  This clause is buried in the credit agreements that are usually discarded by debtors without so much as a glance and do not contain any TILA disclosures. At their most fundamental level, these clauses violate Truth in Lending.

What also jumps out to me is Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices in the Credit Union's use and enforcement of these junk clauses. It is patently offensive and unconscionable to include this cross-collateralization clause buried in a consumer loan agreement that is not disclosed to the consumer prior to entering into that agreement.  Then, when a consumer defaults on the loan or credit, then the Credit Union violates Fair Debt Collection Practices in their attempts to enforce this clause.

What happens in bankruptcy is that we must look at whether the agreements are enforceable.  If they are enforceable, then the debts owed are secured.  If the agreements are unenforceable, we will treat them as unsecured debts. 

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