Here is a short primer on the steps in the foreclosure process in NewYork. Our state is a judicial foreclosures state, meaning that the lender sues you in court to foreclose. Usually, the suit is in the Supreme Court for the County where the property is located, but it can sometimes be in Federal Court too. The entire foreclosure process can typically take 6 to 12 months depending on how aggressive or lazy the lender’s counsel is and how busy the court is. Read more

MSNBC is reporting that the FBI arrested nine people who had a scheme in Queens to use fake identities to get bank loans through New Generation Funding, a mortgage broker. The moral of the story for the worried homeowner is to choose your mortgage broker carefully. They are not all the same.

Here is the story: Read more

One foreclosure solution that some homeowners try is called the sale-leaseback, where they sell the property to an investor and lease it back for a period of time, often with an option to repurchase. This alternative has many ptifalls and is usually only a last resort for someone who cannot qualify for refinancing and for whatever reason cannot file a Chapter 13 case. I will write about this in more detail in future posts, including the impact of New York State’s new law, the Home Equity Theft Prevention Act, which imposes strict requirements on these transactions in order to protect a homeowner. One blog that has noted a recent case in this area is the HomeEquityTheft blog. Here is a well-written post on a recent case. My only concern is that the blog does not identify the author and I find anonymous blogs troubling, especially when they involve legal issues. I hope that the author will take this to heart and identify him or herself. As a general rule, I tell my clients to run as far away as possible from anonymous foreclosure blogs. In this case, I’ll make an exception because this post is useful for homeowners: NYC Foreclosure Rescue Federal Lawsuit Settled.