One of my firm’s clients was being foreclosed by his mortgage lender. No foreclosure action was started because he owns a co-op and in New York that is treated more like personal property than real estate. A co-op owner has stock in the co-op corporation that owns the building and also has a proprietary lease to use his unit in the building. Mortgage lenders usually hold on to the stock as collateral. When the mortgage is not paid and a default is declared the lender may choose to notice a foreclosure sale without actually suing – meaning that there is no judicial foreclosure started. That is what happened here putting our client in the unusual position of having to sue his own lender to obtain a restraining order to stop the sale. So our client actually was a plaintiff and his lender was a defendant. Read more

Recent news stories have mentioned some relief that may be available for homeowners harmed by foreclosure abuses.

Some relief for victims of foreclosures

$8.5 billion settlement for foreclosure victims

R.C. and Stacy Davis lost their condominium to foreclosure in 2009, a bad break that seemed destined to keep them from buying another home for many years. Yet on Wednesday — only three years after their foreclosure — the couple signed the papers to buy a four-bedroom house in Livermore. Read the story.