Chase parallel foreclosure victim wins house back

By Henni Espinosa, ABS-CBN North America Bureau . Redwood Shores, CA – 73-year Corazon Palma made history when she became the first person in California to win her house back from her lender even after her 4-bedroom house in San Jose, California was foreclosed.

Palma staged a battle against Washington Mutual through a wrongful foreclosure lawsuit – and she refused to back down.

Palma is a cancer-survivor who lives on a fixed income. So in 2008, she asked her lender to lower her monthly mortgage payments of $3,900 a month.

A year later, she said that her lender promised to send her a loan modification packet. Instead, a Coldwell Banker real estate broker came to her house to notify her that her house had been foreclosed at a Trustee Sale.

Palma said, “I was so shocked. It felt like a bucket of cold water fell on me. When they gave me the note, I called my attorney.”

She sought the help of Attorney Kenneth Graham, who represents many Filipino homeowners in Northern California.

Graham said, “WAMU deceived Mrs. Palma into thinking they were making loan modification efforts on her behalf while they were secretly planning a foreclosure sale on the property.”

Her fight in court paid off. Last January, a judge ruled that Palma be awarded back her house.

Last Friday, she attended a court hearing in San Jose to find out the terms of the judgment. Palma would have to wait until December 3 to know if she will end up getting her house back for free.

Graham said, “The best case scenario for Mrs. Palma is if a judge rules that the lender has no further right to exercise the loan against the property. Hence, Mrs. Palma gets the property for free.”

Worst case scenario for Palma – is that she continues to pay her mortage but at a lower monthly rate.

No matter the judgment, Palma said she’s glad she won the fight to keep her home.

She said, “But I know other homeowners are being abused as well and lenders really need to be taught a lesson for deceptive practices to stop.”

If you are an abused homeowner and feel that your house has been wrongfully foreclosed, you may contact the Law Offices of Kenneth Graham at (925) 932-0170 or visit their office at 1575 Treat Blvd. #105, Walnut Creek, California or their website, www.elaws.com.

Hints of a Chase class-action

I came across this ad recently:

Seeking former Washington mutual and Countrywide underwriters, management personel & pro

Great opportunity for the right individuals. We are currently seeking as many as several dozen temp/contract employees with imediate review for hire. great compensation program and flexible schedual gas allowance and many other benefit’s. please email rich at [email address removed] initially only applicants with prior work exp at either countrywide mortgage, countrywide financial or washington mutual

• Location: anywhere

• Post ID: 6410804

Doesn’t that sound like someone going after Chase or BofA for loans written by WaMu or Countrywide and looking for former employees to spill the beans?

Chase minimum payment class-action lawsuit

I’ve just been informed of a class action lawsuit against Chase related to the raising of minimum payments.

On July 26, 2009, Girard Gibbs LLP and co-counsel filed a consolidated class action lawsuit against Chase on behalf of a national class of consumers in the District Court of Northern California. The complaint alleges that beginning in November 2008, Chase began notifying consumers participating in the low APR, fixed for life offers that their minimum monthly payment would increase from 2% of the loan balance to 5% of the loan balance, and some accounts would also be charged a $10 service fee, which Chase now says it has refunded.

For most customers the increase in the minimum payment meant that they suddenly had to come up with hundreds of extra dollars each month to meet this new payment requirement.

Girard Gibbs attorney, Eric H. Gibbs, states, “Chase’s conduct is having a real impact on our clients, particularly in these tough economic times. Our clients are people who made sound decisions in how to manage their long term debt, only to have Chase change the rules because it is not reaping enough profit from our clients’ accounts. It is an important issue for the courts to address in a meaningful way.”

For more information and to join the lawsuit, please see:  http://www.girardgibbs.com/chase.asp

Chase loses big in TILA fraud case

This story is good in so many ways.  Homeowner Paul Nguyen sued Chase for Truth in Lending Act violations for a loan that he says he was fraudulently led into.  It would have been a great story if Nguyen simply won against Chase in a court of law and received damages, but the story is so much better than that.

First, Chase simply didn’t show up for the case.  Did not appear.  One might interpret this to mean they were so guilty they felt that putting on any kind of defense might just make things appear even worse than they are.

So as a result of Chase not showing up, Nguyen wins a default judgment.  The judge rescinds the promissory note between Nguyen and Chase, thereby giving Nguyen the home free and clear, wiping out his debt.  Then the judge goes even further by awarding Nguyen damages, expected to amount to about $16,000, and also awards him attorneys fees, also in the tens of thousands of dollars.

A very solid win.

Is JP Morgan Chase looking to triple dip in the WaMu deal?

Chase clearly got a steal of a deal when it acquired the assets of Washington Mutual for under $2 billion in 2008.  With the deal, they got 2000 branches, $188 billion in sorely needed deposits and some huge potential gains on assets that they initial severely wrote down.  Additionally, they negotiated a heck of a deal with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so as not to be responsible for any of the loans WaMu sold off to investors blowing up.  Their deal was so good, they recently estimated that they stand to make about $25 billion from Washington Mutual’s mortgages above what they original estimated in 2008.

So why do they keep trying to go back and get an even better deal?

For one, they have been trying to grab some of Washington Mutual’s $6 or so billion in tax credits for two years now.

Now, some leaked letters that JP Morgan Chase sent to the FDIC indicate that they are demanding the FDIC pay them more than $6 billion to cover the costs of WaMu related lawsuits.

Seriously?  Even with $6 billion in lawsuit related costs, how was this not a smoking good deal for JP Morgan Chase?  Aren’t they getting a little greedy?

double triple

Couple brings car loan current, Chase reposesses anyways

I’ve wondered for a while now, given all the bad behavior from Chase I see, whether they are inept or malicious.  I am beginning to lean towards malicious and this next story is another strike in that direction.

In short, it appears that Chase told a couple that if they brought their loan current, their car would not be repossessed.  The couple came in and paid their loan current, and that evening Chase had their car reposssessed.

This seems very similar to what Chase has been doing with people late on their mortgages, telling them to keep paying a trial modification all the while working on foreclosure in parallel.  It all just seems like Chase’s standard operating procedure for getting more money out of customers any way they can, even if they have to lie to do it.

Court voids deed of trust for Chase TILA violations

Another win for the opposition.  Homeowner Paul Nguyen took Chase to court for violations of the Truth in Lending Act.  After a year-long legal battle, the court found in favor of Nguyen and voided his deed of trust with Chase bank, effectively wiping out his mortgage.  Furthermore, they awarded Nguyen $4,000 for each TILA violation for a total of $16,000. Here is a link to a lot more information on this case for anyone that might want to use Nguyen experience and research to take Chase to court.

I dont know how many people take it upon themselves to challenge their bank; but I was an experience I will never forget.  I challenged Chase on my mortgage based on TILA violations.  The bank retained a large law firm in So. CA with 3 lawyers.  So much motions and procedures to learn and apply as the case moved along in the last year.  Finally, the case went to trial yesterday.  The court finally rendered judgment in plaintiffs’ favor in voiding the deed of trust.  As far as the outstanding loan, it is forfeited and the bank would have to take that lost.  Furthermore, the court imposed statutory damages of $4k for each violations which amounted to about $16k.

I am in the process of preparing the judgment for the court to sign along with tax cost.  Believe it or not, I have expended over $10k in cost alone; which includes expert witness cost.

So much research was done and I hate to see it goes to waste.  If you have access to PACER, everything is there for public use.  Best of luck to all fighting the bank now and keep up your spirit.

Chase has no plans to make credit/debit ordering more reasonable

Chase has been highly criticized for its practice of posting large transactions first at the end of the day, thus making it more likely that smaller transactions will cause more overdrafts and Chase can charge more overdraft fees.

Chase has defended this practice claiming that this is what customers want, as it insures that big important payments will be paid.  Consumer groups widely dispute that this is really what consumers want.

Recently, Wells Fargo was ordered by a judge to pay $200 million to customers for overdrafts generated by this exact scheme.

Chase’s response to the judgment is to claim that they have no intent of changing the way they apply debits.

To be fair, it isn’t just Chase that does this; it seems to be common at large banks and BofA, Wells Fargo (as mentioned above) and Citibank all do this.