News
On 3/5/09 the House of Representatives approved the bill giving Bankruptcy Judges the authority to reduce the mortgage debt owed on primary residences for homeowners going through bankruptcy as a last resort to avoid foreclosure proceedings. The Senate will take up this bill at a later date.
A Word about Foreclosures:
The vast majority of California residential foreclosures do not go through any court proceeding. Rather the law carefully regulates a method of notices of default and sale that can result in a transfer of ownership in 141 days from first contact. The corresponding right of the homeowner is that, in the typical case, there is no deficiency, that is if the home value is less than the amount the borrower owes the lender cannot pursue the borrower/homeowner for the rest. The rights of the homeowner can be lost there can also be tax consequences. The homeowners need legal advice to protect their rights.
A Bill to Give Bankruptcy Courts Authority over Mortgages.
Long rumored and opposed by the lending industry, it appears there may be a bill to give bankruptcy judges the authority to alter home mortgages. The House Judiciary Committee voted on January 27, 2009, to send the measure to the full House. The lending industry has argued that the measure will increase the cost for borrowers because of the heightened risks. Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan responded by limiting the bill to mortgages that existed before the bill becomes law. Going forward there should be no such heightened risk and arguably no increased costs.
The opposition Republicans argued not only increased lending cost but also the bill encouraged borrowers to file bankruptcy. Congressman Conyers argued the bill is a tangible step to “limit the fallout from the real estate depression sweeping the nation..”
Business related topics by Lawyers.com
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03.16.2007
The company that I work for has not been depositing my 401K monies; what can I do?
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03.16.2007
We are looking for a lawyer for my mother-in-law. She is trying to collect her deceased husband's pension. What area of law does that fall under?
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03.19.2007
To build a case against YouTube, Viacom turned to a Silicon Valley company to sniff out pirated clips on the popular video- sharing site. Viacom, which last week sued YouTube and parent company Google Inc. for publishing its videos on the Web without its permission, hired BayTSP Inc. in October and asked the Los Gatos technology company to scour the site and find the offending clips. By the time Viacom filed its $1 billion lawsuit, BayTSP had amassed more than 160,000 unauthorized videos, snippets from "South Park," "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," "SpongeBob SquarePants" and other popular shows owned by MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and other Viacom networks. YouTube says it took all those videos down.
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03.16.2007
AT&T Inc.'s mobile phone unit agreed to pay $30.6 million to settle an investigation by California regulators over early-termination fees charged to wireless customers.
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03.16.2007
Student loan providers are engaged in widespread illegal and deceptive practices, including kickbacks to colleges for directing students to lenders, New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. A nationwide investigation by his office revealed all-expense-paid trips to luxury Caribbean resorts for college financial aid officers and their spouses as well as college call centers secretly manned by lenders, Cuomo said. He did not single out specific lenders or schools. "A student's first lesson in college should not be in consumer fraud," Cuomo said. "The school-lender relationships are often for the benefit of the school at the expense of the student."
