Lenders are having difficulty foreclosing on property. The root cause of the problem lies in the loan paperwork completed by the borrower at the time of origination. These vitally important documents are beginning to show up missing, executed incorrectly, lacking originals or lost through the process of the packaging and selling bundles of these loans and/or subsequently selling these bundles more than once.
Picture someone giving you a check and you losing that check. That's kind of like what it means to lose an original Note a borrower signs. To compensate for this issue, in some cases, investigators are discovering that attorneys, their paralegals and/or the automated MERS system processed incorrect or outright false paperwork to compensate for the lender not having their loan documents in order. Now, we're seeing where recognized foreclosure firms are no longer being sent business by these lenders. It's a real mess for lenders and foreclosing attorneys alike. Loan Paperwork Mistakes = Opportunities For Investors: This paperwork debocle can be an opportunity for investors. How? First, it is important to point out that the number of properties in pre-foreclosure is rapidly increasing in proportion to the the number of REOs. More pre foreclosure deals sitting in limbo, unable to be foreclosed upon, opens up the opportunity to negotiate more short sale and loan modification deals. Further, since the paperwork on some these deals maybe incorrect, investors may be able to negotiate better short sales and loan modifications than ever before. But it even gets better. Through the use of certain highly specialized attorneys, it may even be possible, provided the loan paperwork was done completely incorrect, for the loan to be fully wiped off the property. Imagine buying a $200,000 property for $0 + attorneys fees. This is what a select few attorneys are hard at work on right now. There are no reported incidences of this occurrence yet...but you just wait. Qualified Written Request: The specific way to ensure you are ahead of the game on this paperwork pandemic is to submit a Qualified Written Request to the lender or lenders on every deal you are working on. Although the federal law requiring lenders to respond to this request is only applicable to primary residences, oftentimes lenders overlook this detail and comply on non-owner occupied deals as well. The Qualified Written Request must be mailed to the exact correct address in order for the lender to comply. These are in our Lender Database. The Qualified Written Request is in our system. If you want to be ahead of the game, it's time to join our program.