Learn the types of foreclosure defense cases we will NOT take
We can and have helped all sorts of Alabama folks facing foreclosure. But there are some folks that we cannot and will not help.
I’m not trying to be unkind but if you fall into one of these categories, there is nothing we can do to help you.
Here’s the list of foreclosure defense cases we will not accept and then we’ll dive a bit deeper into each type of person:
- Folks who are not willing to do anything to help themselves
- Consumers are not willing to pay anything to save your home
- The idea of spending time or money to save their home seems absurd to them
Let’s look at each one of these with some examples of foreclosure defense cases we refuse to take. (Obviously, we have changed the names and some details to protect privacy and these examples are also a combination of different folks that we have met over the years).
And a final point — certainly we must believe any client we take has the facts and law on their side to be succesful. We cannot guarantee victory but we only take cases that we feel good about.
We have met great potential foreclosure defense clients who are willing to do whatever it takes but they simply don’t have a case. Not talking about those folks in this article.
Instead, we are going to discuss people who actually have good cases but because of their own actions — and refusal to act — we cannot accept them as a foreclosure defense client.
Folks who are not willing to do anything to help themselves
Billy from Mobile calls our office and tells us the terrible misconduct by the mortgage company. We have seen it dozens of times and we know we can help Billy.
So we tell Billy to gather the proof that he made his payments or that the mortgage company sent him a certain letter or whatever it might be.
But Billy will not do it.
“I know I was done wrong so I should not have to do anything. It is everyone else’s responsibility to take care of this. The lawyer. The judge. Mortgage company. But I won’t do anything because I should not have to do anything.”
Now Billy may have a great case. A case that we could really help him with to stop a foreclosure. Get him money damages from the mortgage company.
But we can’t do anything because Billy won’t do anything.
If Billy had a bad back and the doctor gave him exercises but he refused to do them, would his back get better? If Billy is given medicine and refuses to take it, will just knowing the medicine would help actually do any good?
Nope.
If someone won’t help themselves, we can’t help.
To be blunt, I’m not a social worker. I cannot care more about your situation than you care. I’m a lawyer and an advocate and we can do great things but only with clients who are willing to work.
Consumers who are not willing to pay anything to help save their homes
With very rare exceptions, you need to be willing to pay money to help save your home if you are wanting to hire us.
What we charge is very fair based upon the benefit we get for folks. But what about those who will not pay?
Carol from Greystone (Birmingham) came to us one time wanting to save her 1.5 million dollar home.
OK we can do that. It was going to be tough but we had a real shot at success.
But.
She only wanted to pay us nothing. And then ultimately her mortgage company a whopping $500 a month.
She insisted that she be allowed to keep her 7 figure home for $500 a month.
We pointed out this is absurd — no way she gets to only pay her mortgage company $500 a month on a 7 figure loan.
She said she was used to living in such a fancy house and it would be unfair for her to go a cheap house that is worth less than 7 figures.
At first I thought she was trying (poorly) to be funny but then realized she was serious. She truly and sincerely thought she had some “God-given right” to only live in a certain neighborhood and in a certain price of home.
No such right exists.
And she insisted that she should be able to get the best lawyer and barely pay that lawyer. I pointed out the mortgage company would fight like the devil over her house. She didn’t care — lawyers should represent her for free.
We declined.
She got mad and said we were depriving her of her ability to stay in her home (remember her “God-given right” delusion).
The idea of spending time or money in a foreclosure defense case to save their home seems absurd to them
This is similar to the above but not so extreme. Here’s what I mean.
Sam from Huntsville came to see us about a foreclosure. We reviewed his case and felt good about stopping the foreclosure so he could keep his home.
He told us keeping his home was “mission critical”.
We completely understand — your home is your castle. You don’t want to be kicked out — you want to stay there and raise your family there.
We explain several things Sam needs to do:
- Get us his mortgage
- Send us his mortgage statements
- Help us put together a time line of what happened to him as the dates can be critical
- Talk to us after we draft the lawsuit but before we file it
He gladly agreed to do 1-3. But said he did not have time to talk to us — once he hired us, he was not interested in doing any work.
We explained that the client always has to be involved.
He thought that was unfair — after all, he said he was the victim here and wasn’t it enough he was thinking about paying us?
We gave him our fee for his unique situation.
He wanted to negotiate our fee. In over 20 years of practicing, I have never negotiated a fee. I set the fee and folks agree to it or don’t agree with it. If they agree and pay, then we represent them.
If they don’t agree, then they find another lawyer.
Sam said he could not afford our fee.
We pointed out if he could not afford our fee, he could not afford his mortgage payments if we got his foreclosure stopped and got him back on track paying his mortgage.
He said, “Oh, I can afford my house payment but not your fee. I have kids, doctor bills to pay, a vacation to go on, etc. I can’t pay you your fee but once you get my mortgage back on track I can pay it.”
That’s a terrible warning sign to us. That tells us that the client — Sam — cannot really pay his mortgage. If he won’t pay us, he won’t pay his mortgage.
So even if we stop the foreclosure, all we are doing is “rearranging the chairs on the Titanic” as he is going to get foreclosed in the near future.
Bottom line — we will only take on foreclosure defense clients who are serious about saving their home
Bottom line is if you want to save your home you will have to do some work and will have to spend some money. No way around this.
If keeping your home is truly “mission critical” then it is obvious that you will do the work you need to do and pay the money you need to pay to save your home.
We only have a limited number of new foreclosure defense clients we can take a month so we only agree to represent people who are serious about saving their home.
If this describes you, then feel free to reach out to us by phone (easiest) — call us at 205-879-2447. Let the receptionist know the date your foreclosure is scheduled (if you have a date). Or you can fill out the form below.
We look forward to helping you any way we can.
PS Here are some resources for you if you want to do more research. ForeclosureDVD.com is where we have a free training video and workbook for you.
You can go to the secret that your mortgage company does not want you to know about when facing foreclosure.
Finally you may want to read the article about the default letter and how so many are invalid under Alabama law.