Group items tagged

It was agreed by nonprofit housing counseling agencies and housing rights advocates that foreclosure rescue scams are still common in the Bay Area, and there's no need for homeowners in distress to empty their pockets paying for private attorneys. Because of the sudden death of the family's primary breadwinner, Tatakamotongas of East Palo Alto suffered from mortgage payments. They decided to seek help with obtaining a loan modification to lower their monthly payments and due to this they came into contact with a scammer rather than legal help. "The advice they gave me was 'Don't make any more payments at all. The longer you are backed up, the more we can help you.' And so of course I believed them," says Mele Tatakamotonga. The scammer was a private attorney. He told them to stop paying their mortgage so that they will qualify for a modification and charged them $3,000 for the assistance. But as expected from a scammer, after paying the fee the phone number had been disconnected. "Foreclosure rescue and mortgage modification scams are continuing and getting bolder," says Vanitha Venugopal, program director of Community Development and Investment at The San Francisco Foundation. Homeowners must pay for help with loan modifications and other housing issues because scams continue to be rampant, advocates say. The Tatakamotongas finally found Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, a nonprofit law office, which collected the family's money from the dishonest attorney, and assisted them with obtaining a loan modification. Maeve Elise Brown, Executive Director of Housing and Economic Rights Advocates (HERA) in Oakland, another organization that offers free legal aid, warns that scams are commonly carried out by unscrupulous attorneys. Brown also says that the media needs to be wary of running scammers' advertisements. Many homeowners looking for help contact scammers that they find through television and radio ads. According to Leah Si

The Bank of England plans to cut its support for mortgage lending in the U.K. and nudge banks towards lending more to small businesses, it said Thursday, November 28. The move is an answer to increasing concern that a speedy pickup in housing market activity in Britain could ultimately turn unpleasant, affecting banks and borrowers, and also as longstanding worries that small firms are being starved of credit, hindering economic recovery. What's more, it is a sample of the growing willingness of central banks across the globe to organize customized policies to maneuver their economies, rather than relying exclusively on official interest. The BOE said in its twice-yearly financial stability report that although there is little evidence that quickening activity in Britain's housing market poses an immediate threat to financial stability, "risks may grow if stronger activity is accompanied by further substantial and rapid increases in house prices and a further buildup in household indebtedness." The central bank said property has played "a central role" in many previous economic and financial crises. In the U.K., real estate accounts for 70% of non-financial assets. House prices in the U.K. have climbed speedily in past months, formed worries over the materialization of a new bubble in prices. A government mortgage-support program for would-be homebuyers called Help-to-Buy had pave the way for a boost in mortgage lending, together with an increase in the number of riskier loans on offer that entail merely a small down payment. The BOE said that in response to the pickup in housing-market activity and an ongoing dearth in small-business lending it has decided to overhaul its flagship Funding-for-Lending Scheme, or FLS, which offers banks cheap cash provided they use it to dish out loans to households and businesses. Banks drawing on the FLS will from January no longer benefit from reduced capital requirements on new mortgage lo

When you need cash to be credited into your account instantly, one of the best solutions that you can rely on is instant cash loans. These loans are made available to you without your credit history being verified, faxing of documents, and cumbersome paperwork.