Protesters to Bank of America: Pay Your Taxes

On April 15, in the run up to this year's Tax Day, hundreds of protesters descended on a Bank of America branch in Union Square, New York City. They demanded that big banks start paying their fair share of taxes and stop foreclosures, and they also called for the government to break up banks that are "too big to fail." Around fifty people entered the lobby of a nearby Bank of America branch with signs reading, "Stop Foreclosures! People Before Profits!" and "We pay our taxes. Why doesn't Bank of America?"

New and Notes from NYC Council Member Ruben Wills - Council District 38

COUNCIL MEMBERS RUBEN WILLS AND LEROY COMRIE JOIN NON-PROFIT HOUSING ORGANIZATIONS TO ANNOUNCE HOMEOWNER PRESERVATION EVENTS

DISTRICT-WIDE EVENTS WILL HELP RESIDENTS BETTER NEGOTIATE THROUGH MORTGAGE DELINQUENCY

Council Member Ruben Wills and City Council Deputy Majority Leader Leroy Comrie join advocates from the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, CHANGER, Inc., and residents to announce two upcoming homeowner preservation seminars on Saturday, April 16 in the 28th district. Free services and homeowner access will be available on Saturday, April 23 at the 4th Rise Up & Stay Put! Home Rescue Fair at York College. (Photo credit: Office of Council Member Ruben Wills)

Council Member Ruben Wills and City Council Deputy Majority Leader Leroy Comrie, were joined today by Mike Hickey, Executive Director for the Center for New York City Neighborhoods (CNYCN); Yeneika Puran, Executive Director of CHANGER, Inc.; Connect Queens Campaign Coordinator, Rick Echevarria, and residents to announce two upcoming homeowner preservation events in the 28^th district that are designed to assist residents at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure or mortgage delinquency, as well as a homeowner rescue fair at York College to connect homeowners with services and information.

On Saturday, April 16, from 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. at New Haven Ministries in Richmond Hill, and again from 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. at Praise Tabernacle in Jamaica, homeownership preservation events will take place to educate residents about successful strategies and negotiations through mortgage delinquency.

“While the country has shifted its attention to other pressing matters, the neighborhoods that I represent are still struggling with escalating foreclosures, bad mortgage modifications and greedy predatory lenders,” said Wills. “The foreclosure epidemic in Southeast Queens threatens to upset our efforts to improve our quality of life and our chances of owning a piece of the American dream. I am determined to ensure that struggling homeowners in Southeast Queens are educated and no longer vulnerable consumers that continue to lose their wealth as a result of gluttonous lending institutions.”

“I want to encourage Queens homeowners who find themselves in danger of foreclosure to attend the Home Rescue Fair on April 23,” stated New York City Council Deputy Majority Leader Leroy Comrie. “I am proud to join my colleague, Council Member Wills, in continuously raising awareness about this issue. The Southeast Queens community has been disproportionately affected by the foreclosure crisis, due to the increasing number of defaults on subprime mortgages that require homeowners to use a higher ratio of their income. Jamaica, Hollis, St. Albans, Woodhaven, Richmond Hill and Ozone Park- primarily communities of color –are consistently among the top neighborhoods in New York City leading in new foreclosure actions and foreclosure auctions. My office has partnered with organizations like the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, Queens Legal Services and Neighborhood Housing Services of Jamaica to offer free foreclosure counseling in community-wide events and in my district office every Friday afternoon. No one should suffer in silence as they lose their home when there is free assistance available.”

“We recognize Council Member Wills as a local leader who has invested his talent and passion to fight the foreclosure crisis in New York City, especially in Southeast Queens, which remains hard hit by this epidemic,” said Michael Hickey, Executive Director of CNYCN. “Currently, there are 30,000 pending foreclosure actions in New York City and we expect things to worsen in 2011 as general economic conditions remain weak. We are pleased to work with Council Member Wills and other elected officials to offer NYC homeowners access to free services from lenders and housing experts at events like the Rise Up & Stay Put! Home Rescue Fair.”

“South East Queens is a community built around the institutions of church and family,” said Yeneika Puran, Executive Director of CHANGER, INC. “We have organized these homeowner events and designed the CONNECT QUEENS campaign with distraught homeowners in mind. Homeowners who have been wrongfully denied loan modifications, homeowners scammed by fraudulent loan modification consultants, and homeowners who are overwhelmed by the experience.”

Jamaica is considered the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis in New York City. CNYCN and its nonprofit and city agency partners are hosting the 4^th Rise Up & Stay Put! Home Rescue Fair on April 23 at York College in Jamaica, Queens. This fair will provide a platform for homeowners to meet with their lenders and housing experts to seek loan modifications and other financial solutions in order to avoid foreclosure. To date, more than 2,300 homeowners have attended these fairs in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, and 40 percent of the attendees were processed for new HAMP or non-HAMP loan modification applications, while 30 percent of the participants received help on existing applications.

For more information on Center for New York City Neighborhoods, www.cnycn.org

For more information on CHANGER, Inc., www.changernyc.org

For more information on CONNECT QUEENS, please call (718) 596-2010.

Saturday, April 16

1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. New Haven Ministries, Starlite Pavilion

130-05 101^st Ave., Richmond Hill

5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Praise Tabernacle

108-11 Sutphin Blvd., Jamaica

Saturday, April 23

10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Rise-Up & Stay Put! Home Rescue Fair

York College

160-02 Liberty Ave., Jamaica

COMMUNITY MEETING ON SITING OF HOMELESS SHELTERS

Council Member Ruben Wills will join representatives from the Department of Homeless Services, Skyway shelter provider, Basics, and residents at a follow up community meeting to address the growing concerns caused by the lack of proper notification for the conversion of the Skyway shelter in to an adult male-only homeless shelter. It has also come to the attention of the community that more than one convicted sexual predator will now be living at Skyway which is near a public school and park. Basics will discuss the implementation of a new safety plan to further safeguard the community.

Earlier in the day, Council Member Wills will join Council Member Brad Lander, chair of the Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting & Maritime Uses, at a City Council public hearing, regarding the city's "Criteria for the Location of City Facilities" also known as "Fair Share Criteria."

In 1989, voters across the city adopted a City Charter change that attempted to equally distribute city facilities, like homeless shelters, across all neighborhoods. However, after more than 20 years, Council Member Wills and other elected officials claim that certain communities, particularly those in outer borough, urban neighborhoods, are bearing the brunt of an over-abundance of these facilities, with fewer resources and without proper notification to residents.

COUNCIL MEMBER RUBEN WILLS INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO CODIFY CITY LAW TO PROHIBIT THE SALE OF EXPIRED OVER-THE-COUNTER MEDICATIONS

LEGISLATION IS FIRST FOR WILLS; LAW WILL PROTECT RESIDENTS FROM CROOKED STREET VENDORS

Council Member Ruben Wills plans to introduce his first piece of legislation on Wednesday that will codify the ban on the sale of expired over-the-counter medications.

Currently, New York State law prohibits the sale of expired over-the-counter medications by retailers such as Duane Reade or CVS. However, vendors and other licensees of the city have easily skirted the law by selling expired medications like Theraflu, Tylenol, Nyquil and Robitussin at street fairs and vendors’ markets.

“The sale of expired over-the-counter medications has serious health implications,” said Council Member Wills. “Residents who are purchasing these medications at neighborhood flea markets are unaware that they are ingesting expired medications. The potency of medication decreases over time and using medication after its expiration creates a greater likelihood that a person will take more in order to increase its effectiveness.”

Council Member Wills’ legislation closes this loophole and broadens the law to include “persons” so that there is no distinction between a vendor and a retailer. Passage of this legislation will make the distribution of expired over-the-counter medication by any individual a class B misdemeanor punishable by a fine of no more than $250, a maximum of 3 months of in jail, or both.

In November of 2009, then Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced an $875,000 settlement with the national retail pharmacy chain CVS to end its sale of expired products - including over-the-counter drugs, baby formula, milk, and eggs - at stores across New York State.

“This legislation will help prevent the distribution and flow of expired medications,” said Council Member Wills. “It is the responsibility of anyone who is selling over-the-counter medications to put the health and safety of consumers ahead of profits and sales.”

Queens Center Mall Owner Buys Atlas Park by Joe Anuta -YourNabe.com

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Macerich, the company that owns Queen Center Mall, will take over The Shops at Atlas Park Feb. 28

Macerich, the company that owns Queen Center Mall, will take over The Shops at Atlas Park Feb. 28, emerging as the winning bidder after a Chicago-based developer representing the shopping center giant offered $53.75 million at a foreclosure auction.

“Once they fully close on the purchase, we can finally move forward with developing Glendale’s own shopping center,” City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village) said in a statement.

She will meet with the California-based Macerich this week to discuss the troubled Cooper Street mall’s future.

Crowley said she was hopeful the mall would be a boon to the community.

“The community welcomes the new leadership with open arms and is eager to help Atlas become an engine for economic growth,” she said.

Macerich did not show up at the Jan. 28 foreclosure auction, and the company’s involvement in the purchase was shrouded by a series of affiliations with other companies.

David Joseph was the representative who placed the bid at the auction, but his company was listed as “WMAP LLC.” Even so, according to Paul Millus, a lawyer who has run the mall since the bank foreclosed the $127 million loan in February 2009, Joseph is actually a principal at a Chicago company, Walton Street Capital, which made the purchase.

And now, according to Crowley, Macerich is the company behind the purchase and will run the mall by the end of the month.

The relationship between Macerich and Walton Street Capital was not known.

The Shops at Atlas Park started as Damon Hemmerdinger’s vision of high-end retail in Glendale about five years ago. He was the owner of the shops until 2009, but that vision did not pan out.


In February 2009, Hemmerdinger’s creditor, France-based Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, foreclosed the loan and turned over the shops to Millus, the court-appointed receiver who ran the mall during its bankruptcy proceedings.

New Consumer Agency is Frightfully Necessary — and Late - Op/Ed by Prof Elizabeth Warren - MiamiHerald.com

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No one has missed the headlines: Haphazard and possibly illegal practices at mortgage-servicing companies have called into question home foreclosures across the nation.

The latest disclosures are deeply troubling, but they should not come as a big surprise. For years, both individual homeowners and consumer advocates sounded alarms that foreclosure processes were riddled with problems.

While federal and state investigators are still examining exactly what has gone wrong and why, two things are clear.

First, several financial services companies have already admitted that they used “robo-signers,” false declarations, and other workarounds to cut corners, creating a legal nightmare that will waste time and money that could have been better spent to help this economy recover. Mortgage lenders will spend millions of dollars retracing their steps, often with the same result that families who cannot pay will lose their homes.

Second, this mess might well have been avoided if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had been in place just a few years ago.

The new consumer agency is one of the signature accomplishments of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law by President Obama this summer.

The new agency will take on oversight responsibilities that had been scattered among several federal agencies, and it will be a new cop on the beat that will end big loopholes in the regulatory system.

For the first time, banks and non-bank lenders (such as payday lenders, check cashers and mortgage brokers) will be subject to the same federal oversight to ensure that they are all playing by the same rules-no more turning sideways and slipping through the regulatory cracks.

Lost in much of the back-and-forth over wrongful foreclosures is the question of whether the scandal could have been prevented. The answer is yes.

The practices now under investigation took root and grew because there was no single federal regulator with both the responsibility and the tools to look out for consumers.

Had it existed, the new consumer agency could have stopped these problems before they multiplied. Many of the failures already admitted were not sophisticated scams that had been carefully concealed. By enforcing existing laws and involving state authorities early on, the agency could have made sure that the law was respected. No one would need to wonder whether the world of borrowing and lending works only one way: Families have to follow the legal rules, but the rules are optional for big banks.

Once it is fully operational, the new consumer agency will have supervisory authority over all large mortgage servicers. It will be able to examine them on a regular basis to make sure they follow the rules. If those servicers decide it is cheaper or faster to circumvent federal law, the consumer agency will have the tools to hold them accountable.

No one will be allowed to break the rules without triggering a strong and prompt federal response.

Currently, the federal interagency foreclosure task force, including the members of the Financial Services Oversight Council, is working along with the state Attorneys General to get to the bottom of these problems. The implementation team for the new consumer agency is also working to assemble and coordinate teams to deal with servicing and other issues.

These efforts are critical, but there is more work to do: We must ensure this kind of scandal-or some close cousin-does not happen again.

A mortgage is the biggest financial commitment most Americans will make in a lifetime, and the toll on Florida has been especially heavy and the need for oversight particularly apparent. A few weeks ago, I watched proceedings in a Fort Lauderdale foreclosure court and saw firsthand the painful outcomes for numerous families.

Unfair servicing practices can worsen a family’s already difficult economic situation, and the injury echoes from the family to the community and ultimately throughout the economy. Cops on the beat can stop problems before the damage spreads. If there ever was any doubt that the new consumer agency is necessary, the latest foreclosure developments should put that to rest.

Elizabeth Warren is the special advisor to the secretary of the Treasury for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and an assistant to the president.

Elizabeth Warren Helped Shoot Down Bill That Would Have Sped Foreclosures, Calendar Shows by Shahien Nasiripour - The Huffington Post

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Elizabeth Warren was the first senior Obama administration official to recognize the potentially incendiary impact of a bill that would have made it significantly easier for mortgage companies to foreclose on homes, and her subsequent warnings played a crucial role in persuading the President to veto the measure, according to freshly released documents and people familiar with the deliberations.

The disclosure that Warren was instrumental in halting a bill that would have streamlined the foreclosure process comes as she confrontsfierce criticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill for the way she was appointed to construct a new consumer financial protection bureau, and characterizations that she is inclined to take an overly punitive tack with Wall Street.

A long-time advocate for greater regulation of the financial system and a prominent critic of predatory lending, Warren now finds herself at the center of an intensifying debate over the relationship between the Obama administration and the business world.

For consumer advocates, who have long decried what they portray as Wall Street's outsized influence in Washington, Warren represents their greatest hope that big banks will be more tightly supervised following the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. For a vocal group of business leaders and their Republican allies, Warren has become Exhibit A in their case that the Obama administration is anti-business.

The decisive way in which she labored behind the scenes to stymie a bill that would have eased requirements for documentation in the foreclosure process underscores how her arrival has altered the administration's relationship with major banks.

The bill, which passed both houses of Congress and awaited President Obama's signature to become law, essentially would have compelled notaries to accept out-of-state notarizations, regardless of the rules in those states.

State officials across the country--who have been pursuing probes looking into wrongdoing within the foreclosure process-- feared that those jurisdictions with lax standards could have become hotbeds for foreclosure documentation fraud. Lenders and mortgage companies could have used those states as central clearing houses to produce bogus foreclosure paperwork, and then export those documents to other states with more stringent regulations--an expedient bypass around the strictures.

Obama ultimately declined to sign the law, and the House of Representatives failed to override the veto.

Officials said Warren was among the first federal officials to recognize the significance of the notary bill, titled the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010. She met with authorities from several states and then relayed their concerns to influential administration officials.

During the morning of Oct. 6, Warren's team at the Treasury Department wrote the first memos on the bill, raising questions about the possible consequences if it became law, these people said.

That evening, Warren met for 30 minutes with Peter Rouse, Obama's interim chief of staff, her calendar shows. She later spent an hour on the phone with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who once sued Countrywide Financial and exacted an $8.4 billion multi-state settlement.

The next day, Warren participated in an afternoon meeting on the bill, her calendar shows. During that meeting one of Obama's top spokesmen, Dan Pfeiffer, posted an entry on the White House Blog explaining why Obama would not sign the bill.

On Oct. 8, Obama declined to sign the bill into law, citing the need for "further deliberations about the possible unintended impact" of the bill on "consumer protections, including those for mortgages."

Documents released Wednesday show that Warren met or spoke with at least eight state officials leading a 50-state investigation into possibly-fraudulent mortgage documentation practices.

The state attorneys general, secretaries of state and bank supervisors are probing the way in which major mortgage companies have pushed through thousands of foreclosure cases at a time, as if on a factory assembly line, by short-cutting the required documentation process.

Recent weeks have featured a host of unsavory disclosures about how mortgage companies employed so-called robo-signers-- people whose sole job was to sign foreclosure documents without reading them or confirming basic facts, as required by law. The volume of cases and shoddy handling of paperwork is reflective of the messy and indiscriminate lending practices that characterized the nation's housing boom, as Wall Street eagerly handed mortgages to seemingly anyone willing to sign off.

The states' investigation and a parallel multi-agency federal probe are now roiling the mortgage industry, heightening the possibility that major lenders could face potentially huge fresh losses as bad loans continue to emerge. With legal and regulatory uncertainty now enshrouding the industry and public outrage trained on foreclosures, the banks could have trouble limiting those losses by selling off the homes pledged against bad mortgages.

The nation's biggest lender, Bank of America, has seen its share price drop 18 percent through yesterday's market close since the day before the states announced their joint inquiry.

Warren serves as an assistant to Obama and a special adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as she leads the effort to create the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, a watchdog designed to protect borrowers from abusive lenders. Her calendar from Sept. 20 to Nov. 2 was released per a Freedom of Information Act request.

The longtime Harvard Law School professor and consumer advocate met or spoke with the state attorneys general from Iowa, Illinois, Texas, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Ohio, her calendar shows. She also met with Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, and spoke with New York's top banking regulator, Richard H. Neiman. They are among the leaders of the combined state probe.

Warren has long chided federal regulators for their lax oversight of the financial industry and slipshod protection of consumers. She's championed state regulators, however, who have often been ahead of their federal counterparts when it comes to consumer finance issues.

Warren's calendar also shows numerous meetings with bankers and their representatives. Financial executives and lobbyists have noted that Warren was reaching out to them more than they initially expected. The calendar confirms her outreach.

On Sept. 20, the same day she took a photo for her Treasury Department badge, Warren spent an hour and a half meeting with bankers from Oklahoma, her calendar shows. She spent an hour having lunch with Geithner that day as well.

Since then she's met with the chief executives of the nation's largest banks, including Vikram Pandit of Citigroup; Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase; John Stumpf of Wells Fargo; James Gorman of Morgan Stanley; Richard Davis of U.S. Bancorp; W. Edmund Clark of TD Bank Financial Group; David Nelms of Discover Financial Services; Niall Booker of HSBC North America Holdings; and Kenneth Chenault of American Express.

The calendar entry for Chenault's one-hour meeting on Oct. 13 notes that "He's flying here for us."

Warren also met with officials from Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest lender and one of the world's biggest financial institutions.

Notably absent from Warren's calendar are officials from Bank of America, the biggest bank in the U.S. by assets and branches, including its chief executive, Brian Moynihan.

Warren's calendar includes meetings with investors and trade groups, like the Consumer Bankers Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America, the Financial Services Roundtable and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

Though Warren is known for her vigorous advocacy on behalf of consumers, she's spent more time with bankers and their lobbyists than with consumer groups and advocates during her roughly two months on the job.

Warren's 2007 journal article calling for the creation of a dedicated consumer agency inspired policymakers to enact it into law. Big banks opposed it.

Warren has also met with nearly two dozen members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, including the likely incoming chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Spencer Bachus, and the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, Richard Shelby. The Alabama Republicans have been particularly critical of Warren and her new agency.

Warren's calendar features numerous White House meetings, like a two-hour dinner on Sept. 23 with top Obama adviser David Axelrod and breakfasts and lunches with another top Obama counselor, Valerie Jarrett. She's also met with the heads of all the major federal financial regulatory agencies, including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Among Warren's early initiatives are efforts to make credit card disclosure forms shorter and easier to read, and simplifying mortgage documents. Her first major speech since joining the administration was a Sept. 29 address to the Financial Services Roundtable, a Washington trade group representing firms like JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock and State Farm. She asked the assembled executives to work with her to create a new system of consumer regulation focused on core principles rather than a mountain of specific rules.

“Access to Justice in Lending Act” Passes Both Houses of Legislature...

When Signed By Governor, Legislation Will Level the Legal Playing Field for Homeowners Facing Foreclosure by Allowing Successful Borrowers to Recover Attorneys Fees Against Banks

Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) and Senate Deputy Majority Leader Jeff Klein (D-Bronx) announce passage of the “Access to Justice in Lending Act” (A.1239/S.2614) by both houses of the legislature. Virtually all mortgage agreements require borrowers to pay attorneys fees to lenders who foreclose on their mortgage, but borrowers don’t have the same contractual right. As a result, few homeowners are able to retain attorneys in foreclosure proceedings – most default or try to represent themselves -- even though many homeowners have valid defenses to foreclosure and could save their homes with adequate legal representation. To add insult to injury, these homeowners then have the banks’ attorneys fees tacked on to the overall amount they owe the bank, pushing desperate homeowners further into debt. This bill creates a reciprocal right to attorneys fees for borrowers who successful defend against foreclosure where the mortgage agreement gives such a right to lenders, and is modeled on an existing provision of the law which give tenants the same reciprocal rights to attorneys fees in residential leases.

“We cannot let people with valid defenses to foreclosure lose their homes merely for lack of legal representation, particularly when the mortgage agreement written by the bank tilts the legal playing field in the bank’s favor,” said Assemblyman Lancman (D-Queens). “If homeowners had the money to pay for a lawyer to represent them in foreclosure, they probably wouldn’t be in foreclosure in the first place. This legislation will allow lawyers to take on meritorious foreclosure cases with the fair and reasonable expectation that they will be compensated if they succeed.”

"We know that many of the families that we see being foreclosed upon today entered into their mortgages due to predatory lending. These are the very people who should have the best defenses to foreclosure, but lose their homes simply because they could not secure counsel to defend them. Today, we have put homeowners on even playing ground with the lenders that are foreclosing on them, and given them a fighting chance to stay in their homes," said State Senator and Deputy Majority Leader Jeffrey D. Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester).

Facing Foreclosure Free Help is Available by Stephen Geffon - Leader-Observer

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Foreclosure of one’s home can be devastating, doubly so if the loss of the home was due to a scam perpetrated on the unsuspecting homeowner.

However, there is free help available. Queens Legal Services, a not-for-profit organization serving the residents of Queens, last year instituted a Foreclosure Prevention Unit that provides free legal help to homeowners facing foreclosure, including advice and representation in settlement conferences, in negotiations with lenders, and in court proceedings.

Franklin Romeo, a staff attorney for the organization, discussed the group’s foreclosure project at last week’s meeting of Community Board 10 in South Ozone Park. He said that southeastern Queens has been among the hardest hit neighborhoods in the country in the current foreclosure crisis.

“There are a huge number of foreclosures in Queens,” he said.

Romeo said that he and three other attorneys and a paralegal provide free comprehensive legal services for Queens residents including housing evictions, government benefits law, consumer law, family law, foreclosure prevention, and help with citizenship.

Romeo advised homeowners that if they have fallen behind in their mortgage payments they should first try to negotiate with their lender a loan modification. He said that the homeowner should not pay anybody for a loan modification noting that there are numerous Housing and Urban Development (HUD) approved nonprofit organizations that will provide help for free.

“If somebody is trying to get money from you for a loan modification, chances are very high what they are trying to do is rip you off,” he said. “If you have been served with foreclosure papers you should talk to an attorney.”

Homeowners worried about foreclosure can call the group’s hotline on any Monday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at (347) 592-2182.

The Foreclosure Prevention Project is a partner in the Foreclosure Prevention Court Clinic for homeowners, which takes place on Wednesday evenings from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and on Fridays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Queens County Civil Court, 89-17 Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has urged consumers to be alert to foreclosure rescue firms that use the following straight-forward messages like “Stop Foreclosure Now!,” or “Keep Your Home. We know your home is scheduled to be sold. No Problem!” Once they have your attention, says the FTC, they use a variety of tactics to get your money.

In the phony counseling or phantom help scheme, the scam artist tells you that he can negotiate a deal with your lender to save your house if you pay a fee first. You may be told not to contact your lender, lawyer, or credit counselor, and to let the scam artist handle all the details. Once you pay the fee, the scam artist takes off with your money.

In rent-to-buy, you’re told to surrender the title as part of a deal that allows you to remain in your home as a renter, and to buy it back during the next few years. You may be told that surrendering the title will permit a borrower with a better credit rating to secure new financing – and prevent the loss of the home. But the terms of these deals usually are so burdensome that buying back your home becomes impossible. You lose the home, and the scam artist walks off with all or most of your home’s equity. Worse yet, when the new borrower defaults on the loan, you’re evicted.

In the bankruptcy foreclosure scheme, the scam artist may promise to negotiate with your lender or to get refinancing on your behalf if you pay a fee up front. Instead of contacting your lender or refinancing your loan, though, the scam artist pockets the fee and files a bankruptcy case in your name – sometimes without your knowledge.

“Fraudulent foreclosure 'rescue' professionals use half truths and outright lies to sell services that promise relief and then fail to deliver,” read a statement issued by FTC.

Uncertain Future for Atlas Park Property by Michael Cusenza - Queens Chronicle

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The Shops at Atlas Park opened to much fanfare in the spring of 2006, boasting stylish architecture and amenities, dozens of specialty shops, restaurants, a movie theater and parking garages.

Currently, the beset Glendale mall is in foreclosure, poised to be sold at auction at Queens Supreme Court on Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica.

"We believe it will be put up for auction in the next month,” said attorney Paul Millus, who is the court-appointed receiver of the property.

According to The Secured Lender magazine, a receiver is a person “placed in custodial responsibility for the property of others.”

Millus said the exact date would be set by a court-appointed foreclosure referee, when it would be sold “like any other property to the highest bidder.”

Damon Hemmerdinger, former development director of Atlas Park, brusquely declined comment and referred all questions of mall matters to Millus.

According to a report earlier this month in the Daily News, CB Richard Ellis, an international commercial real estate services firm, also is engaged in Atlas Park operations.

“We are involved, as has been published, but we have no comment,” a CBRE spokesman said.

Earlier this year, City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village) unofficially proposed to convert several vacant mall spaces into City University of New York classrooms.

Currently, Crowley’s office said she is searching for more viable options, such as medical facilities and breast-imaging centers.

“She’s actively engaged in trying to find a solution to keep Atlas Park in the community and make it an economic engine,” said Crowley spokeswoman Meredith Burak.

State Sen. Joe Addabbo (D-Howard Beach) said he doesn’t want to see the land revert back to the days when it was littered with abandoned industrial buildings.

“Abandoned buildings don’t provide jobs,” Addabbo said. “It’s prudent upon anyone who has power to keep the stores that bring economic viability.”

At least two Atlas Park shop owners said they have been kept in the dark in recent months regarding the fate of the once-promising property.

“We’re hoping to get some new ownership in here so they can open more stores,” said, Danny Gerson, manager of The Fair.

Peter Faccibene, co-owner of the restaurant Shiro of Japan, said that although he hasn’t heard anything, he’s optimistic about the future of the Shops.

“Seems pretty simple: They need to lease the space out,” Faccibene said. “We just need some help with some rented spaces.”

Alleged Con Men Steal Millions in Bad Mortgages by Connor Adams Sheets - YourNabe.com

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Queens District Attorney Richard Brown (c.) announces his office is charging 17 people in connection with a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud scheme. Photo courtesy Queens District Attorney

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown charged 17 attorneys, mortgage brokers and real estate advisers last Thursday with defrauding homeowners and other entities out of millions of dollars.

The scheme the suspects were allegedly involved in targeted homeowners in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx who were attempting to avoid foreclosure on their homes, according to Brown. The scam, which targeted lending institutions as well as homeowners, cheated its victims out of $3 million of equity at 26 residential properties, according to the DA.

Roger Huggins of Queens Village and Inderpaul Sookraj of South Ozone Park, who were identified as the scheme’s ringleaders, allegedly owned and operated a Richmond Hill company that went by several names — Home Solutions Management, Home Solutions Enterprises and Home Solutions Limited — and claimed to be a home foreclosure rescue company, according to Brown.

“The defendants are accused of creating a human tragedy of immense proportions for the homeowners who had turned to them in a desperate hope of saving their homes from foreclosure,” Brown said.

The scheme targeted homeowners who had substantial equity in their homes but either faced foreclosure or who were behind in payments and wanted to modify their loans with their lenders, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Huggins and Sookraj used various means to trick clients and make it appear that they had sold their homes to the pair. They also convinced people to sell their properties to them for reduced prices, shortly after which they would resell them for more.

In another instance, Huggins and Sookraj allegedly created and filed fraudulent documents showing they had purchased a home from a homeowner who had actually died the year before, the DA said. They then flipped the property to a buyer at an inflated price, according to Brown.

Richmond Hill attorneys Trevor Rupnerain of South Ozone Park and Shawn Chand of Valley Stream, L.I., were also charged with fraudulently preparing financial and real estate documents in connection with the fraud.

Assistant District Attorney Gregory Pavlides said they used a database of “bad lawyers” compiled by the DA’s office in order to uncover the fraud scheme.

“As we were looking to the database we found a pattern, and that’s how we were able to make this case,” Pavlides said.

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Those charged in the fraud were each charged with one or more of a number of crimes, including grand larceny, money laundering, identity theft, forgery, falsifying business records and scheme to defraud. If convicted, the defendants face as many as 25 years in prison.

Targeted Queens homes include ones in Queens Village, Hollis and South Ozone Park.

Addabbo: Landmark Legislation Will Protect New Yorkers From Foreclosure

Bill Protects Homeowners at Risk of Losing Their Homes, Prevents Similar Crises from Happening in the Future

New York State Senator Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr., announced today that the New York State Senate passed critical legislation yesterday to protect homeowners across the state. Expanding upon legislation passed by the Senate in 2008, this bill provides four additional measures that he supported to protect homeowners at risk of foreclosure and to prevent similar crises from occurring in the future, which Governor Paterson is expected to sign into law.

New York’s housing market has suffered a particularly severe fallout in the wake of the housing crisis in the U.S., with over 50,000 new foreclosure filings in 2008 alone, a 30 percent increase over the preceding year. A staggering 58,000 outstanding mortgage loans in New York entered some form of delinquency in September 2009. Over the next four years, over 230,000 additional homes are expected to be lost to foreclosures, costing the state’s economy over $4 billion.

Explains Addabbo, the Senate has enacted these four provisions to safeguard homeowners:

· Safeguarding Distressed Homeowners: Requires that lenders and mortgage servicer provide a foreclosure notice to all distressed borrowers at least 90 days before any legal action may be commenced.

· Expansion of Mandatory Settlement Conference: Expands the number of borrowers who are eligible to receive the benefit of this settlement conference to holders of all types of home loans for a period of five years. Also requires litigants to negotiate in good faith to try to reach a mutually agreeable resolution.

· Protecting Neighborhoods and Tenants: Requires a plaintiff in a mortgage foreclosure action to maintain the property in compliance with certain sections of the NYS Building code or other local housing code. If property is occupied by a tenant, it must remain in safe and habitable condition.

· Protecting Distressed Homeowners from Rescue Scams: Precludes any licensees or registrants from accepting up-front fees in connection with performing the business of distressed property consulting. Additionally, this provides a mortgage broker with three days to disclose the exact amount and methodology of total compensation that the broker will receive.

Senator Addabbo notes, “The spike in home foreclosures as a result of widespread sub-prime lending has hit every corner of my district. With unemployment figures expected to continue to rise, we have not yet seen the peak in the number of people who can’t pay their mortgages. In fact, no New Yorker or area of the state is immune to the deep and lasting economic impact of this crisis—homeowners, tenants and whole communities are affected. Lowering the alarming rate of foreclosures in New York and helping families in Queens to save their homes were priorities for me during this special session in Albany, in order to build the foundation for a lasting, sustainable economic recovery.”

C.B. 10 Talks Racino and Foreclosures Issues by Stephen Geffon - Queens Chronicle

Queens Chronicle - C.B. 10 talks racino and foreclosures issues

The community’s economic well-being topped the list of concerns tackled at last Thursday’s Community Board 10 meeting. Residents were updated on both the status of Aqueduct’s delayed racino and the foreclosure dilemma affecting several local neighborhoods.

Chairwoman Betty Braton assured residents that Gov. David Paterson is expected to choose a bidder for Aqueduct within the next two weeks, as was stated by state Sen. Joe Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach) and Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer (D-Ozone Park). Six bidders: Wynn Resorts, The Peebles Corp., SL Green Realty with Hard Rock Entertainment, Aqueduct Entertainment Group, Delaware North and Penn National Gaming are vying for the chance to create a complex that includes 4,500 video lottery terminals, restaurants and shopping.

Regardless of who is chosen, Addabbo and Pheffer noted they would work with the winner to ensure the community’s concerns are addressed, Braton said. Critical issues include traffic jams, the potential for increased crime, security, economic development and employment.

The community has been involved in the Aqueduct process because, unlike in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, 60,000 residents in one- and two-family homes live within one-half mile of Aqueduct. The rest of the people in C.B. 10 live within a mile of Aqueduct, Braton added.

Once Paterson declares a bidder, the first order of business will be to have the chosen company present its plans before C.B. 10, Braton said. The bidder will also be asked to speak before various civic groups in the community.

The second subject that received the bulk of attention at the meeting was the foreclosure crisis. Luis Daniel Caridad, coordinator of community education at the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, gave a presentation about how foreclosures are affecting C.B. 10’s communities.

According to public records, Ozone Park has had 20 foreclosures and 111 pre-foreclosures; South Ozone Park has experienced 60 foreclosures and 204 pre-foreclosures; there have been 12 foreclosures and 39 pre-foreclosures in Howard Beach; and in Richmond Hill there have been 48 foreclosures and 260 pre-foreclosures. In C.B. 9, Woodhaven has had 29 foreclosures and 140 pre-foreclosures.

Many who live in neighborhoods with the highest rate of foreclosures were victims of predatory mortgage lending — loans and mortgages that were too expensive and could not be paid back by the buyer, Caridad said.

The mortgage expert also discussed President Barack Obama’s “Making Home Affordable” plan, launched in March to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. The plan, which is available to owner-occupants of one- to four-family homes, allows qualified homeowners to either modify or refinance their mortgage loans. There are no income limits, but the mortgagee must be able to afford loan payments going forward.

To find out if you are eligible to modify or refinance your loan under the plan, contact your lender or loan servicer or call 311 to find a free foreclosure prevention counselor or legal services attorney in your area.

Caridad urged homeowners to beware of anyone who promises to save a home for a fee, charges upfront fees for counseling or loan modification help or pressures you to sign over the deed to your property.