San Diego Union Tribune

Sunday October 10, 1999






Payment scam targets owners

WASHINGTON -  -At any given moment,
nearly a million owners are so for behind in
their house payments that they face losing
their homes to foreclosure. But too many
of them end up forfeiting much more than
the roofs over their heads.

Lured by con men who advertise
themselves as "mortgage consultants" and
"foreclosure specialists," unsuspecting
owners who are so desperate they% try
anything to save their

homes often also lose thousands of dollars
in fees and misdirected house payments.

The Cali

fornia-based Bankruptcy Foreclosure Task
Force has identified a nurnber of
foreclosure scams, all designed to take
advantage of what it says is 'one of the
most powerful injunctions available under
American law- the automatic stay."

Under the federal Bankruptcy

Code, the Ming of a bankruptcy peti-
tion automatically stops all actions
or proceedings to enforce a claim
against the debtor or the debtor's
property. WIthout actually having to
prove that you are entitled to the
stay, simply filing the necessary pa-
pers halts all collection actions, sus-
pend  tires and terminates

pends foreclosures

It

bankruptcy case of-

'1'D

 A completed
 ten buy financially distressed

0
home owners

  the time they need to
cure buy financilal arTearages with
a newpaymentplan under. Chapter
13, or eliminates the loan entirely
under the "fivsh sWV provisions of
Chapter 7. But many cases are filed
by people who have no intention to
complete them, the task force
found.

• Crazy Atheist Libertarian
• Government Snitch?????
• David Dorn
• Fat Blond Guy
• Crazy Atheist