Good news for veterans facing foreclosure! Effective January 1, 2011, if you are a veteran and a defendant in a foreclosure suit, you have the right to request a 90-day stay of the foreclosure proceedings. In order to qualify for the 90-day stay, you must have been deployed at some point in the 12 months preceding the foreclosure suit. Moreover, your deployment must have been for combat or for a combat-support posting. So long as you meet those requirements, the court must grant you a 90-day stay. Any other rights you have as a veteran will not be affected. With any luck, 90 days may be enough to get you back on track with your mortgage payments or work out a loan modification!
It is widespread knowledge that foreclosures have become increasingly rampant. More and more homeowners are fighting to keep their homes. As various loan modification and loan assistance programs emerge, mortgage and foreclosure counseling is often a prerequisite to qualify. To defray the costs associated with counseling, the Illinois legislature recently passed a bill that requires the plaintiffs in all foreclosure suits to pay an additional $50 fee. The resulting funds collected will be applied for the benefit of counseling programs. Some homeowners are unable to keep their homes no matter how hard they try. Once these homes are vacated, they often become targets of crime. Other times, they begin to look neglected and rundown. Water and sewer bills aren’t paid. More and more cities and towns in Illinois need funding to assist in the costs associated with foreclosed and vacated homes. The legislature recently enacted a law requiring the purchaser… read more →
Effective this last summer, the Illinois Housing Development Authority was granted the right to assist qualified Illinois homeowners with their mortgage payments. Under the Illinois Homeowners Emergency Assistance Program, the Illinois Housing Development Authority may grant up to three mortgage payments to qualified homeowners in need. The mortgage payments are for first lienholders only. This means that if you are looking for mortgage assistance towards secondary financing or a home equity line on your home, you are not eligible. Payments will be made directly to your lender, and cannot exceed $6000 or three of your regular mortgage payments, whichever is less. Funds can be applied towards principal, interest, taxes, and mortgage insurance. However, funds for this program are limited to a total of $3,000,000, and the program is only available until December 31, 2010. So how do you qualify? Well, you must meet a number of criteria, such as: 1)… read more →
When filing a foreclosure suit against a deceased borrower, banks have generally filed in rem actions; in other words, banks have assumed that the foreclosure suit is based on the parcel of real estate for which mortgage payments have not been made. As a result, many banks have obtained default judgments against deceased borrowers, simply because the mortgagor is deceased and was thus never served. In ABN-AMRO Mortgage Group, Inc. v. McGawhan, No. 107954 2010 WL 2222123 (Ill. Sup. Ct.), the Illinois Supreme Court rendered a decision that changed how banks must file foreclosure suits. The court determined that a foreclosure suit should not be an in rem proceeding. Rather, it should be a quasi in rem proceeding. In other words, the suit must be brought against an actual person, not just a piece of land. In lieu of the deceased, the deceased’s personal representative must be named. If the… read more →