Month: February 2012

Sign Petition to Improve This Mortgage Fraud Law

The mortgage fraud law called RESPA (Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act) has only a 1 year statute of limitations. That means that someone intent on violating this law has very little risk of being held accountable. Lawyers representing consumers in mortgage foreclosure or mortgage fraud situations are reporting that by the time consumers realize that they need help, that far longer than 1 year has elapsed and there is often no recourse.

Click here to Sign Petition

The mortgage fraud law called RESPA (Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act) has only a 1 year statute of limitations. That means that someone intent on violating this law has very little risk of being held accountable. Lawyers representing consumers in mortgage foreclosure or mortgage fraud situations are reporting that by the time consumers realize that they need help, that far longer than 1 year has elapsed and that there is often no recourse. The Consumer Finance and Protection Bureau (CFPB) enforces RESPA and their hands are tied on most consumer fraud cases involving RESPA because of this limitation. If we are going to have this mortgage disclosure and anti-kickback law, then it needs to exist so as to make enforcement practical.  As it stands now, the law provides bad actors related to mortgage finance an opportunity to break the law with impunity or at least very little deterence. 

If you want to help stop mortgage fraud, improve mortgage disclosure enforcement actions and stop illegal kickbacks in the residential real estate process, then please sign our petition to increase the statute of limitations to 6 years.  

Click here to see an example of how a one year statute of limitations limits liability and deterence.

Our petition is supported by two national trade associations which are regulated by RESPA.  National Association of Independent Land Title Agents (click here for our post), the National Association of Independent Housing Professionals (NAIHP) and the National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents (NAEBA).

 

Dual Agency Plagues Boston Luxury Homebuyers and Sellers

 

Luxury home buyers and sellers are certainly not immune to the problems of dual agency. Commissions on luxury homes often exceed $50,000 so why would anyone give up such important services as assistance with negotiating a price or negotiating terms of the transaction? When homebuyers use the listing agent to buy their homes not only are they giving up their right to representation on a million dollar asset, they are rewarding the agent for this betrayal with a double commission.

Here is a sampling from the blog post and a link to it:

“Looking at single family homes sold over $900,000 in one community, we were stunned to discover that 70% of one well-known listing agent’s sales were in-house; and in more than one in four sales, the MLS listed her as both listing agent and sales agent.” Click here for a link to the story. The story first appeared in the Boston Globe (the story is no longer online).