Category: Workouts

Won’t or can’t? Part 2, how fast a fix?

28 July, 2009 (09:14) | Affordability, Foreclosure, Loan servicing, Subprime, US News, Workouts | No comments

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]
 
Yesterday we saw that even with strong Administration and Congressional pressure for lenders to modify loans, and modest financial incentives to loan servicers achieving successful workouts (we’ll return to those below), as chronicled in this Wall Street Journal, many people – at least, the Journal had no trouble finding plenty – [...]

Won’t or can’t? Part 1, who should be relieved?

27 July, 2009 (11:23) | Affordability, Foreclosure, Loan servicing, Subprime, US News, Workouts | No comments

With loan modifications on everyone’s lips, how easy is it to do?
 
When you’re denied something, a chasm separates being told I won’t help you from I can’t help you.
 
It ought to be easy, oughtn’t it?  Hard-working people who suffer temporary setbacks deserve mercy from their lender.  For the lender, mercy will be good business, as [...]

All together now, over the cliff?

17 February, 2009 (11:10) | Capital markets, Foreclosure, John Hancock, US News, Workouts | No comments

Will all of the John Hancock Tower’s investors collectively drag each other over the cliff?
 

A running of the formerly-bulls?
 
That’s the possibility suggested by a slightly credulous Boston Globe article chronicling how the tranche warfare over the John Hancock building is heating up:
 
The John Hancock Tower will be auctioned off to the highest bidder next month [...]

A duty to negotiate? Part 2: the claim

4 September, 2008 (08:56) | Legal, Subprime, US News, Workouts | 2 comments

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]
 
Yesterday we followed the tale of woe offered, by their class-action consumer-protection lawyer Gary Klein, of Lori and Mark Pestana of Westford, MA, who as reported in the Boston Globe are now suing Washington Mutual (WaMu) to prevent the foreclosure of their modest home in Westford, based on their assertion that [...]

A duty to negotiate? Part 1: the story

3 September, 2008 (09:14) | Legal, Lending, Subprime, US News, Workouts | 1 comment

Using a loan I borrow from you, I buy a house that I now cannot pay for.  I fall into default, and you send me notices of default, but I want to renegotiate. 
 
Are you obligated to negotiate with me?
 

Okay now, bank, let’s negotiate
 
That appears to be the premise behind litigation recently filed by Lori [...]