Industry sign banking alabama notice to quit simple
welcome to our video my name is John Watson a foreclosure defense attorney in Alabama and I hope that you'll find this video to be very helpful I assume you're here because you live in Alabama your house is facing foreclosure and most certainly you have an actual foreclosure date now whatever that may be that may be five days from now or 45 days from now but you have a date where your mortgage company says on this date we will sell your house so I want to encourage you watch this video but do more than watch the video get this actual worksheet here that's on the screen and won't be going through this workbook or this worksheet and if you are watching this on youtube you can go to foreclosure DVD com whether it should be a link below the video or if you're watching this on my website you'll see a big red button that says something like get the workbook and if you'll fill that out we'll e-mail you the workbook in word and in PDF version so that way you can type on it or you can print out handwrite whatever works best for you really encourage you to do that now just a couple of things before we get into the heart of the matter first of all this is not legal advice I don't know your particular situation I cannot give you a legal advice but this is general educational information to help you think through your options here because we're looking at how do we stop a foreclosure without having to file bankruptcy now everybody in the world is tiny file bankruptcy you gotta file a bankruptcy it's the only way to stop foreclosure not true so this is to help you think through that and then if you want to talk with us directly we'll be glad to speak directly to you and give you actual advice sagem all there's no guarantees nobody can promise you things safe your home but I can't tell you this you do the work particularly if you'll print out or type into this worksheet that will really help you because you need to gain information and then take action and that's everything we do is based on that helping you understand your options and then encouraging you to take action now third if you just watched the video I think it would be helpful to you but not nearly as full as filling out the work but take action now forth and finally when you finish this you can send it to us if you would like us to chat with you and we've got our fax number on there you can email it to us you can call us 205 eight seven nine two four four seven contact us through this website whatever is easiest for you will be glad to chat with you and help you any way we can so let's get started I think it's fair to ask this first question why should you listen to me yeah there's lots of people out there saying things about foreclosures and frankly most of them have no idea what they're talking about well maybe it works in Florida but not in Alabama or Idaho but non elevant why should you listen to me I'm a lawyer in Alabama I've represent I can't tell you how many people over many many years who have either been coming up on a foreclosure or I don't recommend this but even after a foreclosure then we go back and undo that foreclosure so if we can catch up before the foreclosure then we stop the foreclosure but even after a foreclosure sometimes we can reverse the foreclosure I train lawyers in this in Alabama and across the nation and not just in kind of basic foreclosure defense although it's very important with some more advanced strategies and the final thing I'll say is look I'm not charging you for this I mean it's costing you time which is valuable but you're not paying me a consultation fee you're not having to drive down to my office you can watch this on your phone your computer your TV whatever is most convenient for you so I encourage you go through this if it doesn't sound right it doesn't look right if you go I just don't like this and stop watching but if this resonates with you if you feel comfortable about this and confident in what we're saying then I encourage you to keep watching this and keep working on filling out this workbook all right just real quickly how bad is a foreclosure well you can lose your home you have credit reporting damage because now you'll have a foreclosure on there it's on your permanent record so when you're asked two years from now ten years from now have you ever had a foreclosure I have to say yes to be honest and you can also be sued for a deficiency judgment that's where you note 200 the house gets sold at the foreclosure sale for 150 well that differences the deficiency they can see you for that I'm see you to kick you out in your house whether or not there's a deficiency and so all sorts of bad things can happen we want to avoid those so we have a three-step process step number one what is your current location and this is really from kind of a GPS perspective okay if you want to get to Atlanta what direction do you go well if you're Birmingham you had East if you're in Savannah you go the opposite direction you go west what if you're way up in Chicago or New York well then you need to go south or what if you're in Miami you go north so you have to figure out where are you right now in the most important thing to figure this out is do you have an actual foreclosure date set now if you don't that's great okay although this videos really focus on people who actually have a foreclosure date set but if you do have it which you probably do like that in here and again if you don't have this workbook pause the video right now look below click on the button you give us your email address will email it to you a word and PDF version print it out type it on another screen whatever you need to do but go ahead and put in the work it's completely worth that you're facing a really bad situation foreclosure and just trust me this will help you with this so what's the date of the foreclosure now another question is do you have a copy of your mortgage now if you don't and you can't get it don't worry there's some people that kind of panic over that hey we can help you get it okay but if you happen to have it then just circle yes if you don't have it Circle no and this will help keep you on track so you know I need to do this or I need to do that or no I've got everything done now the next thing is how about the default letter it's also called the notice of default this is a letter you get it says you're in default you have 30 days to fix it if you don't fix it then we're going to accelerate your lung so instead of having 30 years to pay it but you got to pay it all right now and we'll foreclose so here's the sequence default or notice the default letter celebration letter foreclosure okay so do you have that letter now you might have received that a few weeks ago you might have received it a year ago but just what's the last default letter that you have if you don't have it again don't worry we can help you get it but if you do have it then just circle yes over here now this next one may seem a little bit odd I'll tell you why I put this in here it's an obvious if you have fifty thousand dollars in equity or we've had people with half a million dollars worth of equity you don't want to lose your house boom you got to lose all that money but what if you have no equity or even if you owe this much but your house is only worth this much so you have negative equity why would you want to stay in your house well for many years of doing this we have found out sometimes it's the school district maybe it's being next to family maybe it's a wheelchair-accessible house whatever it might be write down your reasons and pause the video take whatever time you need write down the reasons why do you want to stay in your house why do you want to stop this foreclosure and because the whole point of this is how do we stop a foreclosure without filing bankruptcy because everybody tells you you gotta file a banker you don't have to file bankruptcy but write down why why do you not want the foreclosure and then the next part of this will be is let's go to step number two which is the stages of foreclosure to figure out exactly where we are in this so if you look at the next page three stages of foreclosure and I'd recommend you circle whichever one you're at so we have before the actual and after so let me explain this before the foreclosure is where you probably are right now because it is before the actual foreclosure date now then the second stage is the actual foreclosure so what happens at the courthouse steps when they sell your property and then the third step is after that when they sue you if you don't get out of your house okay we're going to focus really on this section right here before for closure so now we have other videos about what do you do if if it's the day of the foreclosure or what happens after a foreclosure but I'm going to keep this video focused on really the before part now let's talk about how the foreclosures actually work so we have non-judicial which is how alabama is which means a judge is not involved in actual for surprises a lot of people they say oh no no no no a judge has to look at this before they can foreclose that's not true they go yeah but my cousin in florida told me well Ford is different we're a non-judicial state no judge is involved in people over the probate judge probate judge is not involved in this so what happens is there's no lawsuit there's no judge and the foreclosure just happens in essence privately now they advertised in the paper and they stand outside that courthouse steps but it's sort of like a repossession no judge has looked at this and said it's okay to do so it's very important to keep that in mind now let's talk about the default letter and this is really really important so if you have the default letter get that handy for you so you can look at if you don't have it again we can help you get it but this is where your mortgage company says you're in default if you don't fix it here's what we're going to do we're going to accelerate the loan and then we may sue you or excuse me do the foreclosure cell and then after the foreclosure cell now they don't typically save this in the fall letter but then they'll sue you for ejectment okay but let's focus on that default letter it says which you did wrong probably they claimed he didn't make payments maybe ever kept insurance maybe they claim you tried to sell the house or transfer ownership whatever it is they're gonna tell you how you're in default and then they'll give you at least 30 days to fix it and then they'll say if you don't fix it we're gonna accelerate it so here's what I want you to look at in that letter does it tell you you have the right to bring a court action to raise defenses to the default or the acceleration or the actual foreclosure cell because 99% of mortgages give you that right if you have your mortgage handy you might look at paragraph 22 sometimes it's 17 but normally paragraph 22 it'll say something like remedies or acceleration and it will talk about a default letter and then it'll talk about acceleration and then it will talk about advertising in a newspaper for three consecutive weeks in your County but what I want you to focus on is does the city have the right to bring a court action to raise defenses and just right in here yes it does or no it doesn't you can write what it does say because sometimes they'll say you're the right to assert defenses in a foreclosure proceeding that's really for places like Florida where they see you to foreclose here you don't get saved to foreclose so to say you can raise your defenses in the foreclosure Percy that's meaningless and that's not what your mortgage says so just write it down here exactly what it says yeah step number three how can you stop the foreclosure now without filing bankruptcy so I felt like I need to address this does bankruptcy work because you are probably getting all sorts of letters from bankruptcy attorneys if you do any searching for foreclosure online you'll start getting these what are called retargeting ads where bankruptcy firms will kind of follow you around how are you ready to file bankruptcy we can stop the foreclosure by filing bankruptcy so does bankruptcy work usually it does but what's the cost okay so you filed bankruptcy if you do everything right and you haven't filed within a certain period of time then you can stop the foreclosure but then what you still have to pay this you still have all that back amount that you owe and you have to pay your current payments and if you do a chapter 7 then you're facing a situation do you really dead or do you just surrender your house so it's a temporary solution but is it the permanent solution I can tell you from experience I get so many people come to me and they said I filed bankruptcy to save my house stop the foreclosure they're not losing my house anyway or I've already lost my house so it's not a permanent solution and you really need to think about the cost so literally what does it cost in terms of dollars what's it worth to you to now have this bankruptcy on your permanent record it's going to be on your credit report for many many years and again kind of like that question about have you evolved or have you ever faced foreclosure have you ever filed bankruptcy I mean these are things you have to answer honestly and so this is a life-changing event to file bankruptcy so you have to consider that very carefully to see if it's worth it know if it's your only option then maybe you have to do it but the the truth of the matter is and this is what's so sad as many people think this is their only option it's not their only option yeah you've heard the story to the guy holding a hammer everything looks like a nail it's a bankruptcy lawyers say don't have any option to stop the foreclosure other than filing bankruptcy they've got the hammer of bankruptcy there they go no you have to follow up bankers that's your only option I'm telling you look at another option so just write down what are your thoughts about the cost now another options you can hope your mortgage company does the right thing yeah I mean I put that on there because literally some people believe this ago I just don't believe Wells Fargo or Ocwen or dye tech or Nationstar I guess now it's mr. Cooper it's a goofiest name I've ever heard but anyway I just know they're gonna take care of me they would never foreclose on me well if you truly believe that and you're absolutely confident okay then go with that I think that's very naive I don't think that your mortgage company will do the right thing but ultimately that's your decision you could reinstate the loan that'll be mentioned in your default letter and this is basically your $24,000 behind and they say you can pay us the 24,000 kind of get caught back up and we'll stop the foreclosure hey that's great so you've got to take care of that back amount and how much do you owe do you have though they do that I would just circle yes hey if you do that's wonderful doesn't mean you should necessarily do it but it's great to have that option maybe you have the money or relative will give you the money or you can pull it from a 401k whatever it may be that's wonderful to know you have that option but for most people the answer is no is it look I don't have ten or twenty or thirty or forty thousand dollars to reinstate so here's what is often the very best option that is to sue your mortgage company have the court have a judge hear your defenses so it's not non-judicial now we're in front of a judge we're in front of a court and that court is looking at was the default done correctly that was acceleration done properly do they have the right to foreclose do you have defenses to this and I will go through all the reasons but there are so many reasons so many defenses that you could have maybe weren't behind maybe they've done what's called dual tracking on you're trying to do what's called a loss mitigation to save your house and so you're doing that but then there also it's kind of like there's this other train going toward foreclosure all sorts of federal and state rules that would say to the mortgage company you have no right to foreclose I'll give you an example here look at your mortgage find that paragraph 22 that usually
t's 22 maybe 17 that's the one that talks about acceleration foreclosures advertising newspaper and default letters so right on there what number is it does it say you have the right to bring a court action if it does say yes 99% of time it does yeah if it says that now look at that default letter and hopefully you wrote this on the previous page what is your default letters compare those two because I'm tell you this if your mortgage says you have the right to bring court action and your default letter says you don't it's a defective default letter and remember what we talked about you have the default letter and then what's let me illustrate this way default letter and then what's built on that foundation is acceleration and then what's built on the acceleration is a foreclosure so well if the letters no-good and that gets pulled away everything collapses so it's critical that you look at that that could be a wonderful defense for you all right now here's the point here is your mortgage gives you the right to have a judge look at this maybe you're never in default maybe it's a bogus to fault line maybe they haven't done loss mitigation correctly any number of reasons why there is no right - for maybe the mortgage company never had the right to foreclose they're not even the right party to foreclose you now know that you have the right to bring the right lawsuit in the right court at the right time with the right claims and that can stop the foreclosure so just right out here how does that make you feel for most people that's very empowering to know okay it's not just have to sit here and just wait I get to take some action I get to do something about this now what I have here is this is a secret okay now to say it's the secret is kind of interesting because it's there in your mortgage but oftentimes the mortgage companies will though alter that default letter to try to distract you from knowing you have this right when they don't tell you about this they list all these things they'll say oh you can do loan modification and principal reduction forbearance deed in lieu of foreclosure short-sale you can file bank somehow they never mention oh by the way you can sue us and have a judge decide if we've done everything properly so why don't they take well it would ramp up their cost sure would slow down a foreclosure because right now they say the courthouse stand outside the front steps been your house is sold but if the judge is looking at it judge may have a hearing you may consent what's called discovery or questions or requests for documents to your mortgage company and it slows it down so they don't like this and once they can get that foreclosure to happen you a very weak position so here's your foreclosure right here okay before the foreclosure you have a lot of options one second after the foreclosure almost all those options go away so that they can sort of war you into this or make you believe you have no option to sue them and then get you that foreclosure and get you one second after the foreclosure you've lost a whole bunch of your rights so you're much more powerful in a much stronger position if you consume before the foreclosure and stop that foreclosure okay what do you do right now maybe to test here scale of one to ten so one is not very important at 10 a super important here how important is it that you stop the foreclosure now look some people go oh I like this house or I just figured out I have termites or I'm wanting to leave the house anyway I don't care about a fork okay well then maybe that's you know a one or two or three but for most people if they're still watching this video I assume you're in this group it's really important to you to stop the foreclosure but just go ahead and figure out on scale of one to ten one being not important in being finally important how important is this to stop the foreclosure now another scale another test is how important is it that this be handled correctly and here's what I'm getting at some people say I really want to stop the foreclosure but tell you what I'm gonna do it on my own or I'm going to hire some company that's not even they don't have a license lawyer in Alabama but they'll kind of give me some advice on the side I don't recommend that I think that's a terrible idea but some people go I'll just do this some well and if it gets handled correctly great if it doesn't no big deal other people say no no look this is my home there's my children where they go to school this is my life it may be my marriage I may have a lot of money in this house I want this handled correctly well this will guide you then what you do next so you're on a fork in the road two choices you can do this on your own and there's certainly a bit will that have done it on their own and you can do it kind of through trial and error or you can say I want somebody to guide me through this process I want an advocate somebody that's on my side fighting and that's what you have to decide is which way do you want to go you want to do the trial and error you want a guide and y-yeah like there's no right or wrong answer what you decide may be completely different than your next-door neighbor where your brother-in-law across town you've got to decide what's best for you and if you do this on your own let me give you some advice you've got to study law very carefully that's an Alabama foreclosure law so I'm not saying ignore every other place but you really have to focus in what does Alabama say I know the law for a foreclosure law totally different what does Alabama law say what does the Alabama Supreme Court the Court of Civil Appeals what did they say about the law and also federal law there's a law called RESPA will Estate Settlement Procedures Act Truth in Lending Act sometimes called Tila ti LA the FDCPA Fair Debt Collection Practices Act these are all federal laws that can impact whether or not they can foreclose on you so spend some time studying those and that you know part of your job is to find that information to sort it out say this is no good but this is good solid information and then you've got to figure out what do you need to learn and how quickly and then you've got to take massive action I mean it doesn't matter if you were the smartest person in the world on foreclosures if you don't take action nothing happens now if you want us to guide you in this process then reach out to us probably the easiest way is just call us two oh five eight seven nine two four four seven asked for Randy she's my paralegal in charge of foreclosures I've got my email address on here john atwater ENCOM randy curved at gmail.com we're gonna contact john watson that will take you immediately to a contact page and look here's how we do it if you want to meet a person we can do that but for most people because we were present folks all over the state we do it by phone let's figure out wind your foreclosure do you want to stay in their house what does your mortgage say what is your default letter say what's the reason that you're in this situation if you don't have your mortgage don't have your default letter we can help you get that and then we help you see your options for some people who said look it doesn't make sense to hire us I think you should not do anything or you should look at bankruptcy or do something else but for a lot of people we say you know if you really want to stop the foreclosure we can help you do that and then we'll say here's what's involved here's your time commitment here's the money commitment here's what it will cost net what do you want to do and we don't do this in a high-pressure way we present the information to you if you say I don't want to do it that's fine if you say hey I want to do it perfect we'll be glad to help you so I want to congratulate you because I don't how long this video has been going but you've stuck with me and so I appreciate you doing that build on this momentum okay go to the next page and there's some information you can fill out you can also in this open area here write down any thoughts any questions any hey I need to figure this out or I need to ask John this question or I need to find this document and I think that will really help you we put this on here this personal information sheet just to kind of put all your information in one area so obviously your name your address what's your current mortgage company when did you start dealing with it you might have been one month ago it might have been five years ago that can help us as to whether this law applies or that law applies what's the date of the foreclosure that they're threatening you they're saying hey by November 1st we're going to foreclose or January 7th or December 15 whatever it is write that down and I gathered up all my letters my statements in other words anything from the mortgage company or from a foreclosure lawyer if you have great you can write that down yes I have it or no I have it and then that can be a project for you now don't delay either researching this on your own getting with us if you want somebody to guide you through this process again because we can help you get that information and then I want to leave you at sort of next last thing with this what questions are thoughts and there's this old expression the famous ink is better than the strongest memory okay so write it down what what questions comments thoughts concerned what whatever you have and then I want to leave you with this little story it may seem like an odd story but I think at the end that you'll appreciate this I heard this number of years ago I found it very useful so there's this old man in the woods and he's a very wise man then there's this young guy and he goes you know what I'm gonna show that that old man is not so wise he's kind of a fool because here's one that dude he's talking to his friends says I might capture a bird you know that take that bird to the home and say old man what's in my hand and yeah he's pretty smart guy he'll say that it looks like you have a bird I'll say old man is that alive was it dead and if the old man says it's dead then I'll do this and the bird will fly off say he's a fool but the old man says the bird is alive crush it crush it and crush it and open my hands and the bird will be dead in his friends thought that was a great idea so rosy captures a bird who gives it to little answers old men on what's in my hand little man says you have a bird he says old man is that alive or is it dead there was sadness and the old man's eyes he looked at me said my son the bird is in your hands and so too for all of us when we gain information we've got to decide what will we do will we act on that or were we not act on you now have the power you have the choice you have the decision to make what would you do whatever decision you make I wish you only the best if we can help you in any way pick up the phone and call us 205 eight seven nine two four four seven two oh five eight seven nine 24:47 asked for Randy she's a paralegal to be kind your first point of contact and then we'll all get together on this and we'll be glad to help you in any way that we can so I appreciate you watching this video and hope it was helpful to you and wish you only the best ticket
