As the story goes… during the beginning of the millennium; banks had an assembly line where they were churning out exotic mortgage instruments. Then, they had the audacity to sell the notes to another bank who then, sold the notes to another bank. At some time during this drunken stupor, they bundled these notes together with the help of the high-rollers on Wall Street and sold them to investors all over the world as a trade-able commodity.
This process of banks buying another banks mortgage notes then, bundling the notes and finally, selling the notes is known as “Securitization.”
Homeowners also participated in this out-of-control party by often treating their property as if it were their personal ATM. Homeowners would often use their perceived equity to take out home equity loans which they then proceeded to use to amass consumer debt. The actions of the parties resulted in a flood of lying, stealing, and cheating that produced a world-wide economic shutdown in September 2008.
MARS (Mortgage Assistance Relief Services Act of 2010)
Consumers struggling to make their mortgage payments began searching for ways to avoid default and foreclosure. In response to the mortgage crisis, government and private sector programs were initiated to assist distressed homeowners. In March 2009, the Obama Administration launched the Making Home Affordable (MHA) program and the MHA’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), through which the government provided mortgage owners and servicers with financial incentives to modify and refinance loans.
Many consumers who were unable to obtain mortgage assistance relief services through their own efforts turned to for-profit MARS providers for help.
The MARS enabling legislation is the government response to a proliferation of for-profit Providers promoting their ability to negotiate with lenders and servicers to obtain loan modifications or some other type of mortgage relief.
You can get a full version of the MARS legislation here and a consumer guide from the Federal Trade Commission here.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Are you a “mortgage assistance relief service” provider? That is: do you offer a service, plan, or program that is represented, expressly or by implication, to help homeowners prevent or postpone foreclosure or help them get other kinds of relief, like loan modifications, forbearance agreements, short sales, deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure, or extensions of time to cure defaults or reinstate loans?
No. We hold property for the benefit of trust beneficiaries. We also provide a document retrieval service of publicly recorded documents. Our actions upon trust assets is confidential and proprietary.
Do you ever or have you ever advised a customer not to pay their mortgage? If so, do you warn customers that failure to pay their mortgage could result in the loss of their home or damage to their credit rating?
No. Our actions are to maintain, preserve and protect the assets that belong to the trust estate and the trust beneficiaries.
Do you ever advise customers to stop communicating with their lender or servicer?
No. We do not instruct or advise our customers how to use the documents which they have requested we retrieve for them.
Do you tell your customers the total cost of your service and that they can stop using your services at any time?
This question is not applicable to the document retrieval work that we do.
Do you tell your customers that you’re not associated with the government or their lender?
No. We perform a document retrieval service on publicly recorded documents. Our work product is created in the regular course of our research and is distributed by specific request without any warranty or even the implied warranty of suitability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Do you tell your customers that their lender may not agree to change the terms of their mortgage?
WE are not involved with loan modifications, or any type of mortgage relief. We provide a document retrieval service. Customers request a copy of a document and we furnish them with that document.
Do you require your customer to agree to an offer of mortgage relief from the customer’s lender or servicer offer before you collect money for your service? Or do you collect money in advance of providing this service?
We are not involved in mortgage processing of any kind.
Do you give your customer a written notice from the lender or servicer describing all material differences between the terms of the offer and the customer’s current loan? If so, do you also tell your customer that if the lender or servicer’s offer isn’t acceptable to them, they don’t have to pay your fee?
The services we provide for customers is research in nature. There is No Warranty or No Guarantee of a specific outcome. Moreover, we are not involved in any form of mortgage processing.
