2008-07-09ml-implode.com

Gov Schwartzenegger signed into law today Senate Bill 1137, which aims to prevent foreclosures by forcing banks to offer home owners mortgage modifications . It also forces owners of homes taken in foreclosure or purchased out of foreclosure to keep them tidy or cities can impose a $1000 PER DAY fine. Landscapers in CA are in fat city!

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Banks are also supposed to have the homes they own insured and paid current on property taxes, which should have been included in the law. They also must pay home owner association dues in many cases.

The law, which takes effect immediately prohibits lenders from filing a Notice-of-Default until 30-days after contacting the borrower or making legitimate attempts to do so regarding a mortgage modification.



Comments:

Aristotle at 04:33 2008-07-11 said:
I am very familiar with all of the technicalities of California’s trustee sale foreclosure law. It looks like the California real estate lawyers put in as much text as they could to make these new procedures clear.

As to the $1000 per day fine, it is important to remember that any fine levied by a city or county in California is always appealable to California’s three tiered state court system, so I expect lenders hit with $1000 per day fines will appeal them. At $30,000 per month in fines, that buys a lot of lawyer time. The fine provision could have been worse, in that it could have provided that the fine is a senior lien on the foreclosed property,like a tax lien and it could have provided for prevailing party’s attorneys fees in the event of litigation over the fine, but the law didn’t. And, of course, the law leaves the cities and counties discretion to make the fines less than $1000 per day. My experience with most California cities and counties is that their decision makers never really want to upset organizations with lots of money. So while you might see Berkley or Santa Monica imposing such fines, I will be very surprised if the Republican controlled governments in the areas hard hit by foreclosures do anything with the fine provisions. Permalink

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