The law was pretty much that elders with Reverse Mortgages are not entitled to Court Conferences in the event of a foreclosure.
It sounds odd that foreclosures can be commenced on a reverse mortgage notwithstanding what is advertised. Foreclosures may be commenced when banks state the elder has failed to make insurance payments or real estate tax payments.
Sometimes the bank agrees to make those payments and sometimes not.
What happens more often than not if the borrower misses a tax payment is that the banks refuse to provide the amount of the alleged underpayment to the borrower, sometimes making it impossible for the borrower to catch up. In addition, sometimes the elderly cannot afford the legal fees involved to answer the lender’s complaint in Court.,
Although the borrower must always answer to avoid a default, recently, Governor Cuomo and Superintendent Maria Vullo (Department of Financial Services in New York State) suggested that Court Conferences are appropriate when a Reverse Mortgage is involved.
This reduces legal fees charged by banks and those that must be paid by the elderly.
I applaud this endeavor and protection of the elderly.
The Governor and Superintendent should go further and require that banks provide a statement each and every month itemizing each and every charge which it expects the borrower to pay.
The fact that banks will not provide statements makes it impossible for homeowners to catch up and settle because at the end what banks do is slam the borrower with charges that cannot be contested at the last minute when the case is supposed to settle.
This is unscrupulous conduct on the part of banks and banks’ attorneys and its a game that they have played for years.
Governor Cuomo and Superintendent Vullo should put an end to this game that was mastered by Steven Baum & Associates who was eventually fined millions by our State Attorney General.
mildredmichalczyk 