In response to a servicer’s proof of claim representing pre-petition arrearages the debtor in Saylor v. Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc., 3:07-cv-00229 (M.D.Ala., June 9 2008) filed a Qualified Written Request under § 2605 of RESPA to review the charges the servicer assessed under the mortgage. Some of the charges predated…
Read More »The Third Circuit in In Re: Mansaray-Ruffin, 05-4790 (3rd Cir., June 24, 2008) affirmed a Bankruptcy court’s rejection of a debtor’s attempt to invalidate a secured mortgage lien by characterizing the lien as invalid in her confirmed plan. The debtor argued that the claim was successfully invalidated because she treated…
Read More »The debtors contended in In re Rodriguez, 07-24687 (Bkrtcy.D.N.J., July 22, 2008) that Countrywide’s post-petition escrow analysis of the mortgage account constituted an unlawful post-petition collection of a pre-petition obligation resulting in repetitive and excessive payments by the Debtor of significantly more than what would have been paid but for…
Read More »In this Chapter 13 case, In re Kemp, No. 08-18700 (Bkrtcy.D.N.J., July 17, 2008), the court concluded the debtor could reclassify his secured claim arising from a second mortgage on his residence as an unsecured claim, by stripping creditor’s lien based on residence’s value, without filing an adversary proceeding. The…
Read More »In Fritz v. GMAC Mortgage Corp., 07-C-1019 (E.D.Wis., July 17, 2008) the mortgagee, GMAC, obtained a judgment of foreclosure in an earlier state court proceeding brought in the name of MERS. In response to a subsequent federal TILA suit, GMAC argued that the _Rooker-Feldman_ doctrine precluded federal jurisdiction. A Wisconsin…
Read More »In Oppong v. First Union Mortg. Corp., 02-2149 (E.D. Pa., July 24, 2008), debtor sued Wells Fargo, the new servicer, for failing to provide her with a fresh validation notice before taking actions to collect debt. The court concluded that even assuming that Wells Fargo was acting as a debt…
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