Are you in or facing foreclosure? To protect yourself and your property, ask your lender to produce your original mortgage note.
A request to produce the note requires the lender to prove it actually has the authority to foreclose on you. The lender must officially produce the original promissory note, with your signature, in the lawsuit.
Your goal with this process is to make certain the institution foreclosing is, in fact, the owner of the note. There is only one original note for your mortgage that has your signature on it. This is the document that proves you owe the debt.
In the past few years, many mortgage notes have been sold and re-sold to other institutions and investment companies either individually or, more often, when bundled together as huge securitized packages on Wall Street. These sales were done so often and so quickly that, many times, proper documentation did not follow the exchanges resulting in the final institution who’s collecting the debt not having paperwork to verify their legal right to collect. In fact, this happens about 1/2 the time!
When you receive a foreclosure notice, it may state somewhere that “…the Mortgage note has either been lost or destroyed and the Plaintiff is unable to state the manner in which this occurred.” In other words, they are admitting they don’t have the note that would prove they have a right to foreclose.
One problem here that you definitely want to avoid is the possibility that another institution, which may have bought your note along the way, will also try to collect the same debt from you again. This, in fact, does happen.
Another huge problem to prevent is all the unnecessary and, arguably, illegal fees that are added during the process.
A request to produce the note is not a strategy to get your home for free or to eliminate your responsibility for your debt. Your goal here is to protect yourself from being sued illegally and to encourage your lender to assist you in a work-out or repayment plan that will allow you to keep your home. Many lenders are less willing to work with debtors today and this “produce the note” strategy is one way to get them to negotiate with you.
For steps and paperwork to help you with this legal effort, check out the Consumer Warning Network.
Aug 29th, 2010 / 5:57 pm
Unfortunately, I haven’t found anyone who works in Colorado. Are you facing foreclosure?
Have you attempted to work with your lender? Is the bank that is foreclosing on you the same one you borrowed from when you purchased your home originally? If they are foreclosing, simply ask them to send you a copy of the note you signed at the closing.
If they won’t work with you and don’t produce your note, contact the Consumer Warning Network mentioned in the above post by simply clicking on the link.
Please, keep me posted as you go through the process.
Aug 28th, 2010 / 5:58 pm
I am trying to find a Colorado attorney that can help me with PRODUCE THE NOTE, all of them so far (around 30 or so) don’t want anything to do with this processs.
Could you provide the name of 2 or 3 attorneys that work in this field. Hopefully in
western Colorado area (Grand Junction). or the names of persons that have had some
success with PRODUCE THE NOTE IN COLORADO
Jim Patrick 970-856-8868 jimpatrick@tds.net
ps Even filling out the forms for me so I can file them would be great help. I don’t think I am smart enough to file a law suit and verbally fight it in court. The big law firms would eat my lunch.
Jan 14th, 2010 / 4:43 pm
Well, again you may need to confirm you’re working with the correct bank, however, if they can’t produce the note, they may just not agree to a short. If they do agree to a short and you pay it, you could find out later that you paid off the wrong lender.
Who would you say holds all the power. Frustrating, isn’t it?
Jan 13th, 2010 / 5:40 pm
How might the situation of a lender’s inability to produce the note affect a short sale?