“Where's The Note!” – What Does This Mean?
When we say, “Where's the Note,” we mean that your “lender” may not actually own the note on which your mortgage is based.
The sale of your mortgage from one lender to another can create a legal basis to assert your rights as a homeowner.
By “lender,” we do not mean your “loan servicer,” who most people receive their mortgage statement from and subsequently send their payment to every month. Your “loan servicer” often remains the same even after your mortgage has been sold again and again. Therefore, until very recently many people did not even realize their mortgage was sold because practically nothing in their payment routine changed. Legally, however, the sale of a mortgage from one lender to another can create a legal basis to assert your rights as a homeowner by asking the “loan servicer” to name the “lender” they are working for. Then, we would ask that lender “Where's the Note,” and prove rightful ownership of not just your mortgage but also the note that secures it.
Whoever holds the note is the only true creditor.
A mortgage is simply the security for the note. The note is the legal obligation to pay the mortgage. Over the last several years the banks have sold the mortgage and the note not as one secured financial instrument, but as two separate unsecured instruments. By doing this, many times your mortgage and note wind up in the hands of two different entities where one bank owns the note, and another owns the mortgage. Now, however, neither entity has legal standing to foreclose on your property or collect your mortgage payment every month.
Now you have the upper hand.
Without this necessary proof from the “lender,” as the rightful owner of both the note and the mortgage, we can help homeowners raise legal claims or defenses against their “alleged” creditor seeking payments or foreclosure. These claims, PROVIDED THEY ARE PROPERLY RAISED AND ARTICULATED, can help you avoid a foreclosure judgment or even challenge payment on the mortgage until the “lender” can prove the aforementioned sufficient ownership qualifications. It will also often allow a loan restructuring on your terms and may require the lender to compensate YOU for their violations. The court may even require the lender TO PAY YOUR LEGAL FEES.
|
