Avoid Foreclosure Rescue Scams
Why do you need a Tarbell Realtors agent? With foreclosures rescue scams widespread as more homeowners fall behind on mortgage payments, you need someone you can trust to guide you every step of the way.
Foreclosure rescue scams run rampant
Homeowners facing foreclosure are prime targets for scam artists. Understanding how these scams work can help you avoid becoming a victim. The variations are seemingly endless, but one popular foreclosure scam involves a representative of a so called foreclosure rescue company promising to negotiate a deal with your lender. The rep, vowing to take care of everything, will instruct you not to contact your lender, lawyer, or credit counselor during the supposed negotiations. The more brazen ones will even tell you to pay your mortgage directly to them.
Once you pay an upfront fee or hand over a few month’s worth of mortgage payments, the scam artist will disappear. You’ll be left with an emptier wallet and a mortgage that’s in even deeper trouble because no deal was cut and no payments were made on your behalf.
Rip-offs come in many forms.
A bankruptcy foreclosure scam can involve a promise to fend off foreclosures in exchange for an upfront fee. Instead of getting you legitimate relief, the fraudster will pocket the fee and secretly file a bankruptcy case in your name. The scam may seem to work initially, because a bankruptcy filing will stop foreclosing proceedings temporarily, but they’ll resume. Compounding your problems,
a bankruptcy can mar your credit report for 10 years.
Another common scam, called the bait and switch, results in the scam artist taking ownership of your home. You sign documents supposedly for a new loan that will make your mortgage current. What’s really happening s you’re signing over the deed of your house. In this scenario you would still owe on your mortgage but no longer own the home.
In rent-to-own-scheme, you’re told to surrender a home’s deed as part of a deal that lets you stay put as a renter. The scam artist, perhaps claiming to be able to refinance at a better rate with you off title, promises to sell the house back to you in the future. However, terms of the deal may make it all but impossible for you to repurchase the home, or the scammer may get you evicted by raising the rent beyond your means. Either way, you end up losing the home while remaining on the hook for the unpaid
mortgage.
Look out for red flags
Being aware of the warning signs can protect you from foreclosure rescue scams. Red flags include:
Demands for high upfront fees
Guarantees to stop a foreclosure
Instructions to make mortgage payments to someone other than your lender
Pressure to sign over a deed.
Honest real estate agents won’t put pressure on you, nor will they guarantee that you won’t loose your home to foreclosure. What they will do is give you an opinion of your situation and the best options for your situation.
