Success Stories

An undocumented immigrant came to our office seeking help to save his home. His mortgage had been paid off in full but he fell behind on the homeowners’ association payments because he was ill and hospitalized, which required him to stop working for a period of time. U.S. Citizenship is not required and legal status does not determine eligibility to file bankruptcy. It would affect the ability to use the Florida (or state) exemptions, but the Federal bankruptcy exemptions may be used. This would have to be examined closely to ensure the client’s assets are protected fully. In this particular case, the client filed chapter 13 bankruptcy, allowing him to enter into a reorganization plan of 5 years to pay his debts and upon completion, obtained his discharge, was current on the homeowners’ association payments and was able to save his home.

Click here for more information on bankruptcy relief.

Loan Lawyers has helped over 5,000 South Florida homeowners and consumers with their debt problems, we have saved over 1,800 homes from foreclosure, eliminated $100,000,000 in mortgage principal and consumer debt, and have collected millions of dollars on behalf of our clients due to bank, loan servicer, and debt collector violations, negligence and fraud.

Contact us for a free consultation to see how we may be able to help you. Call us at 1-888-Fight13 (344-4813)

Results may not be typical. You may not have as beneficial a result.

This client retained Loan Lawyers in 2013 to defend against a mortgage foreclosure action in Miami-Dade County. Although the trial court entered a final judgment of foreclosure in favor of plaintiff Bank of America, we appealed the foreclosure judgment and won on appeal, a rarity in Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal.

Long before the client came to Loan Lawyers or was even in foreclosure, the client had accepted a loan modification from the lender and paid monthly payments on this loan modification for 18 months. Not once did the client receive any indication from the lender that there was any problem with their payments or the loan modification. Their payments under the loan modification totaled nearly $30,000.

Eighteen months after the client accepted the loan modification and had been making payments on the loan modification, Bank of America then sent the client a default letter alleging that the payment for over one year prior was still due and, further, instructing the client to pay over $40,000 within 30 days to cure the alleged default. The letter did not acknowledge the loan modification agreement.

When Bank of America filed its complaint about foreclosure, it did not reference the loan modification agreement or otherwise allege that the loan had been modified.

The primary issue at trial was whether the parties had entered into a loan modification agreement. The trial court found that no loan modification agreement existed, but it did credit borrowers the nearly $30,000 they had paid over 18 months under what they believed to be a loan modification agreement.

The trial court entered its final judgment of foreclosure. With Loan Lawyers, the client appealed this judgment to the Third District Court of Appeal, which serves Miami-Dade County and Monroe County.

In August 2018, the Third District Court of Appeal issued its opinion, Pijuan v. Bank of America, reversing the final judgment of foreclosure and remanding the case to the trial court for the entry of an order of involuntary dismissal because Bank of America failed to plead and prove the client’s breach of the loan modification agreement.

This is a big win for borrowers all over Florida, as the Third District Court of Appeal adopted the reasoning of the Fifth District Court of Appeal in its 2015 decision, Kuehlman v. Bank of America, and that of the Second District Court of Appeal in its 2016 decision, Nowlin v. Nationstar Mortg., LLC. The Third District Court of Appeal stated as follows: “We follow the persuasive precedent of our sister courts in holding that, when a loan modification has been reached, a lender can foreclose only by both pleading and proving a breach of the modification agreement.”

Loan Lawyers has helped over 5,000 South Florida homeowners and consumers with their debt problems, we have saved over 1,800 homes from foreclosure, eliminated $100,000,000 in mortgage principal and consumer debt, and have collected millions of dollars on behalf of our clients due to bank, loan servicer, and debt collector violations, negligence and fraud.

Contact us for a free consultation to see how we may be able to help you.

Results may not be typical.  You may not have as beneficial a result.

This client came to Loan Lawyers in 2017 to defend against a mortgage foreclosure action. The plaintiff ultimately dismissed its case after a Final Judgment of Foreclosure had been entered because the client was able to reinstate his loan and accept a loan modification offer from the plaintiff.

Loan Lawyers was able to negotiate a reinstatement and loan modification for this client based on what he could actually pay now towards reinstatement and what he could pay moving forward. The client had been in a default state for over five years at the time of the reinstatement and modification.

This case was not without its hiccups. With a sale date fast approaching, the client sent full reinstatement funds to the plaintiff, the plaintiff acknowledged its acceptance of the funds, then, a month later, returned all the funds to the client because the plaintiff claimed to have made an error in calculating the reinstatement figures.

Loan Lawyers then requested the corrected reinstatement quote, which turned out to be nearly three times the first reinstatement quote.

The client was able to offer an amount less than the full reinstatement quote, which the plaintiff then accepted and, further, offered a loan modification to the client. The client accepted the loan modification offer.

The plaintiff then filed a motion to vacate the final judgment, dismiss the case, cancel the pending foreclosure sale, and release the lis pendens on the grounds that the loan had been brought current. The court promptly granted the plaintiff’s motion and entered an order dismissing the case.

Loan Lawyers has helped over 5,000 South Florida homeowners and consumers with their debt problems, we have saved over 1,800 homes from foreclosure, eliminated $100,000,000 in mortgage principal and consumer debt, and have collected millions of dollars on behalf of our clients due to bank, loan servicer, and debt collector violations, negligence and fraud.

Contact us for a free consultation to see how we may be able to help you. Call us at 1-888-Fight13 (344-4813).

Results may not be typical. You may not have as beneficial a result.

Our client was sued by what is commonly called a “debt buyer”, companies that claim to purchase past-due accounts and then attempt to collect upon them. Debt buyers often file lawsuits against alleged debtors if they do not voluntarily pay the amount sought. Our firm has fought and continues to fight many debt buyers with a great deal of success.

In a recent matter, our client was sued by a debt buyer for an alleged credit card debt. We filed a motion for summary judgment arguing that the debt buyer lacks standing and thus the matter should be dismissed. In the context of a debt buyer case challenging standing is essentially challenging that the debt buyer actually has the right to collect upon the debt. We attended a hearing recently on such a motion and prevailed and the Court agreed that the debt buyer failed to produce sufficient evidence that they actually owned the alleged debt. A summary judgment was entered in our favor and our client no longer needed to fear harassment by the debt collector or worry about the entry of a judgment against them.

However, alongside the summary judgment, we had also filed a counterclaim accusing the debt buyer of harassing our client. Shortly after the entry of the summary judgment, the debt buyer offered to pay a substantial sum to resolve the counterclaim.

Loan Lawyers has helped over 5,000 South Florida homeowners and consumers with their debt problems, we have saved over 1,800 homes from foreclosure, eliminated $100,000,000 in mortgage principal and consumer debt, and have collected millions of dollars on behalf of our clients due to bank, loan servicer, and debt collector violations, negligence and fraud.

Contact us for a free consultation to see how we may be able to help you. Call us at 1-888-Fight13 (344-4813).

Results may not be typical. You may not have as beneficial a result.

Our client was sued for a sum in excess of $30,000 by a debt buyer, a company that buys old debts and then sues people for them. Most credit card companies do not sell larger debts to debt buyers, preferring to pursue them themselves but it does happen. Unfortunately for the debt buyer, they made a procedural error of sorts which meant that they had engaged in a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act(“FDCPA”). The FDCPA is not an “offset” to actions against them, a large body of case law is very clear on that point. Just because a debt owes a creditor money does not mean that a creditor is off the hook for any violations of the law they engage in. It is entirely possible for a creditor to win a case but still have to pay for violating the FDCPA while doing so. After fighting the case for a time, before its ultimate resolution, the debt-buyer realized that it was not worth the risk, or the attorney fees they were spending to fight our client and agreed to drop the lawsuit which they had filed against our client.

Loan Lawyers has helped over 5,000 South Florida homeowners and consumers with their debt problems, we have saved over 1,800 homes from foreclosure, eliminated $100,000,000 in mortgage principal and consumer debt, and have collected millions of dollars on behalf of our clients due to bank, loan servicer, and debt collector violations, negligence and fraud.

Contact us for a free consultation to see how we may be able to help you. Call us at 1-888-Fight13 (344-4813).

Results may not be typical. You may not have as beneficial a result.

Client had a foreclosure lawsuit against him and he came to us trying to save his family home. We filed chapter 13 bankruptcy and applied for the MMM (mediated mortgage modification) program within the bankruptcy, to apply for a mortgage modification. Client also owed the homeowners’ association (HOA) close to $8,000 and the HOA refused to work with him and his wife on a payment plan and wanted to proceed with foreclosure as well.

In chapter 13 bankruptcy, we were able to eliminate the HOA lien because there was insufficient equity in the home after the first mortgage; therefore, the debtor only had to pay the regular, ongoing HOA payments within the bankruptcy and upon completion of the case, the HOA lien was extinguished.

Although during the bankruptcy mortgage modification program, the lender denied the modification request, client continued making “good faith” adequate protection payments for most of the case, which considerably reduced the amount owed on the mortgage while still protected by the federal automatic stay. The lender then filed a motion for stay relief toward the end of the plan, but client was able to complete the bankruptcy plan, got the discharge order eliminating $25,000 worth of credit card debt and medical bills, wiping out the HOA lien, and reduced the mortgage balance substantially. Client was now in a better position to try applying for a modification again. Within a couple of months after the bankruptcy was completed, client applied for another mortgage modification and was approved. He and his wife and family are now current with the mortgage and HOA and got rid of all of their unsecured debt.

Loan Lawyers has helped over 5,000 South Florida homeowners and consumers with their debt problems, we have saved over 1,800 homes from foreclosure, eliminated $100,000,000 in mortgage principal and consumer debt, and have collected millions of dollars on behalf of our clients due to bank, loan servicer, and debt collector violations, negligence and fraud. Contact us for a free consultation to see how we may be able to help you. Call us at 1-888-Fight13 (344-4813).

Results may not be typical. You may not have as beneficial a result.

It is unfortunate but there is a widespread belief held by many that the financial records that banks and other large corporations keep records are perfect that are utterly reliable. Our office has fought numerous cases against large corporations, nothing could be further from the truth. I am not referring to instances of intentional misconduct, people “cooking the books”, though such does occur, nor things like a cable company “accidentally” over-charging one month, nor documents being lost by mistake, checks not being cashed when they should have etc. Rather, many people believe that actual errors in the math by banks and other large corporations don’t happen. There is a common misconception that such large entities must always get fundamentals right, except when they get it wrong on purpose to try to cheat their customers.

A tiny error just won several cases worth thousands of dollars for one of our clients. A discrepancy of less than a dollar.

We recently questioned a bookkeeper for a “debt buyer”, a company that buys old credit card debts and then sues people for them. After examining hundreds of pages of documents we found there was a discrepancy in two of the pages on how much our client owed, a discrepancy of less than a dollar. Not all of the records matched. It is entirely possible, in fact it is probable that our attorneys were the first human beings to ever actually read the documents since they were all computer generated. Still, we found a discrepancy of less than a dollar and the bookkeeper we were questioning admitted that it was a discrepancy, that the numbers should have matched and that they had no explanation for it.

Approximately ten minutes later several cases settled, debts of thousands allegedly owed by one of our clients were wiped out and the debt buyer agreed to pay our client a substantial amount for harassing them.

All over less than a dollar?

Courts in Florida have to comply with what is called the “code of evidence” and a thorny legal issue called “hearsay”. It is not entirely right to say that hearsay rule provide that if a Court wants to review certain records, they need a person from the company that made them present to do so. That is not strictly speaking right, but it is a close enough description for a non-lawyer to understand what happened in this case. Do not use that definition in a court case, it is not correct. For a corporation to get records into evidence they have to prove that the records were made as part of a regular, common and consistent process. By finding a discrepancy of less than a dollar we demonstrated that either the credit card company made a mistake, or the debt buyer did which meant that it was highly unlikely they could get any of their papers into the official court record, which means their case would be lost because they would not be able to prove our client owed anything.

All over what was probably a minor computer glitch of less than a dollar.

If you are sick you go to a doctor.

If your car is not working you go to a mechanic.

If you need tax advice you go to an accountant.

If you are having legal problems, contact a lawyer and if not our firm, then another one.

Even if the error above was found by a non-lawyer, which is unlikely, it is unlikely it could be effectively wielded as a weapon to win the case. Our office offers absolutely free consultations and we would be happy to discuss what we might be able to do to help you.

Loan Lawyers has helped over 5,000 South Florida homeowners and consumers with their debt problems, we have saved over 1,800 homes from foreclosure, eliminated $100,000,000 in mortgage principal and consumer debt, and have collected millions of dollars on behalf of our clients due to bank, loan servicer, and debt collector violations, negligence and fraud.

Contact us for a free consultation to see how we may be able to help you.

Results may not be typical. You may not have as beneficial a result.

Client came to us anxious and crying because she was on the verge of losing her home, not because of missed mortgage payments, property taxes, or HOA assessments, but because ten years ago she had an air conditioning unit installed and had not realized that some of the documents she signed were indeed a mortgage against her home. What started off as a $14,000 loan turned into nearly $40,000 owed because of interest, attorney’s fees, and other charges. Due to missed payments on that loan, the creditor filed a foreclosure action against Client.

Since the fair market value of client’s home is slightly less than the balance owed on the first mortgage, we were successful in stripping the air conditioning loan, eliminating that debt completely in the bankruptcy and debtor was able to save her home.

Click here for more information on bankruptcy relief

Loan Lawyers has helped over 5,000 South Florida homeowners and consumers with their debt problems, we have saved over 2,000 homes from foreclosure, eliminated more than $100,000,000 in mortgage principal and consumer debt, and have recovered over $10,000,000 on behalf of our clients due to bank, loan servicer, and debt collector violations. Contact us for a free consultation to see how we may be able to help you.

Clients Andreas and Claudia Goers came to Loan Lawyers in March of 2016 to represent them in a pending foreclosure action, having been previously successfully represented by our office in a prior FC action. The clients had lost stable employment and that they wanted us to help them get a loan modification. If that was unsuccessful, they wanted us to keep the case going until they could find employment and eventually qualify for a loan modification.

Shortly after our appearance in the foreclosure case, we filed our answer and affirmative defenses and began working with the Plaintiff’s counsel to attempt to get our client a modification.  We were able to get the Plaintiff to extend our clients a trial modification in early 2017 and the Plaintiff moved to have the case placed on inactive status. The terms of the trial modification were not beneficial to our clients and ultimately they determined that it was not in their best interest to accept the terms that had been offered.

The Case

The case became active again July of 2017.  In May of 2017, the Plaintiff propounded Requests for Production, Requests for Admissions, and Interrogatories upon our clients. We timely filed motions extending our response periods and we responded timely to the Plaintiff’s discovery requests. Depositions of our clients were noticed and at the end of 2017, after being reset, were taken at the end of January 2018. Prior to the depositions, we thoroughly prepared our clients for the questions that would be addressed and attended the scheduled depositions with them to protect their interests.

Overall, this foreclosure case was set for trial 4 times and our trial attorneys thoroughly prepared themselves and our clients for trial each time. The last time that the case was set for trial was on January 8, 2019. Several weeks prior to the trial, our clients were finally able to find full-time employment out of state and they determined that they wanted to surrender the property to the Plaintiff. We discussed with our clients how this decision should be presented to the Plaintiff,and we were able to negotiate a settlement of the foreclosure action where the Plaintiff actually agreed to pay our clients a significant cash amount for the settlement and that money is very helpful to them as they relocate out of state for their new jobs.

Our clients had retained us to defend their foreclose matter until they could locate employment and modify their loan and we worked diligently to help them realize this outcome for nearly 3 years. Obviously, this plan changed as the case progressed and our clients’ employment opportunities took them out of state to start over. Ultimately, we were able to negotiate a significant settlement agreement that worked better for them as their goals changed.

Loan Lawyers has helped over 5,000 South Florida Homeowners and consumers with their debt problems, we have saved over 2,000 homes from foreclosure, eliminated more than $100,000,000 in Mortgage Principle and consumer debt, and have recovered over $10,000,000 on behalf of our clients due to bank, loan servicer, and debt collector violations. Contact us for a free consultation to see how we may be able to help you.

“Results may not be typical. You may not have as beneficial a result.” Mandatory disclosure from The Florida Bar.