Being in the trenches day in and day out, fighting alongside Southern Oregon homeowners who have encountered financial difficulties, every once in a while I have to look up and survey the territory we are battling in. Reach out to the other troops and compare experiences. Strategize and determine where to concentrate efforts next.
There is a tool out there that was made available to Oregon Citizens last year. Oregon HB 3706 is that tool. The gist of the change I have focused on as it relates to default and foreclosure prevention is:
BACKGROUND: The Unlawful Trade Practices Act (ORS 646.605 to 646.656) is Oregon’s primary consumer protection law. It is designed to protect consumers from businesses that, among other things, fail to deliver all or a portion of goods or serves as promised, cause a likelihood of confusion or misunderstanding about products or services, use deceptive representations or designations, represent goods as meeting standards they do not, and making false or misleading representations about products or services.
When I am working with Southern Oregon homeowners facing financial hardship, there are a myriad of steps we take to figure out what path they wish to choose to take to resolve that hardship. When we end up on the path to working with their bank/servicer on home retention via a modification, HB 3706 has repeatedly been a tool we have used since it was passed in 2010. Our illustrious elected officials made this Consumer Protection Law available to homeowners with financing, no longer excluding “services involving loans or extensions of credit”.
So, how does including services involving loans or extensions of credit into the Oregon Unlawful Trade Practices Act help Oregon Homeowners facing financial hardship? Well, if they have a State Regulated financial institution they are working with, the Oregon Department of Justice may now work on the homeowner’s behalf for matters relating to HB 3706. Matters like Trial Modification Agreements the bank/servicer will not convert to a permanent one although the homeowner abided by that agreement upholding their end of the bargain. Refusing to convert the trial modification agreement to the permanent one after reviewing and approving the homeowner’s financial documentation sounds an awful lot like an Unlawful Trade Practice to me! Whenever a case runs into this type of denial by a bank/servicer, we immediately appeal the decision and include a copy of HB 3706 with the appeal. Pretty effective tool, I’ve found, leading to a higher rate of success on this method of home retention (I’m at 39% right now on approved modifications for the cases I’ve worked on at our HUD Certified Housing Counseling Agency, 48% on all home retention methods including forbearance and repayment plans).
Stay tuned… I’m reaching out to the other troops to collaborate on how to bring this tool to cases we are working on with Federally Regulated Banks/Servicers to see if we can find a tool to help resolve the impasse of converting Trial Modification Agreements to Permanent ones on the loans with major services, a tool in addition to homeowners filing complaints with the Office of the Comptroller of Currency.
See you out there!
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