Foreclosure Investigation Stalls
Attorneys general negotiating the settlement of a nationwide foreclosure investigation have yet to approach banks with a proposed dollar amount that would fund principal reductions for borrowers, a state official said.
The states have agreed on some terms while failing so far to reach an accord on monetary payments by lenders, a person familiar with the talks said last week. Eight Republican attorneys general have publicly challenged the concept of principal reductions as part of a 50-state settlement.
Last month, state officials and federal agencies, including the Justice Department, submitted settlement terms to five mortgage servicers, including Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) They called for a "substantial portion" of an unspecified monetary amount to go toward a loan modification program.
The six-month probe by the states was triggered by claims of faulty foreclosure practices following the housing collapse, which state officials said may violate their laws. Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat who leads the investigation, said in an interview that the states haven't presented a dollar figure to the banks, declining further comment.
Any state agreement with servicers or banks on principal reductions will depend on the size of the writedowns, the incentives for the servicers built into the settlement and other details, which continue to be sorted out, said the first person familiar with the negotiations.
"Our position has been that principal reductions are one tool in the toolbox, and should only be used in appropriate circumstances," Iowa's Miller said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
In addition to Bank of America and JPMorgan, also taking part in those agreements were San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, New York-based Citigroup, the GMAC unit of Detroit-based Ally Financial, Aurora Bank FSB, EverBank Financial Corp., HSBC Holdings Plc, OneWest, MetLife Inc., PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (PNC), Sovereign Bank, SunTrust Banks Inc., and US Bancorp.
Iowa's Miller said earlier this month that the state effort to reach a nationwide agreement would continue "unabated."
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G&A Spring Happy Hour
Thanks to all those who joined us for our Spring Happy Hour on April 20. We had a great turnout and everyone had a great time. We will be having another event later in the summer.
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Get Rowdy with G&A
FC Tampa Bay opened its 2001 NASL season with a win over Montreal in front of a crowd of over 4,000 fans. The team begins a homestand with three May games at Al Lang Stadium.
May 7 Carolina RailHawks
May 11 FC Edmonton
May 21 Montreal Impact
G&A is proud to be a sponsor of FC Tampa Bay
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Local Spotlight: Crazy Fit
By: Ashley Elmore Drew
With the obesity epidemic booming, particularly among children, there is a growing need to educate the little ones about proper exercise and nutrition. Plenty of parents put their kids in sports and trust that they will learn the exercise element through that experience. In school, kids are shown the food pyramid and are encouraged to minimize sugar intake. That just isn't good enough for every kid. Learning how to make your body stronger and leaner in a healthy way is a specific skill set that will last a lifetime. It will boost the child's agility and ability to perform in the team sports, and it will provide solid rationale behind the food rules that many kids find arbitrary.
Luckily, Meghan Dorman saw the need for this and has provided folks in St. Pete with a solution. She opened CrazyFit, which uses the CrossFit strength and conditioning program and offers private personal training, group fitness classes, nutrition counseling, meal planning, and lifestyle consulting for kids, teens, and families. She also works closely with expecting mothers to create a safe and effective prenatal exercise and nutrition strategy.
As Meghan eloquently summarizes on her website, "Building strong bodies early on is critical for protecting kids against disease and injury down the road. Just as important as their physical health is their state of mental well-being. Being active in the pursuit of fitness can increase a child's sense of self-discipline and confidence, as well as their ability to set realistic goals and persevere through challenges."
Meghan is a CrossFit Level I, CrossFit Kids, and ACE certified fitness trainer. You can learn more about her and how she may be able to help your family at her website, www.crazyfit.com To learn more about the CrossFit strength and conditioning program in general, check out www.stpetecrossfit.com
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Tech Corner
Kevin Baker, JDL Technology Services
Document Management Solutions for Law Firms
With each new case are you finding that the management of thousands of documents on your network have become daunting? At JDL we offer various soutions for law firms of any size. For more information on how JDL can implement an effective document management strategy, please contact or email Kevin Baker or Jason Long:
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Hardest Hit Foreclosure Program
Florida's Hardest Hit Program to help those facing foreclosure just launched. More than a billion dollars of federal funding is available to cover mortgage payments for up to 18 months or bring delinquent loans current. Presently, 963 homeowners have applied for assistance and only 64 have been approved and more than 400 rejected.
Florida's share of the federal funding comes from a $7.6 billion award to 18 states. Only California's is larger. The highest amount any person can get is $35,000. The Florida housing finance corporation estimates it will be able to help about 20,000 people. Unemployed and underemployed homeowners are targeted because they often have trouble getting loan modifications that require them to be able to afford a lower payment. There are terms and conditions of the program.
-You have to be a Florida resident, living in the home you're trying to save.
-You cannot have a second property.
-The mortgage can be no more than 180 days late at the time of the application and must have originated before January first of 2009.
-The balance on that loan has to be below $400,000.
-Your housing debt has to be more than 31 percent of your monthly gross income.
-Your assets cannot be more than $5,000 or three times the monthly mortgage payment.
For those who qualify, the payments are more a grant than a loan. However, the money will have to be paid back if you sell the house in less than five years or go into foreclosure.
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Wi Fi Security
A New York man was questioned by the FBI in connection with is unsecure wireless router open to the general public. As far as the authorities are concerned, that illegal activity originates from your wireless router, so you are the primary suspect. The man left his left his home Wi-Fi network unprotected, and a neighbor piggy-backed on his "free" wireless network to access thousands of child pornography images. He's not the first to fall victim to this scenario, and, unfortunately, he won't be the last.
It is important that you lock your wireless network down. For now, though, that ball is in your court. Turn on encryption to prevent unauthorized piggy-backing. If you don't, the next knock on your door might be the FBI.
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Happy Mother's Day
G&A wants to wish a very happy Mother's Day to our moms and to moms everwhere. Thanks for all you do and mean to us all.
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Cheers to William & Kate
Erika & Ashley enjoying High Tea with a toast to the Royal Couple.
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G&A News & Notes
*G&A was a finalist for the 2011 Tampa Bay Business Journals' Best Places to Work. The awards ceremony took place on April 21 at Lowry Park Zoo. TBBJ Best Places to Work
*Ashley M. Elmore Drew was appointed to serve a three-year term on the Law Related Education Committee of the Florida Bar. The Law Related Education Committee serves to promote law related education programs in Florida schools.
*Gallagher & Associates was proud to sponsor the St.Peterburg Bar Stetson Law School Social on April 14.
*Gallagher & Associates is proud to sponsor the St. Petersburg Bar's Meet the Judges Lunch on May 4 at the Pinellas County Courthouse.
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Celtics Hire Sleep Doctor
NBA fans try to consider the inhibitions a tough day-to-day schedule places on their favorite teams, but usually such sympathy goes out the window the moment the starting power forward fails to box out.
Sleep, or lack thereof, is a big problem in the NBA, where players spend half of their season on the road while being asked to perform at the absolute peak of their abilities sometime after 10 p.m. before shutting it off completely and hitting the sack in a foreign hotel room just a few hours later. Players have to go piecemeal with their rest, often sneaking snoozes in during hotel stays in the afternoon, shuffled in-between team shootarounds or public appearances scheduled by people who only obey the 9-to-5 call.
This is why the Boston Celtics have hired the services of Dr. Charles Czeisler, as they attempt to feed their wily veterans and skittish youngsters all the sleep they need over the course of what for Boston is often a 100-game season. Dr. Czeisler recently detailed his influence on the defending Eastern Conference champs:
The Celtics soon eliminated morning practices and instituted the "2 a.m. rule," which holds that if the players can't get to their hotel rooms in the next city by that time, then they stay where they are for an extra night and get their eight hours. Sound rest is all the more important for a veteran team like the Celtics, who have struggled playing games on consecutive nights. "Trying to create a window of 8 to 10 hours of sleep - it's almost impossible during an NBA season," Rivers says. "The way we were doing it made it completely impossible."
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Stern Saga Continues
By: Ashley Elmore Drew
"Foreclosure King", David Stern shut down his offices on March 31 after numerous allegations of fraud. You might be inclined to breathe a big sigh of relief. Don't get too excited, David Stern is not going down without a fight...or at least a considerable amount of inconvenience.
To give you some context, in 2009, the firm handled 70,000 foreclosure cases. From 2006 to 2008, revenue generated by the non-legal, foreclosure-related parts of Stern's operations went from $40 million to $200 million.
Stern decided to leave the business of foreclosure prosecution without bothering to formerly withdraw from the cases. He left roughly 100,000 Florida foreclosure cases pending. Many of those cases are now stuck in the system. Stern lawyers are still legally responsible for roughly 25,000 of those cases.
Those cases will likely sit in foreclosure limbo until judges have no choice but to dismiss them. While the homeowners who are being foreclosed upon may think that sounds good, it is bad news for all of us. It will take the banks years and millions of dollars to re-file the cases. Not to mention that Florida's underfunded judiciary has a backlog of 300,000 pending foreclosure cases.
Not only did David Stern allegedly disregard Florida law while he was practicing here, pushing through inappropriate and unverified foreclosures, his actions will likely delay the housing recovery significantly and place an enormous burden on the courts.
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Home Prices Drop
Home prices still falling in Miami, Tampa and most U.S. cities. Prices in Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Ore., Seattle and Tampa are all at their lowest point since 2006 or 2007, at the height of the housing boom, according to a Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index released Tuesday.
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G&A Email Directory
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About Our Firm
Gallagher & Associates Law Firm, P.A. is a boutique consumer law firm in offering concierge legal services to individuals, consumers and small businesses where clients have 24/7 access to their attorney.
Our practice areas include foreclosure defense, insurance litigation, real estate litigation and business law and consumer litigation.
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