A recent Land Court Decision Affecting Foreclosures in Massachusetts

I guess I'm not the only one who is living among packed boxes feeling depressed because my dream house fell through. We have signed an extension to the P&S which seems to be a lost caused but I figured, we came this far, I don't want to give up until we know something from the court. I suspect they will have to reforeclose but in the mean time, we will move on but still hold out for the verdict.

I asked my lawyer about the re-forclosure process. He advised me that with a new foreclosure I run the risk of losing the house at the auction and that my P&S is null and void at that point. What does this mean for us? So if the verdict is NOT overturned and we all have to reforclose on these homes than we all have been waiting for nothing? Really? Why?
Can anyone shed some light on this? Do we have a leg to stand on if we all wait it through a re-forclosure process??

As this is a new court deceision, lot's of loopholes are there. I would suggest you all to contact other attorney's and discuss the issue in full. Consultation from other attorneys may help you in understanding what changes the new land court deceision will bring up.

Hi Roxanne,
I have an attorney already, what are you hinting towards? What other attorneys? Please elaborate for us.

Hi gmorin

Consulting other attorneys will give you an idea about what they are thinking about this land court decision. It will also let you know whether or not you'll have to wait for a re-forclosure process.

Thanks.

The same thing is happening with my foreclosure, and i was told by the real estate firm that is assigned to the property that this can take anywhere from 6 months to a year to clear... is this true? what actually needs to be done?

Ok - so this problem with forclosures has been thrown into the air for close to 2 months now so after losing our first house at the last minute we found a second house last weekend. Our realtor fit us and our paperwork in between a very busy day for her. As we were driving to her office to sign a P&S she found out that this house has a foggy title as well but the impression we all got was that it was possible to wait it out with this one.

We were told that there were 5 other offers on the place and that if we wanted to be considered we were now all required to get pre-approval from Wells Fargo before we could begin a bidding war. This still sounded like we had a shot so we let them pull our credit numbers again to qualify to bid and were advised in under 3 hours that we were eligible for top of the line rates.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I went to look at the house in my realty daily update and "POOF" it was gone - not listed as off market like someone beat us out with a better price - just not there or anywhere else that I went to check.

I got in touch with our agent and after her phone call to the listing agent she let us know that the bank knew all along that NO sale could go through on this because of this mess. So Wells Fargo got at least 6 sets of numbers to run through their data base for a house they knew they couldn't sell.

We sucked it up - AGAIN - and went back to the list. Another possible house popped up late last night and I contacted our agent. She immediately got in touch with the listing agent and was told that this house too falls into the same pot but that the bank is insisting on it being listed again.

At least we found out this time before we left our house to treck out and fall in love with another place only to be told that "OOPS - we would love to sell you the house but we do not have a free title to it"

What I cannot understand is WHY are the banks listing properties that they may not even own in the end and WHY are they encouraging signed P&S's PLUS deposits from folks they KNOW cannot buy the house.

I guess, the recent land court decision has left the banks confused. Thus, they have suddenly started removing properties which were earlier listed for sale. Until the court clarifies the whole issue, this land court decision will keep on confusing us.

I really believe that all of our frustrations are coming from a complete lack of communication. No one really knows anything, so everyone is too afraid to make guesses about what's going on. I've heard it will take years for us to close, I've heard it will take weeks. There absolutely needs to be written formal communication from the lawyers working on these cases so that we can all get out of the dark. Even if it's bad news - at least it's news!

Would it help if someone asked the Globe or Herald to do a story on it? That foreclosures aren't being allowed to be sold due to the Mass Courts, holding up the "recovery" - no taxes are being paid, no housing sales allowed to rise, etc? Apply some pressure?

I agree. I also just wrote an email to Judge Long's Session Clerk, Scott Smith. See below email that I sent:

I am currently in the process of purchasing a foreclosed home in Webster, MA. ve been in the process since February of 2009. Last month, as we were preparing to close on our dream home, we were informed of a case (US Bank National Assoc. vs. Ibanez case # 384283) that has locked up all defective foreclosed homes in the state of MA. Of which my house qualifies.

In the meantime, anticipating purchasing our dream home, we rented our existing home and have now been forced to move in with my in-laws along with my 2 year old daughter and 2 dogs.

The reason why I am contacting you and Judge Longs office is to get some clarification on this case as well as a better understanding of how and why this case is affecting the purchase of our new home. My lawyers have informed me that until this case gets cleared up and a more defined decision has been made that all foreclosures are locked up and it may take 6 moths to 1 year to get an answer. Is this true?



Is there any information that you or your offices can share with me and other home owners that have been put on hold? Any information that you can lend us would be greatly appreciated. Through this process Ive met many people that are in the exact same situation. We are good, hard working individuals that are qualified and able to purchase these foreclosed homes. The President of the United States is urging people to purchase property and help turn this recession around. Unfortunately, we are unable to do that here in the state of MA.

This case has created absolute chaos in the Commonwealth State of Massachusetts. It seems that Lawyers, Banks, and Title Insurers are all baffled and no one can provide any clear answers.

Thank you for you time.


I figured if I sent the above email that maybe I could get a response. nothing yet. I agree that we need to get some press around this issue. Remember that the banks had till Monday June 8th to produce their appropriate paperwork for Judge Long. The continuation is scheduled for 4pm. Keep your fingers crossed that the banks have the information they need!!

If anyone else would like to FLOOD JUDGE LONG'S OFFICE with an email please send to his session clerk at:
call 617-788-7463 - Scott Smith

Not sure where this will get you....as I have not heard back yet.

[Email address deleted as per forum rules. Thanks.]

I think you need be patient. In my opinion, the Judge Long's office will definitely send you a reply which will help in clarifying the whole issue. Keep the community posted if you've further information.

I just wanted to say great email, gmorin. Please do let us know if you get a response. I'm all for going to the press and asking for their help raising awareness and to get an answer if it's not clarified on Monday.

Speaking of which, does anyone know if Judge Long will make a decision then, or will it be "under advisement" until God knows when?

Many thanks!

I wrote to "Help Me Hank" at WHDH and am waiting to hear. Below is the last part of my letter:

It is almost 2 months since we lost our first house to the technicalities that are affecting 2/3 of all foreclosed homes and we are still waiting to find out if the seller will be able to sell us the house when the dust settles.

Meanwhile we figured we should look at other houses.

Two weeks ago we found another one on the realtor's daily update listing. Since it had been months since the ruling we assumed that anything listed would be available. After all there are still 1/3 of the foreclosed houses that met the requirements noted in the ruling.

We were so excited about this place that we eliminated the rest of our list for that day and went straight to the Realtor's office to put in our offer. We knew there had been other offers but we were ready to be part of bidding war if needed. We wrote our "good faith" check and sat back to hear about the second phase of a bidding war.

That was on Sunday. Monday morning we were informed that Well's Fargo, the seller, was requiring everyone interested to apply to them for preapproval. We had our letter from our bank, the bank we were going with no matter what, and couldn't figure out why we had to re-apply with Well's Fargo but we did because we wanted our shot at the house. Preapproval came in less than 3 hours.

Tuesday I checked the realtor's daily list to make sure it had not come off the market with a higher bid. It wasn't there. Usually houses that come off the market are noted as "off market". This house was nowhere on the list or in any listing web site I tried. It disappeared.

I got in touch with my realtor and she got in touch with the agent for Wells Fargo. Apparently Wells Fargo knew all along that they would not be able to sell that house for the same reason we couldn't buy the first house. Their agent had been told to put the house on the market again - knowing full well that it did not have a marketable title. When they asked for applications to be filled out by at least 5 people that we know of - they KNEW they couldn't sell it to any of us. Now they have 6 new people in their data base and hit all 6 credit scores for no good reason that I can see.

There is another house on the daily list that we decided we would check and it also falls into the 2/3 "bad" foreclosures but there it is being shown as if it is available.

I understand there is an appeal hearing on Monday, June 8, for the original problem houses. I also understand that the judge based his ruling on "the letter of the law" so odds are that it is not going to be overturned. If I understand that then I am sure the attorneys representing the banks understand that so how is it that these properties are allowed to be marketed and how is it that banks are allowed to gather personal information from people they know will not be able to buy the house at this stage.

I didn't buy a house when I knew I couldn't afford one but now that I can afford the advertised prices I am not allowed to buy. Where do I go from here? Who else do I need to contact?

Thank you for your time

Thank you for contacting Help me Hank. My family has recommended that to us many times. Look, we are all in the same boat here. If we can pull together and be heard we should get a response. You are completely correct that these houses should never have been advertised and we feel that these houses fall under "false advertisement". These house should have never been listed. Not only have the banks affected our credit score but we pulled out a considerate amount of our investment dollars in anticipation of our closimg. We are now losing interest on our money.

Thank you for contacting Help me Hank, please let us know if you hear anything.