"Don't Get Mad, Get Even" Says Northern California Homeowner Group Using Court System To Fight Back Against Foreclosure

In Northern California, the Marin Independent Journal reports on "a growing movement of nearly 80 homeowners in Marin and Sonoma counties facing foreclosure and fighting back."

• United under the guise of "Don't Get Mad, Get Even," the group has met weekly for the past few months in the San Rafael office of its overseer, nonprofit Marin Family Action. [...] "It's not that these people don't want to pay or aren't paying," said Manny Fernandez, executive director of Marin Family Action, who has worked on their behalf. "Multiple times people were trying to modify their loans. They got nowhere. Next thing you know, the house is sold right from underneath them."

• [Rochelle] Cook's was the first of the group's series of individual lawsuits filed last month in Marin against the various patchworks of banks, mortgage firms and loan modification companies controlling their homes and forcing them out. The suits seek restitution for lost properties, financial devastation and crumbling credit. [...] Cook said she followed her bank's advice [...] to purposely miss three months of payments since her credit rating was too good to garner help. Default notices then piled up as calls to her lender, IndyMac Bank of Pasadena, went unheeded.

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• Officials with Marin Family Action, which assists residents with financial literacy and housing services, went the legal route after careful study of paperwork supplied by group members. Documents showed families were being forced into bankruptcy and out of their homes after what officials of the nonprofit called a sham of a loan modification process. Fernandez said each family had been denied loan modifications. Many were taken advantage of by brokers profiting from loan documents using overstated incomes and no proof of income, he said. "They were set up to fail," Fernandez said.

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• San Rafael attorney Russell Marne has provided pro bono litigation and bankruptcy assistance for the Marin group. "What we are trying to accomplish is simple, justice," he said. "Most of the group members received home loans that they did not understand nor could they afford. The loan brokers made their money and the banks have insurance against foreclosures."

For the story, see Marin, Sonoma residents facing foreclosure rally against system they say scammed them.