"Pick Up The Phone & Call Me Now!" Says DC AG To Local Residents Hit With Deceptive Foreclosure Notices As Non-Judicial Process Requires Quick Action

In Washington, D.C., The Washington Post reports:

• D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles this week created an opening for potentially tens of thousands of homeowners to challenge their foreclosures. He issued an enforcement statement emphasizing that District law requires that the assignment of a mortgage from one party to another be recorded within 30 days of the transfer.

• This is a problem because many of the country's biggest mortgage companies list MERS, or the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, as the mortgage holder -- rather than the actual owner of the mortgage -- in local deed offices.

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• Nickles explicitly stated that, in the District, the requirement for recording every transfer of mortgage "is not satisfied by private tracking of mortgage interests through the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems."

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• Nickles said such violations may provide a "good basis for challenging the foreclosure in court" and encouraged homeowners and advocates to contact the attorney general's office so that it "may consider bringing enforcement actions to stop foreclosure proceedings and seek restitution for consumers."(1)

For more, see An opening for D.C. foreclosure challenges.

(1) According to his enforcement statement, the DC AG is expecting homeowners who have been targeted with the use of deceptive foreclosure sale notices by foreclosing lenders to immediately call his consumer hotline at 202-442-9828. He states that when a foreclosure sale notice misrepresents to a homeowner that the foreclosing noteholder has a recorded security interest, such misrepresentation may violate the District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act, which is enforced by him.