"In an effort to create protection for distressed house owners who are susceptible to less than scrupulous firms promising to deliver loan adjustments, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has actually recently passed the new MARS judgment (Home loan Help Relief Solutions). This ruling is developed to secure distressed house owners from home loan relief scams. Describing the ruling, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz stated, ""At a time when many Americans are having a hard time to pay their mortgages, peddlers of so-called mortgage financial obligation relief services have actually taken numerous millions of dollars from hundreds of thousands of homeowners without ever delivering results. By banning companies of these services from collecting fees up until the customer is pleased with the outcomes, this rule will secure consumers from being taken advantage of by these rip-offs.""

Possible Over-Regulation

The Federal Trade Commission's mission to regulate the debt relief industry became official because the Federal Trade Commission has officially prohibited debt settlement business from taking any innovative fees back on October 27, 2010. As an outcome, debt settlement firms might not charge any upfront or enrollment costs when employed to settle the unsecured debts of the consumer. To be sure, it is no easy job to unwind a charge card debt that has actually taken years, even decades to accumulate. And, clearly, much work goes into contacting, managing and negotiating with the customer debt lenders. Yet, numerous unscrupulous firms have required state enforcers to bring almost 300 cases to stop abusive and misleading practices by debt relief suppliers that have actually targeted consumers in monetary distress.

Our company has counseled countless distressed customers, and we have actually experienced first-hand that it is no picnic in dealing with lending institution servicers. Obviously, we do not intend on protecting the loan modification companies that took hard-earned loan and never ever planned on providing a last product to the distressed homeowner. The truth of programs such as House Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) is that the mega-servicers who are delegated to proactively offer loan modification solutions to property owners do not have the technology and company models that can develop a reliable program that enables a bulk of overdue homeowners to at least get a loan modification straight with the loan provider servicer, and not feel obliged to toss up a ""hail Mary"" and pay 3rd celebration loan adjustment company to negotiate a loan modification.

Servicers Failing Badly

Servicers have improperly methods in the method they get in touch with and manage the customer in order to identify whether the customer gets approved for a loan adjustment. With a lot of customers providing up in the face of delinquent home loan, and unsecured credit debt, a growing number of homeowners merely can not stomach the stress of dealing with high-pressure collector.

Because a majority of the Servicer's staff is buried in going after customers that are overdue with literally numerous telephone call during the course of the year to attempt to collect on overdue payments, there is no other way they can likewise use a proactive technique in assisting the customer use and secure loan modifications on any scale.

Unfortunately, the lender servicers are plainly refraining from doing their part which is a huge reason that distressed house owners have felt forced to seek 3rd parties to negotiate a loan adjustment. I recently spoke to a pier at one of the large Servicers who shared with me that out of the last 10,000 House Affordable Adjustment Program (HAMP) packages sent to homeowners that only 200 of those plans resulted in a finished loan adjustment. In reality, according to the Amherst Securities Group, the Fannie Mae servicers had completed around 300,000 modifications consisting of 160,000 restructurings that meet Home Budget-friendly Modification Program (HAMP) specs out of almost 2 million delinquent homeowners that should be eligible for loan adjustments, a truly abysmal track record.

Brief Sale Disclosures Required Under New FTC Ruling

Real estate experts are now also affected by the brand-new Mars ruling, not simply loan modification or brief sale negotiating companies. In addition to needing property agents to make strong disclosures in advance to their clients engaged in a brief sale who and forbids all agents associated with the settlement of a short sale from taking upfront costs.

Companies that offer loan modification services to distressed house owners were given a final blow when the Federal Trade Commission passed the Home loan Support Relief Service's last guideline ("" MARS rule"") in November of 2010. According to Metrotex, ""the MARS rule requires that the MARS supplier make certain disclosures to consumers. In addition, the MARS guideline bars advance fees paid to a MARS service provider, restrict specific representations and imposes record-keeping requirements (must maintain for 2 years all MARS ads, sales records for covered deals, customer communications, and client contracts). MARS companies can just get a payment if the customer's loan is modified by the lending institution.""

Simply as in California where regulators banned up-front costs for all loan modification companies (SB 94, passed in early 2009), the MARS ruling now banns any in advance costs for all brief sale and loan modification services across the country. Loan modification services that previously required up to countless dollars in upfront costs have actually evaporated over night. The intrinsic problem with blanket policy such as the MARS ruling, however, is that legitimate financial obligation relief companies that are doing the effort of negotiating, packaging up monetary information, income tax return, income info and profit and loss statements while ferreting out the loan provider servicers on the behalf of distressed house owners, have actually been required to get away the market because it is difficult to pay the facilities expenses of running a business that requires salespeople, arbitrators, processors, and management personnel if all earnings must be made after the service is completed. And, while the lender servicers have come a cropper in bringing financial obligation relief options to distressed customers, the current FTC judgment, while it will safeguard some customers from rogue firms, will most certainly require some debt relief companies that are excellent customer supporters that really help customers out of business."