Homeowners in trouble with their Bank of America mortgages can get live, face-to-face help this week in San Jose.

The event is aimed at preventing foreclosure.

July 16-18 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Parkside Hall, 180 Park St., San Jose, bank personnel will work with homeowners on their mortgage options.

An appointment is required.  Call 1 855.201.7426  or register online.

When you register, you’ll get a checklist to help you prepare for your appointment.

Bank representatives will help borrowers complete applications for loan modifications and short sales.

A companion event is scheduled next week, July 23-25 in downtown Los Angeles.

If you can’t attend

Help over the phone is also available to those who can’t make the live event.

Call Bank of America at 1 800 846 2222, or look for options on line at bankofamerica.com/homeloanhelp.

If you are experiencing hardship and Bank of America services your home loan, go look these folks in the eye and push for help keeping your home.

Report back

I’d love to hear from anyone who attends this event.  Was the help offered better than the over-the-phone service?

And then I’d like to know if the papers you handed personally to BofA people were any less likely to be lost than the ones provided by mail or fax.  Sworn testimony from a former Bank of America employee reported on systematic efforts by the bank to frustrate loan modifications.

Will anything change?

Image courtesy of SuButcher and Flickr.

Today, April 1, and apparently not a moment before, the Judicial Council has released the new California exemptions reflecting the cost of living adjustments.

EJ-156  sets out both the dollar amounts of the California bankruptcy exemptions found in Code of Civil Procedure 703.140 and those CCP 704 subsections where the dollar amounts were increased.

Bankruptcy exemptions

The grub stake, or wild card exemption increased to $25,075;  the car exemption to $5100; loan value in insurance to $13,675; and tools of the trade to $7,575.

[I think the text in the form for 703.140(b)(2) continues to talk about the “debtor’s interest in one motor vehicle.”  Assembly Bill 929 changed that to allow the exemption to be spread over multiple vehicles.]

State law exemptions

The CCP 704 exemptions now protect $2900 in car equity; jewelry of $7,625, and tools of the trade of $7,625 per spouse.

The California homestead exemption for a debtor’s residence is unchanged at this point.  The homestead will be adjusted for the cost of living going forward by reason of Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski’s bill  which became effective January 1, 2013.

I’ve launched a new web site, www.bankruptcymastery.com, dedicated to being a resource for lawyers new to the practice of consumer bankruptcy law.  I envision it as being a tool to learn, systematically, those things beyond the Code that are necessary to be an effective bankruptcy lawyer.

I’ve been mentoring an increasing group of local young lawyers, one on one, and that simply isn’t sustainable.  After all, I’m supposed to be in the business of helping my clients.

Content at bankruptcymastery.comis focused on transmitting those things I’ve learned in 30 years of doing this.  While I can’t eradicate “learning by doing” and “trial and error”, I’m going to try to offer an alternative:  teaching that is focused, available, and systematic.

If you’re a lawyer new to this practice, check it out: www.bankruptcymastery.com.

There’s a free ecourse available now, with new things in the hopper.  Join me there.

Cathy

The bankruptcy mortgage modification provision, headed to the Senate this week, is a bargain to taxpayers next to the “voluntary” mortgage modification programs instituted by the administration.

HR 1106 involves no taxpayer money;  it strips the special interest provision sheltering banks from  home loan modification.  The costs of changing the mortgage so that the debtor pays the current value of the collateral and the lender is spared the costs of foreclosing are borne by the borrower and lender.

The modification and refinance programs introduced by the adminstration involve taxpayer  cash subsidies to servicers and borrowers who successfully renegotiate a mortgage.

Why is it that the opposition to judicial mortgage modification claim that the honest and responsible are paying the mortgage for the greedy and irresponsible?

The NBC Sunday morning new shows  were again talking about moral hazard as applied to efforts to stem the tide of foreclosures.  This concept looks at the message we send when we rescue a homeowner who took out a bad loan and give nothing to the prudent homeowner who didn’t take an exploding ARM loan.

Should I thwart efforts to bail out my next door neighbor who was foolish because it rewards the fool, and gives me nothing?

Personally, in these circumstances, I am not offended by mortgage bailouts.  Seems to me to argue that the improvident (or the simple) should pay the price by loss of their homes to preserve the high moral ground for those who didn’t succumb  is short sighted.

If my neighbors lose their homes in foreclosure, the value of my house goes down.  If several neighbors lose homes, I’m neighbor to the bank’s REO department and the neighborhood becomes at best less sociable, at worst, less safe.  I don’t count on the bank in the house next door to loan me a cup of sugar.

The beauty of the bill to permit judicial modification of home mortgages is that it costs the taxpayer nothing; preserves families and neighborhoods; and merely recognizes the loss in home value that the homeowner and the lender have already experienced.

I’m perfectly OK with that.