MORTGAGE COMPANY ABUSES

SURRENDERED HOMES OR OTHER REAL ESTATE

If you surrendered your home or other real estate in bankruptcy, it may be that your legal rights have been violated. Once the mortgage debt has been discharged you shouldn't be getting statements, collection letters, insurance notifications or telephone calls concerning your old mortgage. Any contact after the debt is discharged is likely to be a violation of the discharge injunction or other state or federal law. Don't ignore these violations as they will seriously impact your credit score and ability to get a home loan in the future.

ILLEGAL ACCESS TO CREDIT REPORTS

Mortgage companies or their servicers frequently continue to access a consumer’s reports long after the mortgage debt has been discharged. This violates the bankruptcy discharge and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. If this has happened to you, you may be entitled to statutory damages of up to $1,000 per pull if the act was intentional.  You should have a professional review your credit reports to make sure this hasn't happened to you.

PROSECUTION OF YOUR CLAIMS

You will need experienced litigators since these type cases are filed in federal court. You should be able to find an attorney to represent you on these matters on a contingent fee basis. When they review your credit reports they will be looking, not only discharge violations, but also for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act as well as other state and federal statutes that have been enacted to protect your rights as a consumer. These claims can be quite lucrative but to prevail you must have convincing evidence. If you think you might have a claim it is imperative that you read Don't Throw Away the Evidence now. Without evidence you won’t have a viable claim.

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How To Improve Your Credit Score After Bankruptcy-Part 1

Review Your Reports Annually

This may seem obvious but most consumers don’t look at their credit reports until they are declined for credit or are alerted by a third party of a problem. Be proactive. Go to http://annualcreditreport.com each year and get your FREE copy of your credit reports from Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. Be sure and download them in PDF format so you can save them on your computer and, if you live in Texas and want us to review them for you, forward them to us by email. Having them in electronic format is much easier than printing them out and mailing or faxing them to us. Once we get them we will store them on our server for later use if need be. If you lose your copies we will still have copies we can send you. And remember, your credit review is always free at Manchee & Manchee, P.C.

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FCRA Not Always Consumer Friendly

Although you would think the Fair Credit Reporting Act was written to protect consumers, it also has provisions that protect creditors. One specific requirement that insulates creditors, at least under federal law, from liability exposure, is the requirement that consumers dispute erroneous items on their credit reports and give the offending creditor 30 days to confirm or correct the reporting. This may seem fair at first glance, but what if the erroneous reporting was intentional or resulted from gross negligence, which is often the case. Why should creditors be insulated from liability when they cause a consumer to lose an opportunity to buy a house or a car? Why should consumers have to endure the humiliation of a credit denial without recourse when a creditor makes an obvious mistake? Why should creditors get a free pass when they injure a consumer? It doesn’t make sense. There is no doubt the credit industry lobbied long and hard for this provision in the FCRA. Luckily there are state laws that don’t recognize this requirement to dispute erroneous credit before action can be taken against the offending creditor.

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