DEFENSE LAW GROUP, PA review: MORTGAGE LOAN MODIFICATION SCAM 19

these people are definitely scammers and would do anything to have you sitting out on the street. they called my mortgage company pretended to be my husband and then told us we were approved for a modification within one day. Got all of our information and try to get us to sign a power of attorney form which would have gave them all rights to our home. please don't fall for them you will be sitting out on the streets.
Thank God I found out the truth...

below is one of the forms they emailed me to let me know everything they need back before the modification along with several payments starting at six hundred and $697 including other $600 payments following every month after that for the next few months in order to stop the foreclosure proceeding that they claim was taking place that same week which was also a lie...please look over this information and see how ridiculous it is!
PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY TO SEE WHERE THIS EMAIL CAME FROM AND HAD WORKING CONTACT #

>Puzon Law, P.A final imp final.jpg (Don Randall)
>Congratulations again. A couple of items regarding the attached documents:
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>1) The Power of Attorney must be notarized or Ocwen will not accept it.
>Your bank will do this for you.
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>2) Please make sure that all documents are signed with your full name,
>exactly as shown on the mortgage statement from Ocwen.
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>3) Please sign the bottom of the Agreed Payment Schedule. No future
>payments are processed without confirmation of available funds from the
>client, 3-5 days prior.
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>4) Please review the first attachment, and begin to assemble the
>documents on the bottom section. The documents referenced in the top
>section we will send to you via email after we file your Limited Power of
>Attorney.
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>5) I neglected to mention, under the HAMP modification program, when
>you complete five years of monthly payments, you will receive a $5, 000
>reduction in your outstanding principal mortgage balance. Upon completion
>of year six an additional $5, 000 is deducted from your outstanding principal
>balance.
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>Please do not hesitate to call with any questions, my direct line is below
>or if questions arise you may reach me on my personal cell number
>(954.870.3905).(305.647.0991)
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>Sincerely,
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>

I am a licensed attorney in Florida. Banks will always tell you that you don't need an attorney or to pay anyone and 6 months later after you areserved they will also kick you out of your house. Technically this is correct. You can also represent yourself in court as well, for free. However, you are probably not going to obtain a similar result that a professional that studied for years and practices this everyday. If you would like to quit your job, study full time, go to court everyday for years, then perhaps you may be able to obtain the same results as a lawyer. The fact is at some point you stopped paying your mortgage and now you want someone to reinstate the mortgage for a house you can not afford. Can a lawyer work miracles, absolutely not. If your budget does not justify the mortgage payment perhaps you should short sell the home or do a cash for keys. The problem is the sense of entitlement. I have actually been in court with Ms. Puzon and she is an extremely qualified attorney. She is well respected by her peers and the attorney representing the banks. Can you keep your home without paying, probably not, will she be able to modify your mortgage, perhaps if you qualify. If not she may be able to stall the foreclosure process by asserting your legal rights.

I just spoke with Puzon Law as well and am VERY skeptical. The guy sounds like a used car salesman and there is nothing professional about the call or the email or the attachment in the email requesting a bunch of information. He wanted me to give him my banking route number and account number during the phone conversation and I refused. I am going to call my mortgage company and find out if this company really does work with them like the guy told me. I'm pretty sure it's scam but I want to have verification and proof from my mortgage company for the next time he calls me, I can shut him down. I'm sick of scammers and them scamming innocent people that are in a bind and trying to get help. They take advantage of vulnerable people. My suggestion is to call your mortgage company before you send any money or banking information to them and verify with your mortgage company if they are in fact working for them or with them, like they state. Be safe, be smarter than them.

I just talked with Puzon Law and I am skeptical ...I do not know what to do...I am facing foreclosure and they are saying they can stop it and get loan modified...anyone please advise.
thanks

So did Defense Law Group become Puzon Law, P.A.?

was ripped off not knowing that Defense Law Group was not license in Michigan and that an out of state office was not ALLOWED to charge a client for a loan modification for out of state location. Tammy Soule 3/28/11 told me to stop paying my mortgage and could get me a loan modification it would cost me 2500.00 and 90 days it would be all set, I had Shannon Becker Senior Loss Mitigation Specialist from 4/22/11 until 11/3/11 then Martha Guerra 11/8/11 until now. Almost one year later still in review with Wells Fargo, my property has been postpone a sale date 5 time since Oct 2011 and still no results. I had to hire another Lawyer in the State of Michigan to handle my case costing me another 1600.00 to be informed that Defense Law Group illegal took money from me being an out of state case and knowing since Feb 2011 the new law was if the property is not in the state that you hold a license with then you are not allowed to charge a client.. This is outrageous that a so called law firm can operate like this an ripe people off. FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD.. Do not do business with them

Yeah they got me too it looks like. They were working with me for a while and keeping good contact and then just one day they said screw him and haven't talked to me since. I've sent numerous emails, phone calls etc. So to Eric Smith, Gustavo Losa, and everyone else... Thanks for Nothing !

Oops sorry for the typos in my last post. It cost me not cosy me. My apologies.

Well, after all the faxing and calls, I did get my payment lowered. It cosy me $2500 to have my payment reduced by THREE CENTS!
Yes, that's right my payment has been reduced by three freaking cents! I think that is more WFHM than DLG, but who knows! At least they didnt auction off my house in Dec. 2011! For that I am grateful!

In August 2009, I contracted services of Defense Law Group out of Fort Lauderdale to help us with a mortgage mod. I never spoke with an attorney. If I could reach someone directly when I called, it was reception who would forward me to the voice mail of the legal aid assigned to our case. I would, eventually, get a response to the question I left on voice mail. However, it was perfunctory and hardly worth my effort. Needless to say, they never helped us get a loan mod through B of A. Up front, before I gave them the $2500. there were many guarantees and promises about their services - i.e., I should get results in six months or less. Well, as of today, (two years and four months later) they have yet to do anything for us. I have stopped using them. It is a waste of my time and efforts. All they do is continue to ask us for monthly bank statements, pay stubs, , utility bills, etc. They have only acted as a "go between" with bank and us. I have never been told that any of their attorneys intervened on our behalf. As stated earlier, I never had contact with an attorney and each time I heard from the legal aid, the legal aid stated that it was she, and not the attorney, who spoke with the bank negotiator. In fact, the bank mod office gave me more information when I called them directly instead of DLG.

Well I paid these people $2500 months ago and Shannon Becker was late turning in my paperwork to the bank, so they closed my file and now my home is up for sale next month! Shannon was trying to get them to reopen my file, but now she no longer works there anymore! Yea that was money well spent! Also on their website they say "First, we will need to determine whether you have defenses to the bank's claims by promptly performing a complete Forensic loan Analysis of your loan documents. There are numerous federal and state laws in place, such as the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) to protect you against predatory lending tactics and other illegal activity. " WRONG! They do not do forensic loan audits, they only submit your file for modifications. I asked them and they told me they do not do forensic loan audits! Who knows the sale date is fast approaching (12-6-11) maybe they can help me keep my house, God knows I do not want to lose my house. I hired them because I could not make any headway with WFHM myself. I guess all I can do now is hope that I made a good choice in retaining their services, otherwise I will be out on the streets for Christmas!

JUstSayNo----you are wrong.
I do not know about Defense Law Group and who they are, but I have been doing loan mods and dealing with mortgages for a very long time, and have gotten close to 8, 000 modifications approved for my clients, and what I can tell you is that it might seem all simple and easy, BUT ITS NOT! What you do not realize is that when Obama released the funds to the lenders for Making Home Affordable modifications to help homeowners, there was no requirements for the minimum amount of mods banks have to approve for the money they received. Now let's assume you are the bank, you already got paid, and all these people are applying for modifications. Does it make sense for you to approve anyone and everyone? You already got the money from the government, whats the point of minimizing the potential proffits by cutting interest and reducing balance right and left? Obviously all these people who are not paying their mortgages will not give up their homes and go live on the streets, and with the right collection tactics many will be talked into and forced into reinstating their loans.

Furthermore, I have a friend who works for Bank of America in loss mitigation. He is one of the supervisor, so I get the benefit of knowing some inside tips and tricks. What he told me is that their official approval rate for mods is 10% for last month, and 7% for April, and around 5% before that. Now out of 90% + of modification requests that were denied, would you like to guess how many were requests from self-represented borrowers? about 95%. What does that tell you? That while it is possible to get your mod approved, the chances are VERY VERY LOW. Wanna know how many mods were handled by a third party out of the 10% that were approved? About 98%. And thats not my numbers, thats the info from the actual lender.
Want to know why these numbers actually make sense?
It because in most cases banks dont own your mortgage note, it is owned by the investor. Sometimes the lender is also the investor, but thats not the case for the majority of loans. NOw every investor is going to approve or deny modification based on their own criterias. How do you find out what is their criteria? YOU WILL NOT unless you have experience of working with them Some want to see yourhadrship being very extreme, some want to see that you have some money saved up, some think that if you have money saved up, then you should pay your mortgage, and in reality, if you are current, then you can afford making payments and dont need help. Besides the investor, other factors to consider is the type of loan, delinquency, balance, potential foreclosure costs, modification programs available that very from investor to investor, etc. You WILL NOT know these things and the qualifying factors UNLESS you have knowledge and experience of dealing with different lenders, investors and type of loans.
Its very nice if your situation fits HAMP standarts perfectly, but what if it doesnt? What if you do not qualify for Obama plan? Many people do not since the DTI is based on the Gross income. So what then? If you apply for HAMP again with same info, you are denied. If you change your info, you need to have proof taht your situation really changed, and just a letter from you stating so wont do it, the bank will need proper documentation. So is that really it? Iws there really no other options and you will lose your home? NO. there are programs available, but you will not qualify either because you do not know what the investor is looking for in order to approve you. If you think the bank will help you---think again. If they wanted to help people, they would just lower interest rate for everyone who fell behind after they got pad billions of dollars, that ME and YOU will have to re-pay with our taxes. So are these companies really so bad? No, if they have a lawyer and know what they are doing. I mean you wont go painting houses unless you know how to do it, and if you paint someone's house, are you going to do it for free? Hell no. And if you find a team that claims to do it for free, will you expect quality work? I wouldnt. You dont work for free, and i dont either, so how can you be angry about someone charging money for their work? It really makes me angry how stupid people are sometimes.

I recommend that you do not under any circumstances use this company to help you negotiate with your bank for a loan modification, especially if you do not live in Florida, if your home is not yet in foreclosure, and does not have a sale date. They cannot do anything for you that you can not do for yourself. They CANNOT negotiate any more for you than you can negotiate for yourself. I noticed that Ms. Granada, in a few posts above mine, is suggesting that by working with a law firm, it won't take as long if you did it yourself. This is not true. Yes, if you are not in foreclosure, it could take quite a while for a lender to approve your loan mod, but if you are in foreclosure, the lender has up until the hour before the sale to approve or deny your loan mod request whether you are working with a lawyer or not . It is best to deal directly with your lender unless you have exhausted all possibilites to save your home at which time you will more than likely be forced to file bankruptcy. If that is the case, you will be forced to spend even more money in addition to the $2000 you paid DLG.

What I can tell you about DLG is that the service(s) they provided to me, or lack thereof, was completely unacceptable, they made a guarantee to me that they did not keep, they have horrible customer service, and once you pay them, they will be hard to reach on the phone.

Always go with your first instinct and what is in front of your face. If someone is not providing you with the service(s) they agreed to provide, especially when it involves such matters as savng your home, get rid of them. If you are in foreclosure, remain in contact with your lender and try to work out a deal with them. Let them know that you want to keep your house and intend to pay every penny you owe them, but will need assistance from them to make it happen. Explain your hardship to them - loss of job, cut in pay, divorce, and etc - they will work with you.

I do not know if all documets required by a lender for a loan mod is standard across the board. You need to contact your bank and let them know you would like to apply for a loan mod. At that time, they will take your financial informaton over the phone to let you know if you are preapproved for a workout plan. Once this is determined, they will mail you or email you a loan mod packet. Fill out the loan mod paperwork and gather additional documents the bank will need. They will send you a list of everything they need. I suggest that you not take anymore than a week to return the packet to them. Once you submit the completed packet to them, call them to verify that they have received it and to ensure that they have all of the required documention from you. Continue to call and harass them until a decision is made. It is important to make sure your file has actually been assigned to an underwriter for review. Get the name of the underwriter. Also, find out who the investor is on your house - i.e. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and etc.. They are the ones who will have to buy off on everything, especially if you have a sale date due to foreclosure and are requesting a postponement of that sale date.

As I stated above, if you are not in foreclosure, it could take a while for them to make a decision. If in foreclosure, they have up until the hour before the sale to make a decision. The bottom line is that if it appears you can afford to make your current payments just fine and are not behind on any payments, do not expect for them to approve you for a loan mod. On the other hand, if based on your financials, it is determined by the bank that even with a loan mod, you won't be able to afford the new monthly payment that would be acceptable to them, then they will not approve the loan mod. The numbers have to work. It does not matter if you have an attorney representing you or not. If the numbers do not work, there is nothing the attorney will be able to do to get them to approve the loan mod. The most they could do for you at that point, which would probably cost you more money, is review your original loan to try to find something illegal so that they can file a lawsuit against them. If you are in foreclosure and do not get approved for a loan mod or any other kind of workout, be prepared to to file for bankruptcy which will also cost you money. Have an attorney already identified and on standby a couple of weeks prior to your sale date if you still have not been approved by that time. It could take you a little while to find an attorney willing to handle your case, specifically for a bankruptcy if you wait until the last minute.

Once you've been approved for a loan mod, the bank will Fedex you the paperwork defining the new terms. If you agree to the terms, sign the paperwork, and send it back to them before the cut off date. I know this all seems like a lot, but it wil save you alot of heartache, frustration, time, and $2000. DO NOT give these people your money. Throughout the process, keep all documentation showing communication between you and your lenders as well as your attorney should you hire one. This includes copies of loan mod packets, all emails and regular mail received, and sent and received faxes. Every time you speak to someone in reference to your case over the phone, make a note of it and write down what was talked about. If you've hired an attorney who is negotiating with your lender, contact your lender to verify the times and days that they called and make note of exactly what was talked about. Keep track of this. I know it seems tedious, but trust me, it will help you if you have to end up filing a complaint against anyone whether it's the lender or your attorney. If you do find yourself in the position to where you do have to file a complaint, do not be afraid to file it. It will take more time on your part, but file a complaint with every agency that applies after unsuccessfully trying to work out the problem with the company. These agencies include but are not limited to the BBB, FBI, FTC, State Bar, Attorney General's Office, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee. You can also file complaints through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if you have been taken advantage of.

Sorry so long. Hope I was able to help someone.

I would recommend the Defense Law Group to ANYONE who was in trouble and trying to get a modification-these people are professional, knowledgeable, and don't make you feel like you're asking dumb questions! They understand that it's your home you want to save and they will do everything to help you. In my particular situation they did advise me to take the bank's offer for modification-but they will be there to help make sure after the three months I get a fixed rate and out of the adjustable rate I have now. Thanks Jason, Kim and Shannon for being so nice and helping us understand the whole modification process-you guys rock!

Mary Rhoades

Well it would really help if you looked up the proper entity name: THE DEFENSE LAW GROUP P.A., NOT the Foreclosure Defense Law Group. People's ignorance it truly mind boggling. Engles, an A rating does not mean that people have not placed complaints. I would do my research before posting comments that clearly show your lack of knowledge on the topic.

I just reviewed the BBB rating for the Foreclosure Defense Law Group and it has a C rating with the BBB. In addition, all that an A rating means from the BBB is that no one has taken the time to file a complaint. Further research can be done with the state's Bar Association and the Dept of Professional Licensing. Just to be safe, call your states Office of the Attorney General.

What irritates me is the people speak of the BBB and their A rating as if it were the gospel. An A rating just means that no one has bothered to file a complaint.

Dear Mr. Smith,

It takes some nerve to use my name without you ever speaking to me directly. Furthermore, your frivolous and unsubstantiated allegations are out of line.

I welcome any potential clients to come visit my Miami Office or my Broward office. I strive on the customer service I offer my clients. I do have a team of customer service reps to service my 500 plus clients, but they are in NO WAY salesmen. Every client (depending whether they are out of state or in-state) speaks to an attorney of my firm when retaining our firm.

I further welcome anyone who views this ridiculous complaint to look up the three attorney's in my firm on the Florida Bar website: www.flabar.org to view our standing with the State. I am the owner of both the Defense Law Group P.A. and Law Offices of Granda & Associates, P.A. Stephanie Granda. My other two associates are Gustavo Losa and Christine Puzon.

Mr. Smith, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but when you post my name AND picture without my permission and without ever have speaking to me as owner and attorney for the firm, you are going far beyond your right. I advise you to not further publish information that you can not substantiate with proper evidence and facts.

I further welcome you or any other person reading this complaint to look up the above referenced law firms on the Better Business Bureau. I have an A rating for both firms. How exactly do you suggest a firm that allegedly "scams" people would have an A rating? Simple answer: Because your allegations are false and you are basing yourself on your own mere opinion as opposed to facts that support what you are saying.

Should anyone reading this have any further questions regarding the process of loan modifications, which my firms are successful at obtaining and would like to speak to myself or any one of my associates, please contact me at [protected].

Stephanie Granda, Esq.

Unfortunately their are alot of situations where the bank will take the home, and the majority of people are too naive or scared which ever comes first to take the steps needed to save their most valued asset.

Chances are the frustration of this complaint came out because the homeowner is under alot of pressure as it is and at the end of the day Law Firms that specialize in Real-estate are only there to help. Is money going to be made? Yes this is the United States of America and NOTHING IS FREE, if saving your home or at least lowering your payment enough so you are not struggling day in a day out was free than our housing market would not be in this situation.
If your home is $10, 000 behind and the bank requires you to pay all of it now in order to approve your loan modification does that help? No
With the correct help, experience, knowledge, and persistence that does not have to be the only way to get approved.

Unfortunately if you are in this situation and your house is in default in order to get out of it it's going to cost you. If $2, 000 is way to much money to save the hundreds of thousands of dollars you paid to your lender in interest over the years then your right getting professional help is not right for you.
Go get in the HAMP line or any other FREE help line and see how long it takes to get anything done. You are 1 of millions of others waiting in line for a call back. But its FREE.

I got a Loan Modification through a different Law Firm, but these complaints get under my skin.