I have not received any certified mail regarding this, and the last piece of mail I did receive was back in 2002 or 2003, it was for a repossessed car in 2002. I want to call this place tomorrow and ask if they will take less, but after google searching their name to get a phone number and running across nothing but the words "scam" "rip off" and many other negative reports filling the entire first page of the search window I am a bit hesitant. Please I need good advice.
Answer:
creditwrench
I certainly would advise against contacting LBN in any way because judgments have a 5 year statute of limitations in Oklahoma. If there has been no collection activity for 5 years after the judgment as entered against you then there is no judgment against you. It is null and void and unenforceable. The fact of the lien may make that a different story but although I don't know what the length of time a lien can remain on a property may be in Oklahoma I think there is a limit on that too. You can do your research on Oklahoma liens here --
Oklahoma Statute on Liens
I would be very hesitant to label LBN as some websites may have done. They hardly fall under the scam classification regardless of what many of their victims may say about them. While indeed they are one of Oklahoma's most aggressive law firms that fact does not make them scam artists by any means.
You say you are trying to avoid foreclosure by selling the home before it happens? That isn't going to be easy to say the least. If you are going to get less than you owe out of the home then the lender isn't going to let the sale go through. Seems you have some real problems going on and you are going to need some real help if you can't pull out of the foreclosure situation by bringing the not up to date or working something out with the servicer.
Who is the purported lender in your case? The reason I say "purported" lender is that as you may well know by now is that the note may have been sold on the securities and exchange market.
You not only need to get busy trying to get those payments up to date or doing something but you also need to get up to speed on the mortgage meltdown situation and how that works.
The problem also is that while the proposed massive cash influx into the financial arena may shore things up for a while the crash that the politicians are currently trying to stave off isn't likely to work and the economy will crash no matter what they do. If the American economy crashes it will probably make such a huge impact on the entire world that other countries will also see their economies crash setting off a global depression the likes of which are almost unimaginable.
It also is not an economic crisis it is also a worldwide food shortage that confronts us at the same time. Although most don't understand the full scope of the world's problems today I think they will soon enough and the tasting of it will not be good for anybody.
I've been predicting the oncoming crash for the last two years now. The pinch was actually starting to be felt a year ago in July and maybe even before that. What congress is now proposing as a cure is nothing more than a small bandaid on a gaping wound. Secretary Henry Paulson recently stated that if they don't get this legislation passed in a hurry the situation will soon escalate to the point where companies cannot even pay their employees and will have to close their doors. I predict that is going to happen no matter what they do because it will become a chain reaction. Defaults on credit card debt and automobile loans are escalating rapidly as well. When it is all said and done there won't be enough money in all the world to contain the mess.
I know you don't want to hear that there may well be no escaping the foreclosure but I would start thinking in those terms while doing all you can to keep it from happening. I'd starto learning how to fight the foreclosure before it starts happening. As soon as it does you will start getting letters from scam artists telling you that they can save your home from foreclosure with their so called mortgage fraud programs and mythical attorneys who will go to court and fight for you. I know of most if not all of those scam artists here in Oklahoma. I'm working with some of the victims of those scams now.
What happens is that the scammers will have you sign a response to the summons and complaint that looks like it really ought to get the job done but is actually nothing but legal gobble-de-gook that will get you nowhere yet cost you another bundle of money. They will be talking about such foolish ideas as accord & satisfaction, contributory negligence, duress, Estoppel, Fraud, illegality, laches, waiver and regaling you with tales about how their mortgage fraud investigators will scrutinize your mortgage and find all the fraud and RESPA violations so you can sue the lender for those violations.
They may very well include a long list of interrogatories, demand for admissions and production of documents and the whole thing will look very legitimate. When the attorney returns with a laundry list of cut and past objections they may even be smart enough to file a motion to compel the plaintiff to comply with those demands but when the attorney comes back with an objection your scammer runs out of bullets to fire back with and suddenly they lose interest in your case and you are left hanging out to dry but the attorney is still full of fight.
The response that the scammers are now providing also include a laundry list of complaints that they file in a counter claim. Most of those counter claims might very well be valid complaints but the proper place to file them is not in local court as a counter claim but in a federal case against the lender. Local judges don't want to hear all that stuff because they are far to busy to go into the lengthy trials that would ensue if they paid them any attention. Their remedy is to simply dismiss your counter claims no matter how valid they may be and move on to give judgment to the plaintiff and you lose. Of course you lose your property and all the money you invested in that but you lose any money you paid the scammers as well.
The next problem you face is that since you didn't know how bad the scammer's supposed magical cure really is you also can't hire an attorney because you aren't equipped to know whether they are any better than the scammers plus they will cost you much more money than the scammers will. One is as bad as the other.
There is a good possibility that you will be facing LBN all over again or if not them then Baer, Timberlake & company. Between the two of them they probably do the majority of foreclosures in Oklahoma.
Of course, I don't know what county you live in but if you live in Oklahoma County I know most of the judges although not personally but I do know what they are like and how they treat defendants. Most are about as friendly as a pack of wolves on a dark and wintery night.
You might want to call in to my Friday night conference call which starts at 7:00 P.M. central time. The number for that is 712-432-1601 and the pin number is 508548#. You might also want to call in to my Monday night Radio talk show. The number for that is (914) 803-4464 The show starts at 10:00 P.M. central time.
