If you have been the victim of a predatory lending scheme, Saint Louis predatory lending attorney Steven Goldblatt will fight aggressively and effectively for your legal rights.
Predatory lending has been defined in a number of ways, but the basis of each definition is the fact that the borrower cannot understand the loan terms and the obligations associated with the loan. In a report entitled “Curbing Predatory Home Mortgage Lending” issued in 2000, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the US Department of the Treasury identified four categories of predatory lending:
1) Repeated refinancing of loans within a short period of time, with high fees added each time to the loan amount, a practice known as “loan flipping.”
2) The addition of excessive, and often unknown, fees to the loan amount, including credit life insurance.
3) Loans with terms that borrowers would never be able to pay – for example, loans with monthly payments that were more than the borrower’s monthly income.
4) Fraud – where property values were fraudulently inflated above the market price and a loan was made for the fraudulent value.
Predatory lending relies on a uninformed or misled borrower. Given the complexity of the documents at a loan closing - indeed, given just the sheer number of documents at a loan closing - it is not surprising that borrowers are easy targets for predatory lending. Many people have come to a closing only to find that their loan terms differ from those that they thought they had agreed to; sometimes the amount is different, sometimes the repayment terms are different, and sometimes, the loan documents are just plain wrong.
The predatory lending tactics that have been all too common in the past decade have resulted in a great many people having lost, or in danger of losing, their homes, often through no fault of their own. If you have been a victim of predatory lending, if your loan terms differed from those that you thought you would be getting, if you have been purchased a home whose value was fraudulently inflated – you may have recourse.
Contact St. Louis predatory lending attorney Steven Goldblatt of the Goldblatt Law Firm at 314-288-8455, or lsgold7@swbell.net for a free initial consultation.