Foreclosure Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Out of a Home

Posted on January 21st, 2011 by Mark Stopa

Foreclosure defense attorney Mark Stopa and a client of the firm were profiled today on Bay News 9 (Tampa’s NBC affiliate).  Here is a video version of the story; the written version is below. 

What should you take from this?  Easy.  Fight your foreclosure.  Don’t give up.   You may be able to improve your situation drastically if you retain a competent foreclosure defense lawyer to defend your foreclosure case. 

 

ST. PETERSBURG – 

Susan Reboyras has lived in her St. Petersburg home for nearly eight years but she hasn’t paid her mortgage in nearly two.  “When the boom was high, we thought it was going to stay high, and we pulled equity out,” Reboyras said.

Reboyras and her fiancé run A-Plus Restorations out of the home. When the economy stalled, they made a decision.  “We had to decide were we going to make the payments,” Reboyras said, “or were we going to continue with advertising to bring money in the door to keep the business going so we could make payments.”

Many are in the same situation all across the state. According to data from LPS Applied Analytics, the average is 677 days before a house in foreclosure is sold and the homeowners kicked out. It’s one of the highest totals in the country.

Foreclosure defense attorney Mark Stopa said more homeowners in foreclosure should fight it.  “Don’t just give up and walk away. Defend and fight your case and save up your money,” Stopa said.

Stopa said foreclosed homeowners staying in their home benefits the community more than if the bank was in control of the home.

“Time and time again, these banks, even when they get that foreclosure judgment, they don’t actually set the sale,” Stopa said. “What results is this lengthy period of limbo where the homeowner has lost and they’re scared into leaving, but the bank doesn’t take the title, so the property sits vacant for months, sometimes years.”

In Reboyras’s case, she believes she made the right decision for her family.  “Right now, we’re self-sustaining, she said. “Yeah, we’re not making the mortgage payments but it’s going to a means that keeps us from the government supporting us.”

Mark Stopa

www.stayinmyhome.com

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