Texans would have more time to fix their troubled finances before losing their homes under a bill passed by the Senate last week.
Current law allows just 20 days for homeowners receiving a foreclosure notice to resolve their mortgage default, one of the quickest processes in the nation. The Mortgage Foreclosure Deferment Act would extend this notice period to 45 days.
It also would provide at least 14 days for an owner and 60 days for a renter to vacate a foreclosed property.
If the bill, which now goes to the House, becomes law, it would apply to foreclosures initiated after Sept. 1.
One in 10 Texas homeowners are at risk of default and foreclosure, according to a recent report from the Mortgage Bankers Association of America.
“Recent headlines tell the story that more Texans are at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure,” said the bill’s author, Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls.
“This bill will give Texas homeowners more time to work with their lender to try and reach an accommodation to stay in their homes while meeting their financial obligations.”
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said home-owners could use the extra time to work with nonprofit groups that help negotiate loan modifications.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, whose office has cracked down on foreclosure rescue scams, recommended that the Legislature allow a debtor more time to cure a loan default before a notice of sale.
The bill requires a notice of rights to be included with the default notice. The lender would have to provide contact information for a person authorized to assist the debtor on the delinquent loan.
Owners who have received foreclosure notices would have to notify any tenants of a pending foreclosure within five days.
“While most homeowners may never feel the threat of home foreclosure, it is an issue that can impact all of us when it strikes our neighbors, friends and family,” Estes said.
By JANET ELLIOTT, Houston Chronicle
Attorney Trey Wilson - RL Wilson Law
30 April 2009
29 April 2009
TRCC Fines 3 Area Homebuilders
The Texas Residential Construction Commission has fined several Texas home builders, including levying a $260,000 fine against a Victoria builder.
The $260,000 fine was against James Del White of J.D. White Construction for failing to pay consumer judgments, the misappropriation of or misapplication of trust funds, a failure to timely renew as a builder and a repeated failure to respond to a homeowner’s complaint.
The TRCC fined William Gaston of Austin’s Gaston Premier Homes more than $42,000 for failing to pay a consumer judgment and failing to timely renew as a builder.
Jaime Lozano of Lozano Construction in Edinburg was fined $40,000 for failing to provide a follow-up report to a state inspection and to respond to a complaint filed with the commission. The company also failed to register a home or to pay a home registration fee, state inspection process fee or late fees.
Texas homeowners can research registered builders or remodelers by visiting the commission’s Web site at www.TexasRCC.org.
The $260,000 fine was against James Del White of J.D. White Construction for failing to pay consumer judgments, the misappropriation of or misapplication of trust funds, a failure to timely renew as a builder and a repeated failure to respond to a homeowner’s complaint.
The TRCC fined William Gaston of Austin’s Gaston Premier Homes more than $42,000 for failing to pay a consumer judgment and failing to timely renew as a builder.
Jaime Lozano of Lozano Construction in Edinburg was fined $40,000 for failing to provide a follow-up report to a state inspection and to respond to a complaint filed with the commission. The company also failed to register a home or to pay a home registration fee, state inspection process fee or late fees.
Texas homeowners can research registered builders or remodelers by visiting the commission’s Web site at www.TexasRCC.org.
08 April 2009
More Media Coverage on Our Client -- Coach Randy Palmer
Coach Randy Palmer, a client of R L Wilson, P.C. Law Firm received formal notice of his termination as the Athletic Director and Head Football Coach for the Poteet ISD this week. Cary Clack of the San antonio Express News published this unnerving but accurate analysis of the Coach's dilemna:
Last month, the Poteet school board voted to not renew the one-year probationary contract of its athletic director, Randy Palmer.
To dismiss a popular and competent administrator who, as head football coach, led Poteet High to a playoff berth in 2008, the board's reasons must have been unimpeachable.
One reason is that Palmer used a baseball field for football practice. That meant that instead of athletes running on the field with cleats, he had athletes running on the field with cleats, an unforgivable violation.
Another reason Palmer's contract wasn't renewed is, as Express-News reporter Zeke MacCormack wrote, "he failed to quell the outpouring of support for him after the board's preliminary vote Feb. 23 to not renew his contract."
So the school board's timeline looks like this: The board fired Palmer in a preliminary vote in February, and because he was so popular, there was an outpouring of support for him, and because he didn't use his popularity to stop the outpouring of support for him, the board fired him for good in March.
So if there had been no outpouring of support for him after he got fired in February, he wouldn't have gotten fired in March?
In essence, Palmer was fired in March because he couldn't keep people from being upset that he was fired in February.
How do you do that? What's in your strawberry shortcake to produce that logic?
This is Alice in Wonderland meets George Orwell meets H.G. Wells because somewhere in there you're going to need a time machine to make sense of it.
"Son, we're firing you?"
"Why?"
"Because when we announced we were firing you last month you didn't keep people from protesting that we fired you."
"So you're firing me because, after announcing previously you were firing me, people were angry that you were firing me, so to punish me you're going to fire me and anger more people that you're firing me?"
"Yes."
The day after the board's second vote to fire Palmer, in an admirable display of civil disobedience, more than 100 students at Poteet High left their classes.
You've done some good when that many students risk punishment for you.
What was Palmer to tell his admirers who have publicly stood in solidarity with him during the past six weeks?
"I appreciate your support and the fact that you are upset with my firing, but please do not show your support for me over my firing or I will get fired."
Since Palmer was fired because he didn't quell the outpouring of support after the preliminary vote to fire him, does the fact that he wasn't able to quell the support for him after the second vote to fire him mean that his next employer must fire him?
Do you even understand that last paragraph?
Neither do I.
But it's at least as clear as the reasons for firing Randy Palmer.
Last month, the Poteet school board voted to not renew the one-year probationary contract of its athletic director, Randy Palmer.
To dismiss a popular and competent administrator who, as head football coach, led Poteet High to a playoff berth in 2008, the board's reasons must have been unimpeachable.
One reason is that Palmer used a baseball field for football practice. That meant that instead of athletes running on the field with cleats, he had athletes running on the field with cleats, an unforgivable violation.
Another reason Palmer's contract wasn't renewed is, as Express-News reporter Zeke MacCormack wrote, "he failed to quell the outpouring of support for him after the board's preliminary vote Feb. 23 to not renew his contract."
So the school board's timeline looks like this: The board fired Palmer in a preliminary vote in February, and because he was so popular, there was an outpouring of support for him, and because he didn't use his popularity to stop the outpouring of support for him, the board fired him for good in March.
So if there had been no outpouring of support for him after he got fired in February, he wouldn't have gotten fired in March?
In essence, Palmer was fired in March because he couldn't keep people from being upset that he was fired in February.
How do you do that? What's in your strawberry shortcake to produce that logic?
This is Alice in Wonderland meets George Orwell meets H.G. Wells because somewhere in there you're going to need a time machine to make sense of it.
"Son, we're firing you?"
"Why?"
"Because when we announced we were firing you last month you didn't keep people from protesting that we fired you."
"So you're firing me because, after announcing previously you were firing me, people were angry that you were firing me, so to punish me you're going to fire me and anger more people that you're firing me?"
"Yes."
The day after the board's second vote to fire Palmer, in an admirable display of civil disobedience, more than 100 students at Poteet High left their classes.
You've done some good when that many students risk punishment for you.
What was Palmer to tell his admirers who have publicly stood in solidarity with him during the past six weeks?
"I appreciate your support and the fact that you are upset with my firing, but please do not show your support for me over my firing or I will get fired."
Since Palmer was fired because he didn't quell the outpouring of support after the preliminary vote to fire him, does the fact that he wasn't able to quell the support for him after the second vote to fire him mean that his next employer must fire him?
Do you even understand that last paragraph?
Neither do I.
But it's at least as clear as the reasons for firing Randy Palmer.
Kelo Rears Its Greedy Head in Houston
For landowners, their is no more controversial case than the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London permitting the use of eminent domain to transfer private property from one owner to another under the guise of furthering economic development. In response to this 2005 decision, dozens of state legislatures passed bills curbing the effects of Kelo, including Texas, which made it illegal for a municipality to condemn property solely for private economic development. Yet that is exactly what Mayor Bill White and the City of Houston have seemingly done.
In a front page story, Sunday’s Houston Chronicle details the fate of a miniscule parcel of property - .09 acres - that lies at the very heart of a $12.5 million land sale.
“The complex case, involving a series of land transactions and a web of relationships between elected officials at City Hall and developers, raises the question of whether the city abused its power in taking land it now is hard-pressed to prove that it needed, land that a developer was seeking to control.
“It looks as if the city of Houston was all too eager to bulldoze the people — and condemn the property — that prevented a powerful political donor from realizing his ambitions,” said Andrew Wheat, research director for Texans for Public Justice, a nonpartisan watchdog group that has conducted several studies of the use of eminent domain law in Texas.”
Eric OKeefe: The Land Report
In a front page story, Sunday’s Houston Chronicle details the fate of a miniscule parcel of property - .09 acres - that lies at the very heart of a $12.5 million land sale.
“The complex case, involving a series of land transactions and a web of relationships between elected officials at City Hall and developers, raises the question of whether the city abused its power in taking land it now is hard-pressed to prove that it needed, land that a developer was seeking to control.
“It looks as if the city of Houston was all too eager to bulldoze the people — and condemn the property — that prevented a powerful political donor from realizing his ambitions,” said Andrew Wheat, research director for Texans for Public Justice, a nonpartisan watchdog group that has conducted several studies of the use of eminent domain law in Texas.”
Eric OKeefe: The Land Report
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Trey Wilson --Named By Scene in SA Magazine As One of San Antonio's Best Real Estate Litigation Attorneys -- September 2008 -- As voted on by peers