Washington State Bar Association – Help For Troubled Homeowners
Home Foreclosure Legal Aid Project
As a Realtor in Kenmore, I get lots of questions from homeowners about short-sales and foreclosures: how to approach lenders, what happens if they miss a mortgage payment or if they should file for bankruptcy. These questions are, for the most part, well beyond the scope of my expertise so my mantra has always been to suggest they consult an attorney. Unfortunately, when people are having problems paying their mortgage, they don’t have the financial resources to seek legal council. Well, thankfully, the Washington State Bar has committed itself to help homeowners avoid foreclosure:
Click on this picture to visit the HFLAD Website
There are 3000 new foreclosure filings in Washington State every month. There are a lot of Washington residents losing their homes. The amount of mis-information and the growth of fraudulent “negotiators” has inspired the Washington State Bar Association to create the Home Foreclosure Legal Aid Project.
In an excellent Seattle PI article by Aubrey Cohen entitled “Local lawyers offer free foreclosure-prevention help” the bar association has launched a new effort to ensure more troubled homeowners have access to a lawyer if they are experiencing problems paying their mortgages.
Free Foreclosure-Prevention Workshop
If you or someone you know is at risk of losing his/her home, please let them know that they can attend a free workshop on July 24th or they can call the program at 1.800.894.4663.
Foreclosures not only hurt the homeowners themselves, but they can adversely affect the property values of whole neighborhoods (see my blog post The Ugly Reality of Short-Sales in Your Neighborhood). We are truly fortunate that the bar is spending $150,000 on a foreclosure legal team and $10,000 for online training materials.
