Rusty Law

The Monroe Doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine trails off into a Wikipedia entry as far as most are concerned.  You may have to be smarter than a Fifth Grader to remember its significance among the legal long sentences and starched formality.  The Monroe Doctrine is a statement of land title in America.  

Land title is one of the most important aspects of our law that we have to protect us.  Our land is a place for us to have a home and family.  It is an investment often beyond monetary value on both an individual and national basis.  

In 1823 President James Monroe introduced this doctrine in his State of the Union address.  At that time, Florida had not become a state yet, though it was a US territory, and European countries were still squabbling over New World colonies.  The Monroe Doctrine was a statement to those European nations declaring that the United States is a sovereign country, not open to colonization any more.  Period.  

The Monroe Doctrine clarified the title the United States has on land in North America to dissuade foreign claimants.  

Fashion For Foreclosure

What do you wear to a foreclosure sale on the courthouse steps?  This is not an interesting question for Duval County where foreclosure sales happen online, but at the Richard O. Watson Judicial Center in St. Johns County, you could be exposed to the elements.  

“Quality distinguishes style from fashion,” says Giorgio Armani.  Coco Chanel advocates, “All one needs are two or three suits, as long as they, and everything to go with them are perfect.”  “Dress around your day and be comfortable,” Brooke Williams advises.  “Denim is the one thing everyone owns,” says Donna Karan, but it may not be appropriate for the courthouse.  

If none of this appeals to you, or you need more time to decide what to wear, you may wish to pursue a foreclosure defense.  

The process server isn’t as discrete as Publishers’ Clearing House to ensure you’re stylishly attired to receive a lis pendens.  However, if you hire legal representation, you can let the attorney figure out what to wear before the judge.  A foreclosure defense attorney can make all your court appearances for you, leaving you the opportunity to wear clothes best suited for the needs of your family, possibly “work-out” attire for a loan modification with your bank.  Set your own style—let your suit fit your financial goals.  

Clunker Mortgages

Is your refrigerator running?  Then let it go, and get a more efficient model at a bargain price.  As car dealers cash in on Obama’s vehicle voucher program, appliance manufacturers look forward to a similar surge in sales on washers and dryers, dish washers and refrigerators.  

Congress put $2 billion into the Cash for Clunkers program and has $300 million set aside for appliance rebates which could pay up to $200 on some models.  It’s an atmosphere of upgrades.  

Is your mortgage a clunker?  There are federal programs for that too.  The government is encouraging lenders to work with buyers to modify loans.  It’s a slow process, but Rome
wasn’t refinanced in a day.  There are short sales and foreclosure defense and bankruptcy to choose from.  The important thing is to find the solution that’s right for you. 

Now if you’ve got Prince Albert in a can…well, there just isn’t a federal program for that!

Patterson's Curse in Florida

Patterson’s Curse is one of those things that took over Australia, an ornamental purple flower that ran rampant, like housing in Florida.  The foreclosure crisis has spread like kudzu and is especially thick in Florida, leaving more people than economy.  

Paterson, New Jersey has a similar situation.  Paterson grew up manufacturing silk and cotton, guns and locomotives.  It was a model industrial town, founded by Alexander Hamilton and situated on the Passaic River so the falls would generate the power needed to run the factories.  The boom there is historic. Paterson is now trying to become an urban park in the National Park System.  

Tom Waits wrote a song that brings two concepts together.  “Town With No Cheer” talks about a post-industrial town with hills covered in Patterson’s curse. Florida doesn’t have many hills to speak of, but its flatlands are covered in empty houses, especially in south Florida.  There are proactive steps to recover from “Patterson’s Curse,” whether you live in New Jersey or Florida.  Bankruptcy, foreclosure defense, loan modifications, and short sales are some of the options available.   

Defensible Walls

The Great Wall of China is over 4,000 miles long, started by the Qin Dynasty.  Wall Street is 120 minutes long, staring the Sheen Dynasty.  The Great Wall of China can be seen from space.  The financial success of Wall Street and the United States helped put people into space to see it.  While Wall Street in the Financial District of New York is worlds apart from China’s Great Wall, both have served as defensible structures, and both stand as symbols of prosperous, great nations.  

China is 152,540 square miles larger than the United States and has a bigger population, but both countries are great empires of world economy.  What’s good for China is good for a lot of people, for example, last week China’s stock market rally sent our own stock up the Wall.  

People in Inner Mongolia in China have literally built homes into the Great Wall.  Where the Wall is strong, their home is strong, and the same is true in the United States.  Where Wall Street is strong, our homes stand strong, but when Wall Street is weak, foreclosure defense can help to insulate your family against the elements of a poor economy.  

High Branches

Money grows on trees—everybody knows that—greenbacks printed on paper like rectangular leaves.  The Recession, however, has wiped out the cash crop.  You can harvest a pulpwood tree at about 14 years, which could be your wait time on-hold for a loan modification.  In the meantime, the bank can foreclose on your house.  

Researchers have recently found that the physical act of counting tangible money relieves stress, but the study failed to address the detrimental effects of extended wait times to negotiate with the bank.  In the Bronx , you can call a tree on your cell hone, enter an extension and hear a message about that particular species or its place in the neighborhood.  If only it were that easy with your mortgage situation.  

The big problem with long wait times is that while you’re on hold, the bank is proceeding with foreclosure action.  Loan modifications or short sale negotiations do not preclude a lis pendens.  Banks are very much understaffed to take the volume of calls they are receiving, but they outsource foreclosure prosecutions to large legal firms.  

Credit grows on phone trees, but it’s not low-hanging fruit.  Trying to dial back your losses with a phone call is an exercise in patience.  Meanwhile, you may want to mulch a foreclosure defense alongside your loan modification, graft a legal shield to give you elbow room to maneuver while you navigate to the high branches.  

Acid Wash Pin Stripe

With fall fashions looking back to school, distressed takeovers are all the rage on Wall Street.  The housing market is in the red, but loan to own is the new black of corporate world transactions.  

In the foreclosure crisis, banks are offering modifications or taking losses on short sales.  They don’t want to move into your kitchen and start cooking dinner.  Mergers and acquisitions, however, are capitalizing on the devastation of a brutal recession.  

With great debt comes great opportunity, leaving many companies under new ownership.  Investors wait like vultures at a prayer meeting.  They loan to own, not for a monthly payment, but they deal on defaults, converting debt into ownership. 

With a wasteland of struggling companies, vulture deals are soaring over $80 billion this year.  By contrast, the boom years of 2005 and 2006 each saw less than $10 billion in this type of transaction.  Forget casual Friday, acid wash pin strip is the new dress code for business.  

Life in the Foreclosure Crisis

Milton Bradley introduced the board game “Life” at the start of the Civil War.  The game was wildly popular and launched his brand name on a line of many happy diversions.  “Life” has become more checkered since then, evolving from its original version of vice versus virtue, to a capitalistic approach, and perhaps today could stand another modernization.  Instead of manufacturing the Sponge Bob edition or Pirates of the Caribbean theme, how about updating the game as “Life, The Foreclosure Edition”?  

The foreclosure crisis has all the right elements of pratfalls and eliminations, a progressive system to fight for ultimate good while not surrendering to a volley of poor decisions.  The foreclosure crisis has great structure for a board game or video game.  Spin the dial, make your choices and see where fate takes you.  

With “Monopoly” success moving from Park Place to the big screen to join the popularity of Jumanji and Zathura, the classic family board game is ripe for a new and challenging match of skill and luck, relevant to the times in which we live.  Above all, such a game could illustrate the options that are available to people facing foreclosure.  Not all paths are equal, and you need a solution customized to fit your situation.  

On-Hold Fatigue

The wait for a modification is longer than a Countrywide mile, and a “short” sale can be anything but.  The current bank trend is no new loans, based on two reasons:  one, low demand for lending, and two, banks are acting in a hyper abundance of caution.  These two reasons create a feedback loop that’s difficult to penetrate with a phone call.  

Regrettably home mortgages have gone to the inventory of America’s garage sale of toxic assets, along with junk bonds and things it didn’t seem like you had to pay back, like student loans.  Banks created a national problem that exceeded the dimensions of our borders and the capacity of their telephone trees.  

The mission of any business is to make money, but most companies wrap a few more euphemisms around that.  Banks branched out into risky deals that looked like charity—they put people in houses—but wound up bankrupting more than benefitting with mortgage-backed securities.  A little slur in our language—“secure” to “securitize”—caused a lot of cursing.  

Don’t put your life on hold because you’re facing foreclosure.  Use the right tool for the right problem.  If you’re trying to decide what’s best for you—short sale, loan modification, bankruptcy, foreclosure defense—discuss your situation with an expert.  No one should go through foreclosure alone.  

Colonizing Florida - Erosion of Colonial Bank

“Neither a borrower, nor a lender be.” – William Shakespeare 

It’s always best to be the middleman, except when you’re a subprime lender.  We’ve lost another financial institution, Colonial Bank—long live BB&T! 

While Taylor Bean & Whittaker was headquartered on Florida soil, Colonial Bank was colonizing Florida from Alabama.  Colonizing Florida has always been risky business since the time the Spanish plundered our fair state for gold but got only quartzite, and a lot of it.  The Spanish lost the territory to England, briefly, then finally surrendered it to the United States in 1821, whose continental acquisition hung over the peninsula like an anvil.  

Hopefully the FDIC will remain an effective a stabilizing entity in Florida.  As for Colonial Bank, that sure line has eroded.