In my world. A homeowner that fights their lender for 5 years, is a success story in my book. Maybe if we united and there were 1,000-10,000-100,000 homeowners doing the same thing that Mr. Lentz and Mr. Davet did in Ohio, then maybe lenders would start really assisting homeowners.
If car dealers can keep track of titles, banks can track promissory notes, Joseph Lents says.
Somebody has been trying to foreclose on Joseph Lents’ Boca Raton home for five years. So far, they have been unsuccessful because he has legally fought them every step of the way.
The original lender, or the assignee, seems unable to produce the promissory note and prove it has the right to foreclose. In an era when Wall Street has sliced and diced mortgages to package them as securities, that could turn into a broader issue.
“I probably have been to the Palm Beach County courthouse 100 times or more over the last five years, just to observe,” Lents said. “In 99 percent of the residential foreclosure cases, plaintiffs are asking the court to accept a promissory note copy as the original because it is presumed lost.”
Resistance doesn’t come cheap. Lents has paid more than $120,000 in legal fees and costs so far to save his 5-acre, $2.5 million home.
