a real feeling of Loss

A friend died today. It was expected but it wasn't. He had been fighting Stage 4 lung cancer for about 4 years. He had originally been given 6 months but he was a fighter. Funny (?) thing is he never smoked. He had been a missionary to Hong Kong for about 25 years and I can't help but think that maybe it was all the "second-hand" smoke. (It seems like all Asians like to smoke.) He sang in the church choir with me and he had a wicked sense of humor. I visited with him last Thursday, not knowing it would be the last visit. Although he was in Hospice, I really thought he had several more months left.

Many of you  have expressed concern and sympathy for my secretary who lost her only child in an accident last month. I know she appreciates your experssions of support. There is NEVER a thing you can do to help someone who is deep in grief-except be present at the appropriate times and let the one left behind know how much they are all loved.

It makes you realise how important family and friends are. It also means we all need to live as lives to the fullest. 

What if Banks....

I was watching CNBC business channel today when I heard a great idea. Why not refinance all the people who have been making their payments faithfully without missing any. Under the current bank rules they want you to have 20% equity in your property. The appraisal has to show that you have this equity. However, since the bank is already on the hook for the money, who cares if the borrower is upside down on his loan if he is making his payments in full and on time. So let's reward the good guys. Refinance the good guys, lower their rates and put more money in their pockets. Thay way they will also have more money to spend to help the economy.

Banks don't get it...never did

Bank Seized-again

There was another bank failure in north Georgia recently. On July 23, 2010, Crescent Bank of Jasper was seized by the FDIC and was reopened as Renasant Bank, which is out of Mississippi. Crescent Bank had approximately $1 billion dollars in assets. With the acquisition, Renasant Bank will be operating the 11 branches of Crescent Bank across north Georgia .


Crescent Bank was an active mortgage broker in the north Georgia area. It remains to be seen how the acquisition by Renasant Bank will affect it’s mortgage operations.

copy this

The Georgia legislature finally left office in April. As someone once said, "No one is safe when the legislature is in session." One of the issues they dealt with was the budget shortfall. State revenues have been falling since this recession began. So the legislature thought it would be a good idea to raise the cost of copying court documents.

If you go to the courthouse to get a copy of your deed or plat, it is going to cost you more-much more. The copy charge went from 25 cents ($.25) to 50 cents ($0.50) per page. If a party in a lawsuit wants to appeal a judgment or verdict to a higher court, the cost of copying the transcript to send to the higher court went from a dollar and fifty cents a page ($1.50) to ten dollars ($10.00) a page. A copy of a transcript that would have cost $750 has now gone to $5000.00. This is cost prohibitive.

This is also cutting off your nose to spite your face. What will happen is that people will make less copies. Only those copies that are essential will now be copied. The copy fees can go up but the number of copies can be regulated by the consumer.

As for the transcript costs, the Georgia Supreme Court acted to modify the costs. Now, instead of having to copy an entire transcipt to appeal a judgment or verdict, the parties can get together with the Clerk of the Court and copy only those pages that relate to the part of the verdict or the legal issue that is being appealed.

Maybe the legislature will act again to remedy this situation and maybe, this time, they will use some common sense.

Hot Summer

It is a hot summer and I hate the heat. That's why I live in the mountains-to get away from the heat. If I had my way there would be three seasons-spring, fall and winter.

I had more consultations (counseling sessions) with people today about foreclosures. I'm spending a lot of my time now counseling peoople in dire financial situations. I do what I can to help them but there are a limited number of options. Usually there may be things we can do to "buy time' but I hesitate to reccomend that course of action if, at the end of the time delay, there is no way they will be able to recover and not end up again where they are now.

One sad note is that I learned today that a fellow real estate attorney I know in Atlanta has lost his house and his law practice. He is now working for another law firm wtih long hours and little pay. These times are tough for all of us. Hopefully ..... soon?

Time flies- - - - - - -

I can't belive it has been so long since my last posting on my blog. Life can get very busy and time can get away from you so easily. Since I last posted a lot has happened and I will try to slowly bring the blog up to date.

We are dealing with more and more foreclosure situations and problems. Most of the foreclosure issues have to do with deficiencies-there has been a foreclosure and the bank is coming after the former owner/borrower for the difference between the loan balance and the value of the property. We have had a number of these issues. But this month, we filed our first lawsuit to set aside a bank action for "wrongful foreclosure". I don't believe in filing lawsuits to just "buy time". I don't think it does any good to file a lawsuit only to have it thrown out two or three months later. If there is to be a valid lawsuit filed, you must be thinking of making a permanent change in the situation.

In the wrongful foreclosure actoin I mentioned above, the mortgage company had approved a modification of the loan agreement subject only to the borrower's signature and notarization. The borrower signed the agreement, had it notarized and sent it back. The mortgage company rejected the signature because the notary had not printed her name in the proper loaction on the form, even though the notary, otherwise, was fully and legally, effective. So we have filed suit to have the lender bound by the agreement.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

I hope the rest of your day is good!

Roller Coaster Ride

I don’t know if we are at the bottom of the roller coaster looking up or at the top of the roller coaster looking down! On May 6, 2010 we had the largest one day drop on the DOW ever in history. The Dow fell over 900 points before recovering and finishing at -347.


I had been feeling pretty good lately. We have seen an “up-tick” in business. It seems as if more businesses are opening around town, and there is less office space sitting vacant. Until last week, the Dow had been slowly rising. The direction we were headed appeared to be “up”.

“PIGS” is a new acronym that I have learned to dislike. It stands for Portugal, Italy (sometime Ireland), Greece and Spain. Just before the DOW dropped so badly and diverted my attention, I had been following the riots in Greece as the EuroBank was imposing limits on the Greek economy. Greece is bankrupt, but apparently lots of people were not happy about the austerity measures.

And now the UK government (United Kingdom-England) is having its own problems. No one party won a majority in the recent election so the parties all have to get together and bargain to try to form an amalgamation of parties that will somehow equal a majority of seats in the Parliament…or to be precise, a majority in the House of Commons. Commentators say that it may take a month or so for a leader to form a government. Sounds like the USA Presidential Election 2000, doesn’t’ it?

So after all the excitement with the Dow, the Labor Department reported that we gained 280,00 jobs last month. It was also noted that the gains were “across the board”, i.e., in many different parts of the economy.

So what’s next? I don’t know, but I do like what Benjamin Franklin said at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence… “We must all hang together or we’ll surely all hang separately.” We’re in this together…whatever this is.

Monday, May 10th, the DOW was up over 400 points. Did I mention the roller coaster?

Hoping to see you at a closing real soon -