Part II of a Three Part Series

In Series Number One, we reviewed the merits of the Good Faith Estimate and its value to the borrower for transparent disclosure of facts and figures.     In the Part Two, we need to address the “service” aspect of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

When you apply for a home mortgage, you may think that the lender, or loan originator, will service the loan until it is paid off or your house is sold. However, in today’s market mortgage, servicing rights often are bought and sold. The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) is a consumer protection statute which affords you certain disclosures and strategies for problem resolution with your mortgage and/or escrow account.

Duty of Loan Servicer to Respond to Complaints. If you have questions or problems with the servicing of your loan, the servicer is required to respond to you. Write to your servicer and call it a “qualified written request under Section 6 of RESPA.” It should be a separate letter and not mailed with your payment. The mortgage servicer must                respond to you within 60 business days of receipt.

A Sample Complaint Letter would include the following because the specifics are important:
Attention Customer Service:

Subject: [Your loan number]
[Names on loan documents]
[Property and/or mailing address]

This is a “qualified written request” under Section 6 of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA).

I am writing because:

• Describe the issue or the question you have and/or what action you believe the lender should take.
• Attach copies of any related written materials.
• Describe any conversations with customer service regarding the issue and to whom you spoke.
• Describe any previous steps you have taken or attempts to resolve the issue.
• List a day time telephone number in case a customer service representative wishes to contact you.
• I understand that under Section 6 of RESPA you are required to acknowledge my request within 20 business days and must try to resolve the issue within 60 business days.

Sincerely,

[Your name]

REMEMBER: This letter SHOULD NOT be included with your mortgage payment, but should be sent separately to the customer service address.

And, it is very important that you continue to make the required mortgage and escrow payment until the request is resolved.

Loan Transferred to New Servicer. Your loan servicer is required to notify you in writing at least 15 days before the servicing of your loan is transferred to a new servicer. The notice must include the following information:

* The effective date of the transfer, the date your current servicer will stop accepting payments and the date the new servicer will begin accepting them.
* The name, address, and toll-free or collect call telephone number for the new servicer.
* Information that tells whether you can continue any optional insurance, such as mortgage life or disability insurance, and what action, if any, you must take to maintain coverage.
* A statement that the transfer of servicing does not affect any term or condition of your mortgage documents other than the terms directly related to the servicing of the loan.

Treatment of Payments During Transfer Period. During the 60-day period beginning on the effective date of the transfer, the payment may not be treated as late if you mistakenly send it to the old mortgage servicer instead of the new one.

Escrow Account. RESPA does not require that you maintain an escrow account for the purpose of paying property taxes, hazard insurance, etc. Nor does RESPA have any jurisdiction over the decision of the lender or servicer to require or terminate an escrow account. RESPA does, however, provide you with the following protections with regard to the escrow account:

• If your lender or mortgage servicer requires you to maintain an escrow account for the purpose of paying property taxes, hazard insurance, etc., RESPA requires that the servicer pay such items by the dates due to avoid a penalty or late charge.
• RESPA sets limits on the maximum amount of money the servicer may require you to maintain and pay in the escrow account. (More information about escrow accounts, including how to calculate the maximum amount RESPA allows the lender to require in the escrow account.)

Multistate Home Lending www.multistatehomelending.com and The Manufactured Home Lending Source www.mh-lending.com are committed to full and complete disclosure. All of our loan officers are registered with the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry (Registry), a database established by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) and the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators to support the licensing of mortgage loan originators by the States. As part of this registration process, mortgage loan originators must furnish to the Registry background information and fingerprints for a background check. The S.A.F.E. Act generally prohibits employees of an agency-regulated institution from originating residential mortgage loans without first registering with the Registry.

SAN DIEGO, CA: What is Patient’s Choice Award? It’s an honor that reflects the difference a doctor made in people’s lives through the exceptionally high praise granted to a doctor by his or her patients.

According to the consumer research, every month more than 40,000 patients across the US provide online feedback about their experiences with their doctors. They rate various components such as bedside manner, doctor-patient face time, degree of follow up, courtesy of office staff, and overall opinions. Over the course of 2009, of the nation’s 720,000 active physicians, less than 6% are recorded with a near perfect score as voted by their patients for this honor.

Dr. Yaghouti has been recognized as one of those physicians most highly regarded by his patients.

“To me, it is of great importance having my patients feel comfortable and be informed of their choices.” said Dr. Yaghouti, adding; “At Global Laser Vision, one of our primary goals is to thoroughly educate our patients about the condition of their eyes and about all of the treatment options available to them.”
Dr. Yaghouti is one of only a handful of ophthalmologists who has completed a formal two year fellowship specializing in refractive surgery, cornea and external eye disease at the renowned Harvard Medical School. He is a leading corneal and refractive surgery specialist educating eye surgeons from all over the world about the most recent advances in refractive surgery.

Global Laser Vision’s experienced laser refractive surgeon and highly trained support staff have a reputation for their friendly and pleasant service–making Global Laser Vision the obvious choice for residents of San Diego County as well as other Southern Californians.
About Global Laser Vision Medical Center, Inc.:

Global Laser Vision Medical Center, Inc. of San Diego is a top resource for several different eye conditions including Lasik and Custom Lasik, PRK and Lasek, iLASIK (Custom Lasik with Intralase), Intacs Corneal Implants (Intracorneal Rings or ICR), Pterygium excision, General eye examinations for cataract, glaucoma, and other eye conditions, as well as for glasses, and contact lenses. The clinic has its own laser surgical suite, as well as an optical department and is staffed with a team of experienced medical professionals who specialize in treatments of the eye.

For more information about Global Laser Vision or Dr Yaghouti please contact:

Analisa Defiesta
Marketing Coordinator
Global Laser Vision
619.243.2444 ext.110
6950 Friars Road, Suite 100
San Diego, CA 92108
www.globallaservision.com
TEL: 1-(800) Get-Lasik

Yaz lawyers are pharmaceutical product liability attorneys and medical fraud lawyers who are currently investigating and filing claims against the manufacturers Bertex/Bayer. The evidence to date suggests that the use of Yaz and Yasmin are associated with heart attack and stroke, other venous and arterial thrombotic and thromboembolic events, deep vein thrombosis, DVT, thromboembolism, pulmonary embolism and blood clots and well as hypertension, cardiac arrhythmia, gallbladder disease and other side effects.

From the Yaz lawyers’ perspective, the Yaz/Yasmin lawsuits are relatively unique as pharmaceutical product liability litigation because of the evidence of misrepresentation, fraud and over-promotion of the drugs on the part of the manufacturers, both misrepresenting the potential benefits of the drugs and minimizing their risks. Some Yaz lawyers will approach the litigation solely as pharmaceutical product liability lawsuits; others, with experience in medical fraud litigation will want to include causes of action also for fraud and misrepresentation, and will likely seek punitive damages for manufacturers. For a more complete discussion you may consider “Yaz Drug Fraud, the Lawyer’s Perspective” an article that also considers objectively the options to pursue Yaz litigation in the context of large MDL or class action cases or as individual litigation.

The evidence of the Bayer entities over-promotion and misrepresentation of both the benefits and risks of Yaz have yielded the concurrence of the FDA, in letters to the manufacturer. In 2003 the FDA wrote to Bertex Laboratories, then the manufacturer of Yasmin, a company subsequently purchased by the Bayer entities, stating: “The TV ad misleadingly overstates the efficacy and safety of Yasmin by suggesting that Yasmin is unique and therefore clinically superior to other birth control pills because it contains the chemically different progestin drospirinon.” Despite the FDA correspondence, Bertex and then Bayer continued to mislead the public in their advertising, both misrepresenting the drug as superior to other birth control pharmaceuticals and minimizing the risks.

In 2008 the FDA wrote to Bayer, again warning of the misleading character of its television advertisements for Yaz and Yasmin to obscure the risks of the drug. According to the FDA “The overall effect of the distracting visuals, graphics, concurrent supers and background music is to undermine the communication of the important risk information, minimizing these risks and misleadingly suggesting that Yaz is safer than has been demonstrated by substantial evidence or substantial clinical experience.” And the risks that the FDA considered were minimized by Bayer in its advertising, included venous and arterial thrombotic and thromboembolic events, such as myocardial infarction (heart attack), thromboembolism and stroke, hepatic neoplasia, gallbladder disease and hypertension.

Our Yaz drug fraud lawyers consider that there are substantial advantages to including fraud and misrepresentation “causes of action” to the usual strict product liability and negligence claims commonly brought in drug product liability litigation. One advantage is that there will be the potential to obtain “punitive damages,” in addition to the usual compensatory damages, to punish the drug company for its misrepresentations and to set an example so that other drug companies will not use the same tactic of misrepresentation again.

Punitive damages may indeed be deemed appropriate and justified. As the result of the Bayer entities misrepresentation of the benefits and risks of Yas and Yasmin in its television commercials it quickly obtained an advantage over the other manufacturers of birth control pills. Our Yaz drug fraud lawyers consider that the success of Yaz and Yasmin indeed can be directly attributable to its misrepresentations with regard to the drugs purported benefits over other birth control pharmaceuticals. The Bayer entities have made their huge profits in substantial part because of their advertising misrepresentations, and as our Yaz drug fraud lawyers analyze it, punitive damages would be justified to strip Bayer of its ill-gained profit and to set the example for other drug companies that they too must refrain from misrepresentation as the means to gain the competitive advantage.

Ray Henke, Senior Pharmaceutical and Medical Fraud Trial Lawyer, the Henke Law Group. Mr. Henke has extensive experience both in pharmaceutical product liability litigation and in drug and medical fraud lawsuits.