Mortgage Accountability Association MAA Helps Borrowers and Lenders



With home foreclosures surging to unprecedented levels in the United States, homeowners are being devastated by bankruptcy and home loss -- oftentimes the result of agreeing to unintelligible, misrepresented, and even fraudulent mortgages peddled by predatory lenders. As a result, ethical mortgage brokers are unfairly losing the trust and the business of people who truly need and would benefit from honest home loans. Fortunately, a new organization, Mortgage Accountability Association (MAA), is begining to protect consumers and ethical mortgage brokers by providing an objective review and explanation of the consumer's loan documents (termed the "MAA Review").

Based in the active real estate market of San Diego, MAA is a national association composed of real estate attorneys and mortgage professionals with years of experience assisting home loan borrowers. Jeffrey L. Hogue and Tyler J. Belong, the organization's founders, are licensed real estate attorneys and real estate brokers. Their collective experience encompasses reviewing real estate loan and transfer documents, as well as litigating against unethical mortgage brokers and other professionals in cases involving real estate purchase contracts, loan agreements, promissory notes, and other real estate loan documents.

Mr. Hogue and Mr. Belong created MAA to address the growing needs of home mortgage consumers: Even the most intelligent and financially savvy individuals can find it difficult, if not impossible, to fully understand even the most basic loan documents written by mortgage lenders. Far more common is the plight of an average mortgage customer, who has absolutely no knowledge of loan documents, and consequently can easily fall victim to a mortgage broker who fails to communicate the details of the loan, as a result of oversight or the pressure to make a sale.

MAA makes available two services that can be a tremendous help to such borrowers: MAA Review and MAA Legal Advice. 1) MAA Review provides a comprehensive and independent review, including a full explanation and summary of the critical terms in any home loan. This service costs only $395. 2) MAA Legal Advice provides the services of a knowledgeable and experienced real estate attorney, who can offer legal advice, review and explain the loan documents, negotiate terms, and even accompany the customer during the document signing, for a discounted hourly rate.

Hogue and Belong point out that residential borrowers are eager to pay for a home inspector or appraiser to tell the borrower what their home is worth and to point out any defects in the home. However, very few residential borrowers ever hire an attorney or other objective professional to provide the borrower with a review, and to explain the borrower's loan and related documents. This is in stark contrast to the commercial real estate industry, notes Belong, in which almost every borrower has at least one attorney reviewing their loan (usually because the commercial borrower can afford to pay $300/hour for an attorney). MAA's goal is to revolutionize the residential mortgage industry by making objective loan reviews so affordable and so efficient that it will become the standard for residential borrowers to have their loan reviewed prior to signing it. The idea is that if borrowers are informed of their loan terms ahead of time, they are less likely to be foreclosed on in the future, because they understand how their loan works, and they have not been mislead or defrauded regarding their loan terms.

By helping to protect mortgage borrowers, MAA also helps ethical mortgage lenders who utilize these services, in several ways: 1) Lenders can minimize and even eliminate the risks of being sued by clients, because any loan documents the lenders originate and have reviewed by MAA, would have been completely explained to their clients. This makes it nearly impossible for a client to demonstrate in a court of law that they did not receive a comprehensive and clear explanation of their mortgage's terms. 2) Loan officers and mortgage brokers are working harder than ever, exacerbated by downsizing in the real estate market. This increases the chances that even the most honest mortgage lender can make a mistake in presenting and selling a mortgage, or that a rogue loan officer can misrepresent a mortgage, unbeknownst to the supervising broker. MAA effectively solves this problem, providing lenders with peace of mind, as well as allowing them to better focus on their areas of expertise -- loan sales and support. 3) An independent and reliable third party review of a loan increases a borrower's confidence, the esteem with which they hold their chosen lender, and in turn the odds that they will recommend that lender to other potential clients.

Visit MAA's Web site (http://www.helpma.org/) today to learn more about the valuable services that they offer. The Web site also has a blog, where visitors can read the latest news in the dynamic home mortgage industry, check links to other useful sites, and even suggest news items and provide other input to the blog.

Press release written by Michael J. Ross (http://www.ross.ws/).





Mortgage Accountability Association MAA Helps Borrowers and Lenders