Q: My cousin got a loan modification in two weeks. Can I? My neighbor told me that if you send your bank a short sale application on legal-size paper, it gets done in half the time. And I read on the Internet that if the bank loses my mortgage note, I will get the house for free. Is this true? – A number of readers

A: Your cousin's loan mod probably took six weeks or longer. A short sale application on legal-size paper has no bearing on how fast the bank may approve it. And if your lender loses the note, you do not get your house for free. The bank just has to go through a simple legal process of having a copy of it recognized by the court so that the bank can move forward with the foreclosure.

I hear so many of these stories at my office that I have adopted a name for it: The Neighbor Syndrome. It’s a serious issue that has affected all of us since childhood. We all remember the guy in high school who stayed home every Friday night but had a beautiful girlfriend “from Canada” or the uncle who caught the 5-foot fish, “but the camera broke.” Remember The Rule of Threes -- friends and neighbors tend to exaggerate things by three. People want to believe that there is some magic trick or secret sauce that will make all of their problems go away with minimal effort. If you hear the stories often enough, you may actually start believing them and make bad decisions that greatly affect your life. I have spoken to dozens of people who have stopped making their mortgage payments in order to get loan modifications when a little research from widely available sources would have quickly shown them that they earn way too much money to ever qualify for the modifications. Now they are in foreclosure, they have to pay attorneys to clean up the mess, they’ve ruined their credit scores and they have to pay large penalties to the banks to get caught up. Do the research yourself from official or direct sources. Do not talk to a neighbor about the “Making Homes Affordable” government loan modification plan. Go to the actual government website and read it yourself. By getting the information yourself through direct research, you will be able to make sound decisions that lead to good results.

Q: My rental home has pests and needs to be tented and fumigated. My landlord has offered to prorate my rent for the few days I can’t stay in the house. But I also want him to pay for my hotel and food expenses while I am out of the house. Do I have a case? - Brian

A: Probably not. If you and your landlord addressed this issue in the lease, then that will take precedence. If the lease is silent on the matter – and most are -- then state law rules. In Florida, the law is that when a landlord must move a tenant out to fumigate, the rent is not paid for the time that the tenant can’t use the house. But the tenant must cover his own expenses in finding a place to stay. This may sound unfair, but the law doesn’t want to discourage the landlord from properly maintaining the home.

The information and materials on this blog are provided for general informational purposes only and are not intended to be legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed, nor should any such relationship be implied. Nothing on this blog is intended to substitute for the advice of an attorney, especially an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.

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