Man may lose house for making payments early

[Panacea]

Now this is really messed up.

A guy in Florida gets offered a home modification and takes it. He's working multple jobs to pay the mortgage and makes any number of payments not only on time, but early and even overpays.

So now Wells Fargo wants to take his house away from him . . . for not following the terms of the loan modification. http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/...Mr/?hpt=us_bn8

Oh, but they can take government bailout money . . . they're entitled to that.

[RedRoseSpiral]

This is just more proof that the people in high places want to keep the common man down. If this happens the way Wells Fargo wants, it will set a horrible precedent. People will be in debt longer even if they have the money to pay off what they own which allows loan companies to make more off of them through interest.

[s_stabeler]

this... seems complicated, and probably unfair. basically, Wells Fargo had created a moirtgage-backed secuirty partially based on this loan, and it appears that the loan modification breached the terms of the security. Essentailly, Wells Fargo screwed up, and this guy is having to pay the price. Ultimaetly, I doubt the forclosure will go through. ( forclosure is not automatic, and the fact that the guy has not missd a single payment would basically prevent forclosure)

[Panacea]

Except that there are other examples where people who have never missed a payment have lost their homes, due to the robosigning scandal.

I'm not sanguine about the courts; they're so backlogged with cases that too many are being pencil whipped through. Real people have been hurt.

Wells Fargo should drop this case and let it go.

[Racket_Man]

AND remember that the big banks have also attempted FORCLOSURE on houses they do not even have loans on. People whose houses were actually PAID OFF got forclosed on and lost everything.

[Panacea]

All this is why I'm glad I bought my house from a credit union.

[crashhelmet]

I really wish someone would pass a law banning early payment penalties. You see these with credit cards, car loans, school loans, and home loans.

But they want you to pay exactly what you owe, when you owe it, so they can collect their full interest amounts. If you pay more or early, it reduces your overall debt and your interest amounts.

[Ginger Tea]

Guy down the hall got a letter about TV licence and owing £30 which was threatening legal action, he said he paid the whole year and was paying monthly towards the 15's one.

Turns out it wasn't the TV licence itself but the collections agency, why they are involved if he is a year paid up and into the next, I and the decorator he chats with when he's round, were trying to clarify if it was a case of his licence was valid for the year, but not fully paid up and he didn't seem to get the right answers out at any given time, granted I think he had had a few beers by this time (noon yay).

We just told him to go to Citizens Advice and ask them to clarify the situation.
He also seemed to be under the impression that his licence covered the house (shared houses are not) and was always convinced that the guy who thankfully moved out (the naked in the kitchen one) would say no if they asked if the house was covered getting us all in trouble.
He would be in trouble as you don't get a discount cos your TV can only display in shades of purple unlike the Black and white discount that used to be offered.
Guy with the licence would be in the clear (assuming his is in order)
Others no idea, hell I don't see the woman downstairs, think she works nights.
I have no issues as I do not have a TV, but when I get to my HDTV for this pc, I will have to even though its going to be PC exclusive, I might not be able to prove that it can not receive TV, that or I might start watching it other than BBC iPlayer.

But I have encountered issues with the licence fee and monthly direct debits via my brother.
you have 12 months to pay it, but the amount paid is more than the licence itself, so I just assumed you had a few payment holidays if something happened.
Now I'm not sure, cos my brother missed one due to his last job's umpteenth late wage payment and that triggered a fine that was as much as if not more than the fee itself.
Exact details are scarce and he didn't like me bringing it up to find out what exactly was going on, even though I was the one stumping up the cash to pay it, but Citizens Advice was brought into it.

[HYHYBT]

I really wish someone would pass a law banning early payment penalties. You see these with credit cards, car loans, school loans, and home loans.

But they want you to pay exactly what you owe, when you owe it, so they can collect their full interest amounts. If you pay more or early, it reduces your overall debt and your interest amounts.

There's at least no excuse for a penalty for paying early if you still pay the same total amount you would have only paying on time.

But "we get all the interest even if you pay early" makes as much sense as "we'll lend to you, but only at a higher rate" for loans they're less certain will be paid back at all.

[telecom_goddess]

What is the situation with TV licenses? it costs extra money, besides any cable costs or whatever, to watch tv where you are?

[Ginger Tea]

Yeah the TV licence is an odd thing for those not in the UK, I don't think any other country has anything remotely like it.
Short answer, it's a TV tax, which also applies to VCR's, if you can receive a TV signal and in the VCR's case also record it, you needed one.

Way back when we had one channel, then two, both the BBC, no adverts.
To fund a free channel the licence came in to effect, not sure when exactly 'its always been there', when ITV (under the guise of local names for each county, but always the third channel on the TV) came out they had adverts and saw no income from the licence fee, same as Channel 4.

When Sky first came out they tried to say "if you don't receive those 4 and just have our satellite you don't need to pay", that lasted a few months.

So if you have Sky or Virgin you still have to pay the licence fee on top of that.
Only a few exemptions, not sure how enforced they are and if they are still valid.

You could get away with it if you could prove that you were not capable of receiving one of the 4 channels broadcast over the air (5th when it eventually came out ages after SKY) or Satellite TV channels.
So if you had one TV in the house and it was only hooked up to a games console or home computer, you were in the clear if they found no Ariel and hidden lead behind the sofa, but I've never had anyone come round and check as my parents always had it paid up and all that jazz. Most TV's came pre tuned to the local stations from the shops as you had a bbc1 for each county and my brother was stuck with BBC Wales living outside Manchester* till he got a cable box, so you were best of tuning them into a dead channel to be on the safe side.

*Yes you can reprogram the station frequency and we did have old TV's when I was growing up that had no channel select just a radio dial, but his ariel was facing the wrong way but fixing it broke the others, it only affected the news so it was no hardship.

[NorthernZel]

Yeah the TV licence is an odd thing for those not in the UK, I don't think any other country has anything remotely like it.
Short answer, it's a TV tax, which also applies to VCR's, if you can receive a TV signal and in the VCR's case also record it, you needed one.

We have a similar thing here in Denmark, called "Media Licence" since it not only applies to TVs, but also PC's, tablets and smartphones if it is determined that your internet connection is of streaming quality (256 KBs/s or higher).

[SongsOfDragons]

It's glorious having a few channels with no adverts other than for its own programmes. I think in the end maintaining the BBC like this is worth the licence fee.

[Ginger Tea]

It pays for Doctor Who, what's not to love

When the Xfiles was on BBC2 you could see the odd fade to black where the title card would be before the adverts, but even if ITV took it on, the breaks might not be in the same place, ITV normally goes just before the hour/start of a show, quarter past, half past/end of the show, quarter to.

24 having no advert breaks also on the BBC, finished way earlier to the DVD runtime (give or take any cuts).

The main problems with the licence fee being aside from DVD sales the only that I know of, income for the BBC on the whole, meant they were outbid countless times for sporting events by shows that could off set the costs by ad revenue.
But it is so much nicer watching F1 start to finish and not having some random ad break just as something interesting started to happen for 7th place, granted I gave up watching on the whole when all they would show was Schumacher's Ferrari way ahead of the pack yet ignore the tight fights for one point.

OT, but ad break related, way back when ITV I think it was, showed transformers split over a week during Easter holidays, sort of 30 minute episodes split over 5 days at god awful o'clock in the morning that only children can manage to be up at. So it was nice to get the few VHS tapes that were sold, when I got the DVD box sets of the whole thing, most of season 2 I never saw, granted they did show episodes whilst I was at school but that was cos some schools took holidays a week before or after but they still ran the daily segments for the next batch of 'spring break'.
But also I didn't fancy having to faff with the DVD's so I did torrent the complete shebang, no episodes missing that I knew of and the Head Masters movie AKA season 4, that had an advert break bump between the last scene and the end credits.

The last scene and the end credits.

The hell.

[Rapscallion]

We have a similar thing here in Denmark, called "Media Licence" since it not only applies to TVs, but also PC's, tablets and smartphones if it is determined that your internet connection is of streaming quality (256 KBs/s or higher).

They keep mooting applying the license fee to Internet connections over here as well. Never really gained any traction.

Rapscallion