United First

My husband and I purchased a house in 1999, last year he was hurt and could not work, we tried to pay the mortgage but without his income could not keep up, We decided to let the mortgage company take the house, Its been about a year now since we have made any payment, they still have not foreclosed and today I received a letter from a law office saying that we could be awarded the original amount of the loan from the original lender (the mortgage has been sold several times over the years)for our “paid in full but unsatisfied loan”; the letter asks us to sign and a return a document allowing them to “research the title, appraise us of any PIF but unsatisfied mortgages, confirm with us that the mortgages identified are PIF, send a statutorily complaint notice to the lender or lenders demanding that any PIF mortgages be satisfied, and if the lenders fail to cooperate, prosecute them,” the law office will front all the monies for this and they will keep one third of the profit if successful. This mortgage is NOT paid in full, so whats the story?

Do you know why they would send this and what it means?

Thanks for you’re help!

Sue

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Hi Sue,

I’m not familiar with the company that sent you that letter.  It sounds similar to something that a company called United First was (is?) offering.  Here’s the update on the attorney that United First was working with from a March 2009 California Bar article titled: “State Bar discipline unit scores three wins on the same day”:

In a third key development last month, bar prosecutors obtained a Superior Court order that effectively shut down three southern California offices of Sherman Oaks attorney Mitchell Roth. Hospitalized due to severe depression since January, Roth recently expanded his law practice — which had included credit, debt and collections, general civil litigation, personal injury, medical malpractice, wills and trusts, and probate — to foreclosure cases. Roth’s estimated 2,300 foreclosure clients were referred to his law offices by a company doing business as United First, which is not a law firm.

“Given the belief that many of Roth’s cases are open and active foreclosure defense litigation cases wherein the clients are subject to losing their homes and facing eviction, a delay in making orders for assumption of Roth’s law practice will result in substantial injury to clients or others,” the State Bar wrote. Roth’s phone message referred foreclosure clients back to United First.

The order was obtained under the Business and Professions Code, which permits the Superior Court to assume jurisdiction over a law practice where the attorney has become incapable of providing the quality of service necessary to protect clients or if there is an unfinished client matter for which no other lawyer agrees to accept responsibility.

Through his attorney, Paul J. Virgo, Roth consented to the Superior Court’s assumption of jurisdiction over his law practice.

Thanks for the questions and hope this helps.

Paul