Advance fees
California law generally prohibits collecting an advance fee for loan modification or foreclosure consulting services before the promised services are fully performed. Any party requesting payment up front to negotiate with your lender is operating outside the law in most circumstances, regardless of how the payment is characterized.
Legitimate assistance exists at no cost. HUD-approved housing counseling agencies provide free foreclosure counseling, and nonprofit programs such as this one do not charge borrowers for loss mitigation assistance.
Deed transfer and leaseback schemes
The most damaging pattern involves persuading you to transfer title, often framed as a temporary measure to protect the property, with a promise that you can rent it back and repurchase later. Once title transfers, your equity is gone and your position converts from owner to tenant, at which point eviction is straightforward.
There is no legitimate foreclosure remedy that requires you to deed your home to a private party. Treat any such request as disqualifying, and have any document affecting title reviewed by an attorney before signing.
- Never sign a grant deed, quitclaim deed, or transfer document without independent legal review.
- Never sign documents with blank spaces to be completed later.
- Never make mortgage payments to anyone other than your servicer of record.
- Be skeptical of guaranteed outcomes; no one can guarantee a modification or a postponement.
- Verify licensing before engaging anyone, and confirm bar membership for anyone claiming to be an attorney.
Forensic audits and sovereign theories
Paid forensic loan audits are marketed as uncovering violations that will void your mortgage. In practice they rarely produce anything a servicer or court acts on, and the fee is money diverted from reinstatement or relocation.
Similarly, theories asserting that your note is void, that the lender lacks standing as a matter of course, or that filing particular documents extinguishes the debt have not succeeded in California courts and consume the time you need for a workable option.