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How to eliminate your mortgage

You will entertain most thoughts and offers when it comes to ridding yourself of your mortgage debt. Perhaps you’ve seen the e-mails that promise a legal way to “eliminate” your mortgage.

“The Mortgage Elimination ‘Scam,’” written by William Bronchick, columnist for totalrealestatesoltions.com, explains that these promises are indeed scams.

Bronchick begins the article by citing a sample e-mail he has received promising to eliminate his mortgage.

“If the lender who funded your loan used borrowed money to fund your loan, then the loan is not valid. And, since the loan is not valid, the security (mortgage or deed of trust) is not valid either. All you do is simply march into court and ask a judge to void your mortgage lien, and you don't have to pay it back."

Bronchick states that this scam reminds him of a similar one years back. “This sounds vaguely familiar to the ‘tax protestor’ scam where people claimed that they didn't owe income tax because the government did not have the constitutional authority to tax them.”

First off, every loan is funded by borrowed money; that’s what a loan is. Secondly, if this argument was true and all you had to do was “march into court” and demand your mortgage lien to be voided, everyone would do it. And if everyone did do it, then the economy would collapse.

“The mortgage elimination promoters cite various court cases in support of their position. At first blush, it would seem there are dozens of court cases in which the judge actually did what they claimed, that is, declare a mortgage void because the lender used borrowed funds for the loan.”

“I've read the decisions and they all have a common theme: they don't support the mortgage elimination theory. In fact, most of the cases are only vaguely on point.”

Bronchick continued to explain that the same thing happened with the “tax protestor” scam in which a cited quote was extracted out of context from a judge’s statement in a case, or cases.

“In the end, the tax protestors all lost in court, paid large fines and went away with their tails between their legs. The government went after the promoters of the scam.” The Federal Reserve has now issued a warning to all of those of this mortgage scam. They will be found and prosecuted.

Bronchick further explains that there are only three legitimate ways to rid you of your mortgage lien. The first and most obvious option is to pay it in full.

Another option is to file for chapter 7 bankruptcy. Although you will lose your house, the mortgage lien will be taken off.

And the third way to eliminate your mortgage loan is to “find a REAL legal challenge that a judge is willing to accept as a valid reason to declare the debt void, such as usury, gross violation of lending laws, fraud, incompetence or the like.”

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