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Housing >  View All Subtopics   Read information about your legal rights. There are 190 resources Page 3 of 4 Evictions   Your Rights      Mortgage and Foreclosure Relief: Answers for Reservists, Guardsmen and Other Military Personnel (Separate Website) Information for service men and women about how the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act helps with mortgage relief, lease termination and eviction issues. By: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)           Tenants' Rights As a tenant, you have rights, but you also have responsibilities. For your own protection, there are some things you need to do before you even sign the lease, while you are renting and when you move out. There are also things you need to know if your landlord tries to evict you. By: Atlanta Legal Aid Society       Read this in: Spanish / Español        back to top         Foreclosure and Predatory Lending   Avoiding Bad Loans      Common Questions about Home Loans, Mortgages and Predatory Lending This document answers common questions about loans, mortgages, and how to protect your home from predatory lenders. By: Atlanta Legal Aid Society             High-Cost Home Loans: Don't Be a Target (Separate Website) Homeowners Beware! You may be a target for abusive lenders trying to sell you a loan you can't afford. If this happens, you may unable to make the high payments and lose your home at a foreclosure sale or spend all of your spare cash paying off a loan you didn't need or want. By: National Consumer Law Center     Read this in: Chinese / 中文 , Spanish / Español           History of Predatory Lending Atlanta Legal Aid's Bill Brennan, as one of the nation's experts on predatory lending, was asked by Senator Grassley to testify at the Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing on "Equity Predators: Stripping, Flipping, and Packing Their Way to Profits." Bill was warmly received and several Senators made statements at the hearing indicating the value they placed on legal service program involvement in this area. Bill's testimony (see text below) clearly outlines the problems of predatory lending and equity theft, how victims are targeted, and some historical perspective. By: Atlanta Legal Aid Society             Predatory Mortgage Lending Abuses This document describes the different ways that mortgage lenders can trick homeowners into giving up their homes. By: Atlanta Legal Aid Society             Protect Your Investment - Don't Let Predatory Lenders Take Your Home (Separate Website) Senior citizens are an attractive target for unscrupulous mortgage lenders because they have a lot of equity in their homes after years of diligently paying off their mortgages, and they use that equity to finance home repairs, medical care and other needs. While these lenders may encourage seniors to use their hard-earned home equity to secure new loans - they will not tell seniors about the high fees, hidden payments or other disadvantageous loan terms that could lead to the loss of their homes. By: National Consumer Law Center           Schemes to Cheat the Unwary Homeowner If you are like most homeowners, your house is your most valuable investment. As a homeowner you have to be very careful to protect your investment or you may become the victim of schemes to steal your money, your equity, or even your house. This brochure will help you recognize equity theft and title conversion scams and avoid them. By: Atlanta Legal Aid Society       Read this in: Chinese / 中文 , Vietnamese / Tiếng Việt           What You Should Know About Refinancing (Separate Website) Refinancing is a process in which you pay off one or more existing debts with a new home loan. If you have perfect credit, refinancing is sometimes a good way to obtain a lower interest rate or to convert a variable rate loan to a fixed rate. However, if you are in the midst of financial difficulties, if you have too much debt, or if you have bad credit, refinancing is loaded with pitfalls. We recommend that you be very careful when refinancing debts. Many refinancing loans hurt consumer. Here are twelve things to consider before refinancing. By: National Consumer Law Center           When Your Home Is on the Line: What You Should Know (Separate Website) More and more lenders are offering home equity lines of credit. By using the equity in your home, you may qualify for a sizable amount of credit, available for use when and how you please, at an interest rate that is relatively low. Before making a decision, you should weigh carefully the costs of a home equity line against the benefits. Shop for the credit terms that best meet your borrowing needs without posing undue financial risk. And remember, failure to repay the amounts you've borrowed, plus interest, could mean the loss of your home. By: Federal Reserve Board     Read this in: Spanish / Español        back to top           Foreclosures      Saving Your Home From Foreclosure (Separate Website) Unemployment, divorce, death and abusive lending practices put many homeowners at risk of losing their home. If you are facing foreclosure, you may be tempted to give up and walk away from your home. Don?t give up! There may be an option available that allows you to keep your home or sell or transfer your home quickly before a foreclosure sale. Here are some guidelines. By: National Consumer Law Center           Mortgage and Foreclosure Relief: Answers for Reservists, Guardsmen and Other Military Personnel (Separate Website) Information for service men and women about how the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act helps with mortgage relief, lease termination and eviction issues. By: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)           Steps That Advocates Can Take To Help Prevent Foreclosure (Separate Website) Older homeowners fall behind on their mortgages for many reasons: sudden decreases in income due to the loss of a spouse; poor financial management which contributes to nonpayment of utility bills, service shutoffs and liens against the property; failure to perform necessary repairs and maintenance which make the property uninhabitable; second mortgage scams which make impossible demands on the homeowner's limited resources. All of these contributing factors can be addressed by skilled advocates -- if homeowners turn to them in time. This issue of Consumer Concerns for Older Americans examines some of the measures that legal and non-legal advocates for the elderly can take to defend homeowners at risk of foreclosure. By: National Consumer Law Center           Foreclosure Rescue Scams (Separate Website) A growing scam that disproportionately targets older Americans can, and often does, literally cost them the homes they have lived in for years and worked hard to obtain. It is called a foreclosure ?rescue? scam, and it is anything but what the word ?rescue? implies. By: National Consumer Law Center        back to top           Related Information      Georgia Department of Banking and Finance Website (Separate Website) The Georgia Department of Banking and Finance (Department) is the state agency that regulates and examines banks, credit unions and trust companies which are chartered by the State. The Department also has regulatory and/or licensing authority over mortgage brokers and lenders, check cashers, sale of check companies, money transmitters, international banking organizations, and bank holding companies conducting business in Georgia. By: Georgia Department of Banking and Finance           HOPE NOW Loan Servicing (Separate Website) HOPE NOW is an alliance between counselors, servicers, investors, and other mortgage market participants. This alliance will maximize outreach efforts to homeowners in distress to help them stay in their homes and will create a unified, coordinated plan to reach and help as many homeowners as possible. The members of this alliance recognize that by working together, they will be more effective than by working independently.           Mortgage and Real Estate Loans Information from the Federal Trade Commission (Separate Website) This web site contains documents relating to: (1) home equity loans, home equity credit lines and common home equity scams, (2) high rate, high fee mortgages, (3) reverse mortgages, (4) payday loans, and (5) mortgage discrimination. You may view the documents on-line and print them out or print them in PDF format. By: Federal Trade Commission     Read this in: Spanish / Español           Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America Website (Separate Website) The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America ("NACA") is a non-profit, community advocacy and homeownership organization. NACA?s primary goal is to build strong, healthy neighborhoods in urban and rural areas nationwide through affordable homeownership. NACA has made the dream of homeownership a reality for thousands of working people by counseling them honestly and effectively, enabling even those with poor credit to purchase a home or refinance a predatory loan with far better terms than those provided even in the prime market.           Avoid Foreclosure Scams If you are behind in your mortgage payments you need to be aware that there are people who may try to take advantage of you. Con artists know that people your situation are often looking for help to keep their home.     Other Formats:   WPD File           Brochure on Avoid Foreclosure Scams Brochure on Avoiding Foreclosure Scams By: Georgia Legal Services Program®       Other Formats: