In the article Alan Brymer states that his company, Your Home Advocate, a Provo based company buys homes in distress, offers to help by paying late payments and putting homes up for sale.  Once the home sells Brymer's company receives compensation from the sale of the home.  

According to Mr. Brymer, "The majority of what we do is help local homeowners who are behind in payments to work out a solution with their mortgage company, to refinance their homes or sell or move if they want."

But the concept of assisting families in distress is not new and often time leads to the so-called good Samaritan finding themselves in serious legal trouble.

Consider the nine count indictment returned on October 10, 2006 against Randall L. Webb, 49 years of age, who in February 2004 began contacting homeowners in the Dayton and Cincinnati areas, offering to help save their homes from foreclosures and sheriff sales.  Webb would met with home owners who responded to his ads and promised that he would create new payment plans with the homeowner's mortgage companies and make mortgage and arrearage payments on their home loans with money they would provide him.

In August of this year Carolina Mortgage Relief, INC and Alan Steve Seabolt faced complaints that the company would direct mail solicitations claiming, "WE CAN HELP YOU [...] WE ARE THE FORECLOSURE CONSULTANTS THAT REALLY CARE!" Many of these homeowners were having trouble keeping up with monthly mortgage payments due to a lay off, illness or death in the family.  When homeowners responded to the mailings, Mortgage Assistance of the Carolina claimed it had special expertise and a high success rate in saving consumer's homes from foreclosure.  The company collected upfront fees, typically one month's mortgage payment, promising to negotiate with mortgage lenders on the homeowner's behalf.  The companied also forbid homeowners to talk to their mortgage company, urging them to let its so-called experts handle all communications with the lenders.  In reality the company did little or nothing to help these consumers. 

But here in Utah consider a company now defunct that wreaked havoc on financially distraught consumers across numerous states.  The company was Foreclosure Rescue Services and its owner Karl Robert Hartley a native of Weber County, operated his company from his personal residence of 6140 South Sharon Circle, Ogden Utah 84403.   Mr. Hartley according to an article entitled "Foreclosure Rescue can be risky, costly" written by Joseph Barrios of the Arizona Daily Star outlined how Mr. Hartley took quite a few clients in Arizona for a ride straight to bankruptcy court where he also filed petitions on behalf of clients even though Mr. Hartley was not licensed to practice law in the state of Arizona or anywhere else in the United States.  Shortly thereafter the Better Business Bureau issued a warning about the company's solicitations to save consumers from possible foreclosure.  In the following months after the BBB's warning Mr. Hartley moved back to Utah and obtained his Utah real estate license.

In a state that ranks second in the nation for mortgage fraud its is imperative that consumers get educated about predators and the illegal patterns of behavior that is demonstrated during the courtship for new victims.  Consumers are vulnerable during this time, because they must provide their Social Security Number, pay stubs, tax returns, bank statements, all information that if used improperly could result in identity theft.

Consider while Mr. Anderton's well respected articles on real estate are routinely displayed in the pages of The Deseret Morning News, this particular article failed to reveal some key findings.  Mr. Anderton's article failed to point out that the foreclosure rescue service company, Your Home Advocate is not registered with the Utah Department of Commerce but is providing Utah's consumers with foreclosure rescue services. 

Even more interesting is the $30,000.00 payment that Mr. Brymer boasts he is to receive for his services. 

There is no mention in the article that the home owners Sarah and Daniel Spies of 3928 West 10340 North, Cedar Hills, Utah have the property listed [MLS# 636798] with a licensed Utah REALTOR -  Connor Southworth of Utah Select Realty LLC. 

According to research compiled by Perfect Home Living, Daniel and Sarah Spies purchased the home on May 6, 2005 for $276,000.00.  The home had been previously listed for $299,900.00 on July 7, 2003 and $294,900.00 on January 6, 2004.  After making their purchase the Spies listed the property for sale on September 29, 2006 for $379,000.00 before increasing the sale price to $420,000.00 an inflation of $41,000.00 in price.

Even by Utah's over-inflated appreciation values, the Spies residence has skyrocketed in one year to increase in alleged value of $144,000.00 or slightly above 50% in 12 months while the rest of the state is appreciating at 22-26%.

"Educating consumers to the red flags of Utah's real estate market has never been more important than it is right now," says Sheri Fitzpatrick, Utah Real Estate Broker and CEO of the non-profit Perfect Home Living INC.  "Daily predators prey on consumers, stripping them of their identity, credit worthiness and forever removing the possibility of the American Dream of Home Ownership.  Families who fail to remain in contact with their lender during delinquencies will find their files expedited through the foreclosure process, " Fitzpatrick continued. 

"We are truly at the mercy of law enforcement at both state and federal levels to take action now rather than later.  Utah's consumers are depending on it," Fitzpatrick added. 

About Perfect Home Living 

Perfect Home Living assists in implementing programs and providing training to financial lenders as well as educating Utah's consumers and licensed professionals to red flags within Utah's real estate market.   For more information or to request assistance please visit us online at:  http://www.PerfectHomeLiving.com