This will be fairly brief as I am going to have to take Adam B's advice to "litigate in Court" rather than in public.
While we are very happy that I have said nothing that is not already in the record, and known to the "other side", going forward we need to keep our own counsel about the details.
We know you will understand.
I received an email today from our attorney.
He forwarded an email from the Plaintiff's (Bank of America) attorney, attached to which were all the forms required for a Loan Modification.
It has taken over two years, and a defeat in District Court for BoA to find and send the forms they promised all that time ago. One can only speculate as to why they would be rushing headlong to the table now. What could possibly have served to concentrate their minds. I'm sure that the Court rejecting their Motion for Summary Judgement is entirely coincidental.
It may be pure happenstance that these forms were forwarded when just about every other lawyer in America was on Christmas Break. And the Moon is made of cheese.
We will take the amount of time we need to consider the forms they have sent.
We are not going to simply fill them in and return them. BoA are not to be trusted, and we will not fall for any "shady" attempts at pre-trial discovery. On the other hand, we started down this path in order that our Mortgage might be modified, and it appears that the Bank may now be prepared to deal.
It would be speculation to suggest that they might be scared shitless of losing at a full hearing. The knock-on effect would set a precedent for hundreds of thousands of mortgages. Were I a Bank I would be reluctant to risk losing that.
Speculation is just that. It isn't fact and in any event, it really doesn't concern us. Part of us would like to take this all the way to a full hearing. We are confident that we have a very good case and we would dearly love to pave the way for all those others caught in this trap. We want to make them pay.
But we have three children and we want them to keep their home. We don't want that "at any price", but we started down this path with a modest objective, and it now seems likely that we are vastly closer than we were a week ago.
So we will take our time and we will negotiate.
When we have a definite resolution, cast-iron and beyond challenge then I will set out chapter and verse of what transpired.
Meanwhile we are in great shape. For the first time in over two years the Bank is chasing us for a settlement, and we will relax over the holiday.
Have a great Christmas, this would have been so much harder without the support we have received. We have never felt that we were alone in this struggle, and we thank you, one and all, for that.