Karen Cooper

It’s that time of year again, one that many Rogue Valley families and visitors have enjoyed over the past 45 years. The Jacksonville Children’s Festival held at the Britt Garden County Park is a wonderful family event that every kid enjoys.Not only do you get to experience the many different hands-on activities, but our kids throughout the Rogue Valley come out to show their talents and put on shows for you on the Britt Stage .

An amazing group of volunteers comes together to put this on for Our Children every year, giving the kids a ton of fun and the parents hardly a dent in the pocket book. When we first arrived in Medford Oregon in 2004, one of the founding members of the Jacksonville Children’s Festival, Susie Truscott, told us about this great opportunity for our 7 year old to enjoy which we did for several years, both as participants and later as a volunteers in the face painting booth and part of the Queen’s Court.

If you are looking for a fabulous Summertime Event sponsored by the Storytelling Guild to take your children to, bring them out to the Britt to enjoy over 30 different hands on science, arts and crafts, including face painting, beading, nature crafts and so much more… all for only $2.00 each person!!!!

The festival runs a total of 4 general sessions over a 3 day period:

Sunday July 10th – Session #1: 5:30-8:30pm

Monday July 11th – Session #2: 9am until noon and Session #3: 6:00-8:30pm

Tuesday July 12th – Session #4: 9am until noon

The Britt Garden is located in Jacksonville, Oregon, about five miles west of Medford and 20 miles north of Ashland. Parking is available in lots on C & D Streets at the bottom of the hill (off of Oregon St.), with overflow parking at Bigham Knoll (formerly Cascade Christian School) at E and 6th Streets. If you park on a residential street, please be respectful of neighbors’ privacy and property. Please obey posted signs regarding parking on the streets or you may be ticketed.

See you out there!

Being in the trenches day in and day out, fighting alongside Southern Oregon homeowners who have encountered financial difficulties, every once in a while I have to look up and survey the territory we are battling in. Reach out to the other troops and compare experiences. Strategize and determine where to concentrate efforts next.

There is a tool out there that was made available to Oregon Citizens last year. Oregon HB 3706 is that tool. The gist of the change I have focused on as it relates to default and foreclosure prevention is:

BACKGROUND: The Unlawful Trade Practices Act (ORS 646.605 to 646.656) is Oregon’s primary consumer protection law. It is designed to protect consumers from businesses that, among other things, fail to deliver all or a portion of goods or serves as promised, cause a likelihood of confusion or misunderstanding about products or services, use deceptive representations or designations, represent goods as meeting standards they do not, and making false or misleading representations about products or services.

When I am working with Southern Oregon homeowners facing financial hardship, there are a myriad of steps we take to figure out what path they wish to choose to take to resolve that hardship. When we end up on the path to working with their bank/servicer on home retention via a modification, HB 3706 has repeatedly been a tool we have used since it was passed in 2010. Our illustrious elected officials made this Consumer Protection Law available to homeowners with financing, no longer excluding “services involving loans or extensions of credit”.

So, how does including services involving loans or extensions of credit into the Oregon Unlawful Trade Practices Act help Oregon Homeowners facing financial hardship? Well, if they have a State Regulated financial institution they are working with, the Oregon Department of Justice may now work on the homeowner’s behalf for matters relating to HB 3706. Matters like Trial Modification Agreements the bank/servicer will not convert to a permanent one although the homeowner abided by that agreement upholding their end of the bargain. Refusing to convert the trial modification agreement to the permanent one after reviewing and approving the homeowner’s financial documentation sounds an awful lot like an Unlawful Trade Practice to me! Whenever a case runs into this type of denial by a bank/servicer, we immediately appeal the decision and include a copy of HB 3706 with the appeal. Pretty effective tool, I’ve found, leading to a higher rate of success on this method of home retention (I’m at 39% right now on approved modifications for the cases I’ve worked on at our HUD Certified Housing Counseling Agency, 48% on all home retention methods including forbearance and repayment plans).

Stay tuned… I’m reaching out to the other troops to collaborate on how to bring this tool to cases we are working on with Federally Regulated Banks/Servicers to see if we can find a tool to help resolve the impasse of converting Trial Modification Agreements to Permanent ones on the loans with major services, a tool in addition to homeowners filing complaints with the Office of the Comptroller of Currency.

See you out there!

What would happen do you think if homeowners who have encountered financial difficulties that they are unable to resolve with their bank and its investors did their own Property Disclosure Statement and notified their bank/investors, surrounding neighbors, banks’ listing agents and State Real Estate Agency when the property reverts to the bank? Maybe posted it publicly in case buyers are considering purchasing the home on the court house steps at the Trustee Sale or delivered it by attending the sale themselves?

Since the banks and their investors like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD and other institutions are not required by law (at least in California and Oregon, based on my experience) to provide a Seller’s Transfer/Property Disclosure Statement, do you think this would be of benefit to future buyers and their real estate agents?

What would happen if the homeowners being foreclosed on notified their bank/investors of the property’s potential “disclosure items” that would come out on the Seller’s Transfer/ Property Disclosure Statement? Would/should this now trigger the necessity for the bank/investors on bank owned real estate to disclose property condition they have been made aware of?

With so many bank owned homes on the market with the current high foreclosure volume, do you think getting Seller’s Transfer/Property Disclosure Statement in to the hands of unknowing buyers is a good idea?

See you out there!

Oregon was one of the states awarded money to help its communitites suffering from high foreclosure and unemployment rates. One of the programs Oregon designed was to help eligible families pay their mortgage payments - up to $20,000 or 12 months, whichever is less. Jackson County Oregon was given 276 slots for this program by the State of Oregon and Josephine County was given 216 slots. Once the deadline passes on January 14th for online applications (January 15th for in person ones), the State will hold a random drawing for each County that was awarded slots for this funding. In Jackson and Josephine County, there have not yet been enough applicants to apply for all the slots!!!!

If you or someone you know has suffered a loss of income of 25% and are below 120% of the State median income for your family size, HURRY if you wish to apply for this program if you live in the home and own no other residential real estate!!!! More information/details and the application can be found at www.oregonhomeownerhelp.org.

See you out there!

We went up to introduce ourselves a few months ago to new neighbors on the street behind ours when we heard sounds of a backhoe running in our hillside neighborhood. This property had an additional dwelling unit built on it a while back, which we didn’t think too much about – until we started having signs of destabilization on OUR property. Next thing we know, the ADU is torn down by the new owners, and we know there are issues. When that backhoe fired up, we went straight over to see if they were digging, and to let them know we suspected events taking place on their property were having a negative affect on ours – a large pine fell down, water started flooding our garage, cracks begin to appear, with a clear path of water coming from above. We were calm, no finger pointing, just wanting to make sure they stop any dangerous activity since we had already installed French drain, berms and moisture barrier taking care of the water flow. The response was “S&!t flows down hill, deal with it”. Compound those statements with the collapse of our retaining wall when these neighbors leave their sprinklers on for days, and the battle is on.

We are investigating the history of and closely monitoring the activity on the property on the street behind us we think is destabilizing our lot and discover all kinds of things:

- The person introduced to us as the owner is not the owner, rather these investors’ (and local real estate brokers) young handyman (not the licensed contractor we thought) who is living at the property while remodeling it, and the property is to be put right back on the market as soon as the work is almost complete. (Misrepresentation?)

- The real owners say they want to work together to resolve the issues, but they really don’t and are very likely stalling us until they can flip this property and let the issues be the next owner’s problem. (Unethical?)

- This property located in an area with high expansive soil content had an in-ground pool and drainage trenches that were filled in, on which the ADU was built, the construction did not follow the recommendations of the geotechnical engineering report and its foundation failed. (Dangerous?)

- The City staff who granted an exception to leave this failed foundation in place after the demolition of the ADU so it may be used for additional parking, basketball court, etc. – not additional construction - is unaware the home is being marketed as “pad for shop or cottage”. (False or misleading advertising?)

- It’s only a matter of time before this concrete slab and anything on it come sliding down the hill toward our home. (Worrying!?)

- The owners and their young handyman then flip us the ultimate bird by installing two drainage pipes connected to their water collection and point them straight downhill to our property! Right after this, we get our first rain of the season, and cracks appear throughout our home. (All of the above, and courts here we come)

So, instead of a calm, cool & collected conversation between the parties to come to an acceptable resolution that is win-win for everyone, here we are fighting to protect ourselves and our home. Attorney letters, the courts, negotiations with the City that do not include the current homeowners, and complaints filed with the State Real Estate Agency and Contractors Board. I’d ask myself “how did we get here?”, but when I look at the cracks in my home, I know exactly how we got here. (addition 5/27/2011 - and what landed us in court fighting to save our home! Unfortunately, we lost)

Webster’s Definition of a GOOD-NEIGHBOR

: marked by principles of friendship, cooperation, and noninterference in the internal affairs of another country <a good–neighbor

See you out there!

When a Neighbor Crosses the Threshold from Bad to Dangerous – Part 1 of 2