Terry Haugen STAGE it RIGHT! 321-956-2495

Recent articles have surface regarding the use of chinese made drywall in new construction here in the U.S. To date, in excess of 20 builders are being sued by people who bought homes between 2004 and 2007. The reason? Chinese made drywall contains fly ash, a by product of their coal fired power plants. This fly ash, when subjected to moisture causes the drywall to emit sulfur fumes in the home. A wide variety of symptoms can include respiratory problems, chronic cough, nose bleeds, and fatigue. Different people react differently and may have one or all of the list of symptoms. Lennar, the most prominent builder named in a class action suit filed in Miami, has admitted using chinese made drywall and are working on mitigating the issue with different homeowners. Mitigation means a complete and total gutting of the house, including copper pipes which corrode easily, copper wiring which corrodes easily, and all drywall. They are also reimbursing homeowners for all soft furniture and drapes which capture and hold the sulfur fumes.

Chinese made drywall hit this country during the housing boom because there was a shortage of U.S. made drywall which is 100% gypsum. A house may contain all chinese made drywall or only some chinese made drywall. Detecting which was used is difficult because some U.S. manufacturers stamped chinese made with their own branding. But here's how you can detect if you may have chinese drywall in your house.

A/C coils corrode in less than four years

Electrical wiring turns black

Cook top elements corrode

Copper plumbing corrodes and leaks

So, if you bought a house anywhere in Florida (the prime user of chinese drywall) that was built between 2004 and 2007, you may be a victim.

Here in Brevard County its estimated we have in excess of 9000 foreclosed homes on the market. I can't help but wonder, if one's credit is bad due to the foreclosure, where do you go, and how are you able to pass the credit check if you're going to become a renter? I can only imagine the stress upon people, who are not only losing their "home" but also losing the roof over their heads. It can't be pleasant nor easy to hit the road and start looking for a place to go, knowing your credit has been damaged. I wish only the best to the people who find themselves in this situation. And hope, that the mortgage companies will finally come to their senses, and try to work with their clients to keep them in their homes. Its a win win for both sides, but so far the banks haven't been interested in negotiating.

The data in the December Case-Shiller 20-City index indicate that the rate of housing price decline is continuing to accelerate. The data show that house prices in the 20 cities fell at a rate of 2.0 percent in the month of December and were falling at a 21.3 percent annual rate in the last quarter of 2008.

It is important to remember that these data reflect sale prices in the three month period from October to December. Since there is typically a 6-8 week period between contracts and closing, these data reflect contracts in a period centered on October. This means that the data is already somewhat dated when it is released. If the recent rate of price decline has persisted, prices are already 8 percent lower on average than the data indicate.

At this rate that translates into $4 trillion lost in home equity per year.

The first big success of the produce-the-note movement came in 2007 when a federal judge in Cleveland threw out 14 foreclosures by Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. because the bank failed to produce the original notes.

Michael Silver, a lawyer for two of the families in that case, said at least one eventually lost their home. Still, he considers that a success.

"From the perspective of the person who's in the home, you may have kept them in the house another 10 or 12 months," he said. "If I can get a result with economic benefits to a client, then I think I won."

Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio endorsed the strategy in a fiery speech on the House floor during debate on the federal bank bailout last month.

"Don't leave your home," she said. "Because you know what? When those companies say they have your mortgage, unless you have a lawyer that can put his or her finger on that mortgage, you don't have that mortgage, and you are going to find they can't find the paper up there on Wall Street."

More than 2.3 million homeowners faced foreclosure proceedings last year and millions more are in danger of losing their homes. On Wednesday, President Obama will unveil a plan to spend at least $50 billion to help homeowners fend off foreclosure.

Tom Deutsch, deputy executive director of the American Securitization Forum, a group that represents banks, law firms and investors, dismissed the strategy as merely a stalling tactic, saying homeowners are "making lawyers jump through procedural hoops to delay what's likely to be inevitable."

Deutsch said the original note is almost always electronically retained and can eventually be found.

Judges are often willing to accept electronic documentation. And lenders are sometimes allowed to produce other paperwork to establish they are the holder of a loan. Still, assembling such documents to a judge's satisfaction takes time, which to homeowners is the point.

A University of Iowa study last year suggested that companies servicing mortgages are often negligent when it comes to producing the documentation to support foreclosure. In the study of more than 1,700 bankruptcy cases stemming from home foreclosures, the original note was missing more than 40 percent of the time, and other pieces of required documentation also were routinely left out.

April Charney, head of foreclosure defense for Jacksonville Area Legal Aid in Florida, said the produce-the-note strategy has been so successful for her that she now travels around the country to train other lawyers in how to use it. She said she has gotten cases delayed for years by demanding that lenders produce paperwork they cannot find.

"This is an army of lawyers getting out there to stop foreclosures so we can get to the serious business of creating solutions," Charney said. "Nothing good is going to happen as long as we continue to bleed homeowners."

Tamira Ci Thayne, founder of Dogs Deserve Better, recounts her recent experience rescuing a starving/dying/chained dog named Doogie, and the "sentence" she received by a judge for taking the dog to a vet.