DID YOU RESCIND?

YOU MIGHT STILL OWN THAT PROPERTY THAT YOU THOUGHT WAS FORECLOSED!

The Federal Truth in Lending Act (TILA) has, from the time it was enacted, been the sole protection to consumers of increasingly sophisticated financial products. In the last 30 years the number of different types of loans went from 4 or 5 to over 400. Lenders became aware that they were vulnerable to huge penalties including the proverbial free house if they screwed around with the requirements of TILA. Then came an army of lawyers paid by Wall Street and with briefs stacked to the ceiling and assumptions on the part of Judges that no Bank with a big brand name would engage in a systemic pattern of fraud, and suddenly the TILA protections started to melt away as millions lost their homes to phantom mortgages in phantom foreclosures that were made real by misguided orders of the courts. And then suddenly the United States Supreme Court, usually bitterly divided on partisan lines came out with a unanimous decision that put TILA back as the centerpiece on the table. And everything is changing.