Marc McCain Blog

Over the past 18 + months of advising owners of distressed property, several common myths have emerged regarding foreclosures and short sales in Arizona.  Here is a list of common myths. 1.  Only purchase money loans on qualifying residential property get anti-deficiency protection in Arizona.  This is not necessarily true.  If the holder of a mortgage secured by a single 1 [...]

In Arizona, certain loans on residential real property are subject to what are called anti-deficiency laws.  These laws limit a borrower’s liability to its lender if certain requirements are met.  However, there are many misconceptions about Arizona’s anti-deficiency laws, when they apply, and whey they don’t.  Moreover, Arizona’s anti-deficiency laws have been in recent flux, increasing [...]

The Arizona legislature passed, and Governor Brewer signed into law on November 23, 2009, Senate Bill 1004 which returns Arizona’s trustee’s sale statute anti-deficiency clause to its form prior to passage of Senate Bill 1271.  The Bill includes a retroactivity clause, making the change retroactive to September 30, 2009, the day SB 1271 had gone [...]

More and more I am seeing lenders be aggressive and unreasonable in demanding money from borrowers during the short sale approval process.  Lenders are doing this even where AZ law prohibits them from waiving their security and suing on the note (i.e. where the loan is a purchase money loan on qualifying residential property).  As a result, I am stressing the [...]

Bank lobbyists told Arizona’s legislators that our anti-deficiency statutes needed to be revised because spec builders were “gaming the system” by claiming they lived in their spec homes to get anti-deficiency treatment.  The Senate’s internal memo on the bill stated that investment properties were “NOT” protected by existing anti-deficiency laws.  No one paid attention to the [...]