Litchney Law Firm Ripped me off and I lost my home Internet

And Litchney Law does not care they proved that when dealing with me!  Yes we called our attorney and got the same run around you did with Mr Garcia who told us the same things he told you,  strange how all your words sound right on to what he promised me. And what about the law firm Litchney Law? Do they stand behind the attorneys they employ? I would say No because if they did, something would have been done about Lucas Garcia false promises,  and all the money he took and nothing was done! Luca Garcia was paid to show up in court regarding a eviction.  No show from Garcia and we lost our house because they did not do what they promised to do.  Sara Litchney seemed nice but did nothing to help us after one of her attorneys from her firm ripped me off.  I filed a complaint and getting ready for court.  good luck getting anything from this company but a bunch of BS!

Dear Peggy,

We are truly sorry that you feel you were ripped off as that was not the case (as evidenced in detail below) and if in fact we were in the business of ripping clients off we can assure you we would no longer be in business. In fact as most of our clients are referred to us by other happy and satisfied previous clients it goes to show that we strive for positive attorney-client relationships.

We believe that a misunderstanding has occurred and we have been trying to contact you to address this misunderstanding but our attempts have failed and the telephone number we have for you on file has been disconnected.

We are an upstanding law firm with an excellent reputation in the communities we serve; in fact these communities have voted us #1. We have assisted thousands of clients over the years and this is the first time we have had such a complaint as this. That alone should tell you that we do not rip people off.

We provided you with a valuable service, we are sorry that the end result was not what you desired, but as you knew when you hired us, there are no guarantees and we never provided guarantees or success rates. This is stated in all of our paperwork as well as the attorney-client fee agreement that you signed. We cannot force your lender to provide you with a loan modification, we can only merely advocate on your behalf, which we did for months.

In fact the very difficult nature of working with lenders to assist homeowners who are in need of loan modifications is one of the reasons we stopped accepting any new loan modification clients in 2009. For more information on the abysmal things lenders are doing to homeowners in trouble is well documented on columnist Martin Andelmans blog "Mandelman Matters" ; a widely read and respected blog which can be found here: http://mandelman.ml-implode.com/.

We understand that you are upset, but your anger should not be directed at us, as we tried for months to help you, but toward your lender, who you informed us was actually the target of a local District Attorney investigation into their practices, which is (you told us) why you were requesting the statements we prepared on your behalf to assist with their investigation.

We have no problem showing the amount of work we did on your behalf, there is nothing for us to hide. The fee you paid was a flat fee for services and in fact if you were to have paid for billable hours you would have paid more than the flat fee as our representation of your case spanned over almost 5 months.

We would love to talk to you so that we can remedy this misunderstanding, but as stated before we are unable to get a hold of you. As such, and for the readers of RR, below please find the actual abbreviated accounting (taken from our files and notes) of your representation which differs greatly from the way you told it.

When the client came to our firm she was already many months behind on her mortgage payments and had already acquired the services of a non-law firm to perform her needed loan modification. She had lost all employment and had no income. Despite this her lender had offered her a loan modification which she rejected. Although we warned her that rejecting a loan modification and trying to get a second one is very difficult, she wanted us to try on her behalf and as such we told her we would perform our most diligent efforts on her behalf, which we did.

After engaging our firm for assistance she waited nearly 6 weeks to provide us with all of the necessary and required information we needed. This delayed and prevented our efforts on her behalf and she continued to fall farther behind in her mortgage payments. For months we contacted her lender on her behalf at least twice a week to relay information to them and advocate for a loan modification that would suit her needs, during this time we also communicated regularly with the client keeping her updated. Her lender repeatedly refused information that we proffered and even tried to claim that we must submit all requests for modification by mail (which we found to be false). After receipt of all requested materials and multiple follow-up's, her lender then refused to modify the loan and they also refused to postpone the upcoming sale date which had been set. We attempted to negotiate with her lender for a short sale submission in order to postpone the sale and again the lender refused.

One of our attorneys immediately contacted the client to suggest alternatives that would keep her in the home for a while longer and to render legal advice about the consequences of foreclosure if that was unavoidable. One suggestion was the possibility of filing bankruptcy (as she was a candidate) and our firm offered to reduce the normal fee our firm would charge for her circumstances ($2400 plus an $800 rush filing fee) to merely paying the $800 rush filing fee. Obviously no business can perform services for free, we employ attorneys, paralegals and staff all who receive a paycheck but we were trying to help the client by offering her a valuable service at a greatly reduced price to assist her situation.

In a series of conversations that took more than 3 hours of attorney time (which if not on a flat fee schedule are billed at $300 per hour), the client determined, based on our legal advice to her concerning her loan, that she would be best served by allowing the house to foreclose.

Months later, she contacted us to ask for a billable hour statement. In another discussion with one of our attorneys she was asked how she was doing and she told the attorney that she was in a 110% better situation based on our advice and letting the house go and disclosed that a family member had purchased a house for her. We congratulated her and prepared her requested statements. This was our last contact with the client.

You can imagine our surprise then at nearly 4 months later finding this report posted on the internet referencing us as scammers and saying that we lost her house and should be put out of business. As mentioned before we have been trying to contact the client, but the contact information she left us with is outdated and phone numbers have been disconnected.

Peggy, if you should see this please contact our office at 916-983-2941 so that we can speak with you to amicably resolve this issue. We are sorry that you felt it necessary to resort to posting such a report instead of contacting us. We are happy to send you copies of whatever you want again, but we do need updated contact information for you. We are also happy to provide you with a copy of your file so that you can see the amount of work we performed on your behalf.

Again, we worked diligently on your behalf and did not rip you off and we are proud to show you the work evidencing that. We are sorry that you were unhappy with the end result of our services, but that does not negate the hours of work that we performed on your behalf and the legal advice you received regarding ramifications of foreclosure, recourse vs. non recourse loans, cash-for-keys, bankruptcy protection, etc. Our law firm goes above and beyond in each case, and yours is no different, we are happy to speak with you to show this, please contact us at your earliest convenience.