4.1 The Client’s Goals

A client may have different goals that will affect your case strategy (or whether to take the case!)

The client wants to keep the house and pay for it. The client may want to live in it as the family home or to rent it for the income. The client may want to do this either by having the payment of arrearages be forgiven or postponed and the monthly note payments lowered or else by catching up on the arrearages and beginning to make the contractual payments again.

The client wants to keep the house but doesn’t want to pay for it. Such clients often make assertions about “sovereign citizens,” “dollar not backed by gold,” or some other unfounded legal theory that they read about on the Internet. Some clients are also under the mistaken impression that if the mortgage servicer cannot provide the original, signed promissory note that it cannot enforce the mortgage and that therefore no payments are due.

The client does not want to keep the house but wants to avoid further liability. Such liability might be the danger of a deficiency judgment, property tax liability, tort liability of an owner under the Louisiana Civil Code, or liability for condition of property under parish or city zoning laws and ordinances.

The client does not want to keep the house but needs time. The client might need time to move (e.g., to find another place to live, obtain money for a deposit on a new dwelling and moving expenses (“Cash for Keys”)), to sell and thereby recover equity and/or avoid a possible deficiency judgment, to find employment or a better job, to collect an inheritance, to settle a personal injury lawsuit, or to win the Powerball. The extent to which the goal relies on future expectations may require the lawyer to provide realistic advice.