Since foreclosures are about to start another meteoric rise, this would be a good time to write a new article on what went wrong the last time, what is going on now, and what is still likely to go wrong this time.
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I know that some of the rantings on the internet seem like the spillage of conspiracy theorists and some of them are just that. But overall they are right.
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The bottom line is that back in 1993, investment banks latched onto a scheme that had been partially developed by Michael Milken, who went to prison. The new scheme was patently illegal, which made it one step over the line that Milken actually didn’t cross. His junk bonds were perfectly legal. Drexel Burnham disclosed the real risks. But Michael had bigger plans. The plan was to raise the perception of junk bonds to investment grade.
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But then he went to jail. But upon release he was immediately paid $50 million and then hundreds of millions more to help devise the scheme. His actual role is subject to conjecture.
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The goal was to tap the largest market for debt in the world — home lending. It required all the major investment banks (Citi, Goldman, JPM, Credit Suisse) to “cooperate” (i.e., conspire).
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They had to each support the “securitization” schemes of each other, entice other lesser investment banks into playing (Lehman, Bear Stearns) and then influence or buy off fund managers (pension funds) to purchase the junk bonds they were issuing as “Certificates.”
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It as the “holy grail” of investment banking. Issuing trash securities as though it was for a third party issuer when in fact the issuer was the investment bank itself.
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To justify the purchases by stable managed funds, the investment banks paid off and coerced the insurers into issuing insurance contracts and the rating agencies to issue highest quality ratings based upon false assumptions about diversification of risk. The error is simple: diversification is irrelevant if the entire group of loans is (a) not owned and (b) tainted by bad underwriting.
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And the insurance contracts were payable not to the investors nor even for their benefit but rather for the profit of the investment bank who purchased it. The contracts were based upon index performance not actual losses.
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The same is true for the bailouts that occurred. No losses were paid off because the parties receiving the benefits of insurance or bailout had no loss. See the evolution of the definition of TARP from something covering loan losses, to something covering losses on certificates issued by investment banks, to an undefined toxic asset category.
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The now infamous AIG bailout was primarily for the benefit of Goldman Sachs. Having installed their former CEO as US Treasury Secretary, a very reluctant President Bush was convinced to bailout AIG on the false premise that the financial markets would collapse if he didn’t. But the proceeds went to Goldman Sachs as pure profit.
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AIG took the money to pay off Goldman for its bet that the certificates would decline in value. The decline in value was based upon a contractual provision that gave Goldman the sole right in its sole discretion to declare the event. The money covered no losses because Goldman had no losses. It was pure profit. And when the money was received (around $50 billion from the bailout, bonuses, parties and lavish spending ensued.
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Meanwhile the only two real parties to the scheme — investors and homeowners — were left out in the cold.
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At the end of each securitization cycle, the goal was to avoid liability for violations of lending and securities laws. Avoiding lending laws was easy. They used sham entities to act as “originators” who served for a fee and who appeared on the note and mortgage as a lender.
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Avoiding violations of securities was also easy. they disclosed enough to be able to say they told investors what they were doing, the investors were sophisticated and should have been able to ascertain the risks, and through leveraging the typical herd mentality on Wall Street they created a stampede in all securities brokerage firms to buy and sell the certificates. The world was hooked on a financial weapon of mass destruction.
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Eliminating the liability of a lender in form and substance meant that the role of creditor or lender had to be eliminated. That was accomplished by actually eliminating the homeowner’s debt without notice to the homeowner. Hence the “boarding process” asserted in court is fake. There can be no boarding of a debt that does not exist and a history of payments on the nonexistent debt is irrelevant.
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Each party other than the investor got paid in full. But the homeowner never received any notice of reduction due to receipt of payment because nobody maintained an accounting entry on any books of record that showed that the debt was owed or owned.
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The debt could not be owned without a corresponding entry that showed value being paid for the debt. No such transaction had never occurred since the only actual value was paid by investors, who didn’t own the debt.
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The investor never purchased any debt, note or mortgage. At the end of the day there was no person or entity that legally owned any debt, note or mortgage and therefore no lender or lender successor who could be liable for violations of Federal and State lending laws.
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The scheme then required foreclosure on debts that had already been fully paid several times over. To do this the investment banks had to again resort to using sham entities who would fake their roles using fabricated, false, forged and backdated instruments literally manufactured out of thin air. Despite numerous settlements in all US jurisdictions for such practices, they continue unabated.
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And the proceeds of foreclosure are ultimately received by the investment banks who pay out lavish compensation for the players who contributed to the foreclosure process. *
Since no loss is covered or paid or recorded on any books of account, the money is literally free money in which for tax purposes, is falsely reported as payment on loans. So the foreclosure proceeds are pure profit which is untaxed, at least up until this point in time. Investors never see a penny and homeowners are never the wiser that their debt does not exist anywhere.
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In order to accomplish all this the banks needed to coordinate their activities. enter Black Knight who is literally a successor to DOCX, which was acquired by Lender Processing Systems (LPS). Lorraine Browne took one for the team when she became the only person in the scheme to go to jail for fabrication of documents.
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Somehow the courts continue to apply presumptions that are supposed to only raise from inherent credibility of documents that are patently false. This results in foreclosure on the erroneous assumption that even if the paperwork is somehow false or even fabricated the proceeds will find their way to the investors. That presumption is wrong.
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Black Knight is the hub in which all things are centralized to prevent foreclosure of the same homeowner transaction by more than one entity — something that would expose the false nature of all of the foreclosures.
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By getting a foreclosure judgment the investment banks succeeded in getting a legal stamp of approval on everything that had transpired before the foreclosure was initiated and the grounds on which they could report the proceeds as return of loan. Basically all fabricated false documentation emanates by or at the direction of Black Knight.
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Judges of all stripes have always been curious about the muscle chairs strategy of presenting several servicers, plaintiffs and other parties. Maybe this time, with a little help from the press, they might be open to considering the fact that the investment banks are not saving the economy, they are stealing from investors and homeowners alike. And if they start asking for fake bailouts again they are stealing from the government and taxpayers.
New foreclosure rocket dockets will emerge unless these practices are controlled or stopped. If the claimant is not the owner of the debt, present, existing, black letter law, does not allow foreclosure. In fact, enforcement of the note or separately, the debt, is not allowed unless the right to enforce comes from the owner of the debt. The law is clear, unless someone pays value, they can’t own the debt. Assignments of mortgage without the debt are a legal nullity.
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To “save” the economy the only legal option available is to reassess the homeowner transaction using the equitable powers of the court. It might be true that the homeowner obligation can be enforced after such a reassessment — but only after the facts are all exposed and all stakeholders are brought to the table.
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This would require that the court hear a properly filed pleading requesting equitable reformation of the contract to allow for maintaining the homeowner obligation because without that, the entire securitization infrastructure is in danger of collapse — even though nobody in the securitization infrastructure actually ever owns the debt or suffers a loss from nonpayment.
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To make the homeowner obligation enforceable the court must allow a designee or nominee to pose as creditor. Further the court must adopt procedures that allow a party to act as the designator, even though neither the designee nor the designator own the debt and will suffer no loss from any payment or nonpayment by a homeowner. The current practice of allowing such designees to reap such rewards is not legally sustainable and probably unjust and unfair.
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The legal analysis requires a beginning point of analysis the contracting intent of the contracting parties. And that in turn requires an analysis of the identity of the contracting parties.
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That analysis results in an indisputable truth: taken separately there was no meeting of the minds — because the homeowner wanted a loan and the investment bank , acting through the originator, wanted the issuance of securities — the note and mortgage — without anyone assuming the substantive role of a lender.
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But taken together a contract can be fashioned in which the homeowner transaction can be treated as a loan contract and the absence of any creditor can be adjusted to insert a designee or creditor who can enforce. but ti do that, the entire contract must be taken into consideration.
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If the homeowner was seeking an actual loan under lending laws but didn’t get it, what is the consideration for entering into a deal that was so profitable for the other contracting parties, whether they were stated or concealed?
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If the answer is nothing, then the court must determine the proper amount of consideration that the homeowner should have received for being drafted into a risky securities scheme — a scheme in which his rights as a consumer, borrower or customer were virtually eviscerated by the substance of the deal.
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The only other legal option is common law rescission. That will result in dismantling the entire securitization scheme.
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Neil F Garfield, MBA, JD, 73, is a Florida licensed trial attorney since 1977. He has received multiple academic and achievement awards in business and law. He is a former investment banker, securities broker, securities analyst, and financial analyst.
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Filed under: Bailout, boarding process, burden of pleading, CDO, common law rescission, CORRUPTION, discovery, Discovery -Subpoena, evidence, Fabrication of documents, foreclosure, foreclosure defenses, forensic investigation, forgery, investment banking, Investor, jurisdiction, legal standing, MODIFICATION, Mortgage, originator, Pleading, Presumptions, prima facie case, securities fraud, Servicer, sham transactions, standing | Tagged: reformation | 3 Comments »
