Livinglies's Weblog

The simple mortgage on a home had been broken into many pieces (tranches — See Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)) each having characteristics of entities unto themselves. The term “borrower” was severed from the the obligation to pay. The term “lender” was severed from the risk of loss and the right to payment from the borrower. The term “investor” was severed from the actual ownership of any asset, except one deriving its value from conditions existing between a myriad of third parties, but which nonetheless carried with it a right to receive payments from many different entities and people, the “borrower” being just one of many.

In the Mortgage Meltdown context, the challenge is to prove the point that this was a fraudulent scheme, a Ponzi arrangement that was a financial pandemic. You get that information through discovery, but unless you know what you are looking for, you will merely come up with volumes of paper that do not, in and of themselves reveal all the points you need to make — but they WILL lead to the discovery of admissible evidence (the gold standard of what is permitted in discovery) if you understand the scheme.

The nucleus of the scheme is the virtually unregulated creation of the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which is a corporation formed by the investment banker to “own” certain rights to the loans and mortgages and perhaps other assets that were packaged for insertion into the SPV. The SPV issues securities and those securities are sold to investors with fake ratings and “assurances” and insurance that is falsely procured, but where the insurers or assurers were under common law, state law and/or federal law, required to perform their own due diligence, which they did not (in the mortgage meltdown). The proceeds of the sale of ABSs (CDO/CMO) go into the SPV.

The directors and officers of the SPV entity order the disbursement of those proceeds. (see INSURANCE in GARFIELD’s GLOSSARY).

The recipients are a large undisclosed pack of feeding sharks all claiming plausible deniability as to inflated appraisals of the residential dwelling, the borrower’s ability and willingness to pay, the underwriting standards applied (suspended because the lender was selling the risk rather than assuming it), and the inflated appraisal of the ABS (CDO/CMO) for all the same reasons — direct financial incentives, coercion (give us the appraisal we want or we will never do business with you against and neither will anyone else) or even direct threats of challenges to professional licenses.

In order to get this information, you must find the name of the SPV, which is probably disclosed in filings with the SEC along with the auditor’s opinion letter (see INSURANCE in GARFIELD’s GLOSSARY). You might get lucky and find it just by asking. Then demand production of the articles of incorporation and the minutes, agreements, signed and correspondence between the SPV and third parties and between officers and directors of the SPV. The entire plan will be laid out for you as to that SPV and it might reveal, when you look at the actual insurance contracts, cross collateralization or guarantees between SPV’s. Those cross agreements could be as simple as direct guarantees but will more likely take the form of hedge products like credit default swaps (You by mine and I’ll by yours — by express agreement, tacit agreement or collusion). 

You will most likely find that once you perform a thorough analysis of the break-up (“Spreading”) of the risk of loss, the actual cash income stream, the ownership of the note, the ownership of the security instrument (mortgage) and the ownership and source of payment for insurance and other contracts, that all roads converge on a single premise: this was a deal between the borrowers (collectively as co-borrowers) and the investors (collectively as co-investors). Everyone else was a middle man pretending to be NOT part of the transaction while they were collecting most of the proceeds, leaving the investor and the borrower hanging.

And there is no better place to start than with the insurance underwriting process — getting copies of applications, investigations, analysis, correspondence etc. Combined with the filings with the SEC you are likely to find virtual admissions of the entire premise and theme of this entire blog. I WOULD APPRECIATE YOU SENDING ME THE RESULTS OF YOUR ENDEAVORS.

INSURANCE — DEFINED

A promise of compensation for specific potential future losses in exchange for a periodic payment. Insurance is designed to protect the financial well-being of an individual,company or other entity in the case of unexpected loss. Some forms of insurance are required by law, while others are optional. Agreeing to the terms of an insurance policycreates a contract between the insured and the insurer. In exchange for payments from the insured (called premiums), the insurer agrees to pay the policy holder a sum of money upon the occurrence of a specific event. In most cases, the policy holder pays part of the loss (called the deductible), and the insurer pays the rest. IN FORECLOSURE OFFENSE AND DEFENSE, YOU WILL FIND ERRORS AND OMISSIONS POLICIES COVERING THE OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS OF THE INVESTMENT BANKING FIRM, THE SPV THAT ISSUED THE ASBs, THE RATING AGENCY FOR THE ASB (CMO/CDO), THE LENDER, THE MORTGAGE BROKER, THE REAL ESTATE AGENT, ETC. YOU WILL FIND MALPRACTICE INSURANCE FOR THE AUDITORS OF THE SAME ENTITIES WHICH RESULTED IN FALSE REPRESENTATIONS CONCERNING THE FINANCIAL CONDITION OF THE ENTITY. YOU WILL FIND LOSS COVERAGE FOR DELINQUENCY, DEFAULT OR NON-PAYMENT THAT MAY INURE TO THE BENEFIT OF THE BORROWER. By joining the borrower and the investor as victims in the fraudulent Ponzi scheme creating money supply with smoke and mirrors, it may be argued that the insurance premiums were paid by and equitably owned by the borrower and/or the investor. 

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, EMS, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, inflation, Investor, Mortgage, politics, securities fraud | Tagged: civil procedure, DIRECTORS, discovery, ERRORS AND OMISSIONS, insurance, OFFICERS, risk of loss, SPV, tranches, underwriting |