I strongly suggest you come to the seminar despite the distance. Please keep us informed of your progress so we can post it along with credit to you and your contact information. We have 12 million homeowners to reach. I want them to know who is doing this and doing it right. Whether you file a pleading or get an order or judgment, I would like it faxed to me at 772.594-6244. If you don’t want it posted just ell me, but I would like to see it anyway.
Hi. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I was a Florida trial lawyer, still licensed. Also member of the Federal Trial Bar and Federal Bankruptcy Bar, Southern District of Florida.
Last night on the Lehrer report on PBS, there was an extensive piece on the homeowner, mortgage and credit crisis. They now estimate that there will be 6.5 million foreclosures in the next three years, that the housing market cannot recover until at least 2011, but that we must save the falsely rated derivatives as mortgage backed securities or the entire credit system will come falling down. The real bottom line is that there ought to be 6.5 million “foreclosures.” In fact there should be twice that many. Because under basic black letter property law in effect for centuries in common law, statutes and practice and procedure, these people now own their homes free and clear of any mortgage or encumbrance. They merely have to step up and say it in the right way at the right time and in the right place.
Yes I am nuts. But I am also right. And I have the proof. More than 100 people have used the theories and strategies that I created as the “Garfield Continuum” both pro se and with counsel. In ALL cases, without exception, what started as a foreclosure by the lender ended with a foreclosure OF the lender and anyone else claiming rights through the lender, the note and the mortgage. As a result of the information that I have dispersed, pro se litigants in 7 states have walked away with their homes free and clear of the 1st mortgage, second mortgage and HELOC.
Nonetheless I urgently recommend that people secure counsel. My advice is heeded but there is nobody to take their case because the lawyers mistakenly believe that there is little or no money in it for them and that the issue of foreclosure defense has been “foreclosed” for decades. The few lawyers that have heeded my suggestions, have found themselves inundated with cases, retainers, contingency fees and awards of refunds, rebates, damages, attorney fees and costs.
An oversimplification of the bottom line is this: the “lender” was never the real lender, never was out of pocket for the funding of the loan, and has been paid in full on the mortgage and note, PLUS 2.5% premium as fee for posing as the lender at closing, giving cover to mortgage aggregators and Wall Street investment banks.
Thus the “lender” has no economic stake in the mortgage or note which translates as no standing. But more importantly, the cloud on title can ONLY be cured by figuratively foreclosing on the lender. No matter what the “lender” does, including issue a satisfaction of mortgage on payment or short sale, or negotiation of new terms, or even selling property acquired at foreclosure auction, there still remains dozens, perhaps hundreds or even thousands of people who are possessed of documents that purport to give them rights to that same mortgage and note from that same borrower in connection with that same loan closing on the same property.
If the borrower owes money to anyone it most certainly is not the “lender” and the real “lender” can’t step forward because they would be admitting non-disclosure of parties, fees and terms at the loan closing. Cases in neighboring New York, nearby Ohio, New Jersey and Pennsylvania resulted in angry judges detecting fraud and forgery not only in the closing documents but in the attempt to prove up the loan for foreclosure purposes.
I was retired, minding my own business when approximately a year ago I realized what was happening in the mortgage business, the effect of securitization, and that nobody seemed to be getting it. By October, when I had the family fly in from the East Coast for a reunion, including grandchildren, I asked my older daughter what a blog was and how I would get one. Livinglies was born with the idea of exposing fraud in the marketplace. Within a few weeks my suspicions about the mortgage market mounted and despite having the respect of many people on Wall Street because of my associations there, and despite my good reputation in the legal field, I was treated as chicken little. Perhaps the view that I was trying to make myself useful in the boredom of retirement, South of Phoenix. Even my good friend Brad Keiser now executive Director of the Foreclosure Defense Institute, didn’t give me any real traction.
I predicted 2 years ago with unfortunate accuracy how this was going to turn out. I proposed solutions, part of which were heard by Barney Frank and incorporated into the Bill passed by the House yesterday. He understood the gravity of the situation but he also understands the reality of politics. The Bill might help some people in an odd sort of way but it is a distraction from the real correction required. If we are going to have a trustworthy financial system and securities exchange and trading in which the investors repose confidence in their transactions, we must revert to the truth and not cover it up by a thinly veiled attempt to grant credibility to the plausible deniability built into the mortgage meltdown scheme.
The fact is that the law has not changed and that distracting people from their rights under the law puts them at greater risk, while further eroding our economic system because we all know that deception, fraudulent practices and and predatory sales tactics were in vogue from 2001 to 2008. Throwing more new newly created dollars into a system already bloated with too many dollars with cause further devaluation and spawn far greater inflation than we have seen in our lifetimes.
The same people that assert themselves as “free market” proponents are attempting to privatize profit and socialize losses. Read the financial news from abroad and find that none of the central bankers are amused or satisfied by the approach we are taking. Those with the power and money are closest to the microphone so we hear a skewed story.
In a market that purports to be free, the chips fall where they may. The foreclosing party in all these cases has already been paid, now wants the property too, and a judgment for deficiency and attorney fees as well. THAT is where the windfall is, not the with the homeowner. If the real parties in interest step forward then they can assert their claims subject to the borrowers set-offs for fraud, TILA violations etc at closing.
The total mortgage market affected is around $15 trillion dollars and with even modest fees, the world of attorneys will be making something on the order of one trillion dollars. Despite this fact, the foreclosures proceed at the rate of 8,000 new foreclosures per day, Legal Aid is overflowing, and private attorneys won’t take the case because they think they are going to get stiffed on fees. I am not looking to practice law again, although I can serve as co-counsel where necessary and we have ghost writers for your pleadings. We are looking for competent litigators to whom we can refer cases, complete with mortgage audits that do most of the work for you, forms to use in court, and research to assist you in presenting precedent on the trial and appellate court levels across the country. The lawyers who get in on the front end of this will become quite wealthy. Plus you get to win a lot in court, which you must admit is more fun than losing.
On Tuesday I completed partial filming of a documentary for release in October, and TV ad spots for a platform that Brad Keiser is heading up as the Executive Director. Some rather irreverent but powerful people from Hollywood are producing and directing the documentary, based upon my book, THE HOMEOWNER’S WAR, HOW TO SUE YOUR LENDER, KEEP YOUR HOUSE, COLLECT DAMAGES AND THANK YOUR LAWYER, for release in September. I can’t disclose any more details except that the documentary is already scheduled for showing at Sundance in Utah.
On September 4, I will spend a day in Santa Monica with lawyers and explain the ins and outs of securitization so they can be ready for what will be thrown back at them by the other side. Sometimes Justice just happens
Filed under: bubble, CDO, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Mortgage | Tagged: foreclosure defense, Lawyer referrals, LAWYERS SEMINAR ON FORECLOSURE |
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