Livinglies's Weblog

Yes ownership of the debt and payment for the debt, for the first time in history is actually split contrary to law. Under current law it is impossible to own the debt without paying for it. This is required by the most basic doctrine of judicial standing — a party may not go to court for a remedy unless there is injury. In a loan the only possible injury would be nonpayment. If nonpayment does not result in injury to the party making the claim for a remedy, no court has jurisdiction to hear that claim.

Filed under: foreclosure | 4 Comments »

Thursdays LIVE! Click in to the WEST COAST Neil Garfield Show

with Charles Marshall and Bill Paatalo

Or call in at (347) 850-1260, 6pm Eastern Thursdays

Tonight we talk about grandest of thefts.

Bill Paatalo is a private investigator who I compare to a dog with a bone. He never lets go. After years of trying he finally came up with extrinsic proof that the “WAMU” loans claimed to be owned by Chase as a result of the Purchase and Assumption Agreement were neither owned by WAMU nor by Chase as “successor.” Neither the FDIC nor the U.S. Trustee in the WAMU bankruptcy had any control over those loans since they were not in the estate of the entity that went bankrupt or was forced into receivership.

All the documents that were produced by Chase were therefore entirely false, fabricated and fraudulent. Time to write your state legislators and congressional representatives. Until this fraud stops, the economy will continue to hemorrhage money that is badly needed to avoid another recession.

see https://bpinvestigativeagency.com/smoking-gun-proof-that-jpmorgan-chase-never-acquired-beneficial-interest-in-my-wamu-loan-through-the-fdic/

Close examination of Lehman, Aurora, Bear Stearns, Indymac, Wachovia, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Countrywide and others will reveal the exact same thing. All those foreclosures current, past and future are providing profits to brokerage firms or banks that will never be turned over the the investors who funded the origination or acquisition of the loans.

Theft is not capitalism. The Wall Street firms who engineered this scheme were not capitalists. The capitalists were the investors who advanced the money and the borrowers who signed documents and put up their homes as collateral. Capitalism only works in free markets. Free markets means that there are opposing forces. If information is withheld under circumstances that is is virtually impossible to decipher the true nature of a transaction then there can be no opposing market forces and capitalism fails.

All over the world, starting in the late 1990’s, people, institutions and governmental units have been screwed. But they don’t really understand how it was done and therefore their lawyers have not devised a viable real action to pursue remedies for what is in the final analysis, the greatest economic crime in human history. I think the answer might be disgorgement.

It is my opinion that to this day the original investors still do not fully understand that they are probably entitled to disgorgement of trillions of dollars from Wall Street firms that converted investor money to firm money. It is also my opinion that borrowers are entitled to receive some portion of the disgorgement of compensation and profits arising from origination or acquisition of their loans that were never disclosed.

Filed under: foreclosure | 2 Comments »

There are many good lawyers in all States. However most lawyers refuse to take engagements for foreclosure defense. They can be convinced otherwise if they receive a summary of the case that enables them to assess the likelihood of success and if they are convinced that they will receive full payment for their services. I do the preliminary work that enables a lawyer to assess each case to determine whether they want to accept the engagement.

Spoiler alert: lawyers are least likely to accept engagements if the case has (a) already been litigated and/or (b) if there have been multiple previous attorneys.

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THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.

NOTE WE ARE STILL EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL ISSUES BETWEEN OUR STORE AND ONE OF OUR PAYPAL ACCOUNTS LINKED TO THE LENDINGLIES.COM STORE. IF YOU ENCOUNTER DIFFICULTIES COMPLETING YOUR ORDERS PLEASE EMAIL US AT NEILFGARFIELD@HOTMAIL.COM OR MAKE PAYMENT THROUGH PAYPAL AT OUR OTHER PAYPAL ACCOUNT GTCHONORS.LLBLOG@GMAIL.COM
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Filed under: foreclosure | 1 Comment »

Apparently my most recent posts have produced a flurry of activity from proxies who are supported by investment banks acting through their conduit Servicers and Foreclosure Mills. They are aiming to discredit my academic and practical research and analysis into the securitization of debt and the impact on foreclosures of real property.

So the main point is that nobody with credentials equal to or exceeding my own has come out and said or explained why I am wrong about anything I have written. Nobody ever, despite the fact that I have filed declarations in hundreds of cases. If I was wrong it would seem that the obvious strategy would be to show that I was wrong rather than calling me names. Another obvious strategy would be to explain how I had duped senior judges into ruling in favor of borrowers. But that hasn’t come up either.

If you have any actual questions about the veracity of any allegations against me or LivingLies please write to me at neilfgarfield@hotmail.com. Most of the “new” stories merely recycle old stories, some of which may have a grain of truth as to past employees. But there are a few new allegations, or at least to new to my eye. Some of you are forwarding them to me.

As the old saying goes, the more flack you get the more certain you can be that you are over the target.

My latest salvo encouraging lawyers and homeowners to simply demand answers to questions and demand documents for production to show actual transactions where money exchanged hands seems to have disturbed a lot of people. While the untitled and frequently unidentified authors use the word “fraud,” they do not point to any benefit we received on account of such encouragement. On the contrary, the benefits flow entirely to the lawyers and homeowners who use such strategies.

Add to that my suggestion that homeowners might consider demanding disgorgement of borrower payments and disgorgement of undisclosed compensation (arising from the commencement of the loan) as an affirmative defense in any judicial foreclosure action. Back in 2008 I was told point blank by an attorney for a foreclosure mill that this was my most “obnoxious” allegation.

While the question is not completely settled, it is apparently true in most courts that the statute of limitations does not bar an affirmative defense for disgorgement and set off up to the amount claimed in the foreclosure. However, a separate claim in the form of a counterclaim or collateral lawsuit would most likely be subject to the statute of limitations.

Also there is my support of briefs that are being filed with the Supreme Court of the United States seeking to prevent any court from using “interpretation” to simply rewrite the TILA Rescission law despite the clear wording of the statute and the ultra clear wording written by Justice Scalia, in a unanimous SCOTUS decision in Jesinoski.

I get that if TILA rescission were taken seriously it would undermine the value of mortgage “bonds” (certificates). I just don’t think that complaining loudly about your toys being taken away should change the fact that they are toxic and you shouldn’t be allowed to play with them.

In any event, I am pleased at the attention the banks are giving me as it merely highlights the importance of my work, which in turn might hasten the day when the banks, the servicers and the foreclosure mills are brought to justice. This is coming from people who hide behind proxies on the internet and who commit fraud every time they make a claim for collection or enforcement of a mortgage loan.

Don’t worry, they won’t stop me.

Filed under: foreclosure | 9 Comments »

You’ll be hearing a lot more about this on the Radio Show next week with Charles Marshall and Bill Paatalo.

Bill is a private investigator who I compare to a dog with a bone. He never lets go. After years of trying he finally came up with extrinsic proof that the “WAMU” loans claimed to be owned by Chase as a result of the Purchase and Assumption Agreement were neither owned by WAMU nor by Chase as “successor.” Neither the FDIC nor the U.S. Trustee in the WAMU bankruptcy had any control over those loans since they were not in the estate of the entity that went bankrupt or was forced into receivership.

All the documents that were produced by Chase were therefore entirely false, fabricated and fraudulent. Time to write your state legislators and congressional representatives. Until this fraud stops, the economy will continue to hemorrhage money that is badly needed to avoid another recession.

see https://bpinvestigativeagency.com/smoking-gun-proof-that-jpmorgan-chase-never-acquired-beneficial-interest-in-my-wamu-loan-through-the-fdic/

Close examination of Lehman, Aurora, Bear Stearns, Indymac, Wachovia, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Countrywide and others will reveal the exact same thing. All those foreclosures current, past and future are providing profits to brokerage firms or banks that will never be turned over the the investors who funded the origination or acquisition of the loans.

Theft is not capitalism. The Wall Street firms who engineered this scheme were not capitalists. The capitalists were the investors who advanced the money and the borrowers who signed documents and put up their homes as collateral. Capitalism only works in free markets. Free markets means that there are opposing forces. If information is withheld under circumstances that is is virtually impossible to decipher the true nature of a transaction then there can be no opposing market forces and capitalism fails.

All over the word, starting in the late 1990’s, people, institutions and governmental units have been screwed. But they don’t really understand how it was done and therefore their lawyers have not devised a viable real action to pursue remedies for what is in the final analysis, the greatest economic crime in human history. I think the answer might be disgorgement.

It is my opinion that to this day the original investors still do not fully understand that they are probably entitled to disgorgement of trillions of dollars from Wall Street firms that converted investor money to firm money. It is also my opinion that borrowers are entitled to receive some portion of the disgorgement of compensation and profits arising from origination or acquisition of their loans that were never disclosed.

Filed under: foreclosure | 3 Comments »

Keep in mind that Aurora is a subsidiary of Lehman. They are both in Bankruptcy but are being kept technically alive in BKR court for the sole purpose of making actions appear to be legitimate attempts to collect a debt.

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THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.

NOTE WE ARE STILL EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL ISSUES BETWEEN OUR STORE AND ONE OF OUR PAYPAL ACCOUNTS LINKED TO THE LENDINGLIES.COM STORE. IF YOU ENCOUNTER DIFFICULTIES COMPLETING YOUR ORDERS PLEASE EMAIL US AT NEILFGARFIELD@HOTMAIL.COM OR MAKE PAYMENT THROUGH PAYPAL AT OUR OTHER PAYPAL ACCOUNT GTCHONORS.LLBLOG@GMAIL.COM
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Filed under: foreclosure | 11 Comments »

Thursdays LIVE! Click in to the Neil Garfield Show

Call in at (347) 850-1260, 6pm Eastern Thursdays

A typical seasoned judge in a community with dense demographics might have been the primary judge or at least a participating or covering judge in about 10,000 foreclosure cases before he hears anything about your case.

In each case the judge renders multiple rulings, opinions and judgment. On average it’s probably about 5 rulings (orders) per case because nearly all cases are not contested by homeowners. That’s around 50,000 orders by that one judge. The odds of any judge saying he or she was wrong 50,000 times is at best delusional.

The odds of any judge entering the courtroom without prior opinions and biases is zero. Period. They are human and if you want something else go to a planet where robots do everything including all the thinking.

So how do I win and how do other attorneys win in foreclosure cases. More importantly if you are a homeowner who is facing foreclosure or who has been subject to foreclosure, how do you plead a claim or defense that ends up being considered credible to a judge who walks into the courtroom believing that he or she has already ruled on this matter 50,000 times and he or she wasn’t wrong.

Start with hiring a trial lawyer.

Tonight I will discuss what I think is on the Judge’s mind and how to gain entry to his or her mindset such that you can persuade the Judge to see things your way — or at least enough to rule in your favor.

Filed under: foreclosure | 4 Comments »

“We are not sure how many human errors a company like Ocwen gets before a jury can reasonably infer a conscious disregard of a person’s rights, but we are certain Ocwen passed it,” Circuit Judge Amy St. Eve wrote, joined by Circuit Judges William Bauer and Michael Brennan. [e.s.]

Editorial Note: Any lawyer who thinks these cases cannot be won and cannot be profitable for the lawyer and the client is simply not paying attention to the facts. While the size of the award was slashed to the amount of compensatory damages awarded by the jury, the larger point is that the assumption that punitive damages will not be granted is just plain wrong. A lawyer on full contingency in this case would have received over $400,000 in fees.

see Ocwen’s Attempt to Eliminate Punitive damages Rejected

From Westlaw:

The jury awarded Saccameno $500,000 in compensatory damages under the FDCPA and RESPA. It awarded another $82,000 in compensatory and $3 million in punitive damages under ICFA.

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On appeal, Ocwen challenged only the punitive award, arguing that the 37:1 ratio of punitive to compensatory damages under ICFA was so large that it constituted a deprivation of property without due process of law.

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Saccameno said the true ratio was 5:1, based on the aggregate compensatory award. The 7th Circuit said that under either calculation, $3 million was too much.

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The Supreme Court has warned that punitive awards generally should not exceed a “single-digit” multiple of compensatory damages, and if the compensatory award is “substantial,” a 1:1 ratio might be “the outermost limit.”

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Reducing the punitive award to $582,000 provided a 1:1 ratio to the “considerable compensatory award” under Saccameno’s aggregate approach and a single-digit, 7:1 ratio under Ocwen’s “claim-by-claim” approach, the 7th Circuit concluded.

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The case is Monette Saccameno v. U.S. Bank N.A., trustee and Ocwen Loan Servicing LLC, 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 19-1569.

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For Saccameno: Nick Wooten and Mohammed Badwan of Sulaiman Law Group

For Ocwen: Anton Metlitsky and Ephraim McDowell of O’Melveny & Myers

Filed under: foreclosure | 5 Comments »

A new set of lawyers is coming into the marketplace and they smell blood. They are seeking guidance and they are up for making money and winning cases. Here is what I just wrote to one of them who is “boots on the ground” in California in a case in which I am the lead “Consultant”.

I would only add that nearly all cases are actually securitization cases even if they are not filed in the name of a trust.

I understand you are favorably disposed to defense of foreclosures and you are in the steep learning curve associated with most foreclosures in which sales of paper instruments have occurred in the secondary market to support claims of securitization. The essential flaw in those paper documents is that the debt never moves. Hence the documents refer to transactions that never existed. All such documents are fabricated strictly for the purposes of foreclosure and are not used for reporting to any regulatory authority because that would subject the signor to charges of perjury.

I would be happy to answer your questions if you want to set up a Q&A. It will be helpful for me to gauge your comfort zone because regardless of what I write, the lawyer on the ground must feel it in order to be persuasive. If you don’t believe it neither will the judge. So I like feedback from the local lawyer as to the wording and concepts with which they are comfortable. And as I have specifically and emphatically communicated to Calhoun and Ennis, even in the best circumstances there is at least a 1 in 3 chance of losing. And as I have elaborated to them, this is not the best of cases primarily but not solely because of the passage of time.

For starters the defense premise is “Counterintuitive” (as phrased by Reynaldo Reyes, VP Asset Management of Deutsche Bank), which is another way of saying unbelievable. Yet it is true. So the purpose and strategy and tactics are directed at only going so far as necessary to show that the basic fundamental requirements of foreclosure have not been met — not to prove that the entire securitization scheme is a Ponzi scheme (which it was and remains).

We must be extra careful with labels. Stockbrokers masquerading as “investment banks” and acting through conduits and attorneys (who actually only represent the conduits) often set the stage with labels that are presumed to be true. Most of them are untrue. Take Mr. Reyes for example, who is indeed a VP of Deutsche Bank but he has no assets to manage because none of the trusts own any property or mortgage debts. By accepting him as an asset manager you might be accepting that there are trust assets including the subject loan. That in turn would be acknowledgement that the trust exists and perhaps that the subject loan was entrusted to the “trustee.” And that could be used as an admission that the trust exists when it actually doesn’t.

The actual legal status of the named trust is one of two things.

(1) a fictitious name by which stockbrokers do business with investors and then do  business with the courts in order to initiate illegal foreclosure proceedings in order to steal the house and the proceeds from the only real parties in interest — the investors who advanced the funds and the borrowers whose house they are taking without any intention of using sale proceeds to pay the investors.

(2) an actual trust (you must refer only to the actual trust agreement and not the pooling and servicing agreement that only implies the existence of a trust) whose sole purpose is to hold “bare naked title” to the mortgage for  the benefit of the stockbroker doing business under the name of the trust and who has divested itself of all or nearly all of the ownership and risks attendant to ownership of the debt.

Yes it is and was always intended to be as complicated as possible. Wall Street learned a long time ago that the more complicated the financial instrument the more everyone will depend upon Wall Street to tell them what is means. Even judges do it.

So our strategy is as follows: for purposes of planning start with the premise that the current claimant has no direct or indirect connection to the debt, note or mortgage (except for apparently facially valid documents from which rebuttable presumptions arise). Then flip to what is required for a valid foreclosure.

Well first of all it must be a proceeding in which the object and the result is restitution of an unpaid debt. If the named claimant does not exist and/or does not own the debt by reason of having paid value for it then it has suffered no injury and there is no claim.

If the lawyers for the named claimant say that it is authorized to collect on behalf of such an entity then that entity must be identified for the court and the homeowner to know that a claim is being pursued to pay down the debt. Keep in mind that the lawyers represent the conduits (servicers) and don’t really maintain any retainer agreement or attorney client relationship with the named claimant.

If it is not being used to pay down the debt the only other option is that this is an illegal revenue scheme that weaponized the foreclosure process — but we don’t say that in today’s judicial climate. At least not yet.

We don’t actually prove that this is a scheme to generate more ill-gotten revenue, which is exactly what it is, because that would raise fears in the judge that such a judgment might undermine a large part of the American financial sector which it would.  We gradually educate the judge to the point where he/she draws the conclusion and then skirts around it in a final judgment that recites all the deficiencies in the case brought by the named claimant and the documents, their fabrication, backdating etc.

In this case instead of damages that are probably barred by the statute of limitations we will pursue disgorgement in the theory that the pornographic profits, fees and commissions arising from origination of the loan were not disclosed pursuant to the disclosure requirements under state and Federal statutes, which is public policy. We won’t say that on average $12 in revenue was generated from each dollar loaned. But we will either prove it or raise the inference because they refuse to answer questions in discovery even after being ordered to do so by the court.

Once the court gets the idea that this was not a traditional loan situation and that the players have all been paid several times over, then the bias about not letting the borrower get away with a free house starts to fade.

Get the idea?

Filed under: foreclosure | 6 Comments »

The first order of business is to recognize two things — (1) that it is a stockbroker who is the actual party foreclosing the mortgage and (2) that the stockbroker is NOT seeking restitution for an unpaid debt — all of which means that it isn’t really a foreclosure. It is a scheme to generate revenue because the investors, who put up the money, will never see the proceeds of sale in a foreclosure.

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THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
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So I recently responded to a situation that combined all the worst attributes of a fraudulent and wrongful foreclosure. Here is what I said:

From what you have described, you are under a deadline to file something to oppose confirmation of the sale of the property. Failure to do so timely could result in legal presumption against you that might be conclusive. Even if the sale was wrong, the court might well confirm the sale. Such an order could be used by your opposition as the basis for saying that the matter had already been litigated to conclusion and that you were barred from bringing it up again. You should seek advice from local Counsel.

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The fact that you lost at summary judgment falls into the same category. While there is no question in my mind that the foreclosure was probably fraudulent and wrongful, laws of procedure are aimed at producing finality to any legal dispute. To put it simply, the uphill battle you were facing just became more steep.

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You might have a claim against the “Foreclosure defense company,” but without more information I could not comment further.

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The reason why I firmly believe that further investigation will reveal a fraudulent and wrongful foreclosure is that I am very well acquainted with the players that you have indicated have been involved in the chain of title or chain of servicing.

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While Countrywide Home Loans may have technically qualified as a lender, it rarely acted as such. The only loans it gave were to specific individuals who had value to the securitization effort of stockbrokers who refer to themselves as investment Banks. The real function of Countrywide was as an aggregator of data.

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People often confuse the terms used by the stockbrokers resulting in the erroneous conclusion that Countrywide was buying loans and then grouping them into portfolios that would be used for securitization. This is untrue. But it is always implied in everything that the players do when they are pursuing foreclosure.

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That means that the loans were actually funded through Countrywide as a conduit, not as a lender. Investors either deposited or paid money to the stock brokers for unsecured certificates promising a stream of revenue in monthly or quarterly payments. The money from investors was then funneled through Countrywide, or one of its Originators, to the closing table of each loan. This process insulated both the investors and the stockbroker from claims of violation of lending laws because they were not mentioned as lenders. [This does not actually insulate them but it raises the presumption that they were not lenders.]

Filed under: foreclosure | 3 Comments »

What changes do you think are necessary in the Federal Truth in Lending Act, FDCPA, RESPA and SEC regulations?

Email your comments to neilfgarfield@hotmail.com

see 501851_2018_Nationstar_Mortgage_L_v_Nationstar_Mortgage_L_EXHIBIT_S__17-1

I completely get how there is immunity for lawyers advocating even bad positions for their clients. Anything less would chill access to the courts. No arguments here.

But when you read the above linked agreement, it seems to me that the law firm has crossed the line from advocate to interested party. The warranties and guarantees are all in reverse for what you would ordinarily expect.

Assume that the claimant is fake and so is the claim. If the claim is foreclosure then success means that a fake claimant is forcing the sale of property and keeping the proceeds. And I say that the people and entities assisting in that effort should not be protected by any immunity or privilege.

In short, if the lawyer is in it for the money and knows there is no claim, then any effort he or she makes is in furtherance of a fraudulent scheme in which the lawyer is one of the beneficiaries. Why should that be protected by any immunity?

I think the current interpretation of litigation immunity is being abused by stockbrokers on Wall Street who call themselves “banks” or “investment banks.”

Just like they do with “originators” who are nothing but shields against Federal and state lending laws, they are hiring lawyers through various conduits who call themselves “Servicers” to sell a nonexistent claim and get an award for defrauding the court, the borrower and even the lawyer representing the borrower.

What do you think?

This the first part of a series that will be devoted to changes that are needed in Federal and State lending, collection and servicing laws.

Filed under: foreclosure | 9 Comments »

The most important label used by stockbrokers (acting as “investment banks”) was to label a company as an “originator”. The term had no actual meaning. There were lenders who loaned money, and there were mortgage brokers who were paid to introduce a lender and a borrower. But what was an “originator”?

The stockbrokers knew that if a term had no meaning in the world of finance it would also have no meaning in the courts. So the schemers became the “authority” on what it meant to be an “originator.” And like most of their other labels they defined it in any manner that furthered their scheme of securitization, even if it meant that the definitions were completely contradictory of each other.

In foreclosure cases the originator is generally assumed to be the lender. But as anyone in the banking industry will tell you, if they loan money they want to be called a lender which makes it crystal clear who they are and what they are doing.

And inserting MERS as “nominee” for what would then be labelled as a “lender” who in fact was nothing more than a mortgage broker or salesman does not make MERS anything, does not make the party named as lender an actual lender and does not legally create any legally enforceable agency agreement between MERS and “lender.”

The truth is that from around 2002-2009, virtually no lender was an originator and no originator was a lender. This led to inherent problems with the paperwork for the loan. No paper conveyance of a mortgage, including its initial execution and recording is legally valid without the named transferee paying for the debt. If ABC was an originator but not a lender then it should never have been payee on the note nor mortgagee on the mortgage nor beneficiary or “lender” on a deed of trust. That’s the law — and for good reason.

Residential loans are first about the money. The paperwork is required by law to follow the money. The whole problem with the securitizations scheme devised by stockbrokers is that the paperwork did not follow the money. This was intentional since it opened up opportunities to sell the paper multiple times without the money ever moving. That seems counter-intuitive (unbelievable) but it is true. It’s actually a very old scheme in a brand new coat.

So that is why an industry that was a model for expert documentation of every facet of lending became an industry rife with mostly false paperwork.

All of this was enabled largely by the use of the word “originator” which was taken to mean that “lender” could be expanded under existing law to mean something broader than the actual party making a loan. It can’t. Court decisions to the contrary are not just bending the law, they are breaking it. No court is allowed to make assumptions of act that are not in evidence. Assuming that somehow the foreclosure will be used to pay off the debt is one of those assumptions. And it is wrong.

Even if the there is a known third party who is making the loan of money, without disclosure it is a table-funded loan and against public policy in the Truth in Lending Act whose purpose is to create transparent disclosures as to the party with whom the borrower is supposedly doing business. The borrower is intended by law to be able to make a choice between lenders and to negotiate the best terms with the best lender. That is the whole point of the Act.

Disclosure would require the lender to disclose compensation, fees, commissions, profits or revenue of every kind arising from the commencement of the loan. But that would have meant telling the borrower about the profits that far outstripped any known industry standard compensation or even the amount of the loan itself.

Borrowers, in turn and pursuant to TILA, would then have the opportunity to bargain for better terms considering the outrageous profits that the lender was generating from the commencement of the loan — all as more particularly set forth in the securitization scheme that was not disclosed to any borrower.

The same holds true for the investors who were the ones who put up the money in the first place. Had they been told that compensation arising from the completion of the cycle (investment to loan and then sale of securities) would be far in excess of what was industry standard, they too would have had an opportunity to bargain for a piece of a pie that was exponentially higher than any revenue previously allowed to a stockbroker who put together a deal.

The upshot is that judges and others ask whether the borrower received the loan as though that should end the discussion. But it only ends the discussion in a conventional loan commencement. In the context of securitization the question should be who received what money as a result of the commencement of this loan? In short, full disclosure of everything.

And then the second question should be whether that allocation of revenue and profits and proceeds was part of the limited bargain between the stockbroker and borrowers and between the stockbroker and the investors — or whether the larger undisclosed bargain (issuance and sale of securities) should now be the subject of unjust and wrongful enrichment precisely because the borrowers and the investors had no opportunity to know or bargain.

Put another way — on a level transparent playing field what would be the most likely distribution of those pronogrpahic profits? How much of that allocation would offset the amount owed by the borrower? How much would offset the loss of principal by the investors?

So it may be one thing to look at a loan of $200,000 and see it as a $200,000 transaction. It might be one thing to look at an investor paying $300,000 for that loan and see it as a $300,000 investment. But it is quite another thing when you actually look at the whole transaction which generated a total of $2,400,000 for the stockbrokers, most of which was  completely undisclosed to borrowers or investors.

It is a Ponzi scheme mixed with elements of both a bucket shop and a boiler room operation. The scheme works as long as there are always more investors advancing money into the scheme. The stockbrokers actually don’t care if the borrower repays the loan or not as long as enough borrowers make payments in a manner that seems to corroborate the illusion that the loan was made for interest and principal payments.

The time is coming when the effective interest rate for loans falls below zero for exactly that reason. Stockbrokers (“investment banks”) don’t care about the payments on any specific loan. They care about continuing the illusion that the unsecured certificates (“mortgage bonds”) they are selling are actually worth something. They have no inherent value because it is only an unsecured promise from the stockbroker that it will make payments to the investors — until external circumstances relieve it of that obligation.

So now the CFPB is attacking the definitions and licensing of “originators.” The thing to notice is that there were no definitions or restrictions on the activities of anyone calling themselves an “originator” before Dodd-Frank and before this latest regulatory move  by the CFPB.

see https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201911_cfpb_final-rule_loan-originator.pdf

Filed under: foreclosure | 7 Comments »

Just an observation based upon current information.

MERS was acquired in 2008 by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), a former Enron competitor. As its name implies (and the job listings for ICE) it operates in several continents. It controls most of the world’s futures and securities exchanges and clearing houses.

According to filings by ICE, the acquisition of MERS would have no material impact on earnings. That is because MERS was never intended to make a profit and probably never did. It was always a vehicle to advance plausible deniability of illegal conduct.

The principal backers for ICE US Trust were the same financial institutions most affected by the crisis, the top ten of the world’s largest banks (Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS). Sprecher’s clearing house cleared their global credit default swaps (CDS) in exchange for sharing profits with these banks.^[7][8] By September 30, 2008 the Financial Post warned that the “$54000bn credit derivatives market faced its biggest test in October 2008 as billions of dollars worth of contracts on now-defaulted derivatives would be auctioned by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association . In his article in the Financial Post, he described ICE as a “US-based electronic futures exchange” which raised the stakes on October 30, 2008 in its effort to expand in the $54000 bn credit derivatives market.(Weitzman 2008)^[9]

Whether the “MERS System” exists on servers within the United States or is operated by people within the United States has always been an open question. Now it appears as though the answer is no. It certainly suggests some questions in discovery.

And that is because

• there is the dubious agency authority asserted by those who use the name of MERS as though it was their own,
• on behalf of “lenders” or “successors that were neither lenders nor successors to lenders, and
• is actually now the product of international finance controlled by offshore people and entities,
• leaving the status of MERS in American courts to be at least in doubt.

Watch that labelling! Calling an entity a “lender” does not make it so although a facially valid document might raise a presumption in favor of the label even if it a lie. Calling an entity a “successor” is absurd unless (a) the original entity owned the debt (b) at the time that the original entity was acquired or merged with the “successor”.

Foreclosure mills are counting on your lack of curiosity. That is the what enables them to use labels that have no basis in fact.

Filed under: foreclosure | 2 Comments »

“Ocwen has repeatedly made mistakes and taken shortcuts at every stage of the mortgage servicing process, costing some consumers money and others their homes,” CFPB Director said in a statement.

[Editor’s Note: When will the agencies address the elephant in the living room: Ocwen is not making mistakes. It is making facts that don’t exist in the real world. Why? Because Ocwen is just one player in a very large scheme constructed to create the illusion that the debt exists in the hands of those who are seeking to collect, process and enforce it. It doesn’t. ]

see https://valliantnews.com/2019/11/15/ocwen-accused-by-u-s-state-agencies-of-mortgage-servicing-violations/

see https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/20170420_cfpb_Ocwen-Complaint.pdf

For a fairly full expose of the real nature of the Great recession see https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2019/11/17/housing-market-crash-foreclosures-enriching-real-estate-speculators/4195373002/

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see https://www.fraudstoppers.org/wp-content/uploads/MERS-NATIONSBANK-SECURITY-AGREEMENT-assignment-tm-1773-0949.pdf

So much for being an independent private title registry

It’s all smoke and mirrors. And an interested reader and client sent me this:

When I looked up the address on the MERS Registration Trademark that you posted today on your blog, it came up with a Virtual Office Location.

What are the main features included for McLean, VA Location Services?

Answer:

• Professional business address
• Mail & package receipt, dedicated locking mail box on site in most locations
• Mail forwarding on request (daily, weekly, or monthly) cost of postage additional
• Use of address for business license, business cards, website, etc.
• Local presence & drop off & pick up point for clientele
• Lobby & directory listings available for $25 per month at most locations
• Access to private day offices & conference rooms at hourly rates ($25+)
• Complimentary access to cyber café’s with wireless internet, coffee/tea bar, etc. where available

About this Location

Thank you for visiting Davinci Virtual. At our virtual office locations in Executive Suites of Tyson’s Corner, 8201 Greensboro Drive, McLean, VA 22102 we have everything to meet your virtual business needs. Continue your telecommuting or home working and impress your clients with a virtual address at Executive Suites of Tyson’s Corner, 8201 Greensboro Drive, McLean, VA 22102.

Filed under: foreclosure | 5 Comments »