The irrefutable logic at the foundation of all successful foreclosure defense narratives

The mortgage lien is designed to protect against financial loss — not to promote financial gain. If Wall Street wants to protect the financial gains it created from its crazy scheme using weapons of mass financial destruction, then the least it should do is share a little of that with homeowners, consumers, the government, and investors. 
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I continually get the same question, mostly because neither the homeowner nor the “investigators” understand anything about being a licensed, educated, experienced investment banker, lawyer, or accountant. If they were any of those, they would not ask the question.
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The latest question was whether the discharge in bankruptcy helps.
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The discharge in bankruptcy does not interfere with the ability to enforce the lien if the lien is valid — and the enforcer is a creditor who maintains an unpaid loan account receivable due from the homeowner on the ledgers of that creditor. I think the lien is invalid because it did not secure an underlying obligation created by the original transaction.
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The original transaction consisted of an incentive payment paid to or on behalf of the homeowner in exchange for the issuance of documents that created the illusion of a loan transaction.
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Thereafter, no party treated the transaction as a loan, nor did any party claim ownership of an unpaid loan account on their accounting ledgers. But documents were filed in support of fraudulent claims for foreclosure remedies that appeared to be facially valid, raising the presumption that the loan account existed.
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I think the problem is that people can’t wrap their heads around one idea. The transaction they signed into was not a loan. If there is no lender, creditor or loan account, there cannot be a loan that is recognized in our legal system, nor should there be.
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If there is no loan, no loan account, nor any creditor sitting with an accounting ledger on which they report the acquisition of an obligation due from you, you don’t owe the money to them. If no such creditor exists, you don’t owe the money at all.
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The mortgage lien is designed to protect against financial loss — not to promote financial gain. If Wall Street wants to protect the financial gains it created from its crazy scheme using weapons of mass financial destruction, then the least it should do is share a little of that with homeowners, consumers, the government, and investors.
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We are so trained to believe that we are not entitled to profit from Wall Street schemes designed to defraud us that we refuse to accept the profit even when it is sitting on a golden plate in front of us.
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If homeowners were to withhold payments (that are not legally due anyway) en masse, it would force Wall Street to do the right thing: reform all the transactions to reflect the economic realities, to wit: share the bounty with the keystone participants — homeowners who issue the documents that form the foundation of the sale of securities that are unrelated to the illusion of any sale of an underlying obligation.

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To be sure, there would need to be substantial changes in the law governing consent and compensation, in addition to the existing laws requiring full disclosure of all financial transactions producing revenue from the stroke of a homeowner’s pen. That can be done if we want to do it. Until then, homeowners will continue to win their cases in small numbers without truly understanding why or how they won.
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Nobody paid me to write this. I am self-funded, supported only by donations. My mission is to stop foreclosures and other collection efforts against homeowners and consumers without proof of loss. If you want to support this effort please click on this link and donate as much as you feel you can afford.

Please Donate to Support Neil Garfield’s Efforts to Stop Foreclosure Fraud.
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Neil F Garfield, MBA, JD, 75, is a Florida licensed trial and appellate attorney since 1977. He has received multiple academic and achievement awards in business, accounting and law. He is a former investment banker, securities broker, securities analyst, and financial analyst.
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FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE COMMENTS ON THIS BLOG AND ELSEWHERE ARE BASED ON THE ABILITY OF A HOMEOWNER TO WIN THE CASE NOT MERELY SETTLE IT. OTHER LAWYERS HAVE STRATEGIES DIRECTED AT SETTLEMENT OR MODIFICATION. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.

But challenging the “servicers” and other claimants before they seek enforcement can delay action by them for as much as 14 years or more. In addition, although currently rare, it can also result in your homestead being free and clear of any mortgage lien that you contested. (No Guarantee).

Yes you DO need a lawyer.
If you wish to retain me as a legal consultant please write to me at neilfgarfield@hotmail.com.

Please visit www.lendinglies.com for more information.

How Could This Not Be a Loan?

if the investment bank paid the homeowner as an incentive payment rather than as a loan, then there is no debt any more than salary or wages can later be called a loan. The fact that the consumer/homeowner thought or even wished it were otherwise makes no diffeerence. If I pay you money and you think it is a loan but I paid you for services you rendered, the substance of the transction is “fee for services” — not a loan — and there is no legal or ethical or moral obligation to pay it back. 

I think the one idea that sticks in the throat of nearly everyone is the idea that no money was loaned. That idea seems impossible and to many skeptics, it sounds like a snake-oil salesman trying to peddle what people want to hear. People know that they did really buy their home, and the majority of these transactions are refinancing, which means that the old “lender” got paid off, right?

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First of all, let’s agree on at least one thing. Virtually all installment payment agreements are now subject to claims of “securitization.” This means that behind every transaction is an investment bank that is arranging payments, only where necessary, and who is receiving the proceeds of consumer payments plus all of the revenue and profits from the sale and training of unregulated securities.
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If there is one thing missing from most articles analyzing consumer debt, it is the failure to recognize that a handful of investment banks are the center of all of those transactions and they all have reciprocal agreements. Those agreements are mostly in writing but difficult to obtain, and sometimes tacit. You don’t need to look any further than any pooling and servicing agreement to see the world’s largest banks all participating in the same venture. In prior years, this fact alone would’ve been sufficient for antitrust action.

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So here is my effort at explaining it. There are several categories of transactions that occur with homeowners.
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  1.  The homeowner is buying a new home from a developer or contractor.
  2.  The homeowner is buying a home from the existing homeowner.
  3.  The homeowner is buying a home from a party or business entity that asserts ownership after foreclosure on the previous homeowner.
  4. The homeowner is refinancing the new home they purchased from a developer or contractor.
  5. The homeowner is refinancing a home they bought from a prior homeowner.
  6. The homeowner is refinancing a home they bought from a foreclosure buyer.
  7. The homeowner refinances by entering into a forbearance agreement.
  8. The homeowner refinances by entering into a modification agreement.
  9.  Securitization of data and attributes of homeowner’s promise to make scheduled payments — no relevant transaction because there was no sale of the underlying obligation, legal debt, note or mortgage (or deed of trust). Since law requires that sale for enforcement by successors, the foreclosure players fake the documents.
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Let’s define our terms.
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“Homeowner” means in this case someone who is looking to buy a home or who is looking to change their transaction.
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“Refinance” means that the homeowner is a party to some transaction and/or documentation that changes the terms of the homeowner’s prior promise to make scheduled payments.
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“Money source” means the investment bank that (a) borrowed money from a third party bank like Credit Suisse, (b) used the borrowed funds to make payments to or on behalf of the homeowner. (It pays back the loan to its lender (and co-underwriter of certificates) through sales of certificates to investors promising scheduled payments, without maturity, collateral, or a guarantee of payment.)
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1. PURCHASE OF NEW HOME FROM DEVELOPER: generally speaking, this is the only transaction that is in substance but it appears to be in form. Money is actually paid to the developer.
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  • The money trail for this transaction looks something like this: LENDER—>MONEY SOURCE/INVESTMENT BANK—>SUBSIDIARY OR CONTROLLED AFFILIATE OF MONEY SOURCE—>CLOSING AGENT—>DEVELOPER.
  • The paper trail (i.e. contracts) for this transaction looks something like this: MONEY SOURCE/INVESTMENT BANK—>AGGREGATOR (like Countrywide Home Loans)—>(a) Assignment and Assumption Agreement with Originators (like Quicken Loans) and (b) Indemnification Agreement with title insurers—>Mortgage Broker—>Mortgage salesman—>Homeowner execution of promise to pay and collateral for making scheduled payments to Originators.
  • Bottom Line: The homeowner is getting money, courtesy of an investment bank that is NOT intending to make a loan or be governed by any lending laws.
    • The homeowner is making a promise to pay the originator who did not lend any money or make any payments to or on behalf of the homeowner.
    • The only party identified as a lender is the originator who did not make a loan.
    • The only party that arranged for payment disclaims any role of being a lender.
    • The payment made on the homeowner’s behalf was an incentive payment designed to procure the signature of the homeowner on a note and mortgage (or deed of trust).
      • Legally since there was no lending intent by either the named “lender” or the Money Source, there is either no contract at all or no loan, since there was no meeting of the minds.
      • If the transaction is not rescinded the deal needs to be reformed with a court determining what incentive payment the homeowner should have received from the scheme to issue, sell and trade unregulated securities.
      • But if the homeowner tacitly or expressly asserts or agrees or admits it was a loan, then for all purposes in court, it will be treated as a loan not subject to reformation.
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2. PURCHASE OF NEW HOME FROM PRIOR HOMEOWNER: generally speaking most of these transactions do not result in the payment of money to any prior lender. But the excess due to the seller is paid in the same way that money is paid where the homeowner purchases a home from a developer.
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  • Most of such transactions are steered to originators and aggregators who represent the money source (investment bank) who was involved in the financial transaction with the prior homeowner.
  • Because the proceeds of the “new financing” or “purchase money mortgage” would be paid to the same investment bank, no money exchanges hands with respect to the “pay off” of the prior note and mortgage.
  • The confusing point for most lawyers and homeowners is that there is nothing illegal about a bank holding a prior mortgage lien. There is nothing illegal about the same bank doing business with the next owner. And there is nothing illegal about the bank not issuing a check to itself when the owners change.
    • But that is not what is happening. “The bank” does not exist. The money source (investment bank) is not carrying the homeowner’s promise to pay scheduled payments as an asset and therefore is not “the bank.”
    • For legal purposes, the test is simply whether or not the investment bank has suffered a loss as a result of the refusal or failure of the homeowner to make a scheduled payment.
    • Or, phrased differently, the question from the beginning is whether or not the investment bank has the source of money ever excepted any risk of loss arising from the value of a loan account receivable.
    • The answer to both questions is in the negative. In dozens of cases across the country, lawyers have been asked to identify the creditor and have admitted that they cannot do so.
    • The only logical conclusion is that the transaction was never intended to be a loan (with the exception of the homeowner who did intend to get a loan, but did not receive it).
    • The investment banks wanted the homeowner to believe they were getting a loan instead of an incentive payment to execute a promise to make scheduled payments. They did not want the homeowner to know that they were receiving an incentive payment. Disclosure of that fact is an absolute requirement under the law. If they had disclosed the true nature of the transaction, they would have been subject to bargaining and competition.
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3. PURCHASE OF NEW HOME FROM FORECLOSURE BUYER: generally speaking, relative to any current financing arrangement, no money exchanges hands on these deals because and substance, the foreclosure buyer generally is receiving some sort of protection or indemnification from a title company that has been to issue insurance on a transaction that cannot pass the test of marketability or clear title — mostly because of the above factors. The anecdotal evidence on thousands of cases reviewed by me strongly indicates that nearly every foreclosure buyer is in substance a placeholder or nominee for the investment bank. By flipping the paper title, the foreclosure buyer receives a “profit” that is in substance a fee for legitimizing the foreclosure. That profit or fee is funded by the investment bank.
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4. REFINANCING: generally speaking, all transactions that carry the label of “refinancing” are false transactions. Because securitization does not involve the purchase and sale of any underlying obligation, legal debt, note, or mortgage, each such transaction represents a new opportunity to create a new securitization infrastructure using the same transaction. Investment banks use every means of their disposal to encourage “refinancing” since it is the source of most of their new sales of certificates. The only money paid out is the excess, after fees, over the amount previously declared as “principal.” But this “principal” is not carried on the accounting ledger of any company or any person as an asset, nor is there any reserve for bad debt (simply because there is no risk of loss).
  • Forbearance is a form of “refinancing” because it accomplishes a number of things for the investment bank. First, obtain a signature from the homeowner that ratified or admits that the previous paperwork and financial transactions were all valid. Second, it essentially removes the placeholder originator from the paper trail. Third, it installs a new placeholder name and obtains consent from the homeowner. Fourth, it establishes a company claimed to be the servicer as the legitimate recipient of funds or proceeds from homeowner payments or the sale or foreclosure of the collateral (i.e., the home).
  • Modification is the same as forbearance: It introduces new parties under coercion. Homeowners sign these documents with total strangers mostly out of sheer panic. What they’re doing is waiving rights and creating tracks in the sand that are opposite to their financial interest and well-being.
Given all of that, many people ask me why I have consented or approved of a homeowner entering into a new agreement with players who are conducting an illegal scheme. The answer is simple and the investment bankers know the answer: they have the money to make a homeowner’s life miserable and they are not subjected to vigorous enforcement by regulators and law enforcement.
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The entire burden of resisting this massive scheme of “Financial weapons of mass destruction” Falls on each homeowner, one at a time. It takes considerable time, money, and resources to resist.
So when the opportunity comes to settle the matter on favorable terms that reduce the payment, interest rate, and principal, and the homeowner lacks the will or the resources to resist, the only choice left is to settle with the perpetrators who put them in a bad position and who are cheating each homeowner out of their rightful share of the securitizations scheme.
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Nobody paid me to write this. I am self-funded, supported only by donations. My mission is to stop foreclosures and other collection efforts against homeowners and consumers without proof of loss. If you want to support this effort please click on this link and donate as much as you feel you can afford.
Please Donate to Support Neil Garfield’s Efforts to Stop Foreclosure Fraud.

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Neil F Garfield, MBA, JD, 74, is a Florida licensed trial and appellate attorney since 1977. He has received multiple academic and achievement awards in business, accounting and law. He is a former investment banker, securities broker, securities analyst, and financial analyst.
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CLICK HERE TO ORDER ADMINISTRATIVE STRATEGY, ANALYSIS AND NARRATIVE. This could be all you need to preserve your objections and defenses to administration, collection or enforcement of your obligation. Suggestions for discovery demands are included.
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FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
  • But challenging the “servicers” and other claimants before they seek enforcement can delay action by them for as much as 12 years or more.
  • Yes you DO need a lawyer.
  • If you wish to retain me as a legal consultant please write to me at neilfgarfield@hotmail.com.
Please visit www.lendinglies.com for more information.

Here is How Wall Street Smoke and Mirrors Works

The idea that some company bearing the label of “servicer” is performing financial functions and accounting on behalf of an investor, a trust, a trustee is completely false from end to end. Such companies do nothing and were never intended to do anything except act as a buffer, in name only, to prevent liability attaching to investment banks who had entered the lending marketplace without any intent to enter the business of lending money for profit. But when the homeowner admits that such labels and narratives are true, the law of the case becomes the false narrative and labels. 

As a matter of policy, prudence, and required risk management, none of the tier 1 companies are permitted to actually perform any financial service or accounting. They do not receive or disburse funds. Therefore they do not originate any data input regarding the receipt or disbursement of money.

First of all, you have to remember that the primary goal of investment banks is to hide the existence and function of one or more investment banks including but not limited to the “book runner.”. All of the entities that perform any financials service or accounting are entities that are contractually bound to intermediaries for the investment banks. (see Tier 2 below).

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All of the entities whose names are used as smokescreens (I.e., placeholders or buffers) are not contractually bound to anyone and are the intended targets to be thrown under the bus when there is an unavoidable accusation of fabricated documents using false information used solely for the purpose of squeezing money or property out of homeowners. (see 50 state settlement for example). (see Tier 1 below).

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But none of the companies performing financial services or accounting has any contractual relationship with the homeowner or the company that has been claimed to be the “servicer.” So the first erroneous assumption is that these functions, even if prepared by third-party vendors, are performed at the behest of the companies that are claimed to be “servicers.” Such companies are in charge of nothing and perform no functions.

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Other than a few people on Wall Street, it simply has not occurred to most people that these functions are performed contractually and solely for the benefit of investment banks on Wall Street — who are never named in litigation by either side even though everything that has occurred has been under the sole discretion and instructions of the investment bank. And the investment bank contrary to popular belief in the false national narrative, are working only for themselves — not investors, trusts, or trustees. Their holy grail has been achieved — the sale of securities without ever having to give up the proceeds to the named issuer. But it is patently illegal and probably criminal.

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The idea that some company bearing the label of “servicer” is performing financial functions and accounting on behalf of an investor, a trust, a trustee is completely false from end to end. Such companies do nothing and were never intended to do anything except act as a buffer, in name only, to prevent liability attaching to investment banks who had entered the lending marketplace without any intent to enter the business of lending money for profit. But when the homeowner admits that such labels and narratives are true, the law of the case becomes the false narrative and labels.

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From the perspective of the investment banks, the money paid out under the label of “loans” was simply a cost of doing business — the business bang the sale of securities. The investment banks had no interest, no risk of loss or any other stake in the outcome of any transaction that was falsely labeled as a loan transaction.

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The banks covered up their activities by increasing apparent complexity in a fairly simple transaction — i.e., one in which someone would debit their cash or other asset account and credit the loan account receivable of a borrower. Such accounting never took place in most instances because none of the parties involved in the falsely labeled “origination” was anything other than a placeholder name through which money could be delivered to a closing agent for disbursement to or on behalf of the homeowner or consumer.
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The investment banks have used the placeholder name function at many levels each of which appears to have facial validity but lacks any connection to transactions in the real world. have spread out the functions.
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There are two categories. The first category (Tier 1) is the one that you see. This is the one that reveals the name of a company that is claimed to have some sort of representative authority. In the real world, it has no such authority and it performs no function. The second category (Tier 2) consists of companies that actually perform functions, but whose existence is concealed from the homeowner and from the Court. As well as almost all of the securitization infrastructures, tier one should be tier 2.
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As a matter of policy, prudence, and required risk management, none of the tier 1 companies are permitted to actually perform any financial service or accounting. They do not receive or disburse funds. Therefore they do not originate any data input regarding the receipt or disbursement of money.
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The tier 2 companies that actually perform the services are contractually bound to the intermediaries for the investment banks. The tier 1 companies who allow their names to be used on the letterhead of correspondence and notices (and payment history reports) have no contractual relationship with the investment banks who are avoiding vicarious liability for the mini intended and unintended violations of lending and servicing laws.
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Companies like CoreLogic, CoreLogic tax, Black Knight, FiServ, etc. are tier 2 businesses whose only allegiance, contractually and equitably, is to the investment banks. They are not controlled in any way by any tier 1 companies (including but not limited to companies claim to be a “servicer”). But they are controlled by the investment banks, who direct every action performed by every tier 2 company including law firms.
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Tier 1 companies are merely names acting as placeholders for the investment banks who distance themselves from the business of collecting and communicating with homeowners and other consumers who consider themselves to be borrowers, even if they are no longer borrowers because their loan account receivable has been retired through the receipt of money by the originators —- all of them. Yes, it is like organized crime but in all honesty, so is almost every capitalist enterprise. The structure though is not what creates the crime, it is the intent and effect that makes it illegal either in violation of civil or criminal laws.
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The purpose of all tier 1 companies is to create a mirage. The resulting illusion is filled in by individual presumptions that are not based on fact but rather based on apparent facial validity derived from fabricated documents containing false information — i.e., reporting or memorializing transactions that never occurred.
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Real transactions are concealed and underreported even to regulatory agencies. Such transactions are never disclosed to consumers and homeowners. In this world of illusions, apparent fascial validity has been Weaponized to create the erroneous presumption that a trust account exists, under the supervision of a trust officer, for a brand-name bank.
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The further presumption is that within that trust account is a loan Account receivable due from a particular homeowner. But in reality, there is no trust account, there is no trust officer, and there is no loan account receivable.
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Because of the complexity required to conceal the illegality of the securitization scheme, no information is offered to any homeowner or regulator that would alert them to the fact that fictitious labels are being attached to nonexistent accounts. And most homeowners and regulators lack the resources to investigate the actual money trail.
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So they rely upon the paper trail instead and that is the residence of moral hazard. You can say anything on paper, and it tends to be believed even if it would be met with skepticism if spoken aloud. The investment banks completely understand this dynamic and they have weaponized it to the point where they have established a national narrative with false labels resulting in the collection of illicit profits damaging homeowners and all taxpayers supporting federal, state, and local government.
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DID YOU LIKE THIS ARTICLE?

Nobody paid me to write this. I am self-funded, supported only by donations. My mission is to stop foreclosures and other collection efforts against homeowners and consumers without proof of loss. If you want to support this effort please click on this link and donate as much as you feel you can afford.
Please Donate to Support Neil Garfield’s Efforts to Stop Foreclosure Fraud.

CLICK TO DONATE

Click

Neil F Garfield, MBA, JD, 74, is a Florida licensed trial and appellate attorney since 1977. He has received multiple academic and achievement awards in business, accounting and law. He is a former investment banker, securities broker, securities analyst, and financial analyst.
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FREE REVIEW: Don’t wait, Act NOW!

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION FORM. It is free, with no obligation and we keep all information private. The information you provide is not used for any purpose except for providing services you order or request from us. In  the meanwhile you can order any of the following:
CLICK HERE TO ORDER ADMINISTRATIVE STRATEGY, ANALYSIS AND NARRATIVE. This could be all you need to preserve your objections and defenses to administration, collection or enforcement of your obligation. Suggestions for discovery demands are included.
*
CLICK HERE TO ORDER TERA – not necessary if you order PDR PREMIUM.
*
CLICK HERE TO ORDER CONSULT (not necessary if you order PDR)
*
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CLICK HERE TO ORDER PRELIMINARY DOCUMENT REVIEW (PDR) (PDR PLUS or BASIC includes 30 minute recorded CONSULT)
FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
  • But challenging the “servicers” and other claimants before they seek enforcement can delay action by them for as much as 12 years or more.
  • Yes you DO need a lawyer.
  • If you wish to retain me as a legal consultant please write to me at neilfgarfield@hotmail.com.
Please visit www.lendinglies.com for more information.

The fallacy of construing negative decisions as bad decisions for homeowners

It’s not the job of courts to save litigants from their own admissions. 

Here is a simple rule: if you admit the existence of the loan account receivable and you admit the rights of the servicer and the currently named claimant, you have no viable basis to challenge standing or enforceability. “Yes, but” doesn’t count in court.

Here is the other rule: if you challenge the existence of the loan account receivable and deny the rights of the servicer and the currently named claimant consistently, starting with the first notices and correspondence that you receive after the apparent “closing” the transaction, AND if you aggressively pursue statutory and discovery demands, your opposition will be unable to prove a case against you. 

Amongst the people out there who would like to see better decisions for homeowners in the courts, there are those who continue to point to decisions against the homeowner at the trial court level, the intermediate appellate level, and even at the supreme court level. And in keeping with the high level of conspiracy thinking, many people assume that such decisions are the result of corruption, and then come to the conclusion that the government is corrupt.

I suggest taking a different view. The decisions in court are perfectly rational and proper if you accept the facts that have been recited. Given those facts, the courts had no choice but to rule against the homeowner.

I get in trouble for saying this, I think the problem is with the homeowners and not with the courts. And specifically, I think the problem is that the homeowners believe in the national narrative and labels used by the banks. Virtually all homeowners believe that they established a loan transaction merely because they applied for one.

Virtually all homeowners believe that notices of transfer of ownership and servicing are true. And virtually all homeowners will admit those facts in telephone conversations, correspondence and pleadings when they go to court.

Here is a simple rule: if you admit the existence of the loan account receivable and you admit the rights of the servicer and the currently named claimant, you have no viable basis to challenge standing or enforceability.

Here is an exchange I just had with a client and her lawyer regarding ar recent decision from the 3rd DCA in Florida. Yes, it is annoying, but if I was sitting on that court I would have ruled the same way. It’s not the job of courts to save litigants from their own admissions.

This case is another good example of starting off on the wrong foot and then compounding the error. The trial court and the appellate court were proceeding based upon an assumption of facts, none of which were true. But the homeowner had admitted those facts and the expert for the homeowner had reinforced the admission. It is virtually impossible that the named originator of the transaction was an originator or lender. It was merely a placeholder for the purpose of creating the illusion of a loan transaction. It did not provide any funds to the homeowner.

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The initial recitation by the court that this was a straightforward foreclosure action is also completely wrong. But given the fact as they were recited by the appellate court, their decision was completely correct.
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I obviously don’t know what happened in the trial court, but the judge signed an unusual order. This is frequently caused by the judge having a stack of proposed orders in front of him or her combined with the desire to get out of the office.
The bottom line is that none of these cases are “straightforward foreclosures.” In fact, when you scratch the surface, they are not foreclosures until the judge signs a final judgment of foreclosure.
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At the beginning (i.e., at time of filing), they are mere attempts to abuse the legal process for profit, masquerading as some recognized cause of action but without any true facts or authentic, valid documents to back up their claim. They (the law firms) win most of the time because nobody has the courage to challenge the basic claim and thus they don’t use available discovery rights to defeat the ability of the claimant to prove a case. The main mistake, therefore, is in thinking that because the case has been pleaded in a satisfactory (or apparently satisfactory) manner, that the basic elements of the allegations are true., They are not.

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And the law firms, proceeding under both plausible deniability and litigation immunity, or making allegations about the existence of a client and a claim that are completely false. The law firm in most cases (nearly all) has had no contact with the named plaintiff, beneficiary, or claimant and maintains no contractual relationship for representation in court. In fact, if you demand acknowledgment from an officer of the named claimant, you will never get it — because that’s not part of the deal for allowing their names to be used as the plaintiff, beneficiary, or claimant in a judicial, non-judicial, or bankruptcy proceeding.

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DID YOU LIKE THIS ARTICLE?

Nobody paid me to write this. I am self-funded, supported only by donations. My mission is to stop foreclosures and other collection efforts against homeowners and consumers without proof of loss. If you want to support this effort please click on this link and donate as much as you feel you can afford.
Please Donate to Support Neil Garfield’s Efforts to Stop Foreclosure Fraud.

CLICK TO DONATE

Click

Neil F Garfield, MBA, JD, 74, is a Florida licensed trial and appellate attorney since 1977. He has received multiple academic and achievement awards in business, accounting and law. He is a former investment banker, securities broker, securities analyst, and financial analyst.
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FREE REVIEW: Don’t wait, Act NOW!

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION FORM. It is free, with no obligation and we keep all information private. The information you provide is not used for any purpose except for providing services you order or request from us. In  the meanwhile you can order any of the following:
CLICK HERE TO ORDER ADMINISTRATIVE STRATEGY, ANALYSIS AND NARRATIVE. This could be all you need to preserve your objections and defenses to administration, collection or enforcement of your obligation. Suggestions for discovery demands are included.
*
CLICK HERE TO ORDER TERA – not necessary if you order PDR PREMIUM.
*
CLICK HERE TO ORDER CONSULT (not necessary if you order PDR)
*
*
CLICK HERE TO ORDER PRELIMINARY DOCUMENT REVIEW (PDR) (PDR PLUS or BASIC includes 30 minute recorded CONSULT)
FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
  • But challenging the “servicers” and other claimants before they seek enforcement can delay action by them for as much as 12 years or more.
  • Yes you DO need a lawyer.
  • If you wish to retain me as a legal consultant please write to me at neilfgarfield@hotmail.com.
Please visit www.lendinglies.com for more information.

DO WE REALLY WANT TO LOSE CREDITORS IN CONSUMER TRANSACTIONS?

ALL EXISTING LAW AGREES WITH MY MAIN POINT: There is no basis for claiming you are a creditor unless you own the debt or represent someone who owns the debt. Since 2000 and maybe before that we have abandoned real creditors and steadily transformed administration, collection, and enforcement of alleged debts to include virtual creditors who neither own the debt nor receive the proceeds of collection. And there is no basis for claiming you are a servicer if you (a) maintain no custodial accounts and (b) you are not paying the money you collect to a creditor.

I HAVE WON NEARLY ALL CASES ON THE BASIS OF CHALLENGING THE EXISTENCE, OWNERSHIP, AND ENFORCEMENT OF THE ALLEGED DEBT. It’s a matter of court record.

AND YET — CFPB, FTC, AND SEC, ALONG WITH STATE AND FEDERAL COURTS, HAVE ALLOWED FOR THE “INSITUTIONALIZATION” OF VIRTUAL CREDITORS INSTEAD OF REAL ONES. Complaints to CFPB based upon challenges to the existence, ownership, and right to enforce the alleged debt result in gibberish answered from companies who have no knowledge and say nothing about the identity of the alleged creditor or the date of the transaction where value was paid one exchange for a conveyance of ownership of the alleged underlying obligation as required by Article 9§203 of the UCC adopted in all 50 states.

THE RESULT IS THAT ADMINISTRATION, COLLECTION, AND ENFORCEMENT OF THE ALLEGED DEBT RESULTS IN BONUSES, COMMISSIONS, AND OTHER COMPENSATION INSTEAD OF PAYING DOWN (REDUCING) THE PRESUMED LOAN ACCOUNT RECEIVABLE ON THE ACCOUNTING LEDGERS OF SOME COMPANY OR PERSON. Is this what we really want? Do we really want to ignore laws established over centuries?

BOTTOM LINE: THE BASICS OF ALL LENDING TRANSACTIONS HAVE BEEN CHANGED BEYOND RECOGNITION:

  • There is no lending anymore.
  • There are consumers who wish to be borrowers but there is nobody who wants to be a lender.
  • There are inducements to issue a note, a mortgage or a security instrument in an auto loan — even though no loan account is ever established.
  • Money paid to consumers is ephemeral — like a magic trick. The money paid to consumers is the inducement to sign the papers. But the virtual or pretender lender wants that money back.
  • The consumer thinks he/she is buying a loan product but the “lender” is neither lending nor does it have any lending intent. The “lender” neither funds the loan nor does it have any risk of loss.
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Neil F Garfield, MBA, JD, 73, is a Florida licensed trial and appellate 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.
*

FREE REVIEW: Don’t wait, Act NOW!

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION FORM. It is free, with no obligation and we keep all information private. The information you provide is not used for any purpose except for providing services you order or request from us. In the meanwhile you can order any of the following:
*
CLICK HERE ORDER ADMINISTRATIVE STRATEGY, ANALYSIS, AND NARRATIVE. This could be all you need to preserve your objections and defenses to administration, collection or enforcement of your obligation. Suggestions for discovery demands are included.
*
CLICK HERE TO ORDER TERA – not necessary if you order PDR PREMIUM.
*
CLICK HERE TO ORDER CONSULT (not necessary if you order PDR)
*
*
CLICK HERE TO ORDER PRELIMINARY DOCUMENT REVIEW (PDR) (PDR PLUS or BASIC includes 30 minute recorded CONSULT)
*
FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
  • But challenging the “servicers” and other claimants before they seek enforcement can delay action by them for as much as 12 years or more.
  • Yes you DO need a lawyer.
  • If you wish to retain me as a legal consultant please write to me at neilfgarfield@hotmail.com.
*
Please visit www.lendinglies.com for more information.

How and Why to Litigate Foreclosure and Eviction Defenses

Wall Street Transactions with Homeowners Are Not Loans

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I think the biggest problem for people understanding the strategies that I have set forth on this blog is that they don’t understand the underlying principles. It simply is incomprehensible to most people how they could get a “loan” and then not owe it. It is even more incomprehensible that there could be no creditor that could enforce any alleged obligation of the homeowner. After all, the homeowner signed a note which by itself creates an obligation.
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None of this seems to make sense. Yet on an intuitive level, most people understand that they got screwed in what they thought was a lending process.
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The reason for this disconnect between me and most of the rest of the world is that most people have no reason to know what happens in the world of investment banking. As a former investment banker, and as a direct witness to these seminal events that gave rise to the claims of “securitization” I do understand what happened.
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In this article, I will try to explain, from a different perspective, what really happened when most homeowners thought that they were closing a loan transaction. For this to be effective, the reader must be willing to put themselves in the shoes of an investment banker.
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First, you must realize that every investment banker is merely a stockbroker. They do business with investors and other investment bankers. They do not do business with consumers who purchase goods and services or loans. The investment banker is generally not in the business of lending money. The investment banker is in the business of creating capital for new and existing businesses. They make their money by brokering transactions. They make the most money by brokering the sales of new securities including stocks and bonds.
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The compensation received by the investment banker for brokering a transaction varied from as little as 1% or 2% to as much as 20%. The difference is whether they were brokering the sale of existing securities or underwriting new securities. Obviously, they had a very large incentive to broker the sale of new securities for which they would receive 7 to 10 times the compensation of brokering the sale of existing securities.
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But the Holy Grail of investment banking was devising some system in which the investment bank could issue a new security from a fictional entity and receive the entire proceeds of the offering. This is what happened in “residential lending.” And this way, they could receive 100% of the offering instead of a brokerage commission.
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But as you’ll see below, by disconnecting the issuance of securities from the ownership of any perceived obligation from consumers, investment bankers put themselves in a position in which they could issue securities indefinitely without limit and without regard to the amount of the transaction with consumers (homeowners) or investors.
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In short, the goal was to make it appear as though loans have been securitized even know they had not been securitized. In order for any asset to have been securitized it would need to have been sold off in parts to investors. What we see in the residential market is that no such sale ever occurred. Under modern law, a “sale” consists of offer, acceptance, payment, and delivery. So neither the investment bank nor any of the investors to whom they had sold securities, ever received a conveyance of any right, title, or interest to any debt, note, or mortgage from a homeowner.
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At the end of the day, the world was convinced that the homeowner had entered into a loan transaction while the investment banker had assured itself and its investors that it would be free from liability for violation of any lending laws — as a “lender.”
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Neither of them maintained a loan account receivable on their own ledgers even though the capital used to pay homeowners originated from banks who loaned money to investment bankers (based upon sales of “certificates” to investors), which was then used to pay homeowners as little as possible from the pool of capital generated by the loans and certificate sales of “mortgage-backed bonds.”
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From the perspective of the investment banker, payment was made to the homeowner in exchange for participation in creating the illusion of a loan transaction despite the fact that there was no lender and no loan account. This was covered up by having more intermediaries claim rights as servicers and the creation of “payment histories” that implied but never asserted the existence or establishment of a loan account. Of course, they would need to dodge any questions relating to the identification of a creditor. That could be no creditor if there was no loan account. This tactic avoided perjury.
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Of course, this could only be accomplished through deceit. The consumer or homeowner, government regulators, and the world at large, would need to be convinced that the homeowner had entered into a secured loan transaction, even though no such thing had occurred. From the investment bankers’ perspective, they were paying the homeowner as little money as possible in order to create the foundation for their illusion.
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By calling it “securitization of loans” and selling it that way, they were able to create the illusion successfully. They were able to maintain the illusion because only the investment bankers had the information that would show that there was no business entity that maintained a ledger entry showing ownership of any debt, note, or mortgage — against which losses and gains could or would be posted in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (and law). This is called asymmetry of information and a great deal has been written on these pages and by many other authors.
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Since the homeowner had asked for a loan and had received money, it never occurred to any homeowner that he/she was not being paid for a loan or loan documents, but rather was being paid for a service. In order for the transaction to be perceived as a loan obviously, the homeowner had to become obligated to repay the money that had been paid to the homeowner. While this probably negated the consideration paid for the services rendered by the homeowner, nobody was any the wiser.
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As shown below, the initial sale of the initial certificates was only the beginning of an infinite supply of capital flowing to the investment bank who only had to pay off intermediaries to keep them “in the fold.” By virtue of the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1998, none of the certificates were regulated as securities; so disclosure was a matter of proving fraud (without any information) in private actions rather than compliance with any statute. Further, the same investment banks were issuing and trading “hedge contracts” based upon the “performance” of the certificates — as reported by the investment bank in its sole discretion.
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It was a closed market, free from any free market forces. The theory under which Alan Greenspan, Fed Chairman, was operating was that free-market forces would make any necessary corrections, This blind assumption prevented any further analysis of the concealed business plan of the investment banks — a mistake that Greenspan later acknowledged.
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There was no free market. Neither homeowners nor investors knew what they were getting themselves into. And based upon the level of litigation that emerged after the crash of 2008, it is safe to say that the investors and homeowners were deprived of any bargaining position (because the main aspects fo their transition were being misrepresented and concealed), Both should have received substantially more compensation and would have bargained for it assuming they were willing to even enter into the transaction — highly doubtful assumption.
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The investment banks also purchased insurance contracts with extremely rare clauses basically awarding themselves payment for nonexistent losses upon their own declaration of an “event” relating to the “performance” of unregulated securities. So between the proceeds from the issuance of certificates and hedge contracts and the proceeds of insurance contracts investment bankers were generally able to generate at least $12 for each $1 that was paid to homeowners and around $8 for each $1 invested by investors in purchasing the certificates.
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So the end result was that the investment banker was able to pay homeowners without any risk of loss on that transaction while at the same time generating capital or revenue far in excess of any payment to the homeowner. Were it not for the need for maintaining the illusion of a loan transaction, the investment banks could’ve easily passed on the opportunity to enforce the “obligation” allegedly due from homeowners. They had already made their money.
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There was no loss to be posted against any account on any ledger of any company if any homeowner decided not to pay the alleged obligation (which was merely the return of the consideration paid for the homeowner’s services). But that did not stop the investment banks from making claims for a bailout and making deals for loss sharing on loans they did not own and never owned. No such losses ever existed.
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Investment bankers first started looking at the consumer lending market back in 1969, when I was literally working on Wall Street. Frankly, there was no bigger market in which they could participate. But there were huge obstacles in doing so. First of all none of them wanted the potential liability for violation of lending laws that had recently been passed on both local and Federal levels (Truth in Lending Act et al.)
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So they needed to avoid classification as a lender. They achieved this goal in 2 ways. First, they did not directly do business of any kind with any consumer or homeowner. They operated strictly through “intermediaries” that were either real or fictional. If the intermediary was real, it was a sham conduit — a company with virtually no balance sheet or income statement that could be collapsed and “disappeared” if the scheme ever collapsed or just hit a bump in the road.
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Either way, the intermediary was not really a party to the transaction with the consumer or homeowner. It did not pay the homeowner nor did it receive payments from the homeowner. It did not own any obligations from the homeowner, according to modern law, because it had never paid value for the obligation.
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Under modern law, the transfer or conveyance of an interest in a mortgage without a contemporaneous transfer of ownership of the underlying obligation is a legal nullity in all states of the union. So transfers from the originator who posed as a virtual creditor do not exist in the eyes of the law — if they are shown to be lacking in consideration paid for the underlying obligation, as per Article 9 §203 Uniform Commercial Code, adopted in all 50 states. The transfers were merely part of the illusion of maintaining the apparent existence of the loan transaction with homeowners.
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And this brings us to the strategies to be employed by homeowners in contesting foreclosures and evictions based on foreclosures. Based upon my participation in review of thousands of cases it is always true that any question regarding the existence and ownership of the alleged obligation is treated evasively because the obligation does not exist and cannot be owned.
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In court, the failure to respond to such questions that are posed in proper form and in a timely manner is the foundation for the victory of the homeowner. Although there is a presumption of ownership derived from claims of delivery and possession of the note, the proponent of that presumption may not avail itself of that presumption if it fails to answer questions relating to rebutting the presumption of existence and ownership of the underlying obligation. Such cases usually (not always) result in either judgment for the homeowner or settlement with the homeowner on very favorable terms.
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The homeowner is not getting away with anything or getting a free house as the investment banks have managed to insert into public discourse. They are receiving just compensation for their participation in this game in which they were drafted without their knowledge or consent. Considering the 1200% gain enjoyed by the investment banks which was enabled by the homeowners’ participation, the 8% payment to the homeowner seems only fair. Further, if somehow the homeowners’ apparent obligation to pay the investment bank survives, it is subject to reformation, accounting, and computation as to the true balance and whether it is secured or not. 
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The obligation to repay the consideration paid by the investment bank (through intermediaries) seems to be a negation of the consideration paid. If that is true, then there is neither a loan contract nor a securities contract. There is no contract because in all cases the offer and acceptance were based upon different terms ( and different deliveries) without either consideration or execution of the terns expected by the homeowner under the advertised “loan contract.”
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Payments By Homeowners Do Not Reduce Loan Accounts

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Each time that a homeowner makes a payment, he or she is perpetuating the myth that they are part of an enforceable loan agreement. There is no loan agreement if there was no intention for anyone to be a lender and if no loan account receivable was established on the books of any business. The same result applies when a loan is originated in the traditional way but then acquired by a successor. The funding is the same as what is described above. The loan account receivable in the acquisition scenario is eliminated.
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Once the transaction is entered as a reference data point for securitization it no longer exists in form or substance.

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For the past 20 years, most homeowners have been making payments to companies that said they were “servicers.” Even at the point of a judicial gun (court order) these companies will fail or refuse to disclose what they do with the money after “receipt.” Because of lockbox contracts, these companies rarely have any access to pools of money that were generated through payments from homeowners.
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Like their counterparts in the origination of transactions with homeowners, they are sham conduits. Like the originators, they are built to be thrown under the bus when the scheme implodes. They will not report to you the identity of the party to whom they forward payments that they have received from homeowners because they have not received the payments from homeowners and they don’t know where the money goes.
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As I have described in some detail in other articles on this blog, with the help of some contributors, the actual accounting for payments received from homeowners is performed by third-party vendors, mostly under the control of Black Knight. Through a series of sham conduit transfers, the pool of money ends up in companies controlled by the investment bank. Some of the money is retained domestically while some is recorded as an offshore off-balance-sheet transaction.
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In order to maintain an active market in which new certificates can be sold to investors, discretionary payments are made to investors who purchase the certificates. The money comes from two main sources.
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One source is payments made by homeowners and the other source is payments made by the investment bank regardless of whether or not they receive payments from the homeowners. The latter payments are referred to as “servicer advances.” Those payments come from a reserve pool established at the time of sale of the certificates to the investors, consisting of their own money, plus contributions from the investment bank funded by the sales of new certificates. They are not servicer advances. They are neither in advance nor did they come from a servicer.
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Since there is no loan account receivable owned by anyone, payments received from homeowners are not posted to such an account nor to the benefit of any owner of such an account (or the underlying obligation). Instead, accounting for such payments are either reported as “return of capital” or “trading profits.” In fact, such payments are neither return of capital nor trading profit. Since the investment bank has already zeroed out any potential loan account receivable, the only correct treatment of the payment for accounting purposes would be “revenue.” This includes the indirect receipt of proceeds from the forced sale of property in alleged “foreclosures.”
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By retaining total control over the accounting treatment for receipt of money from investors and homeowners, the investment bank retains total control over how much taxable income it reports. At present, most of the money that was received by the investment bank as part of this revenue scheme is still sitting offshore in various accounts and controlled companies. It is repatriated as needed for the purpose of reporting revenue and net income for investment banks whose stock is traded on the open market. By some fairly reliable estimates, the amount of money held by investment banks offshore is at least $3 trillion. In my opinion, the amount is much larger than that.
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As a baseline for corroboration of some of the estimates and projections contained in this article and many others, we should consider the difference between the current amount of all the fiat money in the world and the number and dollar amount of cash-equivalents in the shadow banking market. In 1983, the number and dollar amount of such cash equivalents was zero. Today it is $1.4 quadrillion — around 15-20 times the amount of currency.
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Success in Litigation Depends Upon Litigation Skills: FOCUS

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I have either been lead counsel or legal consultant in thousands of successful cases defending Foreclosure. Thousands of others have been reported to me where they used my strategies to litigate. Many of them resulted in a judgment for the homeowner, but the majority were settled under the seal of confidentiality.
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Thousands more have reported failure. In reviewing those cases it was clear that they were either litigated pro se or by attorneys who were not skilled in trial practice and who had no idea of the principles contained in this article and my many other articles on this blog. I would describe the reason for these failures as “too little too late.” In some ways, the courts are designed more to be final than to be fair. There are specific ways that information becomes evidence. Most people in litigation do not understand the ways that information becomes evidence and therefore fail to object to the foundation, best evidence, hearsay etc.
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Even the people that submit wee phrased and timely discovery demands fail, more often than not, to move for an order to compel when the opposition fails or refuses to answer the simple questions bout the establishment, existence, and ownership of the underlying alleged obligation, debt, note or mortgage. Or they failed to ask for a hearing on the motion to compel, in which case the discovery is waived. Complaining about the failure to answer discovery during the trial when there was no effort to enforce discovery is both useless and an undermining of the credibility of the defense.
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Since I have been litigating cases for around 45 years, I don’t expect younger attorneys to be as well-versed and intuitive in a courtroom as I have been. It’s also true that many lawyers, both older and younger than me, have greater skills than I have. But it is a rare layperson that can win one of these cases without specific training knowledge and experience in motion practice and trial law.
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In the final analysis, if the truth was fully revealed, each foreclosure involves a foreclosure lawyer who does not have any idea whose interest he/she is representing. They may know that they are being paid from an account titled in the name of the self-proclaimed servicer. And because of that, they will often make the mistake of saying that they represent the servicer. They are pretty careful about not specifically saying that the named plaintiff in a judicial foreclosure or the named beneficiary in a nonjudicial foreclosure is their client. That is because they have no retainer agreement or even a relationship with the named plaintiff or the named beneficiary. Such lawyers have generally never spoken with anyone employed by the named plaintiff or the named beneficiary.
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When such lawyers and self-proclaimed servicers go to court-ordered mediation, neither one has the authority to do anything except show up. Proving that the lawyer does not actually represent the named trustee of the fictitious trust can be very challenging. But there are two possible strategies that definitely work.
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The first is to do your legal research and find the cases in which investors have sued the named trustee of the alleged REMIC trust for failure to take action that would’ve protected the interest of the investors.
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The outcome of all such cases is a finding by the court that the trustee does not represent the investors, the investors are not beneficiaries of the “Trust,” and that the trustee has no authority, right, title, or interest over any transaction with homeowners. Since the named trustee has no powers of a trustee to administer the affairs of any active trust with assets or a business operating, it is by definition not a trustee. For purposes of the foreclosure, it cannot be a named party either much less the client of the attorney, behind whom the securitization players are hiding because of a judicial doctrine called “judicial immunity.”
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The second thing you can do is to ask, probably during mediation at the start, whether the lawyer who shows up is representing for example “U.S. Bank.” Or you might ask whether US Bank is the client of the lawyer. The answer might surprise you. In some cases, the lawyer insisted that they represented “Ocwen” or some other self-proclaimed servicer.
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Keep in mind that when you go to mediation, frequently happens that it is attended by a “coverage lawyer” who might not even be employed by the Foreclosure bill. Such a lawyer clearly knows nothing about the parties or the case and will be confused even by the most basic questions. If they fail to affirm that they represent the named trustee of the named fictitious trust, that is the time to stop  the proceeding and file a motion for contempt for failure to appear (i.e., failure of the named plaintiff or beneficiary to appear since no employee or authorized representative appeared.)
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And the third thing that I have done with some success is to make an offer. You will find in most cases that they are unwilling and unable to accept or reject the offer. A substantial offer will put them in a very bad position. Remember you are dealing with a lawyer and a representative from the alleged servicer who actually don’t know what’s going on. Everyone is on a “need to know” footing.
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So if you make an offer that the lawyer thinks could possibly be reasonable and might be acceptable to an actual lender who was holding the loan account receivable, the lawyer might be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Rejection of an offer that the client might want to accept without notifying the client is contrary to bar rules.
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But both the lawyer and the representative of the alleged servicer know that they have no authority. So they will often ask for a continuance or adjournment of the mediation. At that point, the homeowner is well within their rights to file a motion for contempt. In most cases, the court order for mediation requires that both parties attend with full authority to settle the case. In plain language, there is no reason for the adjournment. But they need it because they know they have no authority contrary to the order mandating mediation. Many judges have partially caught on to this problem and instruct the foreclosure mill lawyer to make sure he doesn’t need to “make a call.”
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Every good trial lawyer knows that they must have a story to tell or else, even if the client is completely right, they are likely to lose. You must focus on the main issues.
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The main issue in foreclosure is the establishment, existence, and ownership of the alleged underlying obligation. All of that is going to be presumed unless you demonstrate to the court that you are seeking to rebut those presumptions. There can be no default and hence no remedy is there is either no obligation or no ownership of the obligation by the complaining party.
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Discovery demands should be drafted with an eye towards what will be a motion to compel and proposed order on the motion to compel. They should also be drafted with an eye toward filing a motion in limine. Having failed and refused to answer basic questions about the establishment, existence, and ownership of the alleged underlying obligation, the motion in limine would ask the court to limit the ability of the foreclosure mill to put on any evidence that the obligation exists or is owned by the named Plaintiff or beneficiary. They can’t have it both ways.
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Failure to follow up is the same thing as waiving your defenses or defense narrative.
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So that concludes my current attempt to explain how to win Foreclosure cases for the homeowner. I hope it helps.
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Neil F Garfield, MBA, JD, 73, is a Florida licensed trial and appellate 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.
*

FREE REVIEW: Don’t wait, Act NOW!

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION FORM. It is free, with no obligation and we keep all information private. The information you provide is not used for any purpose except for providing services you order or request from us. In the meanwhile you can order any of the following:
*
CLICK HERE ORDER ADMINISTRATIVE STRATEGY, ANALYSIS, AND NARRATIVE. This could be all you need to preserve your objections and defenses to administration, collection, or enforcement of your obligation. Suggestions for discovery demands are included.
*
CLICK HERE TO ORDER TERA – not necessary if you order PDR PREMIUM.
*
CLICK HERE TO ORDER CONSULT (not necessary if you order PDR)
*
*
CLICK HERE TO ORDER PRELIMINARY DOCUMENT REVIEW (PDR) (PDR PLUS or BASIC includes 30 minute recorded CONSULT)
*
FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
  • But challenging the “servicers” and other claimants before they seek enforcement can delay action by them for as much as 12 years or more.
  • Yes you DO need a lawyer.
  • If you wish to retain me as a legal consultant please write to me at neilfgarfield@hotmail.com.
*
Please visit www.lendinglies.com for more information.

Why Antitrust Legislation Should be Applied Against the mega banks

Securitization of data that is mischaracterized as securitization of debt has enabled the securities firms to write off the loan concurrently with funding it

I believe there is a very strong case for applying antitrust legislation against the big winners in the securitization game because they could and did apply multiple incentives to borrowers to accept loan products that were clearly losers from a business perspective. This blocked competitors who wanted to make real loans with real lenders and raised the risk of loss to consumers without any disclosure to the consumer, to government regulators or anyone else. All of this was performed at the same time that the risk of financial loss was entirely eliminated on any transaction with homeowners that was characterized as a loan.

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The big securities brokerage firms acting as investment “banks” were able to fund loans and then sell securities that were completely dependent upon data released by the same securities firms about the performance of the data, as announced by the securities brokerage firm in its sole discretion. Effectively and substantively they sold the same loan multiple times. But nominally there was no reduction in the loan receivable account because there was no loan receivable account.

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 This effectively forced small community banks, credit unions and other lenders into the position of not competing — if they had offered the same incentives on real loans to homeowners, they would have suffered catastrophic loss. So they had to step out of lending, which would have been catastrophic or originate loans “for sale.”

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The result was an undisclosed reduction of risk of loss for everyone on the “lending” side. But the more pernicious result was that the bank practices also flooded the market with money such that salespeople were selling payments instead of price and the accuracy of appraisals was reduced as a factor in granting loans. This created a second antitrust impact — the price of homes was driven up by cheap money rather than demand for housing. But values remained the same because median income has been flat.
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The effect on consumers was that they all bought or financed homes based upon appraisals that were based upon the amount of the intended loan rather than the value of the property. So the net effect was that homeowners were forced into deals where they were taking an immediate loss of as much as 65% of the “price” of acquisition of the home or new loan. This was a hidden increase in the cost of credit. Amortizing the likely loss over the likely period of retention of the home increases the cost of credit far beyond usury prohibitions.
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The overall bottom line is that the big banks acting as unregulated lenders have grabbed a market share for lending that controls more than 80% of the market and heavily influences the rest of the market.
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Consumers suffer because they are not dealing with a party who could answer for damages resulting from violations of TILA and other lending and servicing statutes and because they are not left with either a lender or a loan account in real terms that is maintained as an asset on the books of any business. They are left with a toxic transaction in which they are strictly on their own when they discover the deficiencies in the lending process. They’re on their own because there is no actual creditor who claims ownership of their debt, note or mortgage.
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The risk of foreclosure is high, especially on those transactions in which the appraisal is far higher than the value of the home and especially where the transaction is labeled as an option loan in which the homeowner gets reduced payments for some specified period of time. In short, the failure to regulate the securities brokerage firms acting as investment “banks” and then as licensed commercial “banks” has so distorted the marketplace that no borrower can find a source of funds who will admit to being part of the the transaction, much less the lender in any specific transaction.
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Securitization of data that is mischaracterized as securitization of debt has enabled the securities firms to write off the loan concurrently with funding it, while at the same time pursuing foreclosures and other enforcement or “modification” processes in which they have been successful at pretending the loan account exists, that a party owns it, that a loss was sustained as a result of the homeowner’s “failure” to make payments on a nonexistent loan account.

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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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  • But challenging the “servicers” and other claimants before they seek enforcement can delay action by them for as much as 12 years or more.
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Just like I said: Megabanks are doing just fine despite economic downturn — at the expense of investors, taxpayers and homeowners.

Major banks, including CitigroupJPMorgan and Morgan Stanley used massive trading revenues to beat profit expectations despite the continued struggles of the United States economy during the coronavirus pandemic. Those trading units tend to perform best when markets are volatile, helping to guard the major banks against economic struggles.

see https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/17/without-big-wall-street-trading-arms-regional-banks-lean-on-mortgages-and-fees-to-beat-earnings.html

Way back in 2006 and 2007 and when I first started publishing articles about the mortgage meltdown (before most people realized there was a meltdown) I reported that the major banks were siphoning off much of the wealth contained inside the U.S.

I said that these mega banks were parking ill-gotten gains off-shore in various assets, — frequently using  a tax avoidance scheme based in Bermuda. And I said that they would repatriate that money only when they needed to do so.  And because they had taken trillions of dollars, they would forever use it to consistently report higher earnings whenever they needed to do so in order to maintain the value of their stock.

I said that they would do it by reporting higher trading profits. They are reporting higher trading profits merely by creating false trades at their trading desks between fictitious entities in which one of the subsidiaries is the “seller” who is reporting a profit.

Sure enough that is exactly what is happening. Small and regional banks don’t have that “nest egg.” They must rely on old fashioned fees and interest to earn money. But the big banks are reporting “trading profits” to offset deficits in interest and fee income caused by the huge economic downturn caused by coronavirus.

Part of those trading profits also come from foreclosures. The proceeds go to the megabanks, who have retained little or no financial interest in the alleged loans much less any losses from the alleged default.

There was no default in any obligation owed to any creditor because there is no creditor who maintains an accounting record on which it claims to own any homeowner debt, note or mortgage by reason of having paid value for it in exchange for a conveyance of ownership of the debt, note or mortgage from one who legally owns it.

Simple common sense. If you don’t own the debt you have no reason or authority to mark it “paid” even if you receive the money.  Homeowners and their lawyers should stop taking that leap of faith in which they admit the existence of a default. A default cannot exist on an obligation in which there is a complete absence of a legal creditor. Homeowners didn’t create this mess. It was all the megabanks who made a fortune stealing from investors and homeowners.

A default is the failure to perform an obligation or duty owed to a particular person — not a failure to perform a duty owed to the world in general.

There could be many reasons for the absence of a legal creditor — including the simple fact that everyone has received sufficient payments and settlements such that nobody needs to step into the shoes of a lender which could produce liability for violations of lending and servicing laws.

IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN THE BURDEN OF HOMEOWNERS TO PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF THE REAL CREDITOR. There isn’t one and the banks and their lawyers have been laughing at us for 20 years over getting away with that one. 

It was the mega banks that created loans without lenders — i.e., transactions in which there was no legal person or entity claiming ownership of the obligation.

The banks are using smoke and mirrors. They claim (through third party intermediaries) a “default” in the obligation to pay a nonexistent creditor. The money they receive from foreclosure is pure revenue offset only by the fees they pay to the other intermediary foreclosure players who exist solely to produce profits for themselves and the megabanks.

And pro se homeowners and even lawyers are confounded by this system. They admit the basic elements of the claim even though the basic legal elements are missing.

*
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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Who is PennyMac and Why Was It Needed by Wall Street Banks?

I received an email from one of my most prolific contributors that I am republishing here because virtually everything in it is entirely correct. I especially approve of her point about the fact that servicer advances are funded from proceeds of public offerings of stock that were all purchased by the Wall Street banks who did the underwriting.  Substance over form: the banks were giving PennyMac the money to make servicer advances. The banks were using the investor sourced money supply to buy the fake stock offering. None of it was real.

The end result is that all roads lead back to one thing, to wit: all of the money trail and all of the paper trails lead back to a handful of Wall Street banks who had “successfully” created a void between the real parties in interest — investors and homeowners — and the found a way to create the illusion of filling the void that cut out the financial interests of those real parties in interest. 

The banks were only intermediaries. They successfully posed as the real parties in interest when they were trading and issuing derivatives. But at the other end of the stick they maintained their position as intermediaries who had no interest in the debt and therefore could not be defined as lenders subject to the obligations and restrictions imposed by statutory and common law governing lending, consumer practices, servicing or anything else.

All of the fabricated documents that ensued were designed to cover up the fact that there was no person or entity that owned the underlying debt of any homeowner. Hence nobody could claim financial injury — a basic requirement for getting into court or making any claim.

who is PennyMac (PM) and why are they needed.
I think we need to look back at the PM history to answer this question.
PennyMac is a renamed Countrywide Financial which now operates at least 4 (four) known to me organizations.
1. PennyMac (one of most criminal, with Kurland and Spector)
2. Caliber Home Loan Inc, a middle-level intermediary, operated by Chris Mozilo who pass money from table pools to homebuyers via Black Knight (originator)  and smaller “Lenders”
3. BAC Home Loans
4. LandSafe Appraisal (purchased by CoreLogic) . In 2014 BOA sold a very similarly named system, LoanSafe to VA which is now handles all appraisals; plus CoreLogic gradually purchased most smaller appraisal companies*
Why Bank of America needed PennyMac to appear as a Large Lender and a Biggest servicer?
For the same reason why Countrywide needed American’s Wholesale Lender; and Fidelity National needed two (2) DocX,LLC and LPS – to create an additional corporate curtain to cover for the real parties.
Plus to use PennyMac and other “Servicers” as recipients for new bailouts.
If you take a closer look at PennyMac’s finances, here are nothing even close to $368+ billions worth of mortgages financed and 2 million homes serviced by PennyMac.
Moreover, if you see their Prospectuses, you will find out that the underwriters of PM securities (issued by PennyMac) are the same Stockbrokers who purchased PM’s securities, leaving about $29 million in fees to Penny Mac. I doubt is BOA or GS actually “purchased” anything from PM under this “offering” which they issued under glimpse of PennyMac.
But according to the legend, PennyMac now has to pay pay “servers’ advances” to “investors” for four months from their “own funds” until GSE’s (who sold their bonds to Fed. R. in advance) who cover these MBS, will step in and pick up the payments on “behalf of taxpayers  – while  GSE cannot even identify any Trusts where mortgages were pooled.
These GSE SOLD their unsecured bonds to Federal Reserve who buy about $30 Billion per WEEK from GSE beginning March 2020 to present time. Note that no Trusts were involved in these sales and no one homeowner was informed about the cage of ownership of their “debt”
I don’t know which “Servicers’ advances” and to whom PennyMac “pays” now, when the ownership of the “MBS” bonds was passed to Federal Reserve. At least Federal Reserve keeps it secret.
Apparently Kurland and know all risks involved and decided to steal some data from BK to create more money for themselves.
On May 2, 2019 they sent me a letter that “servicing” was transferred to them – but not mentioned by whom.
On May 3, 2019 PM sent a letter to BK informing them that PM is not going to extend their contract.
soon after Black Knight claimed that they “noticed some irregularities of use” their system by PM – apparently after I brought it to their attention. This is why no assignments were recorded reflecting the “sale” of my loan to PennyMac who cannot identify the Seller.
Since Oct. 31st  BK terminated PM as a client .
In Complaint  filed by PM against BK, they insist that the owner/investor is Ginnie Mae (who sold their MBS to Federal Reserve) – but continue to lie to me and DIFS that PennyMac is “owner/investor” in my loan.
The bottom line, as Neil said – these “servicers” and “lenders” are nothing. They are thin-capitalized clowns for hire and nobody sold any loans to GSEs because loans were destroyed at the beginning to create “manipulated data” in Black Knight system which Big Banks  sold as unsecured derivatives which GSE either sell to Federal Reserve or obtain payments from Stockbrokers directly, like FHFA v. Goldman Sachs
“GSE’s ownership” is the same myth to force people paying a long-time non existing “debt”.
So-called “universal income” proposed by Democrats is a camouflaged attempt to make Big Banks  pay royalties from trades to people .
Of course the Government cannot disclose the Truth since it will reveal that during last 40 years they allowed Stockbrokers to destroy property Titles to virtually ALL homes in America; plus create a slavery never existed before, where a small group of people enjoy tax-free profits from free servitude provided to them by the rest of the Country – plus income from stolen homes.
*Lagow worked at LandSafe, Inc., an appraisal company owned by Countrywide Financial and ultimately acquired by Bank of America, from 2004-2008. According to his unsealed complaint, Mr. Lagow observed widespread disregard for laws that regulate Federal Housing Administration (FHA) underwriting and home appraisals.

Specifically, he claimed that Countrywide conspired with LandSafe and homebuilder KB Homes to inflate the appraised value of homes, boosting the size of the lending giant’s loans to homebuyers. In order to accomplish this, the lending giant allegedly used a number of strong-arm tactics to pressure appraisers to report favorable home values.
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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It’s time to reassess the role of investment banks, originators, servicers and other players claiming “securitization” before the next foreclosure tidal wave.

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.
*
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.
*
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.
*
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. 

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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.
*
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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*
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*
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*
*
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*
FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
*
Please visit www.lendinglies.com for more information.

Coming this fall! A new wave of illegal foreclosure claims. Will we get it right this time?

Some have pointed to some articles indicating that the securitization ponzi scheme collapsed already.

It might be more accurate to say that the scheme was reorganized rather than collapsed. But even if it collapsed the Wall Street banks will continue sending servicers and foreclosure mills into the field to file foreclosures. After, all, it’s free money if they win, and there is so far, a statistical certainty that in nearly all cases they will win simply because of the erroneous belief by homeowners that they have done something wrong and that they have a moral obligation to leave the house, once they stop paying.

So homeowner will give their precious house to people who have no right to receive it.

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We are a long way from when homeowners realize that they were flim flammed from the very start and that taking the substance of the homeowner transaction in total and in perspective, the homeowner (a) did not owe any money to anyone claiming it and (b) the homeowner was probably owed more money from the investment bank than he/she could possibly owe under the note and mortgage that was issued.
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It wasn’t a loan and we should stop calling it that. The “lender” side had no lending intent. At the conclusion of the process there was no creditor holding the homeowner obligation as an asset. Therefore they were not lenders or even creditors and accordingly not liable or accountable to act in accordance with lending and servicing statutes.
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The confusion emanates from the fact that all homeowners entered into the transaction with borrower intent. But there was no lending intent from the other side. The other side masked the real transaction as a loan to deceive the homeowner into accepting the label “borrower”.
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The real transaction was payment to the homeowner for issuance of note and mortgage to start the securitization processes. It was in reality a simple commercial transaction, to wit: the investment bank, through intermediaries agrees to pay money to the homeowner in exchange for the homeowner issuing a note and mortgage and putting up their home as collateral for an obligation that offsets the payment received. It could have been a loan, but it wasn’t.
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Because the banks lied about the transaction to the homeowner and to further make it look like a loan, they got the homeowner to issue a note and mortgage in most cases to an entity that never paid any money. This might negate the consideration for the transaction altogether because they were making a payment  but also getting a promise to pay even more to unknown creditors who would be illegally designated later. That part is a close question.
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But in quantum meruit, quasi contract and reformation, the only legal way that their designation system could be made legal is by getting consent from the homeowner to that system of designation of a creditor to act as a lawful creditor even though it wasn’t. That was the real reason for MERS, the use of Originators and the offering of “modifications.” The players on paper are designees or nominees — not real players. They are using the language of the notes and mortgages to imply consent to a “no creditor” transaction.
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But that is not informed consent or real consent, nor is it legal without other language of contract. A binding contract must have offer, acceptance, clear terms and consideration between the parties to the contract. In most cases the homeowner transactions were therefore not binding contracts. The Payee on the note was not a creditor. The doctrine of merger cannot apply when the payee is different from the source of funds unless there is a specific express contractual provision stating that. The mortgagee is usually a nominee which I think is a tacit admission that there is no creditor.
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In order to foreclose, the party asking for foreclosure remedy must be a creditor. A creditor is only one who either (a) owns the debt or (b) represents someone who owns the debt. Ownership of the debt is only accomplished in one way — payment of value in exchange for an instrument conveying title to the debt from an owner of the debt to a new owner of the debt.
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The ONLY time any value was paid was by investors. But they did not get any instrument of conveyance of the debt. Quite the contrary. The intent was to make certain that they would never be considered lenders. What they received was a discretionary promise from the investment bank dba REMIC trust to make payments that were partially indexed on but not dependent upon receipt of payments from homeowners.
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It is therefore impossible for any transaction to have occurred wherein value was paid for ownership of the debt after the investors paid the investment bank. Even if someone wanted to pay value in exchange for an instrument of conveyance of ownership of the debt, there was nobody to pay.
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The only party who paid value was the group of investors or arguably the investment bank. But neither of those entities had ever received any instrument of conveyance of ownership of the debt and in fact they disclaimed any such ownership because it would have made them lenders subject to TILA and other lending and servicing laws.
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BUT in order to foreclose, the papers filed by the foreclosure mill would need to show that a creditor was applying for the remedy of forfeiture. See Article 9 §203 UCC. So that required assignments of mortgage to be prepared, executed and recorded even though there was no financial transaction between the parties. In short, the scheme required the preparation, execution and recording of false utterances in false documents that were forged and illegally recorded.
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Since the homeowner has always assumed the homeowner transaction was a loan agreement, almost nobody has thought to credibly and properly challenge these assignments as legal nullities.
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The credible challenge would be not only that there was no consideration paid for the assignment, but that the payment of consideration was not a commercially reasonable basis for the execution and recording of the instrument, since the only consideration came from parties who did not and do not want ownership of the debt.
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The absence of any valid assignment is not just a fact; it is legally impossible under current securitizations schemes to have a valid legal assignment. The investment banks as intermediaries between investors and homeowners have structured the cash flow such that the investment banks get most of the benefits from the securitization process at the cost to and detriment of investors and homeowners — the only two real parties in interest in the homeowner transaction which is mistakenly called a “loan.”
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The note, payable to a party with whom the homeowner unknowingly conducted no actual business, creates a liability under Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code regardless of the lack of consideration. The maker of the note has defenses to be sure, but if someone buys the note for value, without knowledge of the maker’s defenses, and in good faith, then the maker must pay the note and the only remedy available to the maker is by making a claim against the Payee on the note and anyone else that induced him to execute a note in favor of someone who gave him/her nothing.
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The foreclosure mills for claimants in foreclosure do not plead status as a holder in due course because they can’t prove the elements: payment, good faith and lack of knowledge of borrower’s defenses. But they induce both homeowners, their attorneys and the courts to treat the claimant as a holder in due course because of the complexity of legal analysis in distinguishing between an HDC, holder, possessor and anyone with rights to enforce.
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As a result, because the position is not properly challenged, the court then often reduces or even eliminates discovery on the central issue — whether the claimant is a creditor of the homeowner.
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The “rights to enforce” argument almost always leaves out the presumed component that is a condition precedent to any such analysis, to wit: that the creditor has authorized the enforcement. But if there is no creditor — i.e., anyone holding the debt as an asset — then such authority cannot legally exist.
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This explains the appearance of false, fabricated, forged, backdated and robo signed documents that are still regularly used. Since there is no creditor the pursuit of foreclosure is a pursuit of profit rather than restitution for an unpaid debt. It is not recovery on a loan.
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And if the transaction was unraveled from its complex appearance, it is plain as day that the homeowner is entitled to credits and probably payments from the investment bank under quantum meruit and quasi contract for being drafted into a highly profitable securitizations scheme that gave the homeowner nothing for initiating the scheme.
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We are about to be besieged with new foreclosure claims. Let’s get it right this time. The “flood of litigation” argument for rocket dockets is not valid because it presumes that the claimant does have status as a creditor and that the foreclosure is for restitution of an unpaid debt.
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Aggressive and persistent demands for identification of the claimant and for evidence of proof payment for value — along with thoughtful, credible and persuasive presentation might well result in prevention of a flood of foreclosures because there is no entity that actually stands to lose any money arising from the action or inaction of any homeowner.
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They won’t plead injury because there is no injury. They can’t prove any injury. They can only induce the court to presume it based upon erroneous application of legal presumptions arising from the apparent facial validity of documents that are neither facially valid nor true representations of any transaction in the real world. 

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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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Has any homeowner transaction ever been sold to investors? No? Then why are we accepting the bank myth that it was securitized?

Bob gives me a mortgage and I sign a note for $300k. Bob assigns the mortgage and note to Steve in exchange for “certificates / securities.” Bob retains the note and pledges to Jim in a collateral assignment to raise money to fund more loans. (i.e. WaMu and the Federal Home Loan Banks). I stop paying and soon Steve declares a default and tries to foreclose. My defense is that Steve doesn’t have the note, never took the note, and the note was collaterally assigned elsewhere before Steve filed the foreclosure action. If so, we can make that same defensive argument in every case it would seem.

No that is not a good defense. Your defense should be centered on who owns the debt. And only someone who has paid value for the debt can own it. If someone pays value in exchange for ownership of either the note or mortgage, then it is presumed that they own the debt — and it would be very hard to rebut that presumption.

So if someone pays money without getting or being entitled to a document that transfers the ownership of the debt from the current owner to the new owner, they have not acquired the debt.

Similarly, if someone has not paid value for the debt or note and they do get such a conveyance of ownership of the debt, even from one who is the owner of the debt, they too don’t own the debt. And a non-owner of the debt cannot issue any rights or instructions regarding the debt without deriving authority from an owner of the debt who paid for it.

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The transaction between Bob and Steve was a sale. Steve paid value unless the certificates or securities he used as payment were known to be worthless at the time of the sale. The fact that Bob retained possession of the note does not change the analysis. When Steve seeks to enforce the note he either has to get Bob to produce it or if he can’t, then he needs to plead a lost note. The transaction that you have used as an example does not convert the note to a security.

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Steve also has the option of suing Bob in the event that Bob is reluctant to turn out for possession of the note. but in all events Steve can show that he bought the note, which means that he bought the debt, and therefore is probably a holder in due course or at least a holder with rights to enforce as the owner of the debt.
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But the analysis does change if the example is changed slightly. If Bob was loaning you money because Steve was contemporaneously taking Bob out of the loan, then in substance the conduct of the parties shows that Steve was the actual lender and that Bob was simply an intermediary. This is the essence of a table funded loan which is against public policy as set forth in the Truth in Lending Act.
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So if Steve did not take possession of the note because Steve did not want to be accountable or liable for violations of lending laws as a lender, there is a case to be made that the nature of the transaction shifted. And if Steve gave Bob the money to lend to you because Steve was contemporaneously divesting himself from any risk of loss on the loan, then the argument would go one of two ways.
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Either the next person in the chain acquired ownership interest in the debt and note — or if Steve was merely selling derivatives whose value was indexed on the performance of your loan, then then the debt and note probably lost a creditor who could legally claim rights to enforce. As I see it, this would definitely be true if nobody in the chain was carrying the debt and note as an asset after Steve made his sale of derivatives.
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But I don’t think that under Securities analysis, the latter example would result in finding that the note had been converted to a security. It’s hard to see any analysis that would support that conclusion. If nobody was paying for legal ownership of the note then how would the note be converted?
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Of course that could be one possibility that would preserve the securitization infrastructure. And maybe if the courts catch the Wall Street banks with their hands in the cookie jar, the banks themselves might push that idea.
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Given the political climate that allows Wall Street to make up its own rules, that might happen, leaving both investors and homeowners out in the cold. That is why I’m starting to push Reformation as the better alternative which takes all stakeholders into account.

HELOC Securitization Analysis — Why Are There Two “wet ink” Signatures? What Rights Does MERS Possess?

“a transfer of the mortgage without the debt is a nullity, and no interest is acquired by it”

“because MERS was never the lawful holder or assignee of the notes described and identified in the consolidation agreement, the corrected assignment of mortgage is a nullity, and MERS was without authority to assign the power to foreclose to the plaintiff. Consequently, the plaintiff failed to show that it had standing to foreclose.”

The writer of this article shall remain anonymous. He sent me the following. I concur with his analysis:

I came across your June 17th post about the mortgage exec that double-pledged some notes.  This is a subject I’ve been looking into for a while, thanks to Nye Lavalle’s writings – damn him for sending me down that rabbit-hole.  You might also look at:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-comptroller-mortgage-lender-charged-bank-fraud-and-wire-fraud and the incitement at https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1017921/download

As I came to realize that this isn’t a one-off scam…  I got to thinking about why do all closings require two wet-ink originals?  Not only for “sum certain” mortgages but for HELOC’s too.  So, I darned my tinfoil hat and let my mind wander into the conspiracy abyss.  I’ve always been uncomfortable with the double-document signing at closings.

As I carefully nit-pick through my own documents, I can’t help noticing that, often is the case that the County recording uses one set of the wet-inks, while the bank uses the other.  Is this just a matter of convenience, whereby the closing title/abstract company sends one set to the county clerk and the other to the lender, for its MERS recording.  Of course, the counties don’t record notes, only mortgages, so that’s a bit of a chink in the armor there.

Then I realized that the Clerk set isn’t indorsed because that process comes later (albeit not much later, actually depending on the county’s back-log it could be sooner than later) – OK, no big deal – BUT WAIT – it’s not like they wait to get the recorded set back and then indorse it – no – they just indorse the other set.  So, the secondary-market set is not the recorded set.  Hmmm, Ok, a bit nefarious, but is it a non-starter for foreclosure –  probably not.

But then I realized that my HELOC had the same slipperiness.  In HELOC foreclosures (at least mine with Citibank), the bank presents the endorsed HELOC (HELOC-CEMA because it’s NY) as its prima facie evidence for standing, swearing that it’s the “indorsed note”; while sometimes also swearing that it’s not securitized it never left the bank’s hands (holding), which in-and-of itself is curious, because if it never transferred, then why is it indorsed?

TIME OUT:  No Neil, I didn’t make a spelling mistake (indorsed vs endorsed), but I am messing with you, because so are the banks.  Of course, you know (but your readers probably don’t, and many judges probably miss the subtlety too).  “Endorse” means accredit by bestowing recognition; whereas “Indorse” means to sign a negotiable instrument for transfer as per the UCC.  Sadly, many dictionaries, especially software and web-based lexicons make these two words synonymous, which they are not.  Some lexicons don’t sanction“indorse” as a correct spelling, which it is, but as a different word, not just an alternate British/American spelling choice.

OK, back to the bank’s slip & slide of portending that they are presenting an indorsed note.  Nope, a revolving line of credit agreement (HELOC or Reverse mortgage) is not a note.  It’s not a “sum certain” so it can’t be a note, because a “note” is a negotiable instrument (as per article 3 — but even article 9 provides the same definition albet enables transfer by assignment because it may not be indorsed, hence non-negotiable).

This lack of “sum certainty” restricting “note” status was adjudicated in NY Appellate 2nd Dept. in 2018 (i.e. it’s not a note)

But it’s rarely cited – probably best, since most lawyers would mess-up the citing and blow it for those of us who know how to use it – i.e. hand judges opportunities to make bad precedential decisions.

An observing-eye reminds us that a note is a one-sided promise, whereas an agreement is a two-sided contract (signed and countersigned – regardless of adhesion); thus, not really assignable, carte blanche, it requires a blessing by both parties but that step never transpires – imagine that…

Anywho: This is just the jumping-off point, the next part is the fun stuff.

So, the bank provides affidavits and exhibitions swearing (a/k/a perjuring) up-and-down that the indorsed note is right there in front of the judge.  Sure, it may look like a HELOC agreement, but the plaintiff’s attorney assures the judge, it’s a note – pointing to the prima facie doc – look right there, there’s the indorsement, so it must be a note – Right?  WRONG!  i.e. your long-standing argument about “presumption”.

Well, first of all, we (you and I) believe that the HELOC was securitized, so they don’t, or shouldn’t really, have a copy of the document anyway.  But we haven’t really dug much deeper, because we believe it’s impossible to get anywhere  with the dastardly banks in discovery.  So, I did some digging…. albeit without the help of formal discovery.

HELOCs (revolving lines of credit) can’t be securitized, because securitizations require fixed assets for valuations, and a revolving line of credit isn’t a fixed asset, it can’t be valued “sum certain” from its “four corners.”  But wait, that’s ridiculous, because we all know that HELOCS, Reverse mortgages, Credit Cards, etc. ARE securitized; perhaps not as RMBSs but rather as ABSs or other permutations.  So, what the hell am I talking about, saying they can’t, it’s impossible, bla bla bla…

You guessed it, there’s a work-around; and it’s documented.  The bank (the originator) transfers the HELOCs to a flimflam trust.  To do this they “endorse” the Agreement in-blank, which looks exactly like an “indorsement-in-blank” but the endorsement is an accreditation, not a negotiation.  Now the trustee (a/k/a “the Issuer”) does his sorting and stacking of the pool and – and this is the magic part – then, he (or she) makes notes against the HELOCs.  Yes, of course, it’s a legal fiction, and they have a name for it,  – “HELOC-backed notes” and it is those notes (the HELOC-backed notes) that are securitized.

The originator (who is often the servicer) retains the HELOC agreement & mortgage (a/k/a “lien”) since it is supposedly the “PETE”, but is it?  Is it really?  Does it matter?  Well, not until the servicer has the enviable task of foreclosure of a HELOC that has been pledged elsewhere, likely to an ABS that’s vaporized into the secondary market either-zone.  Hence, the foreclosing bank has nowhere to send the proceeds from the foreclosure – oh well – that’s a shame.

There’s more, but I sense you’re getting bored.  HELOC-backed notes – interesting.  Think about the Article 9 maxim “the mortgage follows the note;” A maxim laid down over a-hundred years ago by Justice Noah Swayne (Appointed to SCOTUS by Abraham Lincoln – a republican – LOL)

“The note and mortgage are inseparable; the former as essential, the latter as an incident.  An assignment of the note carries the mortgage with it, while an assignment of the latter alone is a nullity.”  Carpenter v. Longan (USA 1872)

Words that still carry-the-day in such recent stare decisis cases as Bank of NY v. Silverberg (NY 2nd Dept. 2011).

Ironically, this HELOC-backed note means that the note follows the mortgage(a/k/a HELOC Agreement, with a mortgage nested inside it).

“The issue presented on this appeal is whether a party has standing to commence a foreclosure action when that party’s assignor — in this case, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (hereinafter MERS) — was listed in the underlying mortgage instruments as a nominee and mortgagee for the purpose of recording, but was never the actual holder or assignee of the underlying notes. We answer this question in the negative.

Bank of N.Y. v. Silverberg, 86 A.D.3d 274, 275 (N.Y. App. Div. 2011)”

because MERS was never the lawful holder or assignee of the notes described and identified in the consolidation agreement, the corrected assignment of mortgage is a nullity, and MERS was without authority to assign the power to foreclose to the plaintiff. Consequently, the plaintiff failed to show that it had standing to foreclose.

Bank of N.Y. v. Silverberg, 86 A.D.3d 274, 283 (N.Y. App. Div. 2011)

Bank of N.Y. v. Silverberg, 86 A.D.3d 274, 280 (N.Y. App. Div. 2011) (“ “a transfer of the mortgage without the debt is a nullity, and no interest is acquired by it” ( Merritt v Bartholick36 NY 44, 45 [1867]; see Carpenter v Longan83 US 271, 274 [an assignment of the mortgage without the note is a nullity]; US Bank N.A. v Madero80 AD3d 751, 752US Bank, N.A. v Collymore68 AD3d at 754Kluge v Fugazy145 AD2d 537, 538 [plaintiff, the assignee of a mortgage without the underlying note, could not bring a foreclosure action]; Flyer v Sullivan284 App Div 697, 698 [mortgagee’s assignment of the mortgage lien, without assignment of the debt, is a nullity]; Beak v Walts266 App Div 900). A “mortgage is merely security for a debt or other obligation and cannot exist independently of the debt or obligation” ( FGB Realty Advisors v Parisi265 AD2d 297, 298). Consequently, the foreclosure of a mortgage cannot be pursued by one who has no demonstrated right to the debt ( id.; see 1 Bergman on New York Mortgage Foreclosures § 12.05 [1] [a] [1991]).”)

Bank of N.Y. v. Silverberg, 86 A.D.3d 274, 281-82 (N.Y. App. Div. 2011) (“as “nominee,” MERS’s authority was limited to only those powers which were specifically conferred to it and authorized by the lender ( see Black’s Law Dictionary 1076 [8th ed 2004] [defining a nominee as “(a) person designated to act in place of another, (usually) in a very limited way”]). Hence, although the consolidation agreement gave MERS the right to assign the mortgages themselves, it did not specifically give MERS the right to assign the underlying notes, and the assignment of the notes was thus beyond MERS’s authority as nominee or agent of the lendersee Aurora Loan Servs., LLC v Weisblum85 AD3d 95, 108 [2d Dept 2011]; HSBC Bank USA v Squitieri29 Misc 3d 1225[A], 2010 NY Slip Op 52000[U]; LNV Corp. v Madison Real Estate, LLC2010 NY Slip Op 33376[U]; LPP Mtge. Ltd. v Sabine Props., LLC2010 NY Slip Op 32367[U]; Bank of N.Y. v Mulligan, 28 Misc 3d 1226[A], 2010 NY Slip Op 51509[U]; OneWest Bank, F.S.B. v Drayton29 Misc 3d 1021Bank of N.Y. v Alderazi28 Misc 3d 376, 379-380 [the “party who claims to be the agent of another bears the burden of proving the agency relationship by a preponderance of the evidence”]; HSBC Bank USA, NA. v Yeasmin27 Misc 3d 1227[A], 2010 NY Slip Op 50927[U]; HSBC Bank USA, N.A. v Vasquez24 Misc 3d 1239[A], 2009 NY Slip Op 51814[U]; Bank of NY. v Trezza14 Misc 3d 1201[A], 2006 NY Slip Op 52367[U]; LaSalle Bank Nat’l. Assn. v Lamy12 Misc 3d 1191[A], 2006 NY Slip Op 51534[U]; In re Agard, 444 BR 231; but see US Bank N.A. u Flynn, 27 Misc 3d 802).”)

Bank of N.Y. v. Silverberg, 86 A.D.3d 274, 278 (N.Y. App. Div. 2011) (“”Mortgage lenders and other entities, known as MERS members, subscribe to the MERS system and pay annual fees for the electronic processing and tracking of ownership and transfers of mortgages. Members contractually agree to appoint MERS to act as their common agent on all mortgages they register in the MERS system” ( Matter of MERSCORP, Inc. v Romaine8 NY3d at 96 [footnotes omitted]).”)

Bank of N.Y. v. Silverberg, 86 A.D.3d 274, 278-79 (N.Y. App. Div. 2011) (“This leaves borrowers and the local county or municipal recording offices unaware of the identity of the true owner of the note, and extinguishes a source of revenue to the localities. According to MERS, any loan registered in its system is “inoculated against future assignments because MERS remains the mortgagee no matter how many times servicing is traded.” Moreover, MERS does not lend money, does not receive payments on promissory notes, and does not service loans by collecting loan payments.”)

Bank of N.Y. v. Silverberg, 86 A.D.3d 274, 279-80 (N.Y. App. Div. 2011) (“Where, as here, the issue of standing is raised by a defendant, a plaintiff must prove its standing in order to be entitled to relief ( see U.S. Bank, N.A. v Collymore68 AD3d 752, 753Wells Fargo Bank Minn., N.A. v Mastropaolo42 AD3d at 242). In a mortgage foreclosure action, a plaintiff has standing where it is both the holder or assignee of the subject mortgage and the holder or assignee of the underlying note at the time the action is commenced ( seeU.S. Bank, NA. v Collymore68 AD3d at 753Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. v Gress68 AD3d 709, 709Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v Marchione69 AD3d 204, 207-208Mortgage Elec. Registration Sys., Inc. v Coakley41 AD3d 674, 674Federal Nat’l. Mtge. Assn. v Youkelsone303 AD2d 546, 546-547First Trust Nat’l. Assn. v Meisels, 234 AD2d 414).”)

What is Real in “Securitization”?

The first thing to remember about securitization is that it isn’t real. No Investor ever bought any debt, note or mortgage on residential property. That makes all the documents used in foreclosure of “securitized” loans totally fake. And that is why there was a 50 state settlement and hundreds of other settlements with regulators, attorneys general and investors.

What was left out of all those settlements was any means by which illegal foreclosures could be stopped and any credits earned by homeowners or any credit which reduced the amount owed by the homeowners. As it turns out — nothing ever reduces the homeowner’s debt. Not even payment. Not even foreclosure. 

This could only be true if there was no account on any books of account in which the homeowner’s debt was held as  an asset. You cannot reduce what isn’t there. So failure to credit the nonexistent account is somehow treated as a completely legal event. think about it.

There is nothing wrong about hypothecating an asset in service of a financial transaction. As Wall Street has shown us anything could be an asset and therefore subject to a legal transaction. what they didn’t show us is that there was no legal transaction, which means nobody paid money except at the front end. And those who paid — the investors — didn’t buy any debt, note or mortgage.

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If I issue a note to someone who actually did give me money as a loan, and he asks me for collateral, I can conditionally assign my rights to a mortgage I actually own because someone issued me a note and secured it with a mortgage. How “conditional” is the assignment? That depends upon state law and the contents of the assignment.
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And in turn the Payee on the note I issued now has an asset upon which he can borrow. etc. The asset is the receivable from me that he has on his books which got there because he paid out money. So he debited CASH and Credited ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE. Classic double entry bookkeeping.
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The ONLY question is whether the paperwork is a memorialization of actual events in the real world or if the paperwork is merely an attempt to create fake facts, an illusion that supports the designee of a non creditor to foreclose on property.
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If all the events are real then the law allows it and recognizes it and enforces it. But that enforceability under current law stops at the door of paperwork that does not memorialize an actual financial event in the real world.
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People think that it isn’t so simple. But it is. People say that there would be no foreclosures if I was right. But it is they who are wrong because they don’t understand legal procedure and the banks not only understand it, they were also responsible for writing it.
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So by codifying into law the proposition that the holder of a note is presumed to own the debt until rebutted, they have thus created a vehicle for deceit because judges are not presented with evidence in rebuttal. The truth is that the claimants are not even “holders”. And dig a little deeper they are not even possessors because the original note was destroyed.
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And because judges are sloppy people just like the rest of us, they will often treat a non creditor claiming to possess a note as a holder in due course — thus denying homeowner attempts at discovery. All without any allegation of HDC status or any evidence that the claimant is a party who paid value in good faith without knowledge of the borrower’s defenses.
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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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Why Reformation Makes Sense as a Response to Illegal Claims of Servicing, Collection or Enforcement of Homeowner Mortgage Obligations

In the world of pretend REMICs, there can be no debate that investors who buy “certificates” are unsecured creditors of the investment banks and that investment banks are not legally creditors of homeowners. So why are we allowing investment banks to administer, collect and enforce homeowner obligations?

This has been my point from the beginning in 2006 when I started writing and appearing on TV and Radio. The “Securitization” never happened. Investors became unsecured creditors of the investment bank (IB) not secured creditors of homeowners. In turn the investment bank also wanted to avoid accountability and liability as lender so the IB never accepted any legal document saying that it had paid for and it owned the underlying homeowner obligation.

But for purposes of enforcement through foreclosure the IB designates a non-creditor to initiate foreclosure proceedings. There is no basis in law for this behavior and it is both illegal and inequitable for this conduct to be allowed.

  • The claim that  the action is brought on behalf of  or for the benefit of investors who own certificates is false.
  • The implied assertion that whatever deficiencies exist in the presentation of parties and documents in foreclosures, the granting of a foreclosure will result in payment to a creditor who would otherwise have suffered a loss is also false.
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That leaves nobody to own the debt. Under current law, absent a contract that says otherwise, nobody can administer, collect or enforce a debt without owning it or representing someone who owns it. Since nobody owns it nobody satisfied that condition precedent as set forth in Article 9 §203 UCC.
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In the absence of a creditor the obligation can only be enforced by a designee or nominee that is accepted by the debtor.
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It will take a court decision to decree that since there is no alternative remedy at law, the homeowner is consenting to the designation of a party to enforce who then becomes the lender for purposes of accountability or liability under lending and servicing laws.

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There is no contract that says otherwise  unless and until a court declares it under the rules of reformation, quasi contract and quantum meruit.
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So in all homeowner transactions arising within the scope of claimed securitization, homeowners lost their access to any party who claimed to be a lender or creditor except the originator who was not lending any money and who was in most cases thinly capitalized such that penalties for lending and servicing violations would simply result in bankruptcy and no relief to homeowners. 

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And in the underwriting process, despite the obvious and expressly stated requirements of law no lender was left who had any stake or risk of loss in ensuring the validity of the appraisal or the viability of the loan.
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They might call it a loan transaction, but it wasn’t. It was deceitful process for obtaining the homeowner’s participation in a highly profitable securitization scheme. A scheme where the profits were neither disclosed as to existence or amount and that withheld consideration from the homeowner for his/her participation.
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As such the apparent “loan agreement” was simply a cover and a vehicle for concealment of the true nature of the transaction with the homeowner.
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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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If you want to submit your registration form click on the following link and give us as much information as you can. CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION FORM. It is free, with no obligation and we keep all information private. The information you provide is not used for any purpose except for providing services you order or request from us.
In the meanwhile you can order any of the following:
*
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CLICK HERE TO ORDER CONSULT (not necessary if you order PDR)
*
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CLICK HERE TO ORDER PRELIMINARY DOCUMENT REVIEW (PDR PLUS or BASIC includes 30 minute recorded CONSULT)
*
FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
*
Please visit www.lendinglies.com for more information.

Regulatory Capture and Monopoly of Residential Lending by Wall Street

It is simply not true and has not been true for 20 years that lending is subject to free market forces or that lenders are subject to regulation. 

all of this has resulted from extraordinary illegal Market Control which has resulted in the complete inability of small financial institutions to compete with lending practices sponsored by investment banks on Wall Street.

As a result consumers are negatively affected. Contrary to the requirements of law they do not have the right to choose the party with whom they are dealing, they do not have the protections of the truth in Lending Act, and they are lured into a dangerous transaction in which the counterparties have an incentive merely to bring a transaction into existence and label it as a loan.

When it comes to regulation, it is the legislature that deems who is worthy of regulating and on what terms. The legislature then enacts into law those terms and creates the agency or enforcement mechanism.
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Regulatory Capture occurs when persons and companies whom the legislature has deemed worthy of regulating have control over the agency or enforcement mechanisms. This happens all the time when the regulators are persons formerly, currently or intended to be employed by the companies that they are supposed to regulate.
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I am sure, now that it has been pointed out, that there has been in a concerted strategy of regulatory capture that has negatively impacted the legal profession and therefore chilled access to the courts and to counsel. This has enabled a monopoly that has so constrained free market forces as to make them virtually irrelevant. It is simply not true and has not been true for 20 years that lending is subject to free market forces or that lenders are subject to regulation.
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Even the most uninformed lay person knows by now that the Wall Street banks screwed the market and the marketplace. True, they don’t understand how it was done. But they know it happened, which is why I have counseled persons running for public office to run against the banks, because right now, almost everyone hates the Wall Street securities firms that call themselves “investment banks.”  But very little is being done to counter their illegal impact on free markets, consumer rights, and the hallmark of any capitalist economic system — competition.
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This has shown up in regulation and discipline of lawyers. Lawyers who advance false claims in court go with both impunity and immunity. Lawyers who defend homeowners from those false claims almost always find themselves the target some investigation, complaint discipline, sanctions or judgements from Bar associations, the FTC or the attorney general of some state.
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The result is entirely predictable. Most trial lawyers won’t take on cases involving foreclosure defense because they fear for their livelihood. Consumers are the ones who suffer the most because they can’t find a lawyer to take their case. So they try to appear pro se and they lose because only lawyers know how to navigate the judicial system. It’s a perfect storm for the Wall Street firms.
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I am also sure that all of this has resulted from extraordinary illegal Market Control which has resulted in the complete inability of small financial institutions to compete with lending practices sponsored by investment banks on Wall Street.
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Homeowner transactions sponsored by Wall Street do not rely upon profits from the transactions with homeowners. They rely entirely upon profits from false claims arising out of securitization Cycles. so it is literally possible and often happens that the marketing and other expenses associated with generating transactions with homeowners are much higher than any cash flow that could be considered Revenue. This makes it possible to offer incentives and lower interest rates for the sole purpose of initiating another securitization cycle, which is the source of all actual profit.
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As a result consumers are negatively affected. Contrary to the requirements of law they do not have the right to choose the party with whom they are dealing, they do not have the protections of the truth in Lending Act, and they are lured into a dangerous transaction in which the counterparties have an incentive merely to bring a transaction into existence and label it as a loan.
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Those counterparties also have an incentive to see the transactions fail, since they have knowingly created obligations based upon false appraisals and false assessments of viability. In doing that they have guaranteed themselves additional profit simply by insuring the certificates that are indexed on the performance of the homeowner transactions. And they further profit from false claims leading to forced sale of property for profit rather than restitution for an unpaid obligation.
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Thus this monopolistic control causes homeowners to enter into transactions that they think are loans but instead are investments into securitization schemes. The terms and incentives for conduct are far different than the reasonable expectation of any reasonable consumer borrower. 
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The other class negatively impacted by this strong arm behavior is the U.S. class of approximately 7,000 community banks, credit unions and savings and loan associations that would otherwise be able to compete for loan business but can’t because they are presented with a bad choice: either they serve merely as sham conduits to feed securitization or their loan business virtually fails. In turn this negatively impacts their ability to cross market for depository business and other bank services. 
My point is that just like 100 + years ago when the big trusts were considered impregnable, they were brought down with a thud by claims that they had ruined the free markets with both economic control and asymmetry of information. Regulatory capture was of course a perk that enabled them to write and make laws that made their ruinous behavior totally legal — until the courts and Congress said it wasn’t legal.

Plaintiffs present this evidence as a prototypical example of “regulatory capture,” a term coined by public choice economists to indicate when members of a regulated occupation also dominate the regulatory and law-making process in their field. Professor Todd Zywicki of George Mason University School of Law, a leading scholar in law and economics, testified that the limitations on funeral home ownership in Maryland are consistent with the principles of regulatory capture. He stated that in his opinion the Morticians Act appears to be:

an effort to create governmentally imposed barriers to entry in the funeral home industry and thereby to transfer wealth to a discrete, well-organized interest group at the expense of consumers of funeral home services and the public at large. The result of this regulation is reduced competition in the provision of funeral home services and higher prices and reduced choice in funeral home products and services for consumers.

Brown v. Hovatter, 516 F. Supp. 2d 547, 553 (D. Md. 2007)

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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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How to Use the Real Deal On Securitization to Homeowner’s Advantage

Like citizenship in this country litigation is not easy. We keep banging our heads against the same wall expecting a different result. We need a strategy that directly addresses the inescapable realities of every homeowner transaction and every securitization cycle.

My substantive analysis of the transaction is that the homeowner was drafted into a securitization scheme which in my opinion clearly triggers quasi contract and quantum meruit — the only possibility for inquiring into the adequacy of consideration. Lawyers and litigants have shied away from this because of its complexity and because they don’t know how to approach it.
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In simple terms the homeowner transaction was a “”Qualified Financial Contract” (QFC), part of which contained some apparent attributes of a loan, but which went much further and diverged extensively from a “loan” as the term is currently used in custom and practice in the financial industry and society in general.
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The QFC is not some invented term for this article. it is defined in all securitization documents. Investment banks knew they were not creating a loan. The job of litigants and their attorneys is to point out and argue that the documents submitted as a foundation for their claim of legal standing contains language that opens the door to quasi contract and quantum meruit. 
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In logistical terms, the homeowner delivered the only service the investment bank was seeking, to wit: issuance of the note and mortgage. Neither the investment bank nor the originator designee of the investment bank was at all interested in making a loan, collecting revenue from repayment nor assuming any meaningful risk of loss.
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Although the homeowner entered the transaction desiring a loan he/she didn’t receive a loan. If there is no legally responsible lender or creditor at the conclusion of that transaction, it isn’t a loan.
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And since too many bona fide third party transactions have occurred to rescind or unwind the transaction the only possibility remaining is to have a court reframe the agreement to include the basis upon which the investment bank entered into the transaction — i.e., the creation, issuance, selling, trading and hedging of unregulated securities.
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We know the investment bank had no intention of becoming a lender and that there was no intention to make investors lenders.
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And we know that the investment banks funded the origination or acquisition of the loan through originators and aggregators.
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Further we know that investors paid value for the certificates which excluded any right, title or interest in any debt, note or mortgage.
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The result, obviously intended, is that while parties were paying value, none of them ever received a conveyance of ownership of the debt, note or mortgage.
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And we can easily see that anyone who received such a conveyance (a) did not pay value and (b) was not acting as an authorized agent or representative of anyone who paid value in exchange for a conveyance of an ownership interest in the subject debt, note or mortgage.
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It was partly a scheme for avoidance or evasion of lending and securities laws.
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The reason for this is blatantly stated in all of the promotional material for sale of certificates, to wit: no liability for violation of lending or servicing laws using “bankruptcy remote” vehicles  for origination and acquisition of homeowner obligations.
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And scratch the surface and you discover that the only thing that makes the transactions bankruptcy remote is that the underlying obligation, note and mortgage are not included in the schedules of bankruptcy because they were never owned by the originator or aggregator.
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The problem for the last 20 years has been that nobody has been asking the obvious question: “if they don’t own the loan, then who does?” Or at least nobody has followed up on that question in which they truly persisted in aground war to get the answer.
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So any such conveyance was either a legal nullity (mortgage assignment) or did not carry the right to enforce (note). If the conveyance didn’t include the obligation there are very specific rules that apply.
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Authority to enforce the note can only come from one who is entitled to enforce. And the premier person who has the right to enforce is owner of the underlying debt that the note is supposed to memorialize. Under the laws of all jurisdictions nobody gets to own the obligation without paying value.
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This seems to be challenging not only for the courts but for defense lawyers. It is a very simple logical progression. In the end enforcement of the note is intended to pay the debt. If it doesn’t pay the debt the maker of the note is subject to multiple liabilities for the same transaction. And that is what happened. Since the originator did not substantively fund the homeowner transaction the issuing of the note and mortgage in favor of the originator was a legal nullity. The issuance of the note created a new liability that was not merged with the underlying obligation to repay the money, if any, that was received or paid on behalf of the homeowner.
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So the reason I mention all of this is that I have somewhat reluctantly but persistently arrived at the conclusion that the homeowner transaction was not a loan and yet the obligation to make payment survives even in quasi contract or quantum meruit.
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This is an unavoidable conclusion because we know that where money was funded to the homeowner or on his/her behalf and where the homeowner issued a promise to pay money, the obligation to pay arises and can be secured by a lien (mortgage or deed of trust) which in fact is enforceable.
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But note that since there is no lender or creditor at the conclusion of the securitization cycle, the intent of the homeowner is thwarted — i.e., he/she does not have a loan agreement. It is something else. And that is where quasi contract and  quantum meruit come into play.
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The homeowner could have bargained away reasonable compensation or consideration for his/her role in initiating the only documents that made securitization claims possible — i.e., the note and mortgage.
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Our legal system is not designed to correct stupid mistakes in bargaining or negotiation in transactions or agreements.
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Our system is designed to enforce the intent of the parties. So we can’t get away from the intent to create an obligation and the intent to have that obligation enforceable and memorialized by a note and mortgage. In fact, I propose we should embrace it.
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The reason is that the intent to create the enforceable homeowner obligation was not the only intent operating. Since the securitizations cheme — and the homeowner’s vital role in it — was not disclosed (actually actively concealed), the homeowner did not, could not and never did bargain away rights to compensation or consideration for his role and risks in this dangerous risky transaction.
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Thus we enter the realm of quasi contract and quantum meruit. 
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So now the question is how much consideration  did the homeowner actually receive for issuance of the note and mortgage? Since it wasn’t a loan, even though that was what was intended by the homeowner, the receipt of money must be categorized as payment of consideration. And that is a lot of consideration by any standard.
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But now the issuance of the note and mortgage becomes a service rather than the result of an underlying obligation to repay.
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So the consideration of the receipt of benefit from the funding of the homeowner transaction is entirely offset by a promise to pay more than the consideration received in the form of money paid to the homeowner. That might still result in a court finding some consideration, since the money on the front end might not be found by a court to exactly equal the money promised on the back end.
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On the other hand there is good reason to find that the consideration for issuance of the documents required to start securitization claims, securities, selling trading and hedging was entirely negated by the concurrent promise to pay more than the money received. But assuming there was a finding of consideration, was it enough?
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In a court of equity wherein rescission is no longer an option the court must determine what a reasonable homeowner would have bargained for or received through the process of free market forces if disclosure had actually been made regarding the securitizations scheme and the vast profits and revenue generated under the scheme.
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The court would hear testimony from a variety of experts and reach a conclusion as to whether the homeowner had received enough consideration or if the homeowner should have received more as per the quasi contract and not just what was presented as a loan agreement.
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The range of possibilities is nearly infinite. From zero to a majority of the pot because the investment bank secretly tricked the homeowner into a dangerous transaction, the risks of which were unknown to the homeowner. Using the shadow banking marketplace (i.e., where all derivatives are traded for nominal value) as the external reference point for heuristic projection, it may be fairly assumed that the average revenue generated from each securitization cycle was $12 for each $1 transacted with homeowners. Additional securities analysis reveals that the figure could be much higher.
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In a free marketplace where there was no asymmetry of information the fair question could be posed as follows: from the investment bank’s perspective they would be saying that they are going to make $12 on each $1 during the securitization cycle, perhaps more.
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The homeowner and investor sitting at the same fictional but still legal table would inevitably concede that for inventing and managing such an ingenious scheme the investment bank might be entitled to the lion’s share of the profit.
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The investors would say their role as investors is critical to the existence and success of the securitization cycle. And since capital is valued more highly than labor they would claim a greater share than that awarded to homeowners. Homeowners would make the same argument as investors — without them there is no securitization and there are no revenues and there are no transactions claimed as “loans.”
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So looking at the customs and practices of the financial industry the investors would probably initially claim 40% as angels and the homeowners could justify a claim of around half that amount for their indispensable role.
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Or one could look at the money actually spent (commissions, bonuses etc) on getting homeowners to execute the required note and mortgage while concealing the truth about the transaction as a measure of what the homeowners should get. Or a license or royalty arrangement might be adopted.
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All of them in my opinion average around 15%-20% of the total revenue generated by the scheme. this would leave the investment bank with 40% or more of the securitization cycle revenue which is around 1000% of normal revenues for underwriting and sale of debt securities.
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So the court would offset the obligation with whatever it decided was reasonable consideration for the homeowner. It would either order payment to the homeowner of any excess consideration due or order the homeowner to pay the balance of the obligation after offset for the consideration due. And if the homeowner still owed money both the note and mortgage would be enforceable.
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But here is the rub. None of this is possible without creating a contract by decree in which it is possible to designate a party who is not a creditor to act as a creditor — in a transaction to which the homeowner agrees that for all purposes the designee will be a creditor. And that creditor is subject to lending and servicing laws. This is essential because under current law only the owner of the debt can enforce the mortgage and only someone representing the owner of the debt can enforce the note unless they are a holder of the note in due course — which means they purchased it for value in good faith and without knowledge of the  maker’s defenses. 
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So it becomes necessary to plead for this attribute to be made part of the newly minted agreement because without it, you don’t have an enforceable agreement  Without an enforceable agreement you’re left pleading for damages under RICO, wrongful foreclosure, etc. And while the note and mortgage might not be subject to enforcement, they still exist. No lender or buyer will complete a transaction with that hanging over the deal.
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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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*
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Are Lawyers Missing the Boat Again on Foreclosure Defense?

The problem is that while most people think everyone has been bought off, and to a certain extent that is true, the real problem is that the clever plan of securitization is so counter-intuitive that nobody believes the truth that is in plain sight. The reason for fabricated documents is that there were no transactions, so the documents had to be fabricated to fit facially with the requirements of law for administration, collection and enforcement.
To anyone who is not conversant in the language of finance, that seems impossible, unlikely, or just plain wrong. So rather than keeping an open mind about it, they react to such assertions with aggression and incredulity.

I recently received a question from a fairly knowledgeable reader. Why are lawyers dropping the ball on foreclosure defense? His specific question, along with similar questions from other readers is where are the trust lawyers, the securities lawyers, the property lawyers, the civil litigations lawyers, the personal injury lawyers (emotional distress etc), etc.?

Here was my answer with some edits for typos which all of you know I am prone to make and miss on edits.

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The question you posed is the million-dollar question. I think you are correct in your analysis. I have attempted to enlist attorneys who specialize in those areas but I have failed.
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The only explanation that I can give you that has any truth to it is that lawyers, despite their reputation, are easily intimidated, lazy and greedy. I surveyed hundreds of lawyers over a two-year period In 2008–2009.
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The proposition was simple. assuming a client with sufficient financial resources to pay any reasonable fee, were they willing to represent homeowners in distress?
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The fact that the answer was in the negative was frustrating enough. But the reason most often cited was that they would rather represent “the bank.” And when I pointed out that they did not represent any banks nor did they have any prospects for doing so, that’s when they said that it didn’t matter.
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Some did express reservation about the assumption that the client could pay. I pointed it out that if they were not making a monthly payment for housing, they could easily pay. That made no difference. They saw the entire endeavor as futile and unprofitable — but in reality I could tell, like any trial lawyer could detect, that I was dealing with raw unbridled fear.
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So I attacked it with seminars on foreclosure defense that highlighted business strategies in which the lawyer could become rich, and some of the attendees did. Others made a good living.
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But it was based on lowering of expectations. By adopting a hub-and-spoke strategy some lawyers, adopting the business plan that I proposed, began servicing hundreds of homeowners at a time. But like all such practices, their business success depended upon settlement of the cases, which meant modifications. This resulted in adding to the illusion that the servicer had any right to be in the picture.
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My latest plan is that I am working on potential pleadings for a case in Reformation in which the investment banks are literally drafted into the litigation. The Court decides whether the homeowner received consideration for issuing the documents (note and mortgage) that enabled the securitization plan, and whether the homeowner received or should receive adequate or additional consideration that could offset the claim. (There is a lot more to this but for purposes of this article I simply state in brief form).
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I have no doubt that there is an opportunity to achieve immense wealth simply by pursuing the obvious. But it appears that the General Public, law enforcement, the Judiciary, and most lawyers have succumbed to the party line that enables the Investment Bank to sit in the shadows and designate names of irrelevant parties with no stake and the outcome to administer, collect and enforce obligations that were long ago retired through securitization, proof of which is easy to obtain, to wit: is there any company showing the existence of the debt as an asset on their balance sheet and a loss from nonpayment? 
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I definitely know the answer to that question. Current law therefore does not allow the current scheme of securitization to exist nor should it. It depends entirely upon concealment of the most relevant data in any transaction — the terms and conditions under which each party intends to serve the other and the terms and conditions under which each party might profit from the transaction.
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Most of all under the federal and state lending and securities laws (and general laws requiring fair dealing) the identity of the counterparty must be included in order to make the agreement an enforceable contract.
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This concealment allows investment banks to act illegally and against the idea of free markets or capitalism. It prevents both investors and homeowners from bargaining for adequate consideration based upon the true nature of the transaction. 
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The problem is that while most people think everyone has been bought off, and to a certain extent that is true, the real problem is that the clever plan of securitization is so counter-intuitive that nobody believes the truth that is in plain sight. The reason for fabricated documents is that there were no transactions, so the documents had to be fabricated to fit facially with the requirements of law for administration, collection and enforcement.
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To anyone who is not conversant in the language of finance, that seems impossible, unlikely, or just plain wrong. So rather than keeping an open mind about it, they react to such assertions with aggression and incredulity.
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Some lawyers do get it and they win their cases most of the time. Everyone else seems to argue for their own weaknesses (See Steven Covey’s Book) without looking to actual information or data. They insist that the foreclosure cases are both unwinnable and are morally unconscionable if they give the homeowner a free house.
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I insist that there is no debt because the investment bank was never depending upon the economics of a loan to make money. Foreclosures are gravy. They made all their money creating, selling, issuing, trading, and hedging securities. The labelling of the homeowner transaction as a loan was a false representation. The investment bank, who never appeared on any of the paperwork, was the real party in interest and at the end of the day there was no person or company who owned the so-called debt from the homeowner. 
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If that plan had been disclosed — as it was required to be disclosed under both “lending” laws and “securities” laws — both investors and homeowners would have had the opportunity to bargain for more more compensation and better terms — because they would have known they were taking a much larger risk than the one that was actually presented.
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Indeed, investors that were pension or other types of “stable managed funds” would not have been able to invest at all had they known the true nature of the certificate scheme into which they they were investing the futures of workers and companies that had contributed to the fund.
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Such funds, as investors, were critical to the success of the securitization scheme. Investment banks would have been legally required to present additional safeguards to the fund managers such as participation in the trading profits, hedge contracts and insurance contracts in order to make the sale of certificates to stable managed fund investors. 
The same logic holds true for homeowners.
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They were making the largest investments of their lives based upon their reasonable belief that the apprasial was real and the loan was viable — all resposnibilities imposed on the “lender” by law (see TILA).
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Had they known the true incentives and motives and existence of the investment bank they would have understood that this was no loan. It was a service they were performing and an investment — for which they were being paid to issue documents that required them to pay money over time in order to enable the securitization scheme.
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If the true profits of the securitization scheme were disclosed as as required by law, homeowners and originators would have been able to compete for a greater share of the securitization pie or they would have had the opportunity to choose not to do business in such a hazy scheme. 
*
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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If you want to submit your registration form click on the following link and give us as much information as you can. CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION FORM. It is free, with no obligation and we keep all information private. The information you provide is not used for any purpose except for providing services you order or request from us.
In the meanwhile you can order any of the following:
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FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
*
Please visit www.lendinglies.com for more information.

The Best Article Yet on Illegal and Immoral Practices by Investment Banks Making False Claims About “Securitization of Debt” by Francesca Mari on Aaron Glantz Book “Homewreckers”

Francesca Mari in the JUNE 11, 2020 ISSUE of The New York Review of Books, has written a truly excellent piece on a book called “Homewreckers” by Aaron Glantz. 

If you ever had any doubt about whether homeowners have the moral high ground and whether the investment bankers have no moral or legal grounds for what they did, you should read the article and buy the book. ( I get nothing from sales of the book and I have not met either author — although I will contact them for interviews on my show).

The only point that I think both Mari and Glantz miss is that the loans were never securitized. Securitization is the process of selling assets in pieces to multiple investors. No residential loan to my knowledge has ever been sold to investors even on paper much less in reality.

Let me put it this way: there has never been a transaction in which investors buying certificates, investment banks or anyone else paid value in exchange for ownership of any debt, note or mortgage. They paid value but not for the loan. And they received the benefit of their bargain.

At the end of the day there is nobody who has paid value in exchange for a conveyance of ownership of the debt, note or mortgage. Claims of ownership of the debt, note or mortgage are all false even though they are documented. Documents are not transactions. They are evidence of transactions. And if there was no such transaction then the documents are false.

And that is why all of the documents in foreclosures are false, fabricated, forged, backdated and robosigned. The documents are false but they are presumptively valid if they conform to statutory requirements. The point missed by most homeowners, lawyers and judges is that just because they are presumed valid doesn’t mean they cannot be tested and rebutted.

Could IRS Enforcement of REMICs Bring Wall Street Into Line? Yes but they won’t do it. Investors and homeowners continue to suffer as victims of fraud.

The most obvious places to look for correction in the illegal conspiracies masquerading as securitization of residential debt were the IRS , the SEC, the FDIC and the FTC and probably later the CFPB. Qui tam (whistleblower) actions were regularly dismissed because the agency that lost money due to false claims rejected the notion that it was a false claim or that anything bad had occurred. Sheila Bair lost her job as head of the FDIC for protesting policy set by Presidents Bush and Obama that failed to hold the line.

So here is a 2014 article that talks about how we could have regulated the investment banks through IRS examination of the REMICs.

Corruption is the answer. Too many people were making too much money and were “donating” too much money to people in public office. Enforcement was impossible. The real answer is extremely simple — stop all private money in elections. All elections should be publicly funded. No exceptions.

see.. PA Journal of Business Law – REMIC Tax Enforcement

The problem remains that US government agencies refuse to police schemes that are labelled as securitization of debt. If they are securitization of debt then market forces apply and everything COULD even out in the end. The problem is that the debt was never sold into a securitized scheme and nobody cares even though that has eliminated even the possibility of the existence of any creditor.

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REMIC policing by the IRS would be ideal to reveal the fatal deficiencies and fraudulent character of these securitizations schemes. It is why the first 9 lawyers tasked with drafting the documents for securitization all quit with one declaring that she would not be party to or an accessory to a criminal enterprise. There is no entity that qualifies as REMIC in residential loans. AND the reason is very simple:  neither investors nor the trust is buying the loans.
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So all the tests and premises about having an ownership interest, and about the quality of the loans are all false tests designed to cover up the fact that there has never been securitization of any residential loan except is very specific rare circumstances where individual mortgage brokers have sold loans to small groups of investors with repurchase agreements. In most instances those turned out to be scams.
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The way they got away with it is that there was a securitization process — i.e., one in which new securities were issued, even if they were unregulated. But only those schooled in Wall Street finance grasp the fact that they were securitizing bets on data — something that is very ornate and complex.
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Once you DO grasp the idea of what they really were doing and are still doing then you see why all the documents in all the foreclosures had to be fabricated, forged, backdated and robosigned. 
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You can also see why they have robowitnesses come to court and why they show only the business records of a servicer who has no contact with the so-called principal named in the claim or lawsuit. You can see why there is never a proffer of the business records of a creditor because there is no creditor.

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There cannot be contact between foreclosure mill and trustee of REMIC trust, there cannot be contact between “servicer” and Trustee of REMIC trust, there cannot be direct contact between investment bank and any of the players because any such contact would undermine the essential ingredient of the entire plan — plausible deniability of intent or knowledge of the scope of the illegal plan.

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The job of the litigator is to assume that that the entire thing is fraudulent and to ask for what they cannot give — answers to simple questions about the ownership and authority and status of the “obligation” that in reality is nothing more than a return of the consideration paid for a license to sue the homeowner’s private data and homeownership as mere points of reference for the issuance and trading of complex securities.
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But you must make it look like all of those companies are in actual contact and that payments from consumers or from the forced sale of their property are going to a creditor. You need to do that in order to give a judge cover for ruling in favor of the investment bank who is not even in the courtroom.
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The answer is as simple as simple can be: they are making everything up.
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Documents are not real unless they memorialize something that happened in the real world. But Wall Street banks put together a plan that made it appear that a sale of the debt occured where there had been no such sale. Or to be even more specific, they made it appear that there had been a purchase by or on behalf of the investors or trusts. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The truth is that investment bankers never looked at homeowner transactions as loans. They saw the money they paid to homeowners as a cost and condition precedent to creating and selling new securities. 
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Why no creditor? Because that is how you escape liability for lending law violations. 
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Why call it a loan? Because that is how you keep consumers from bargaining for their share of the very rich pie created by investment banks in the sale and trading of derivatives, insurance contracts, hedge products and just plain bets on fictitious “movement” of data that was completely controlled, in the sole discretion, of the investment banks. 
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They were printing money for themselves. The losers were and remain investors who buy “certificates” that are nothing more than a cover for underwriting the sale of securities for a company that doesn’t exist. the losers are the homeowners whose issuance of a note and mortgage triggers a vast undisclosed profit scheme in which the wealth of America shifted from the many to the few.

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BUYING RMBS CERTIFICATES IS LIKE BUYING TULIPS JUST BECAUSE THERE IS A MOB OF PEOPLE WHO FOR COMPLETELY IRRATIONAL AND TEMPORARY REASONS THINK THEY ARE VALUABLE.
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In the meanwhile you can order any of the following:
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CLICK HERE TO ORDER CONSULT (not necessary if you order PDR)
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CLICK HERE TO ORDER PRELIMINARY DOCUMENT REVIEW (PDR PLUS or BASIC includes 30 minute recorded CONSULT)
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FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT.  IT IS NOT A SHORT PROCESS IF YOU PREVAIL. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
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Please visit www.lendinglies.com for more information.
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