MERS Is NOTHING — The Correct Translation of “MIN”

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Neil Garfield

Without a contract in writing executed with the formalities required for transfer of interests in real property, it is highly probable that any instrument executed on behalf of MERS means nothing without the necessity of drilling into the authority or knowledge of the signor. In fact, it might just be that the execution of an assignment might be the utterance of a false instrument for purposes of recording, which in and of itself constitutes illegal activity.

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Upon close inspection, investigation and research of hundreds of cases we have found no evidence that MERS ever enters into any contract for agency or anything else with originators who are not lenders. So we conclude that in cases where the originator is named on the note as Payee and on the Mortgage as Mortgagee or on the Deed of Trust as beneficiary, no such written contract exists and no correspondence or other communication exists between the originator and MERS.
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The current consensus is that MERS is a naked nominee, something I have repeated myself. But that appears to be true only in cases where the originator is a member of MERS and has therefore entered into an agency agreement with MERS.
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Entities like Broker One and American Brokers Conduit, whose name tells the whole story, are not likely to have had any contract, email, correspondence directly with MERS and are probably not party to any agreement in which the originator, if it exists at all, has agreed to let MERS be its agent and if so, under what conditions and for how long.
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I think the mistake we might have all made is in accepting the implied agency contract inferred from the face of the Mortgage or Deed of Trust. In many if not most courts the assignment by MERS of a Mortgage or Beneficial interest in a Deed of Trust is seen as the act of a “disclosed” naked nominee.
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First, basic law dictates that any contract in which the transfer of title to real property is involved must be written not oral, inferred or implied. Second, each state varies but all require the recording of the instrument.
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Third, there was no disclosure prior to closing which violates TILA disclosure requirements. This raises possibilities  of claims in a lawsuit by the homeowner or affirmative defenses of a homeowner if they are sued. As affirmative defenses they would claims of recoupment.
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Nobody tells the prospective borrower that when they sign the Mortgage or Deed of Trust they will be handing over an interest in their new or existing home to an entity that might serve the interests of just anyone. But, in fact, that is what is happening which means that on the face of the Deed of Trust or Mortgage, the originating parties are violating the provisions of TILA that make table funded loans against public policy. And as any 1st year law student will tell you any contract that violates public policy is probably void.
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At closing, if the borrowers are reading at all, MERS doesn’t show up until the day of closing and it is never pointed out by closing agents, originators or anyone else acting as mortgage broker or lender. Nor is the written agreement appointing MERS as “nominee” appear anywhere ever.
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If the appointment of MERS is void it might void the Mortgage or Deed of Trust. Or, it might be surplusage which is more likely. That means the mention of MERS means nothing.
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Hence the assignment of the Mortgage or Deed of Trust would be required to be executed by the named lender, who in turn probably could not assign the mortgage because at the time they are asked to sign such an instrument they (a) don’t exist and/or (b) don’t own the debt and probably never did. As such they would be uttering a false instrument for recording which amounts to two illegal acts probably constituting crimes.
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PRACTICE NOTE: ASSIGNMENT OF A MORTGAGE WITHOUT TRANSFER OF THE DEBT IS A NULLITY. Lawyers for the foreclosure mills are often using MERS assignments as a substitute for transfer of the debt.

Filed under: burden of pleading, BURDEN OF PROOF, CORRUPTION, discovery, Discovery -Subpoena, evidence, Fabrication of documents, foreclosure, foreclosure defenses, foreclosure mill, forensic investigation, jurisdiction, legal standing, Mortgage, Motions, Pleading, Servicer, sham transactions, standing, STATUTES, Title, trustee | Tagged: , , , , | 7 Comments »

Tonight! How to Defend Against a Claim of “Holder” Status to Discredit Standing

Posted on June 28, 2018 by Neil Garfield

“Holder” vs “Agency”

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Tonight I will discuss the central point of of false claims of authority to enforce the note, and inferentially the authority to enforce the mortgage.

In 2008, I called to confront a lawyer about the false claim of being authorized to enforce the note and mortgage, his reply to all my questions was “We’re a holder.”

No matter what I said or asked, that was his answer. He was relying upon a carefully thought out strategy of taking the term “holder” and stretching it to unimaginable lengths. And in that conversation it became clear that he — and the rest of the investment banking industry — were essentially “banking” on a single fact, to wit: that Judges are lawyers who went to law school and for the most part slept through classes on negotiable instruments. He was right.

Filed under: burden of persuasion, burden of pleading, BURDEN OF PROOF, discovery, Discovery -Subpoena, evidence, Fabrication of documents, foreclosure | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

MERS: No Agency with Undisclosed Rotating “Principals”

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Neil Garfield

THE WASHINGTON SUPREME COURT DECISION WILL BE USED EXTENSIVELY AT THE EMERYVILLE AND ANAHEIM CLE WORKSHOPS.

The Stunning clarity of the decision rendered by the Washington Supreme Court, sitting En Banc, corroborates the statements I have made on this blog and under oath that they might just as well have put the name “Donald Duck” in as the mortgagee or beneficiary.

The argument, previously successful, has been that even if the entity MERS had nothing to do with financial transaction and even if they didn’t know about the transaction because the “knowledge” was all contained on a database that nobody at MERS checked for authenticity or veracity, the instrument was still valid. This coupled with a “public policy”argument that if the courts were to rule otherwise none of the MERS “mortgages” would be valid thus making the creditor unsecured.

The Washington Supreme court rejected that argument and further added that if such was the result, then it was through no fault of the borrower. SO now we have a situation where the law in the State of Washington is that MERS beneficiary instruments do not establish a perfected lien and therefore there is no opportunity to foreclose using either non-judicial or judicial means. A word of caution here is that this applies right now as law only in that state but that it closely follows the Landmark decision in Kansas Supreme Court. But the decision is extremely persuasive and reinvigorates the fight over whether the loans were secured loans or unsecured — especially powerful in bankruptcy courts.

It should be noted that the Washington Supreme Court has wider application than might appear at first blush. This is because the question was certified not from a state judge but from a federal court. Thus in Federal Courts, the decision might be all the more persuasive that MERS, which never had anything to do with the financial transaction, never handled a dime of the money going in or out of the loan receivable account, and never had any person with personal knowledge who could identify and verify that there was a disclosed principal for whom they were acting should be identified as a non-stakeholder with bare (naked) title recited in a fatally defective instrument.

This does not mean the obligation vanishes. It just means that they can’t foreclose through non-judicial foreclosure and probably can’t foreclose even through judicial means unless they accompany it with a request that the court reconstruct the mortgage — in which case they would need to allege and prove that the disclosed parties were the sources of funds for the origination of the loans, which in most cases, they were not.

The actual parties who were the source of funds either still exist or have been settled or traded out into new investment vehicles. This is why putting intense pressure to move the discovery along is so powerful. You are demanding what they should have had when they started the foreclosure timeline with a defective notice of default signed by a person who had no idea what the loan receivable account looked like or even the identity of the party or entity that had the loan booked as a loan receivable.

You’ll remember that MERS issued a proclamation to everyone that nobody should use its name in foreclosures in 2011. But that doesn’t address the underlying fatal defect of the MERS business model and the instruments that recite MERS as the mortgagee or beneficiary.

Th reasoning behind the rejection of the “Agency” argument is also very important. The court states that “While we have no reason to doubt that the lendersand their assigns control MERS, agency requires a specific principal that is accountable for the acts of its agent. If MERS is an agent, its principals in the two cases before us remain unidentified.12 MERS attempts to sidestep this portion of traditional agency law by pointing to the language in the deeds of trust that describe MERS as “acting solely as a nominee for Lender and Lender’s successors and assigns.” Doc. 131-2, at 2 (Bain deed of trust); Doc. 9-1, at 3 (Selkowitz deed of trust.); e.g., Resp. Br. of MERS at 30 (Bain). But MERS offers no authority for the implicit proposition that the lender’s nomination of MERS as a nominee rises to an agency relationship with successor noteholders.13 MERS fails to identify the entities that control and are accountable for its actions. It has not established that it is an agent for a lawful principal.” Hat tip again to Yves Smith on picking up on that before I did.

And the court even went further than that on the issue of modification that I have been pounding on for so long — how can you submit a request for modification with a proposal unless you know the identity of the secured party and the identity of any party or stakeholder who is unsecured? Hoe can anyone settle or modify a claim without knowing the identity of the claimant or the actual status of the claim as affected by payments of co-obligors? “While not before us, we note that this is the nub of this and similar litigation and has caused great concern about possible errors in foreclosures, misrepresentation, and fraud. Under the MERS system, questions of authority and accountability arise, and determining who has authority to negotiate loan modifications and who is accountable for misrepresentation and fraud becomes extraordinarily difficult.”

BUT WAIT! THERE IS MORE! The famed Deutsch bank acting as trustee ruse is also exposed by the court, leaving doubt ( a question of material fact that is in dispute) as to the identity and character of the creditor and the status of the loan. Without those nobody can state with personal knowledge that the principal due is now this figure or that and that the following fees apply. The Supreme Court in the footnotes takes this on too, although it wasn’t argued (but will be in the future I can assure you): “It appears Deutsche Bank is acting as trustee of a trust that contains Bain’s note, along with many others, though the record does not establish what trust this might be.”

The Court also is not shy. It also takes on the notion that the borrower is not entitled to know the identity of the creditor or principal and that the borrower only has a right to know the identity of the servicer. This of course is patently absurd argument. If it were true anyone could assert they were the servicer and you could not look behind that assertion to determine its veracity.

“MERS insists that borrowers need only know the identity of the servicers of their loans. However, there is considerable reason to believe that servicers will not or are not in a position to negotiate loan modifications or respond to similar requests. See generally Diane E. Thompson, Foreclosing Modifications: How Servicer Incentives Discourage Loan Modifications, 86 Wash. L. Rev. 755 (2011); Dale A. Whitman, How Negotiability Has Fouled Up the Secondary Mortgage Market, and What To Do About It, 37 Pepp. L. Rev. 737, 757-58 (2010). Lack of transparency causes other problems. See generally U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n v. Ibanez, 458 Mass. 637, 941 N.E.2d 40 (2011) (noting difficulties in tracing ownership of the note).”

And lastly, about making the rules up as you along, and moving the goal posts around, the Court challenges the argument and rejects the MERS position that the parties are free to contract as they choose despite any statutory language. Specifically the question what is what is the definition of a beneficiary. In Washington as in other states, the definitions of the Act apply to all transactions described and there is no room for anyone to change the law by contract. “Despite its ubiquity, we have found no case—and MERS draws our attention to none—where this common statutory phrase has been read to mean that the parties can alter statutory provisions by contract, as opposed to the act itself suggesting a different definition might be appropriate for a specific statutory provision.”

And again corroborating my work and manuals on the livinglies store. the Court finally addresses for the first time that I am aware, the essential reason why all this is so important. It is the auction itself and the acceptance of the credit bid from a non-creditor. Besides the challenges as to whether the substitution of trustee and instructions to trustee are valid, nobody can claim title suddenly born as a result of a “transfer” or assignment” or other document from MERS, an entity that had specifically claimed any interest in the obligation. The Court concludes that you either have the proof of being the actual creditor to whom the obligation is owed, in which case you can submit a credit bid if it is properly secured, or you must pay cash.

“Other portions of the deed of trust act bolster the conclusion that the legislature meant to define “beneficiary” to mean the actual holder of the promissory note or other debt instrument. In the same 1998 bill that defined “beneficiary” for the first time, the legislature amended RCW 61.24.070 (which had previously forbidden the trustee alone from bidding at a trustee sale) to provide:
(1) The trustee may not bid at the trustee’s sale. Any other person, including the beneficiary, may bid at the trustee’s sale.
(2) The trustee shall, at the request of the beneficiary, credit toward the beneficiary’s bid all or any part of the monetary obligations secured by the deed of trust. If the beneficiary is the purchaser, any amount bid by the beneficiary in excess of the amount so credited shall
18
Bain (Kristin), et al. v. Mortg. Elec. Registration Sys., et al., No. 86206-1
be paid to the trustee in the form of cash, certified check, cashier’s check, money order, or funds received by verified electronic transfer, or any combination thereof. If the purchaser is not the beneficiary, the entire bid shall be paid to the trustee in the form of cash, certified check, cashier’s check, money order, or funds received by verified electronic transfer, or any combination thereof. Laws of 1998, ch. 295, § 9, codified as RCW 61.24.070. As Bain notes, this provision makes little sense if the beneficiary does not hold the note.”

Thus this court has now left open the possibility of challenging wrongful foreclosures both in equity and at law for damages (slander of title etc.) It would be hard to believe that Washington State Attorneys won’t pounce on this opportunity to do some good for their clients and themselves.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments »

BKR Judge Finds MERS Has No Right To Transfer Mortgages, Finds Entire MERS Process Illegal

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Neil Garfield

COMBO Title and Securitization Search, Report, Documents, Analysis & Commentary COMBO Title and Securitization Search, Report, Documents, Analysis & Commentary

STATUS OF 50% OF ALL MORTGAGES NOW QUESTIONABLE

BLOOMBERG: U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Grossman in Central Islip, New York, in a decision he said he knew would have a “significant impact,” wrote that the membership rules of the company’s Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, don’t make it an agent of the banks that own the mortgages…”

““MERS and its partners made the decision to create and operate under a business model that was designed in large part to avoid the requirements of the traditional mortgage-recording process,” Grossman wrote. “The court does not accept the argument that because MERS may be involved with 50 percent of all residential mortgages in the country, that is reason enough for this court to turn a blind eye to the fact that this process does not comply with the law.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Significant impact” is an understatement. By finding that the enabling documents of MERS membership do NOT create an agency relationship, Judge Grossman has correctly pointed out one of the most important reasons why our title systems throughout all 50 states are now corrupted. His finding casts a very dark shadow on the question of whether ANY mortgage involving MERS is secured by the property, and finds no doubt that virtually all foreclosures of MERS-related (nominee) mortgages were invalid.

This clearly means that the requirements for a clear chain of title are left unsatisfied. Any certificate or deed issued in which MERS was previously named in the chain of title is probably void (not voidable). Any homeowner who thinks they lost their home in foreclosure probably still legally owns that home. Any petitioner in bankruptcy whose estate included a home on which there was a purported encumbrance with MERS named as nominee had a much larger estate than the one filed with the help of automated computer schedules.

Any Motion to Lift Stay that involved MERS that was granted was done improperly — and is subject to reversal by an action to quiet title, an action for wrongful foreclosure, or a motion for reconsideration based upon representations being a fraud upon the court.

Any modification, short-sale or mediated settlement involving MERS, any auction sale or post auction sale of property, will need to be unwound and returned back to status quo with the homeowner possessed of fee ownership of the property. And then there is this question: if the party identified as “lender” did not lend the borrower the money, and if MERS is not an agent that can be recognized at law, was a mortgagee or beneficiary identified in the mortgage or deed of trust? Clearly, not. Does that mean the instrument purporting to create an encumbrance is simply a wild instrument to be ignored, or is some court action required to either remove it or correct it? Who has standing to correct it?

For 3 1/2 years I’ve been saying, contrary to many other analysts including those on the borrowers’ side, that the mortgages and notes were invalid and that the only thing left was a liability owed to an unknown third party that for its own reasons has not sought to collect on that liability and whose claim was both undocumented and unsecured. This conclusion is corroborated by extrapolating the consequences of Judge Grossman’s decision, which is the only decision that could be made if we are to follow the rule of law. “We’re big and this is how we have been doing it for years”does not trump “this is the law and you didn’t comply with it.”

Tyler Durden's picture

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/14/2011 15:31 -0500

There was a time when news, especially very bad news, moved stocks. The last time that occurred was in the middle of 2009, before most robots had any idea just how massive the chairsatan’s schizoid break with reality was. Now, that the appropriate sociopathology is fully priced in, bad news tends to have an even more profound upside impact on stocks than good news, as it guarantees that the Zimbabwe stock market will be upon us far sooner than if the economy were to have to go through another inter-QE episode. Which is why the just released news out of US Bankruptcy Judge Robert Grossman of Central Islip, New York, that MERS lacks rights to transfer mortgages will likely send the entire S&P circuit breaker up.

From Bloomberg:

“Merscorp Inc., operator of the electronic-registration system that contains about half of all U.S. home mortgages, has no right to transfer the mortgages under its membership rules, a judge said…U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Grossman in Central Islip, New York, in a decision he said he knew would have a “significant impact,” wrote that the membership rules of the company’s Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, don’t make it an agent of the banks that own the mortgages…”

“MERS’s theory that it can act as a ‘common agent’ for undisclosed principals is not supported by the law,” Grossman wrote in a Feb. 10 opinion. “MERS did not have authority, as ‘nominee’ or agent, to assign the mortgage absent a showing that it was given specific written directions by its principal.”

“MERS and its partners made the decision to create and operate under a business model that was designed in large part to avoid the requirements of the traditional mortgage-recording process,” Grossman wrote. “The court does not accept the argument that because MERS may be involved with 50 percent of all residential mortgages in the country, that is reason enough for this court to turn a blind eye to the fact that this process does not comply with the law.

“An adverse ruling regarding MERS’s authority to assign mortgages or act on behalf of its member/lenders could have a significant impact on MERS and upon the lenders which do business with MERS throughout the United States,” Grossman wrote. “It is up to the legislative branch, if it chooses, to amend the current statutes to confer upon MERS the requisite authority to assign mortgages under its current business practices.”

“Without more, this court finds that MERS’s ‘nominee’ status and the rights bestowed upon MERS within the mortgage itself, are insufficient to empower MERS to effectuate a valid assignment of mortgage,” the judge wrote. “MERS’s position that it can be both the mortgagee and an agent of the mortgagee is absurd, at best.”

And with MERS now found to be a fraud, we expect MERS Commercial authority to be likewise eliminated. Which means that the entire US mortgage market, both residential and commercial, is a lie, and built on fraudulent foundations, and that every single MERS-mediated transaction will likely have to be unwound.

In reality what will happen, is that the Banker lobby will have to purchase a few more Appelate Judges, and in the worst case, a SCOTUS dude here and there, appeal the ruling to death, and end up victorious. After all, it is only taxpayer money.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , | 82 Comments »

MEDIATIONS, MODIFICATIONS, SHORT-SALES AND SETTLEMENTS

Posted on September 26, 2010 by Neil Garfield

SERVICES YOU NEED

AUTHORITY AND AGENCY

In “Fair Game” Gretchen Morgenson continues to unravel the failing process of “saving homes” while the world ignores the simple truth that legally the homes are in no jeopardy but for the pranks and illusions created by the pretender lenders.

  • There is no valid foreclosure, auction, mediation, modification, short-sale, satisfaction of mortgage, release and re-conveyance, or even settlement with a party to whom the money is not owed and a party owning no rights under the security instrument (the mortgage or deed of trust).

It is all an illusion given reality by repetition not by truth. It is fraud ignored by courts who naturally find it far more likely that a deadbeat homeowner is trying to trick the court than a world class bank or someone pretending to be an agent of a world class bank. But in the end, whether title moves by foreclosure or any of the procedures mentioned above, there is no clear title. There is clouded, fatally defective title and a settlement with a party lacking any power to even be in the room.

This is why I have maintained that lawyers err when they do not aggressively (on the front end despite the rules requiring mediation etc.) insist on proof of authority to represent and proof of agency and proof that a decision-maker is in the room. If those elements are not satisfied, there can be deal — only the appearance of a deal.It is entirely possible that not even the lawyer has authority to represent and that the lawyer has conflicts of interest when you make the challenge. If a lawyer asserts he represents a party you have a right to demand proof of that. I’ve seen dozens of cases unravel at just that point.

The foreclosure mills play musical chairs but they are forgetting that this fraud on the court may come back and haunt them with liability, discipline and even criminal charges. They keep their options open until they absolutely are forced to name a pretender lender. That lawyer standing in the room has generally spoken to nobody other than a secretary in his own firm. he doesn’t know the client, or any representative of the client. He or she presumed to be authorized to represent the client because the file was given to him or her.

Think I am kidding. Try it out on Deutsch Bank or U.S. Bank or BONY-Mellon. Demand that the lawyer produce incontrovertible proof that their client knows the case even exists and that this lawyer represents them.

From what I am seeing, this interrupts the flow of plausible deniability. Nobody high up in the food chain wants to come in and say they have personal knowledge or that they have anything to do with these foreclosures. They just want their monthly fee for pretending to be Trustee over a pool that was never created, much less funded. They will try to use affidavits from people who know nothing and who are probably not even employed by the “client.” Even if they are employed a quick inquiry will reveal that the signatory lacks authority to hire legal counsel and has no personal knowledge of the case.

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September 18, 2010

When Mortgage Mediation Is a Gamble

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

NEVADA — one of the states where home prices went stratospheric during the housing mania — is now reporting some of the nation’s most horrifying foreclosure figures. Last week, RealtyTrac said that 1 in every 84 households in the state had received a foreclosure notice in August, 4.5 times the national average.

To mitigate this continuing disaster, the Nevada Assembly created a foreclosure mediation program last year. Intended to help keep families in their homes, the program brings together troubled borrowers and their lenders to negotiate resolutions.

The program began on July 1, 2009, and in its first year, 8,738 requests for mediation were received and 4,212 completed, according to the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts. Some 668 borrowers gave up their homes and 445 were foreclosed upon in the period.

“We are the only state that requires the bank to do something — they must come to the table if the homeowner elects mediation,” said Verise V. Campbell, who administers the program. “We are now touted as the No. 1 foreclosure mediation program around the country. The program is working.”

During its first year, 2,590 cases — more than 60 percent of completed mediations — resulted in agreements between borrower and lender, Ms. Campbell said. But when asked how many actually wound up assisting homeowners through permanent loan modifications, she said her office did not track that figure.

Most of these agreements, say lawyers who have worked in Nevada’s program, were probably for temporary modifications like those that have frustrated borrowers elsewhere — you know, the kind of plan that lasts only three months until the bank decides that the borrower does not qualify for a permanent modification.

Clearly, the Nevada program is superior to the White House’s Home Affordable Modification Program, where borrowers have trouble even reaching lenders by phone. Forcing banks to meet with borrowers is definitely a good step.

But some mediators who have participated in the Nevada program and some lawyers who represent borrowers in it say it has flaws that may give the banks an advantage over borrowers.

Patrick James Martin, a lawyer in Reno who is a certified public accountant and an arbitrator for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, was an early mediator in the program. In a recent letter to Nevada’s state court administrator, Mr. Martin expressed concern that the program favored lenders.

“I really felt the lenders didn’t have too much interest in having the program work,” Mr. Martin said in an interview. “A lawyer would show up for the lender with none of the documents required by the program. When they got into the mediation, they would call somebody in a bullpen someplace who had a computer handy and the borrower might or might not qualify for modification. No discussion, no negotiation.”

Mr. Martin said he no longer received cases to mediate.

Another experienced mediator, who declined to be identified because he feared reprisals, was removed from the system after he recommended sanctions for banks that did not meet their obligations under the program. These duties include showing up, bringing pertinent documents and having authority to negotiate with the borrower.

After this mediator made a petition for sanctions in a case this year, Ms. Campbell sent him and the other parties in the matter a letter saying that the recommendation was not a “valid Foreclosure Mediation Program document.” The letter, on Supreme Court of Nevada stationery, also stated that nothing in the law that established the mediation program “requires or permits a mediator to recommend specific sanctions.”

But the statute governing mediations in Nevada clearly specifies that if a lender does not participate in the mediation in good faith, by failing to appear, for example, “the mediator shall prepare and submit to the mediation administrator a petition and recommendation concerning the imposition of sanctions” against the lender. The court then has the power to issue sanctions, which can include forcing a loan modification.

Keith Tierney is a veteran real estate lawyer who was until recently a mediator in the program. He, too, stopped receiving mediation assignments after recommending sanctions against lenders in a number of cases. He said that a program official told him last week that he was no longer eligible because he issued a petition and recommendation for sanctions, even though that is what the law allows.

When asked why she believed that such recommendations were not allowed, Ms. Campbell said mediators who issued them were not following the program rules as interpreted by Nevada’s Supreme Court.

But Mr. Tierney said: “The statute trumps rules. Every attorney in the world knows that if a rule is in contradiction to a statute, the rule is null and void.”

Administering the program gives Ms. Campbell great power. She issues certificates allowing foreclosures to take place after mediations occur. And while she said such certificates were submitted only when mediators’ statements showed they should be, mistakes have happened.

ONE woman went through a mediation in which the lender didn’t provide necessary documents and the mediator noted it, according to legal documents. Under the rules, no certificate is supposed to be issued in such a circumstance, but shortly afterward, the borrower received notice of a trustee sale. Ms. Campbell’s office had issued a certificate allowing foreclosure; only by filing for bankruptcy could the borrower stop it.

Ms. Campbell said such problems were rare. The state doesn’t produce data that would allow her assertion to be verified.

Ms. Campbell is not a lawyer and is not a veteran of the housing or banking industries. Before overseeing the mediation program, she worked in the casino industry. She worked for a Chinese company developing a gambling property in Macau and was director of administration for the Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

Ms. Campbell said that her position involved administrative duties, not legal insight, and that her experience overseeing large projects amply prepared her to manage the Nevada mediation program.

But David M. Crosby, the lawyer who represented the borrower whose case resulted in an erroneous foreclosure action, said significant questions remained about the program. Among them, he said, was the role that Ms. Campbell played in the process.

“Does she just do administrative stuff or does she make decisions?” he asked. “That doesn’t seem well decided.”


Filed under: bubble, CASES, CDO, CORRUPTION, Eviction, evidence, expert witness, foreclosure, foreclosure mill, GTC | Honor, HERS, investment banking, Investor, MODIFICATION, Mortgage, Motions, Pleading, securities fraud, Servicer, STATUTES, taxes, trustee | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

AZ STATUTE DEFINES BENEFICIARY and CREDIT BID: NOT “NOMINEE”

Posted on April 24, 2010 by Neil Garfield

33-801. Definitions

In this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:

1. “Beneficiary” means the person named or otherwise designated in a trust deed as the person for whose benefit a trust deed is given, or the person’s successor in interest. [Note that this does not include a nominee like MERS. There is a reason for that. The legislature intended to create certainty in contracts and actions on contracts. Using a nominee immediately creates the question of agency. The question of agency immediately raises the question of “who is the principal?” As long as that question exists, this statute is violated. If this statue is violated the deed of trust is void.]

2. “Business day” means any day other than a saturday or a legal holiday.

3. “Cash” means United States currency.

4. “Contract” means a promise or a set of promises for the breach of which the law gives a remedy, or the performance of which the law in some way recognizes as a duty, including but not limited to a note, A promissory note or provisions of any trust deed.

5. “Credit bid” means a bid made by the beneficiary in full or partial satisfaction of the contract or contracts which are secured by the trust deed. [Note that such credit bids are the rule rather than the exception and that the person making the credit bid is almost never the named the beneficiary. hence the sale is void]. [Note also that without an accounting for third party payments to the creditor in the securitization chain who has succeeded to the position of beneficiary BECAUSE THE SUCCESSION IS SHOWN IN THE COUNTY RECORDS, is voidable because the amount is incorrect, which is a question of fact that must be judicially resolved, which is why NO NON-JUDICIAL sale of securitized property is appropriate.] Such credit bid may only include an amount up to the full amount of the contract or contracts secured by the trust deed, less any amount owing on liens or encumbrances with interest which are superior in priority to the trust deed and which the beneficiary is obligated to pay under the contract or contracts or under the trust deed, together with the amount of other obligations provided in or secured by the trust deed and the costs and expenses of exercising the power of sale and the sale, including the trustee’s fees and reasonable attorney fees actually incurred. (e.s.)

6. “Force majeure” means an act of God or of nature, a superior or overpowering force or an event or effect that cannot reasonably be anticipated or controlled and that prevents access to the sale location for conduct of a sale.

7. “Parent corporation” means a corporation which owns eighty per cent or more of every class of the issued and outstanding stock of another corporation or, in the case of a savings and loan association, eighty per cent or more of its issued and outstanding guaranty capital.

8. “Trust deed” or “deed of trust” means a deed executed in conformity with this chapter and conveying trust property to a trustee or trustees qualified under section 33-803 to secure the performance of a contract or contracts, other than a trust deed which encumbers in whole or in part trust property located in Arizona and in one or more other states.

9. “Trust property” means any legal, equitable, leasehold or other interest in real property which is capable of being transferred, whether or not it is subject to any prior mortgages, trust deeds, contracts for conveyance of real property or other liens or encumbrances.

10. “Trustee” means an individual, association or corporation qualified pursuant to section 33-803, or the successor in interest thereto, to whom trust property is conveyed by trust deed. The trustee’s obligations to the trustor, beneficiary and other persons are as specified in this chapter, together with any other obligations specified in the trust deed.

11. “Trustor” means the person conveying trust property by a trust deed as security for the performance of a contract or contracts, or the successor in interest of such person.

Filed under: CDO, CORRUPTION, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Pro Se Litigant’s Eloquence on MERS Split of Note and Mortgage

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Neil Garfield

A pattern with Wells Fargo that we have seen is that they make the representation that they are the holder of the note and the investor,which is a blatant lie in most cases. Then AFTER they get the order they want, they admit that through “inadvertence” they misrepresented the facts to the court. Then they say it is not a material misrepresentation and they produce some additional fabricated documents like a limited power of attorney which upon close reading grants nothing to anyone, is subject to many conditions that are not readily determinable and is signed by party of dubious authority and dated under questionable circumstances (if the document existed before why didn’t they use it?).Editor’s Note: I think the following addresses the MERS and nominee issue very well. The entire proceedings can be seen at delasallemtdargument.

The very basic question that ought to be asked is why any of these intermediaries exist. When you think about it, there can only be one reason: to hide what they are really doing and to provide a mechanism to diminish the possibility of multiple claims from multiple participants in the securitization chain. Nobody needed MERS or any of these other foreclosure entities when the identity of the creditor/lender was clear.

Now they don’t want it clear. The success of foreclosure in both non-judicial and judicial states depends entirely on creating the appearance of propriety through a maze of unnecessary entities whose sole purpose is to provide plausible deniability to the pretender lenders if and when it comes to light that the wrong party is attempting to foreclose and they are doing it contrary tot he interests of the real creditors (investors) and contrary to the interests of the homeowners who are now subject to financial double or multiple jeopardy.

A pattern with Wells Fargo that we have seen is that they make the representation that they are the holder of the note and the investor,which is a blatant lie in most cases. Then AFTER they get the order they want, they admit that through “inadvertence” they misrepresented the facts to the court. Then they say it is not a material misrepresentation and they produce some additional fabricated documents like a limited power of attorney which upon close reading grants nothing to anyone, is subject to many conditions that are not readily determinable and is signed by party of dubious authority and dated under questionable circumstances (if the document existed before why didn’t they use it?).

“The note and the mortgage are inseparable. The former as essential, the latter as an incident. An assignment of the note carries the mortgage with it. An assignment of the latter is a nullity.”
MERS, Your Honor, has corrupted this basic black letter law of mortgages that makes a split of the security instrument from the note impermissible.
First, it names itself as the beneficiary of the deed of trust, thus splitting the deed of trust from the note, and then it attempts to rectify the split by stating that it is acting in some form of restricted agency relationship solely as the nominee for the lender.
In doing this, MERS attempts to do two things that are inconsistent at the same time, and it is this ambiguous contradictory language that fails the title. Why?
First, because as the beneficiary of the deed of trust, MERS has suffered no default. Only the current holder of the note has suffered a default, and only the current holder can enforce the note.
And secondly, even if it could be argued that MERS is the agent for the original lender, America’s Wholesale Lender — and Your Honor, it is important to note that within the four corner of the document, within the four corners of the deed of trust, there is nothing that establishes that agency relationship.
But again, even if you argue that it exists, there’s nothing that establishes an agency relationship between MERS and the alleged current owner of the note according to the bank servicer, Bank of America; U.S. Bank as trustee for the structured adjustable rate mortgage, 19 excess 2005. They are apparently, allegedly, they are the current holder of the note.
Yet, MERS takes the position that through the deed of trust all of these agency relationships are implied, and that it can go forward based upon these implications and foreclose even though the four corners of that document, of the deed of trust, carries only one signature, mine, not the signatures of MERS, nor its principals.
They seem to contend that with this implied agency agreement that is in violation of the statute of fraud that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Carpenter v. Longan prohibiting
the splitting of a mortgage from the note can somehow be ignored.
Your Honor, it cannot. It cannot be ignored without the U.S. Supreme Court going back and reversing Carpenter v. Longan.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments »

Foreclosure Defense and Offense: Procurations

Posted on August 28, 2008 by Neil Garfield

OK, I admit it, I didn’t know what it was either. But someone of higher linguistic ability than me referred to it as though I knew what it was. So I looked it up and sure enough it not only was appropriately used by him, it is the BEST word to describe the relationship between the various people and entities that created this mess (Now it is part of the glossary):

PROCURATION –

The act by which one person gives power to another to act in his place, as he could do himself. A letter of attorney. 2. Procurations are either express or implied; an express procuration is one made by the express consent of the parties; the implied or tacit takes place when an individual sees another managing his affairs, and does not interfere to prevent it.  [The significance of this in the mortgage meltdown is the tacit agreement between the title company/trustee, the mortgage broker, appraiser, “lender”, mortgage originator, mortgage aggregator, CDO Manager, SPV and Investment bank in committing fraud, violating TILA, violating usury laws, etc.]

  • Procurations are also divided into those which contain absolute power, or a general authority, and those which give only a limited power. The procurations are ended in three ways first, by the revocation of the authority; secondly, by the death of one of the parties; thirdly, by the renunciation of the mandatory, when it is made in proper time and place, and it can be done without injury to the person who gave it. [In the mortgage meltdown environment, no party has ever rescinded or denounced the behavior of any of the other parties because they have sought to vainly to claim plausible deniability. If they renounce or claim an end to the procurations, they are admitting to the existence of the tacit agreements which gave rise to the fraud on borrowers and fraud on investors.]

Filed under: CDO, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Mortgage | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

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