NO TRUST ASSETS: In the eye of the storm

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Neil Garfield

This is one more nail in the coffin of false securitization: the only assets attributed to apparent “Buyers” were those related to and including servicer advances. By severing the investors from their positions as creditors, the banks were able to create the illusion that they — or their “originators”, brokers, nominees, fronts and sham operators — were the owners of the debt. NONE of the “transfers” of the “loan documents” involved a purchase and sale of a loan. NONE of the original “loan documents” referred to an actual transaction between the homeowner and the originator. That is because at the base of the paper chain was an entity that served only as a conduit for the paperwork and which had nothing to do with the advance of money to or on behalf of any homeowner. The paper trail and the money trail diverged the moment the loan papers were executed.

Get a consult! 202-838-6345

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.

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

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Hat tip to CC who wrote to me with the following:

In the eye of the storm

I also wanted to share with you the LinkedIn career history of a young “document specialist” who claims familiarity with executing and creating loan documents. (Document specialist Matt Byas maintains a profile on LinkedIn.) He worked his way up through such foreclosure/loan mod fraud luminaries as Saxon Mortgage (Dennis G. Stowe, COO, later acquired by Ocwen), Bank of America (where his job was “filing back several file folders containing loan information and processing them at various points along the line as well”), Homeward Residential, Inc. (later acquired by Ocwen, received $1.31B in TARP money, disbursed $280M) where his job included “creating allonges”), Residential Credit Solutions, Inc. (plaintiff in the successfully appealed judgement above, beneficiary of Geithner’s first, entirely bogus PPIP auction and another less well-known, similar sweetheart deal with Tim and Amtrust’s loans in 2010, which led to the $2M verdict for the Illinois widow in Hammer vs RCS, receiver of $43M in TARP money, $6.6M spent aiding borrowers, dissolved in 2016 by 2013 acquirer MTGE after non-stop quarterly losses from the point of acquisition onwards, and again featuring Dennis G. Stowe, CEO). His services were also utilized at a law firm that collapsed into a spectacular heap of revealed fraud, Butler & Hosch, P.A., and a loan servicer prone to deals so distant from comprehensibility that they had to issue this clarification to a press release in 2009:

No actual mortgage loans were part of the transaction. The acquired assets consisted principally of advances made on behalf of borrowers who are in arrears and of the Master Servicing Rights pursuant to which the loans are serviced. (e.s.) Mortgage servicing consists of collecting payments from homeowners, remitting them to appropriate parties and managing the default cycle. The transaction with Citi Residential Lending is similar to AHMSI’s earlier acquisitions from Option One and other sellers of servicing. In addition, while $1.5 billion has been described in a number of media reports as a “payment” in the transaction for the Master Servicing Rights, the vast portion of this amount is related to outstanding servicing advances.”

That loan servicer, American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. eventually changed its name to Homeward Residential, and the document specialist no longer names it as a separate entity on his LinkedIn profile.

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: AHMSI, American Home Mortgage Servicing, Bank of America, Butler & Hosch, Citi Residential Lending, Dennis G. Stowe, Homeward Residential, Master Servicing Rights, Matt Byas, Ocwen, Option One, saxon mortgage | 9 Comments »

Statute of Limitations: Dade County — Deutsche Loses Foreclosure — Cited for 7 years of delays

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Neil Garfield

For further information please call 954*495*9867 or 520-405-1688

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see Deutsch Crashes on Statute of Limitations in Dade County

For many years judges have turned delays in foreclosures against borrowers usually making some comment about having lived for free without making payments. Those judges have ignored the fact that the delay was caused by the Plaintiff who initiated the foreclosure, who for their own reasons delayed, obfuscated and continually delayed the progress of the case that they were supposed to prosecute, since they filed the lawsuit. In this case, Deutsch lost based upon a statute of limitations that had run and based upon the fact that Deutsch was the reason for the delays.

The fact remains that in most cases, homeowners were urgently asking for modifications in which they would have paid for terms that were based upon economic and legal realities. Those homeowners, usually paying attorneys fees throughout the period of delays, were not getting any “free ride.” They were set to lose their down payment, cost of improvements and the costs of forensic audits and attorney fees. But the item to notice, as we have discussed before, is that where the adversaries are a bank or servicer on the plaintiff side and the condo or homeowners association on the other, the decisions are more likely to run against the bank.

So it behooves the attorneys for the associations as well as the homeowners to act in concert where the possibility exists for defeating the claims of a party like Deutsch who seems to lack ownership and lack authority to collect or enforce.

The case shows the “negative consequences that lenders can face if they go too far with their delay tactics in foreclosure cases,” condo association attorneys Nicholas and Steven Siegfried said in a statement.

Loan servicer American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. filed suit in January 2007, demanding accelerated payments for the full $1.44 million.

Ironically it was this move for upfront payments that would unravel the lender’s case and cost the bank the million-dollar property, because the condo association successfully argued the demand started a five-year clock for resolving the foreclosure.

Read more: http://www.dailybusinessreview.com/id=1202713539844/Statute-of-Limitations-Dooms-Deutsche-Bank-in-Foreclosure#ixzz3NOGrEm7g

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: AHMSI, American Home Mortgage Servicing, ASSOCIATION LIEN, Dade County, Deutsch, statute of limitations | 26 Comments »

Post Mortum on 2010 “Bad” Decision in Florida

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Neil Garfield

For further information or assistance please call 954-495-9867 or 520 405-1688

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See CitiBank v Delassio 756 F Supp 2d 1361 2010

This case is often cited by servicers and banks to enforce a note and/or mortgage. Lots of people regarded this decision as “bad” because it approved the foreclosure. The natural impulse is to run from this decision and try to cite others that conflict with it. But this decision was correct AND it provides a blueprint for making your defense successful. The Judge correctly analyzed the law and the facts and found that the homeowner had not proven anything or objected to anything that would prevent Citi from proving its prima facie case and had not proven anything or objected to anything that would have supported any of the homeowner’s defenses.

So I thought I would take this case, as I have done before, and examine it for clues on how the same Judge would have decided the case differently. Used properly this might enable the homeowner to cite to this case in support of a motion to dismiss, motion for summary judgment or to attack the prima facie case of the party initiating foreclosure. There are also plenty of clues as to proving an affirmative defense in which the final result will be that the mortgage is void or unenforceable and perhaps the note as well, leaving the debt, which arises by operation of law and is owed to the party who physically gave the borrower the money.

LACK OF JURISDICTION — VOID MORTGAGE AND VOID NOTE: The first issue is that for reasons unknown, the borrower failed to bring up the fact that the “lender” did not legally exist in Florida and further failed to object to the finding that AHMSI and American Brokers Conduit were “one in the same [sic]”. In fact, I wonder if the case could not still be overturned on the basis of lack of jurisdiction and perhaps even that the mortgage was void, thus depriving the court of both in rem jurisdiction and in personam jurisdiction. Perhaps the homeowner did not authorize investigation into the parties. But had he done so he would have found that American Brokers Conduit (the “lender”) did not exist in law or in fact. Any claim that ABC was the alter ego or Trade Name of AHMSI was not explored in the opinion. And as to AHMSI, what difference does it make if they were supposedly the true lender under Florida law? The note and mortgage were both defective and the disclosures were deficient in failing to identify the actual party, which, as we shall see below, would have changed the view of the case entirely.
POOLING AND SERVICING AGREEMENT: The title of the case involves U.S. Bank “as indenture trustee.” By stating that without explanation the homeowner ought to be able to inquire about the indenture, where it exists, and ask for a copy. That would be the Pooling and Servicing Agreement, which makes all arguments about the irrelevance of the PSA moot. Failure to raise the question of where the trustee derived its powers, where the servicer derived its powers, and where the terms and provisions can be found for the duties of the servicer or trustee essentially waives the issue of securitization (false or not). By raising the issue appropriately the homeowner can then inquire as to whether the trust actually owns the debt or is a holder in due course. The holding by the judge in this case that the Trust was a holder in due course was wrong —but not wrong on the facts and admissions by both sides in this case. Hence the decision was inevitable even though the real facts did not support the conclusion. The accepted facts of the case were contrary to the actual facts.
FDCPA CLAIMS: The homeowner settled with AHMSI regarding fair debt collection practices. This might have been a mistake and might have been the reason that the Judge regarded AHMSI and American Brokers Conduit as the same thing. The settlement probably was worded in a way that prevented the homeowner from raising the authority of ABC to assign anything, much less record a mortgage or transfer a note that it could not have funded because it never existed — at least in Florida. I have several cases where the lender is very concerned about the FDCPA claims and needs a settlement. They obviously know that there is danger in those hills and that should be exploited by borrowers when challenging the debt, note, mortgage or foreclosure.
TILA AND RESPA DISCLOSURES: Amongst the agreed facts, the court found that the borrower closed the loan with ABC, and based upon the only issues raised by the borrower, found that the disclosures were proper, and that any discrepancies worked to the borrower’s advantage and therefore did not constitute a violation of the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) or the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA). Hence there was no right to rescind either under the 3 day rule or the 3 year rule. Despite the fact that the borrower announced rescission within the 3 years, the court properly found against the borrower. Citi by filing the foreclosure suit, was in substantial compliance with the requirement that it timely file a declaratory action regarding the right to rescind. So if the court had found that there was no closing because ABC did not exist and that the disclosures were inadequate because the borrower raised the issues of disclosing the lender (and avoiding the predatory per se finding by Reg Z), then the same Judge who entered this order probably would have said the rescission right was at least in play and might well have decided, as per the express terms of TILA, that the mortgage was nullified by operation of law by the announcement of rescission. [Note: This issue is currently being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court]
RESCISSION: This in turn leads to the question: if ABC didn’t exist and therefore didn’t actually loan any money then who did? The only thing we can agree on, up to a point ( but that is the subject of another article), is that the borrower did get money and that the receipt of the money is presumed, by operation of law to create a debt in which the borrower is the debtor and the source of funds is the creditor. The failure to disclose a table funded loan or worse, a naked nominee or conduit providing funds from investors who didn’t know how their money was being used, is a material violation of the disclosure requirements in TILA. That is why Reg Z underscores the importance of that disclosure by saying that failure to do so constitutes conduct that is “predatory per se.” And you can prove that by citing to this same case. Hence the rescission would have or at least could have been found to have been complete and the mortgage nullified, thus paving the way for the borrower to get alternative financing, quiet title or other other remedies.
PREDATORY LOANS: It is unclear what exactly went on at the trial level with regards to an obviously “trick” loan that fails to disclose its hidden terms in a way that the borrower would any possibility of understanding. The only thing the borrower knew or understood is that he was getting a low interest loan. No reasonable person would sign a loan in which they understood that the interest rate was only good for one month. If you want to win on this point ,though, you need more than the testimony of the borrower. You need a mortgage broker or other professional that would testify that the loan was unworkable from the start, doomed to failure and was illegally funded from investor funds, and illegally sold to the borrower under false pretenses. THAT is how you prove unclean hands which would prevent enforcement of the mortgage.
UCC: There is an interesting juxtaposition in the “Legal Analysis” of the opinion. The court finds that the Trust was a holder in due course. And this case can be cited for the elements of being a holder in due course. I would encourage foreclosure defense lawyers to do so because you can start out by saying in this case in which the Federal District Court found against the borrower, the elements of the status of holder in due course are summarized. If you go down to the end of the first paragraph in the legal analysis the quote about payment opens the door for your attack against the holder in due course status. Did the Trust prove or show that it PAID for the note and mortgage without knowledge of borrower’s defenses, without knowledge that it was already in default, and in good faith, and did the Trust get delivery (which according to the pleadings, they did not because the note was initially “lost”). Hence the same court that stated that the trust was an HIDC finds that PAYMENT “goes to the heart of the agreement”. If the trust cannot show it paid anything, then two questions arise, to wit: why not? and why did the endorser or assignor of the “loan” transfer or purport to transfer the loan documents to the trust without receiving any payment? If you follow that logic down the line you will corroborate your argument that ABC gave no money to the borrower and that was why ABC never received any money for the transfer of the paper, which now is visible as being entirely worthless, fraudulent and false.
ENDORSEMENT OR ASSIGNMENT IN SECURITIZATION SCHEME: The court correctly states that under the UCC a transferee of negotiable paper can get the right to enforce the paper either by endorsement or assignment. Because the issue was apparently not raised, the court failed to address the issue of whether the enforcement could succeed at trial (as opposed to the pleading stage) if the identity of the creditor is not disclosed. The question at trial or deposition should be, if the witness is from the servicer entity, and assuming the current servicer entity had anything to do with processing payments from the borrower and to the creditor, “who did you pay?” What the court failed to deal with (presumably because the homeowner did not bring it up) is that the party claiming rights (the trustee for the trust) must show that the loan actually went into the trust because it was paid for and properly delivered. If no objection is raised, then the court can correctly presume that those elements are present. If a proper objection is made then the Plaintiff should be required and often is required now to prove the elements of a holder in due course. In cases where my team has been directly involved in litigation the opposing lawyer tried to wriggle out of this problem by declaring that the trust is not a holder in due course and that therefore they had no requirement to prove those elements. They are essentially hoping that the court won’t know the difference between a holder and holder in due course. A mere holder must establish that it has the rights to enforce on behalf of a party who actually owns the debt by identifying that party and identifying the instrument by which the “holder” was given authority to enforce. In the case of a trust that is impossible because by all accounts the trust is the final resting stop of the claims of securitization of loans. So you end up with an empty trust, in which neither the servicer nor the trustee have any legal rights to do anything with the debt created by the borrower when he accepted the money at “closing.” He still owes a debt, and if the opposition would comply with discovery requests we would know the identity of the party to whom he owes the debt. But one thing is for certain, he cannot ALSO owe a second debt created by signature on a note and mortgage made out in favor of a party who loaned him any money. The key to this is emphasizing that a holder must prove the loan in its claimed chain. But the loan will probably be presumed to exist within the chain if the borrower fails to object and raise the issues.
DELIVERY: There is considerable confusion in the case as to the issue of delivery apparently because neither party made an issue about it. The court concludes that Citi got delivery of the loan documents (versus the lost note account that was later abandoned) but fails to show how that delivery constitutes delivery to the trust when the PSA obviously contains strict provisions as to delivery and New York law governing the trust requires any transaction outside the authority stated in the trust to be void.
ECONOMIC WASTE: This decision stands for the proposition that economic waste is a proper affirmative defense, but unless you actually prove it with reliable, credible testimony about facts and documents, merely alleging an affirmative defense and hoping that somehow the opposition will stumble into an admission, is not a very good strategy.

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: AHMSI, American Brokers Conduit, and FDCPA claims, Citi Mortgage, delivery, disclosures, Economic waste, endorsement or assignment in securitization scheme, lack of jurisdiction, Pooling and Servicing Agreement, PREDATORY LOANS, real estate settlement and procedures act, rescission, Truth in Lending Act, void mortgage, void note, you UCC | 27 Comments »

FireDogLake: How the Corruption of the Land Title System is NOT Being Fixed

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Neil Garfield

The Real Foreclosure Fraud Story: Corruption of the Land Title System

By: David Dayen

George Zornick carries a rebuttal from Eric Schneiderman’s team on yesterday’s damaging expose of the securitization fraud working group. Here’s what it has to say:

• There are 50 staffers “across the country” working on the RMBS working group (the official title).
• DoJ has asked for $55 million for additional staffing.
• The five co-chairs of the working group meet formally weekly, and talk daily.
• There are no headquarters for the working group, but that’s because it’s spread across the country.
• There is no executive director.
• Activists still think the staffing level is too low.

If any of this looks familiar, it’s because it’s EXACTLY what Reuters and I reported a week ago. In other words, it was unnecessary. And it doesn’t contradict what the New York Daily News op-ed said yesterday, either. Like that op-ed, this confirms that there is no executive director and no headquarters for the working group, which sounds more like a central processing space for investigations that could have happened independently, at least at this point.

Meanwhile, if you want actual news, you can go to this very good story at MSNBC, revealing the truth that nobody wants to talk about: the inconvenient detail that the land title and property rights system that has served this country well for over 300 years has been irreparably broken by this gang of thieves at the leading banks.

In a quiet office in downtown Charlotte, N.C., dozens of Wells Fargo’s foreclosure foot soldiers sit in cubicles cranking out documents the bank relies on to seize its share of the thousands of homes lost to foreclosure every week […]

The Wells Fargo worker, who first contacted msnbc.com via email in late January, told of a wide range of concerns about the foreclosure documents she processes. Some families apparently were denied loan modifications after only cursory interviews, she said. Other borrowers applying for help sent comprehensive personal financial documents to a fax machine that she discovered had been unattended for weeks. Others landed in foreclosure after owing interest payments of as little as $1.18 a day, according to documents she said she reviewed.

“There was one file where they weren’t even past due and they were in foreclosure status,” the loan processor said. “They’re pushing these files and pushing these files….”

Five years into the worst housing collapse since the Great Depression, the foreclosure pipeline that is removing tens of thousands of families from their homes every month rests on a legal process that has been badly compromised by errors, misrepresentation and outright fraud, according to consumer attorneys, state attorneys general, federal investigators and state and federal judges.

I must confess that I don’t throw this in everyone’s face nearly enough. What is being described in this article is the product of a completely broken system. The low-level grunts are being forced to sign off on a quota of loan files every day, and push the paper through the pipeline. Veracity, or even knowledge of the underlying data in the files, is irrelevant. This is precisely what got us into this mess in the first place, and it’s still happening. And these grunts, making $30,000 a year, are given titles like “Vice President of Loan Documentation” to sign off on affidavits attesting to the loan files. That’s basically robo-signing. It’s still happening.

Check out this part about LPS:

Like many mortgage servicers, Wells Fargo relies on a company called Lender Processing Services to assemble some of the information used to foreclose on properties.

With each file they prepare, the bank’s document processors must swear “personal knowledge” the information in each affidavit was properly collected and is accurate and complete.

But they have no way of making good on that promise because they are not able to check whether LPS properly collected and processed the data, according to the document processor.

“We’re basically copying and pasting” information from the LPS system, she said. “It’s data entry. We just input (on the affidavit) what’s on that system. And that’s it. We don’t go back through system and look.”

You’re talking about massive, massive fraud. And this is what the state Attorneys General and the federal regulators gave up, in exchange for their non-investigatory investigation.

This story is familiar here, but not necessarily to the MSNBC.com audience. I applaud them for putting this long piece together that synthesizes a lot of the information that’s been out there for years. This is the real scandal here, a corrupted residential housing market that actually cannot be put back together.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: 60 minutes, AHMSI, appraisal fraud, attorney general, auction fraud, Chris Koster, credit bids, DocX Indictment, foreclosure fraud, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, housing market, housing prices, investors, linda green, LPS, Missouri, mortgage fruad, mortgages, Robo-Signing, settlement, strategic default, Wells Fargo | 115 Comments »

Citi’s Parsons Blames Glass-Steagall Repeal for Crisis

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Editor’s Comment: So here we have one of the guys that was part of the team that overturned Glass-Steagal saying that their success led to the failure of our financial system. But then he says it is too late to change what we have done. It is not too late and if we are ever going to correct the financial system and hence the economy, we need to fix what we have done — separate the banks back into investment banks that take risks and commercial banks that are supposed to minimize risks. Instead we have a system where there is a virtually unlimited supply of other people’s money in the form of deposits and taxpayer bailouts that is the engine for leading what is left of the financial system into another ditch, this one deeper and worse.

Think about it. The banks are reporting record profits while the rest of us are experiencing record problems. That means that the banks are reporting gargantuan profits trading paper based upon economies that are in a nose-dive. How is that possible. We have less commerce (buying and selling) and more money being made by banks trading paper to each other. Or is this simply money laundering — bringing back and repatriating the money they stole in the mortgage meltdown and paying little or no tax?

Parsons Blames Glass-Steagall Repeal for Crisis

By Kim Chipman and Christine Harper

Richard Parsons, speaking two days after ending his 16-year tenure on the board of Citigroup Inc. (C) and a predecessor, said the financial crisis was partly caused by a regulatory change that permitted the company’s creation.

The 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall law that separated banks from investment banks and insurers made the business more complicated, Parsons said yesterday at a Rockefeller Foundation event in Washington. He served as chairman of Citigroup, the third-biggest U.S. bank by assets, from 2009 until handing off the role to Michael O’Neill at the April 17 annual meeting.

Enlarge image Citigroup Inc.

A Citigroup Inc. Citibank. Photographer: Dado Galdieri/Bloomberg

Parsons Says End of Glass-Steagall Led to Crisis

Play Video

April 20 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle report that Richard Parsons, speaking two days after ending his 16-year tenure on the board of Citigroup Inc. and a predecessor, said the financial crisis was partly caused by a regulatory change that permitted the company’s creation. They speak on Bloomberg Television’s “Inside Track.” (Source: Bloomberg)

“To some extent what we saw in the 2007, 2008 crash was the result of the throwing off of Glass-Steagall,” Parsons, 64, said during a question-and-answer session. “Have we gotten our arms around it yet? I don’t think so because the financial- services sector moves so fast.”

The 1998 merger of Citicorp and Sanford I. Weill’s Travelers Group Inc. depended on the U.S. government overturning the portion of the Depression-era act that required banks to be separate from capital-markets businesses like Travelers’ Salomon Smith Barney Holdings Inc. Parsons, who was president of Time Warner Inc. (TWX) at the time, had been a member of the Citicorp board before joining the board of the newly created Citigroup.

“Why didn’t he do something about it when he had a chance to?” Mike Mayo, an analyst at CLSA in New York who rates Citigroup shares “underperform,” said in a phone interview. “He’s a couple days out the door and he’s publicly criticizing the ability to manage the company.”

‘Dynamic World’

Unlike John S. Reed, the former Citicorp CEO who said in 2009 that he regretted working to overturn Glass-Steagall, Parsons said he didn’t think that the barriers can be rebuilt.

“We are going to have to figure out how to manage in this new and dynamic world because there are good and sufficient business reasons for putting these things together,” Parsons said. “It’s just that the ability to manage what we have built isn’t up to our capacity to do it yet.”

Parsons didn’t refer to Citigroup specifically during his comments and Shannon Bell, a spokeswoman for the bank in New York, declined to comment. Mayo said Parsons’ comments show he views the New York-based bank as “too big to manage.”

“This gives more support to the new chairman to take more radical action,” said Mayo, whose book “Exile on Wall Street” was critical of Parsons and the management of banks including Citigroup. “Citigroup needs to be reduced in size whether that’s breaking up or additional asset sales or whatever it takes.”

‘Separate Houses’

Parsons said in a phone interview after the event that it was difficult to find executives who could run retail banks and investment banks in the U.S. because the two businesses had been separated by Glass-Steagall for about 60 years.

“One of the things we faced when we tried to find new leadership for Citi, there wasn’t anybody who had deep employment experience in both sides of what theretofore had been separate houses,” he said. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit is trying to change that, Parsons said. “I think if you ask Vikram he’d say probably his biggest challenge long-term is developing the management.”

Banks are growing because corporations and other clients want them to, and management must meet the challenge, he said.

U.S. Bailout

“People have a sort of a notion that ‘well, we can decide that’s too big to manage,’” he said. “But it got that way because there was a market need and institutions find and follow the needs of the marketplace. So what we have to do is we have to learn how to improve our ability to manage it and manage it more effectively.”

Citigroup, which took the most government aid of any U.S. bank during the financial crisis, has lost 86 percent of its value in the past four years, twice as much as the 24-company KBW Bank Index. (BKX) Most shareholders voted this week against the bank’s compensation plan, which awarded Pandit about $15 million in total pay for 2011, when the shares fell 44 percent.

Shareholders’ views shouldn’t be “given the same level of weight” as those of the board and management, Parsons said. Companies “shouldn’t make the mistake of putting them in the driver’s seat.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Kim Chipman in Washington at kchipman@bloomberg.net; Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Colleen McElroy at cmcelroy@bloomberg.net; David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: 60 minutes, AHMSI, appraisal fraud, attorney general, auction fraud, Chris Koster, credit bids, DocX Indictment, foreclosure fraud, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, Glass-Steagal, housing market, housing prices, investors, linda green, LPS, Missouri, mortgage fruad, mortgages, Parsons, Robo-Signing, settlement, strategic default, Wells Fargo | 32 Comments »

OCC Review Getting Few Takers

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Demand an Administrative Hearing

Very few people have asked for a review of their wrongful foreclosures. Maybe it is because we are all war-weary from this constant barrage of illegal activity from the banks. But there are avenues to travel, whether your foreclosure is past, present or even future. While the OCC review process has some restrictions announced, it nonetheless allies to all foreclosures whether they like it or not. They are the regulatory agency for certain types of banks and servicers, just like OTS, and the Federal Reserve. If one of their chartered and regulated members commits an atrocity, the agency is required by law to do something about it.

And one more thing. The OCC should be setting up review panels and administrative hearing processes because you can be sure that homeowners are not going to agree with the “review” that is conducted by the bank that is accused of committing the error, which is what the “review process” is all about. Why not ask a rapist to investigate whether he did it or if she was just asking for it?

This stuff is not just made up out of my head. It comes from the Administrative Procedures Act and its likeness in the federal, state and even local systems where any government agency is involved.

So if you are alleging wrongdoing in ANY foreclosure — past, present or future — you should be making your allegations. What do you allege? That is where the COMBO product linked next to my picture comes in and there are other people who do similar work although it is true that the title companies are trying their best to obscure the searches for title information. Getting a loan specific title analysis and a loan specific securitization analysis should provide you with enough information to allege wrongful foreclosure. Getting a Forensic Analysis and loan level analysis might also be helpful in rounding out the allegations.

Here are just a few items to get you going:

The debt wasn’t due
The debt wasn’t due to the party who foreclosed
The party who foreclosed misrepresented itself as the owner of the debt
The debt was paid in full by insurance, credit default swaps or federal bailouts
The monthly payment was paid by the servicer to the creditor (or the party they claim is the creditor) at the same time that the servicer was declaring a default to the borrower. If the creditor was getting paid, where is the default?
The credit bid was submitted by a party who was not a creditor and therefore should have paid cash at the auction
The auction was conducted by an employee or agent of the party seeking to foreclose
Payments were improperly applied or were not applied
Charges were illegal and unfair and were the reason for the foreclosure
You were tricked into foreclosure by the pretender lender’s agent telling you had to skip payments before you could be considered for modification. (known in the industry as dual tracking)
The “lender” failed to comply with Reg Z on rescission
The loan violated TILA, RESPA
The “lender” failed to comply with RESPA

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: 60 minutes, administrative hearings, AHMSI, appraisal fraud, attorney general, auction fraud, Chris Koster, credit bids, DocX Indictment, Federal reserve, foreclosure fraud, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, housing market, housing prices, investors, linda green, LPS, Missouri, mortgage fruad, mortgages, OCC, OTS, Robo-Signing, settlement, strategic default, Wells Fargo | 59 Comments »

Hoping Canadians are Stupid, Stewart Title Skips Warranties of Title

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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I’ve been telling Canadians that there is considerable doubt as to whether the investment properties they are buying in the context of foreclosure are going to work out for them because of title defects. Some of them are listening and most see the deals as too good to be true. They are right — it is too good to be true, which means it isn’t true that the prices and title are just find, eh?

Here is the new disclaimer (see below). If you can find anything that protects anyone other than the title company then you are able to drill down further than we can. This disclaimer shows what we have been saying — the very use of the term “virtual” title tells us that there is no basis upon which the title agent or carrier will be held accountable or will pay anything if you buy property and take a policy from any of the major carriers.

Up until now it was standard practice in the industry that lawyers and lay people would rely upon the title report issued by the title company. Now they say it is for general information and you can’t rely on it. This means that virtually every buyer should have an attorney who is competent and has the resources to obtain and independent title report and is able to advise people holding or intending to hold title, mortgage or anything else. This gives them a license to insert or delete almost anything. The only way you can really know your chain of title is to go down to the county recorder’s office and examine the chain, one instrument at a time and to check for cross references where a parcel number or name might have been transposed.

What this also means is that anyone seeking to foreclose now must go through the same process and prove to the judge with a certified copy of the title registry that the mortgage is on there and that no satisfaction or other impediments to foreclosure are present. This is a new development and it therefore calls for new tactics and strategies.

Virtual Underwriter® is an underwriting tool. Stewart Title Guaranty Company and its affiliated underwriters (collectively “Stewart”) does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any content of Virtual Underwriter®, and you may not rely upon any such content. Only Stewart Issuing Offices may rely on Virtual Underwriter and only to issue Stewart insurance forms. Stewart makes no express or implied warranties with regard to Virtual Underwriter® and shall have no liability for any errors or omissions or for the results of the use of such material. You should not assume that Virtual Underwriter® is error-free or that it will be suitable for the particular purpose that you have in mind. Any material, forms, documents, policies, endorsements, annotations, notations, interpretations, or constructions included in Virtual Underwriter® are made available as a convenience only and should not be considered as altering or modifying the text of any matter to which they relate. Virtual Underwriter® should not be relied upon as a basis for interpreting the forms contained herein. Virtual Underwriter® is made available with the understanding that Stewart is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice or services. If legal advice or services or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. The material contained in Virtual Underwriter® is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney or other professional person. Preparation/facilitation of documents other than by an attorney may constitute the unauthorized practice of law.

see vubulletins.jsp?displaykey=BL133368894600000002

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: 60 minutes, affidavits • attesting • Daniel Edstrom • DTC-Systems • fabricating • false information • false sworn documents • foreclose • illicit business practices • improper statements • imp, AHMSI, appraisal fraud, attorney general, auction fraud, Chris Koster, credit bids, DocX Indictment, foreclosure fraud, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, housing market, housing prices, investors, linda green, LPS, Missouri, mortgage fruad, mortgages, Robo-Signing, settlement, strategic default, Wells Fargo | 20 Comments »

Banks Slammed for Misrepresenting Themselves as Owners of the Loan

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Neil Garfield

2008 Legal Memo at BKR Conference

Cautions Banks and Lawyers Against Lying About Ownership

A legal compendium of cases published by the American Bankruptcy Institute establishes a pattern of conduct by Ameriquest, Wells Fargo and Chase dating back before 2008 in which these and other banks have intentionally misrepresented themselves to the court as owners of the note, entitled to foreclose and seeking to lift the automatic stay in bankruptcy court under “color of title” arguments. The link to the entire article is below.

What I see is not just wrongful conduct in court but a continuous pattern of lying, fabricating, forging and cheating that has left millions of homeowners without possession of their rightful homes. The ONLY REMEDY in my opinion is to restore these homes to the bankruptcy estate and that the debtor’s be allowed to assert claims attacking the supposed mortgage liens that were based upon false identification of the lender, false and predatory figures used in borrowing and servicing and a large shroud thrown over the entire fictitious securitization process as a place to hide an illegal scheme to issue multiple securities in which the borrower was the issuer of the promissory note under false pretenses and the REMIC was carefully constructed to issue bogus mortgage bonds.

In both cases, the issuer and the investor were dealing with participants in the securitization chain who had no intention of allowing them to keep or recover their investment. In both cases, the instrument was a security that did NOT fall under the exemptions previously used to protect the banks. The borrower as issuer was induced to enter into a securities transaction in which he purchased a loan product under the false assumption created and promoted by the Banks that the real estate market never went down and would always go up, thus allaying the borrowers’ fear that the loan was not affordable. In fact that loan was not affordable and would violate the affordability guidelines in TILA and RESPA if it was classified as a residential mortgage loan. The REMIC that issued the bonds did so without any assets, and even though the disclosure was in the prospectus buried in parts where one would not be looking for that risk, that fact alone removes the REMIC issuance as a REMIC under the Internal Revenue Code, and removes the issuance of the mortgage bond from the cover of exemption under the 1998 Act.

We have all seen Wells Fargo, BOA, Chase, US Bank, Ameriquest and others banged repeatedly fro misrepresenting themselves in court as the owner of the loan when in fact they were not the owner of the loan, never loaned the money to begin with and never purchased the loan obligation from anyone because no money exchanged hands. Even if they tried, the only party who could sell or release claims to the receivable from the “borrower” (issuer) would have been the partnership or individuals or as a group pooled their money into leaky, fictitious entities created for the express purpose of deceiving the pension funds and other investors.

The bottom line is that when it suits them (when they want the property, in addition to the unearned insurance payments, proceeds of credit default swaps and proceeds from other credit enhancements and federal bailouts) these banks assert falsely that they are the creditor, claiming the losses that trigger payments to them rather than the investor. When it does not suit them, like when they abandon the property, or are subject to imposition of fees, sanctions or fines or attorney fees, then they finally fess up and state that they are not the owner of the loan in order to avoid paying appropriate costs, fines, fees, penalties and fees.

Here are some of the notable quotes from the piece written by Catherine V Eastwood, Esq., of Partridge, Snow and Hahn, LLP. At some point the lawyers must be subjected to the same sanctions knowing in the public domain that these practices exist as a pattern of conduct. see Consumer_Sept_2008_NE08_Messing_Mortgages_Cases

QUOTES FROM ARTICLE:

Make Sure Your Pleading Contains Accurate Information Regarding The Identity Of The Real Party In Interest
[AMERIQUEST FINED $250,000, LAW FIRM FINED $25,000, WELLS FARGO FINED $250,000 FOR A TOTAL OF $525,000] On April 25, 2008, Judge Rosenthal issued an memorandum of decision regarding an order to show cause why sanctions should not be imposed in the matter of Nosek v. Ameriquest Mortgage Company, 2008 Bankr. LEXIS 1251 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2008). Ameriquest had maintained throughout a prior adversary proceeding and bankruptcy case that it was the “holder” of the note and mortgage. When the debtor filed a second adversary proceeding requesting trustee process from two Chapter 13 Trustees to collect payment on the judgment issued in the prior case, Ameriquest argued that it was merely the servicer of the loans and that it was not the owner of the funds sought to be collected. The court noted that Ameriquest and its attorneys had made misrepresentations to the court throughout the prior proceedings regarding its status as noteholder. Wells Fargo, NA as Trustee for Amresco Residential Securities Corp. Mortgage Loan Trust, Series 1998-2 was the real holder of the note. The Court issued a Notice to Show Cause why sanctions should not be imposed

Make Sure Your Pleading Contains Accurate Financial Information or Fed. R. Bankr. P. 9011 May Be Imposed: Judge Bohm asked counsel why a motion from relief from stay was being withdrawn. The lawyer’s answer resulted in the judge issuing two show cause orders in In re Parsley, 2008 Bankr. LEXIS 593 (Bankr. S.D. Texas 2008). The real answer should have been that the motion for relief was filed in error on account of an erroneous payment history. Unfortunately, counsel misrepresented to the court that it was a “good motion” and that set off an explosion, leading to evidence of other misrepresentations…. Testimony also revealed that the payment histories were prepared by paralegals and were not reviewed by any attorneys. Countrywide did not review the loan histories either. No one was catching the errors under this system. Judge Bohm wrote “what kind of culture condones its lawyers lying to the court and then retreating to the office hoping that the Court will forget about the whole matter.”

[$75,000 Sanction against Law Firm] In an earlier matter, also in the Southern District of Texas, the Court sanctioned a law firm in the amount of $75,000 for filing an objection to plan and subsequent withdrawal of the objection that was deemed to be “gibberish.” In re Allen, 2007 Bankr. LEXIS 2063 (Bankr. S.D. Texas 2007). It was clear to the Court that the pleadings were not being reviewed by an attorney after being generated by a computer as the objection listed reasons that were completely unrelated or blatantly opposite of the contents of the Chapter 13 plan filed by the debtor.

[Chase required to pay legal fees of debtor] On April 10, 2008, Judge Morris, a bankruptcy court judge for the Southern District of New York, issued a decision in the case of In re Schuessler, 2008 Bankr. LEXIS 1000 (Bankr. S.D. NY. 2008) regarding an order to show cause why Chase Home Finance, LLC should not be sanctioned for submitting pleadings that were misleading and that had no factual support.

Standing Challenges: Make Sure The Company Bringing The Action Has The Legal Right To Do So

[RELIEF FROM STAY DENIED RETROACTIVELY ON DEBTOR’S MOTION] In re Schwartz, 366 BR 265 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2007) that parties who do not hold the note or mortgage and who do not service the mortgage do not have standing to pursue motions for relief or other actions arising out of the mortgage obligation. In Schwartz the creditor was seeking relief to pursue an eviction action following a foreclosure sale. The assignment of mortgage into the foreclosing mortgagee was executed four days after the foreclosure sale took place. The Court stated that while the term “mortgagee”, as used in M.G.L. c. 244 §1, “has been defined to include assignees of a mortgage, there is nothing to suggest that one who expects to receive the mortgage by assignment may undertake any foreclosure activity.” Id. at 269. The motion for relief was denied.

While not a bankruptcy court case, a United States District Court case worthy of inclusion in this section is In re Foreclosure Cases, 2007 WL 3232430 (N.D. Ohio 2007). The District Court issued an order covering numerous foreclosure cases that were pending in the state. The creditor was ordered by the Court to produce evidence that the named plaintiff was the holder and owner of the note and mortgage as of the date the foreclosure complaint was filed. The court dismissed the foreclosure complaints when the lenders were unable to produce the assignments.

How Many Times Can A Lender Continue a Foreclosure Sale?

In re Soderman, 2008 Bankr. LEXIS 384 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2008). In Soderman the court recited the “one-time” postponement blessing in order to seek relief from stay but that repeated continuances may be a violation of the automatic stay. The repeated continuances will be deemed a violation of the stay if the postponements are made in order to harass the debtor, gain an advantage for the creditor or renew the financial strain that led the debtor to file for bankruptcy protection. Id. One month after the decision in Soderman was released, Judge Hillman also ruled that repeated continuances of a foreclosure sale was a violation of the automatic stay. In re Lynn-Weaver, 2008 Bankr. LEXIS 1101 (Bankr. D. Mass 2008).

Challenging the Assessment of Mortgage Fees to a Loan and the United States Trustee’s Office’s Investigation of Countrywide Home Loans, Inc.

In an unprecedented move, Judge Agresti of the Pennsylvania Bankruptcy Court, in April 2008, approved the Justice Department’s further investigation of Countrywide due to widespread allegations that the lender is filing false or inaccurate claims, misapplying funds, assessing unreasonable fees to borrowers’ accounts or ignoring the discharge injunction and other court orders. Countrywide Homes Loans, Inc. f/k/a Countrywide Funding Corp., 2008 Bankr. LEXIS 1023 (Bankr. W.D. PA. 2008).
This matter was precipitated by a Standing Chapter 13 Trustee in Pennsylvania originally filing for sanctions against Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. due to her experience with the lender

The Pennsylvania matters have led the United States Trustee’s Office to file similar suits in Georgia1 and Ohio2 seeking to investigate the servicing practices of Countrywide. Various subpoenas have also been served by the United States Trustee’s office upon Countrywide in Florida regarding the assessment of fees on borrower’s accounts.

1 The United States Trustee’s Office filed a complaint on February 28, 2008 styled as Walton v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc.,08-06092-mhm in the Northern District of Georgia. The related bankruptcy case is In re Atchley, 05- 79232-mhm. In Atchley, the homeowners eventually sold their home to avoid foreclosure but believe the payoff amount cited by Countrywide contained excessive fees and that Countrywide continued to accept trustee payments after the loan paid off.
2 The United States Trustee’s Office filed a complaint on February 28, 2008 styled as Fokkena v. Countrywide Homes Loans, Inc., 08-05031-mss in the Northern District of Ohio. The related bankruptcy case is In re O’Neal, 07- 51027. In O’Neal, Countrywide filed a proof of claim and objection to plan when it had already accepted a short sale on the property prior to the bankruptcy filing.

ALL LENDERS ARE FAIR GAME

[Forensic Audits Suggested — $10,000 damages, $12,350 Legal Fees, Wells Fargo sanctioned $5000] in the matter of In re Dorothy Stewart Chase, Docket 07-11113, Chapter 13 (Bankr. E.D. LA 2008), Judge Magner issued a 49 page decision on April 10, 2008 which ordered Wells Fargo to audit every proof of claim it filed in the district since April 13, 2007 and to provide a complete loan history on every account. If the audits reveal additional concerns, the judge reserved the right to appoint experts to do forensic accountings at the expense of Wells Fargo. She also ruled that Wells Fargo was negligent in the loan servicing of Ms. Chase’s loan and assessed damages of $10,000, legal fees of $12,350 and sanctioned Wells Fargo $5,000 for filing a consent order that did not reflect the agreement of the parties and for filing erroneous proofs of claim.

[Wells sanctioned $67,202.45] The decision in Chase was on the heels of Judge Magner’s earlier decision in In re Jones, 2007 Bankr. LEXIS 2984 (Bankr. E.D. LA. 2007). In Jones, Judge Magner sanctioned Wells Fargo $67,202.45 for violating the order of confirmation and the automatic stay by improperly assessing the debtor’s loan with fees in the amount of $16,852.01 and diverting payments made by the Chapter 13 trustee and the Debtor to satisfy fees that had not been authorized by the Court. The judge stated that the Jones case would provide guidance in the post-petition administration of home mortgage loans to a degree that, until this decision issued, had been lacking in the industry.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: 60 minutes, affidavits • attesting • Daniel Edstrom • DTC-Systems • fabricating • false information • false sworn documents • foreclose • illicit business practices • improper statements • imp, AHMSI, Ameriquest, appraisal fraud, attorney general, auction fraud, Chase, Chris Koster, countrywide, credit bids, DocX Indictment, foreclosure fraud, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, housing market, housing prices, investors, linda green, LPS, Missouri, mortgage fruad, mortgages, Robo-Signing, settlement, strategic default, Wells Fargo | 26 Comments »

Moynihan Must Testify in Fraud Suit Brought by Bond Insurer

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Editor’s Comment; The fact they he is being forced to testify is a major breakthrough the wall silence used by the banks and servicers. BY this article I am asking for people to review the court file, get the pleadings and memorandums and send them to me at neilFgarfield@hotmail.com. Everyone should be paying attention to this case, and everyone should be reading everything. The insurer is making the case for the borrowers at the the same time as they are making the case for recovery of money paid by them under false pretenses to the wrong parties, screwing both the investors and the borrowers.

www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/13/us-bofa-moynihan-testify-idUSBRE83C03F20120413

NEW YORK | Thu Apr 12, 2012 10:00pm EDT

(Reuters) – A New York judge has ruled that Bank of America (BAC.N) CEO Brian Moynihan must testify in a lawsuit brought by bond insurer MBIA Inc.(MBI.N) which claims the bank fraudulently induced it to insure risky mortgage-backed securities.

The judge said Moynihan could provide relevant testimony in the case due to his position as CEO, former president of investment banking and the fact that he oversaw the process of integrating Countrywide into Bank of America.

Bank of America acquired mortgage lender Countrywide in July 2008. MBIA filed a Countrywide later that year. In 2009, MBIA claimed Bank of America was liable for Countrywide’s conduct.

Bank of America, the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, is fighting several legal cases following the global financial crisis and had sought to block MBIA efforts for Moynihan to give evidence.

MBIA was once the largest U.S. municipal bond insurer. It announced a restructuring in 2009 after incurring large losses insuring mortgage debt.

Bank of America had asked New York Supreme Court Justice Eileen Bransten to rule that Moynihan did not need to testify, arguing that MBIA was seeking his deposition only to harass the bank and that Moynihan had no unique knowledge about the case.

But the judge on Wednesday denied the request, according to court papers made public on Thursday.

“The knowledge Moynihan gained as part of the (Countrywide) Steering Committee is unique, and it is material and necessary to MBIA’s successor liability claim,” the judge said.

Moynihan was involved in “high-level decisions regarding the Countrywide transaction” and his testimony will not duplicate that of lower-level employees, she said.

MBIA declined to comment and Bank of America did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The cases is MBIA Insurance Corp v. Countrywide Home Loans Inc et al, New York State Supreme Court, New York County, No. 602825/2008.

Occupy Homes Protest Forces Delay of Sheriff Sale

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Occupy Homes Protest Forces Delay of Sheriff Sale
By Ty Moore

US Bank buckles under pressure, delaying sale of veteran John Vinje’s home until May 29th

After a week of escalating pressure demanding US Bank postpone the sheriff’s sale of John and Lucinda Vinje’s home, Occupy Homes won another 11th hour victory today. John Vinje led a contingent of 50 Occupy Homes MN supporters into the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office Civil Division where the sale was to take place at 11:00am this morning.

Speeches, chants, and song filled the marbled hallways in the ground floor of city hall. No potential buyers were seen entering the courtroom the entire time, and just after 11:30am it was announced that US Bank had delayed the sale to May 29th. Following the victory, John said: “This shows that the power is now with the people, and not with large, monolithic corporations, like US Bank.

Homeowners throughout Minnesota facing foreclosure, facing sheriff’s sales, should get together with their community and demand a postponement and renegotiation. They should get connected with Occupy Homes because we can save homes throughout the state of Minnesota when we all work together.” Today’s action followed a week of escalating pressure on US Bank, including a national call-in campaign aimed to VP Tom Joyce, and a march on US Bank CEO Richard Davis’ mansion on April 7th. Ty Moore, an organizer with Occupy Homes explained: “We’ve got the banks scrambling already, but this fight is just beginning. John’s victory, following Monique and Bobby’s victories, is sending a message. Minnesota homeowners aren’t going to leave their homes quietly and in shame anymore. It’s the banks and CEOs like Richard Davis who should be ashamed!”

Occupy Homes MN achieved national media attention after winning Bobby Hull’s foreclosed home back after US Bank bought his property at a sheriff sale, and repeatedly delaying the eviction of Monique White, who also received her original mortgage through US Bank. John and Lucinda Vinje are among a growing number of homeowners joining together through Occupy Homes to fight back against the unjust and illegal banking practices behind the foreclosure crisis. John and Lucinda Vinje bought their home in 2008, the first house either of them had ever owned. John is an Air Force veteran now working as a security guard, and Lucinda has worked a government job for ten years.

But when financial difficulties caused them to fall behind on payments by just two months, US Bank refused their request to repay their arrears in installments and immediately began foreclosure proceedings. Meanwhile, Lucinda has been forced into “medical retirement” due to a chronic condition, adding financial strain on the family. If US Bank would renegotiate their mortgage to current market value as the Vinje’s request, they could afford the payments. After six months of delays, in March US Bank offered them a measly $97 less on their monthly payments. Both John and Lucinda have worked their entire lives, but now stand to lose the only home they have ever owned.

Home Prices Still Spiralling down

Posted on April 17, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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EDITOR’S ANALYSIS: As this article demonstrates in sampling some counties in the Northeast, there is no indication that the prices of homes are stabilizing nor that there is any prospect of anything but further reductions in prices of homes. The reason is simple. Price is not the same as value. The value of the homes are still at least 15% lower than the current prices. Thus it is not difficult to recognize that when the market catches up with the current reality, the prices will come down to meet the actual values.

That is exactly how in 2007 I was able to call with precision, the collapse of the housing market, the collapse of the stock market and the freezing of the credit markets — and the resulting effect on some brokerage houses who neither loaned any money nor bought any of the bogus mortgage bonds they were selling, but rather created fictitious losses that were carefully manipulated to extract taxpayer money for toxic assets that could have been protected and improved but for the narrative created and controlled by the banks and servicers.

Brad Keiser deserves some credit here for predicting the actual order and timing of the crash of each investment house. All he did was put pen to paper and figure out how many time each investment firm was leveraged on the same bond pools. He was exactly right. You can see it on the DVD package we offer that describes securitization.

The more pernicious part of this process is that the capital sucked out of the economy by the banks (who are now reporting “profits” of high magnitude) this money was tucked away and NOT used to finance start-ups, expansion or even maintenance of existing business. Just as the clear policy of the banks and service is to foreclose on residential property, they have followed the path of starving new and existing capital for the sole purpose of favoring competition and financing the purchase of what is left after these companies die, laying off hundreds of thousands of workers.

As for the workers, they are still out there or giving up on finding a job that will pay anything for their household expenses after deductions of work-related expenses. Hence median income has no current prospect of stabilizing or increasing under the current circumstances. In fact median income continues to decline. A decline in median income means that there will be further decline in home values which in turns means further decline in home prices.

Add to this deadly cycle the fact that title to the “foreclosed” properties is very much in doubt, at best, and probably fatally defective at worst, and you have a very slow moving, downward market in residential home sales and financing for at least the next ten years. My projection is that overall, there will be at least another 30% drop in prices over the next 10 years. This will be offset by inflation averaging at least 3% per year under the best of circumstances. We have now more than tripled our currency volume and we still can’t get out of this mess. Follow the example of Iceland and watch what happens — huge fiscal stimulus to the economy, the banks taking the hit for their own misdeeds, the each household getting enough relief that they can start purchasing things besides food.

Follow the examples of our own common law history and the homes that were the subject of wrongful foreclosure are re turned to their rightful owners and if someone wants to make a claim for collection or even foreclosure they still can — if they can prove each and every essential element of their case.

And it seems clear that nothing can stop this drag on the entire U.S. economy except the application of law. BUT the application law goes both ways. Having truth on your side makes no difference at all if you don’t present in the right way, at the right time and prove it. And THAT is the reason for the many negative positions taken by Judges. If you go in and concede that you know owe the money, you agree you failed (not refused) to make scheduled payments, and that you defaulted on the loan, the Judge really has very little choice except granting whatever motions the banks and servicers present. You have conceded your case away.

This is why you need title, securitization and forensic reporting from reliable third parties whose credentials are indisputable in court. Take these issues to your accountants and see what they think. You may come up with some surprising answers.

The point you need to know and believe is that the money went down one path and the documents went down an entirely different path so the banks could oversell the loans and the bets on those loans. This leaves the banks and servicers in a vulnerable position but it is a complex set of facts. You have about 30 seconds to get the Judge’s attention and 5 minutes to make your point. After that, expect nothing.

But the single-most important ingredient in the recovery is the resistance and fear of the borrowers who feel like deadbeats, and do not appreciate how they were used as pawns in getting tons of money from investors that far exceeded the amount of their loans. There is a new diagnosis created by the authors of the book, Legal Abuse Syndrome. You all ought to look it up, and order it. They hit the nail on the head. Without the outrage shown in Iceland, our country’s finances will never be fixed.

www.businessinsider.com/home-prices-across-the-northeast-are-still-declining-2012-4

The Truth About The ‘Housing Bottom’: Home Prices Across The Northeast Are In Total Freefall

Keith Jurow | Apr. 16, 2012, 9:00 AM
For nearly two years, I have been warning in my articles posted on BUSINESS INSIDER that there is no housing bottom in sight. I’ve been correct.

Yet one analyst after another has been proclaiming that the housing bottom is finally here. This is nonsense!

Many of these “experts” have skin in the game and hope to lure you back into the market. They base their assumptions on the fact that housing prices seem to be falling more slowly. They’re not. Take a look at these shocking numbers I uncovered in the last two weeks:

SINGLE-FAMILY HOME PRICES IN THE NORTHEAST
February 2012

Location	Avg. Price Per Sq. Ft	Change from Feb. 2011

Connecticut
Fairfield County	$260	down 16.6%
City of Bridgeport	$86	down 17.3%
City of New Haven	$88	down 31.2%
City of Hartford	$72	down 10.1%
Westport	$311	down 30.3%
Greenwich	$481	down 34.8%
Darien	$354	down 19.3%
New Canaan	$371	down 10.1%
Branford	$126	down 41.4%
Glastonbury	$161	down 19.1%
Simsbury	$129	down 13.2%

Massachusetts
Framingham	$157	down 9.2%
Newton	$313	down 13.5%
Scituate	$215	down 16.5%

Rhode Island
Providence	$101	down 5.5%
Warwick	$120	down 12.2%
Pawtucket	$91	down 18.3%

New York State
Westchester County	$276	down 10.1%

Source: Wm. Raveis & Co. – raveis.com

These are real, raw numbers, not an index like Case-Shiller. They come from the largest family-owned brokerage firm in the northeast — Raveis and Co. whose reputation is impeccable. I spent several days reviewing the terrific raveis.com search tool and found similar price declines in more than 150 towns and cities.

Sales volume was way down in most towns in the northeast. To my surprise, inventories are up substantially from a year earlier. All that talk last fall about shrinking MLS inventories is history. Listings are soaring in most towns.

Some people I speak with are skeptical about these numbers. Check them for yourself if you think I’m making them up. Go to the raveis.com homepage and the drop-down menu for “Housing Data.” Then hit the link to “View local housing data” and this will take you to their search page where you can see the latest sales and price statistics for towns in seven northeast states. You’ll be as shocked as I was.

Here is my warning: Prices are crumbling and homeowners have perhaps six months to decide what to do. I strongly suspect that a year from now will be too late.

Iceland Forgives Household Debt and Now leads the Way to Economic Recovery

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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“Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association.”

It’s Not a Theory

When it was Wrong from the Beginning:

The Highest Form of Economic Stimulus is to

Correct Debt Balances

Editor’s Comment: Iceland has taken the obvious common sense approach — fueled by an outraged population — and ended up creating the largest fiscal stimulus of any developed country without spending one cent of taxpayer money and without printing any “quantitative easing” currency debasing their currency. By the way more than 90 bankers there are headed for jail. Sounds like magic? That is what U.S. Banks would have you believe. But it is true as you can see from the Bloomberg article below.

The problem has been that the populations cannot pay the interest or the principal on debts that were so exotic in their construction that Alan Greenspan confesses he never understood them, let alone the borrowers. Borrowers were forced to rely on misrepresentations by the Banks and their agents as to the value of the loan, the value of the collateral and the viability of the transaction.

People in Iceland rioted in the streets throwing rocks at politicians and government buildings — not because they owed the money but because they knew that (a) they were victims of bank fraud and (b) the banks owed them money, not the other way around.

Under pressure from the government, the banks have decreased household debt by around 25% so far. The banks have not collapsed, financial system is in good shape and Iceland leads the developed world in economic recovery. The risk fell back on the Banks, the perpetrators of this mess.

The relief was and is being shared by two victims — the households tricked into buying these debt packages and the investors who pooled their money to fund the exotic debt structures. The claims of bank losses have been ignored as being not (and never were) economically real.

That’s what happens when the populations rises up and says “NO!” Similar programs here even on a small scale have corroborated the Iceland experience. And yet we continue to support the banks whom we believe are too big to fail. Following the Iceland example — now in its 3rd year — would provide many trillions of dollars in fiscal stimulus to our economy, launch the economy into a full recovery and clear up the budget deficits of local, state and federal government agencies.

It’s a choice. What do you choose?

Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness in Best Recovery Story

By Omar R. Valdimarsson

Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.

Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association.

Enlarge image Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness

Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness

Paul Taggart/Bloomberg

A cyclist passes an Icelandic national flag hanging in a popular shopping street in Reykjavik, Iceland.

A cyclist passes an Icelandic national flag hanging in a popular shopping street in Reykjavik, Iceland. Photographer: Paul Taggart/Bloomberg

“You could safely say that Iceland holds the world record in household debt relief,” said Lars Christensen, chief emerging markets economist at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “Iceland followed the textbook example of what is required in a crisis. Any economist would agree with that.”

The island’s steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective. Iceland’s economy will this year outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates. It costs about the same to insure against an Icelandic default as it does to guard against a credit event in Belgium. Most polls now show Icelanders don’t want to join the European Union, where the debt crisis is in its third year.

The island’s households were helped by an agreement between the government and the banks, which are still partly controlled by the state, to forgive debt exceeding 110 percent of home values. On top of that, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2010 found loans indexed to foreign currencies were illegal, meaning households no longer need to cover krona losses.

Crisis Lessons

“The lesson to be learned from Iceland’s crisis is that if other countries think it’s necessary to write down debts, they should look at how successful the 110 percent agreement was here,” said Thorolfur Matthiasson, an economics professor at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, in an interview. “It’s the broadest agreement that’s been undertaken.”

Without the relief, homeowners would have buckled under the weight of their loans after the ratio of debt to incomes surged to 240 percent in 2008, Matthiasson said.

Iceland’s $13 billion economy, which shrank 6.7 percent in 2009, grew 2.9 percent last year and will expand 2.4 percent this year and next, the Paris-based OECD estimates. The euro area will grow 0.2 percent this year and the OECD area will expand 1.6 percent, according to November estimates.

Housing, measured as a subcomponent in the consumer price index, is now only about 3 percent below values in September 2008, just before the collapse. Fitch Ratings last week raised Iceland to investment grade, with a stable outlook, and said the island’s “unorthodox crisis policy response has succeeded.”

People Vs Markets

Iceland’s approach to dealing with the meltdown has put the needs of its population ahead of the markets at every turn.

Once it became clear back in October 2008 that the island’s banks were beyond saving, the government stepped in, ring-fenced the domestic accounts, and left international creditors in the lurch. The central bank imposed capital controls to halt the ensuing sell-off of the krona and new state-controlled banks were created from the remnants of the lenders that failed.

Activists say the banks should go even further in their debt relief. Andrea J. Olafsdottir, chairman of the Icelandic Homes Coalition, said she doubts the numbers provided by the banks are reliable.

“There are indications that some of the financial institutions in question haven’t lost a penny with the measures that they’ve undertaken,” she said.

Fresh Demands

According to Kristjan Kristjansson, a spokesman for Landsbankinn hf, the amount written off by the banks is probably larger than the 196.4 billion kronur ($1.6 billion) that the Financial Services Association estimates, since that figure only includes debt relief required by the courts or the government.

“There are still a lot of people facing difficulties; at the same time there are a lot of people doing fine,” Kristjansson said. “It’s nearly impossible to say when enough is enough; alongside every measure that is taken, there are fresh demands for further action.”

As a precursor to the global Occupy Wall Street movement and austerity protests across Europe, Icelanders took to the streets after the economic collapse in 2008. Protests escalated in early 2009, forcing police to use teargas to disperse crowds throwing rocks at parliament and the offices of then Prime Minister Geir Haarde. Parliament is still deciding whether to press ahead with an indictment that was brought against him in September 2009 for his role in the crisis.

A new coalition, led by Social Democrat Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, was voted into office in early 2009. The authorities are now investigating most of the main protagonists of the banking meltdown.

Legal Aftermath

Iceland’s special prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200, including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal charges.

Larus Welding, the former CEO of Glitnir Bank hf, once Iceland’s second biggest, was indicted in December for granting illegal loans and is now waiting to stand trial. The former CEO of Landsbanki Islands hf, Sigurjon Arnason, has endured stints of solitary confinement as his criminal investigation continues.

That compares with the U.S., where no top bank executives have faced criminal prosecution for their roles in the subprime mortgage meltdown. The Securities and Exchange Commission said last year it had sanctioned 39 senior officers for conduct related to the housing market meltdown.

The U.S. subprime crisis sent home prices plunging 33 percent from a 2006 peak. While households there don’t face the same degree of debt relief as that pushed through in Iceland, President Barack Obama this month proposed plans to expand loan modifications, including some principal reductions.

According to Christensen at Danske Bank, “the bottom line is that if households are insolvent, then the banks just have to go along with it, regardless of the interests of the banks.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Omar R. Valdimarsson in Reykjavik valdimarsson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonas Bergman at jbergman@bloomberg.net

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: 60 minutes, AHMSI, appraisal fraud, attorney general, auction fraud, Chris Koster, credit bids, debt forgiveness, DocX Indictment, foreclosure fraud, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, housing market, housing prices, ICELAND, investors, linda green, LPS, Missouri, mortgage fruad, mortgages, Robo-Signing, settlement, strategic default, Wells Fargo | 36 Comments »

Why the Banks Are Paying You to Sign the Deed in a Shortsale

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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“The bottom line is that the value of a homeowner’s signature is going up and might be the best investment in existence. The walls are closing in on trillions of dollars in real estate that could be the subject of summary proceedings repatriating the property to their rightful owners using the most basic principles of property law.” — Neil F Garfield, livinglies.me

It isn’t just hype. Law firms like the one shown below are realizing that there really is money in servicing homeowners who are underwater. But lawyers should also beware of this offer. Think about it. What economic reason would there be to pay a distressed homeowner to enter into a short-sale? If they really thought they had the right to foreclose and/or collect on the promissory note they are using, the last thing they would do is pay a person who is already delinquent in their payments.

The banks have realized that in a short sale they don’t sign the deed — that job goes to the homeowner who is usually giving a warranty that title is all fine and dandy. The pretender lender is not doing the lying; they are getting the homeowner to do their lying. All that is fine if there was only one owner of the property or one prior mortgagee who is joining in the transaction and registering the appropriate releases, satisfactions and warranties.

If a third party or prior owner makes a claim against title, the pretender lender has succeeded in placing another layer between them and claimants who want title vested or re-vested as a result of wrongful, illegal foreclosures — or wrongful or illegal satisfactions (release and reconveyance). They now have a stronger argument about why the “chain of title” while imperfect, should not be disturbed because of the transactions that were in the public records and notice to the world.

If you are buying one of these short-sales or other REO property, take a good long look at the title policy they are offering and make sure you get advice of competent legal counsel — because most of the new “replacement” policies have language that excludes risks associated with the chain of title being mangled by securitization or claims arising out of securitization. So if you buy, you are getting naked paperwork that may or may not be ratified later — or could be the target of a wave a repatriating property to their rightful owners because the foreclosures are and were wrongful. With no title insurance proceeds you could be out of a lot of money and still have a liability if you financed the purchase.

I’ve heard some talk of the statute of limitations being applied against claims of repatriating property. I don’t know of any statute of limitations on defects in the title chain but there might be some on theft, fraud and adverse possession that could provide some cover for the older mortgages. That alone could be an interesting question. Imagine representing the bank and arguing “yes your honor, we admit that we stole this property and illegally evicted the owner. However, under the statute of limitations I have shown you, the homeowner has no cause of action because it is barred by the expiration of time.”

THAT is where civil rights violations should be alleged in Federal courts. If the states failed to safeguard the rights of homeowners in their procedures for foreclosures then the civil rights of the homeowners may well be the last and only claim the homeowner can make even after it is admitted that the foreclosures are wrongful and illegal.

The lesson here is stop waiting to see what happens. Get on your horse and have your bags packed with as much proof as you can and start your actions now. At this point, you need to show that the general policies resulted in wrongful, illegal foreclosures with “strangers” taking title to property on which they loaned no money and never financed or purchased the property; and then show that those policies that have been the subject so many studies, orders, decrees, fines, penalties, settlements etc. are the same same policies that were used in your case.

Remember, the burden of proof shifts when you cross the line of establishing a prima facie case. At that point the pretender is dead in the water unless they still have more rabbits in that hat.

BANKS PAYING HOMEOWNERS TO AVOID FORECLOSURES

by Harold Shepley & Associates, LLC, see http://www.jdsra.com

Banks, anxious to move troubled mortgages off their books, have started offering cash incentives to homeowners to sell their properties for less than what they owe – typically called a “short sale.”

In the past, banks have balked or dragged their feet at short sales. However, lately, they have decided that short sales are more advantageous than foreclosures, which can take a year or more to process. Additionally, banks take about 15% less of a loss on a short sale than they do on a foreclosure.

Some banks are now offering cash incentives to homeowners to have them sell their homes at a loss—sometimes up to $35,000. Experts believe that banks just want to get rid of bad loans. They can often afford to forgive the debt and offer incentives yet still make a profit, because they usually purchase the loan from another bank at a discount.

For a bank, approving a short sale can cut a year or more off the process of unloading a home and its accompanying loan. A short sale takes about 123 days on average. On the other hand, it takes nearly a year to foreclose on a home and then another 175 days to re-sell the property.

Allowing your home to go into foreclosure is may not be your only option. Every situation is different. For a in depth look at your situation you should contact a full service debt relief law firm like Harold Shepley & Associates that can answer any questions you may have about debt relief, mortgage modification, and short sales.

New Foreclosures Will Set Record in 2012

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Editor’s Note: This is how they do it. First there is the slap in the face. Then you have the recriminations and apologies and “penalties” that amount to no more than rounding errors. People have become accustomed to the tragic numbers of people losing homes to a completely false and fraudulent scheme defrauding the local, state and federal government as well as the core of the middle class (eventually 12 million people will lose their homes).

Now comes the real fun for the banks. The number of foreclosures being initiated by the banks will exceed any year in history this year. It all depends upon apathy produced by the conditioning that the media and the banks have allowed to seep into the narrative of this tragedy.

There is no doubt that in 2007 if anyone was told that that by 2012 5 million people will have lost their homes and soon thereafter another 7 million people would lose their homes, the public outrage and astonishment at the gutting of our economy would have led to all the rules and enforcement that should already be put back in place (same as they were after the Great Depression caused by bank speculation). Business owners would be aghast at the demolition of their customer base and governments would brace for the worst fall in tax revenues ever experienced in American History. Most importantly, we would have done something — if we believed it.

I was a lone voice in the wilderness back then as was Roubini, Johnson and others who saw easily that the American economy was headed for banana republic status. But the stock market was at 14,000 and nobody could imagine that this “fun” would end. It wasn’t real then and it isn’t real now. There is no recovery, regardless of what the Obama administration says, which is not to say that in this election year we are throwing our support to the republican party whose policies and ideologies were largely responsible for this mess being so bad.

My message and the message that comes from other people with even greater knowledge than myself is that we are in for the real crash this year. The insane part of all this is that we now already know what was considered conspiracy theory back in 2007 — the mortgage debt was paid off by taxpayers and insurers, the mortgages are invalid and unenforceable, the mortgage bonds were sold fraudulently, the mortgage bonds were sold with false ratings of investment quality, the properties were financed with false appraisals of fair market value to support prices that were in some cases multiples of the actual value. We now know these things to be true and not just the deduction of some people studying the marketplace.

We know, because the Banks admitted it, that the foreclosures were wrongful but we are still not doing anything about it, let alone stopping the new ones.

So my question to local, state and federal governments, to businessmen who rely on consumer purchasing, to homeowners who think they are untouched by a housing crash they thought was over, is this: when will you learn? or to paraphrase Truman — how many times do you need to be hit in the head before you look up to see who is hitting you? It’s the Banks and as long as you let our government do business with these handful of banks who are essentially dictating government policy, we will be headed downward. These Banks are doing a better (more effective) job of tearing this country apart than Bin Laden ever conceived of doing.

The larger policy questions are being completely missed. The question is not higher or lower taxes or higher or lower spending. The question is whether we take back what the banks stole from us.

GARFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio (Reuters) – Half a decade into the deepest U.S. housing crisis since the 1930s, many Americans are hoping the crisis is finally nearing its end. House sales are picking up across most of the country, the plunge in prices is slowing and attempts by lenders to claim back properties from struggling borrowers dropped by more than a third in 2011, hitting a four-year low.

But a painful part two of the slump looks set to unfold: Many more U.S. homeowners face the prospect of losing their homes this year as banks pick up the pace of foreclosures.

“We are right back where we were two years ago. I would put money on 2012 being a bigger year for foreclosures than 2010,” said Mark Seifert, executive director of Empowering & Strengthening Ohio’s People (ESOP), a counseling group with 10 offices in Ohio.

“Last year was an anomaly, and not in a good way,” he said.

In 2011, the “robo-signing” scandal, in which foreclosure documents were signed without properly reviewing individual cases, prompted banks to hold back on new foreclosures pending a settlement.

Five major banks eventually struck that settlement with 49 U.S. states in February. Signs are growing the pace of foreclosures is picking up again, something housing experts predict will again weigh on home prices before any sustained recovery can occur.

Mortgage servicing provider Lender Processing Services reported in early March that U.S. foreclosure starts jumped 28 percent in January.

More conclusive national data is not yet available. But watchdog group, 4closurefraud.org which helped uncover the “robo-signing” scandal, says it has turned up evidence of a large rise in new foreclosures between March 1 and 24 by three big banks in Palm Beach County in Florida, one of the states hit hardest by the housing crash

Although foreclosure starts were 50 percent or more lower than for the same period in 2010, those begun by Deutsche Bank were up 47 percent from 2011. Those of Wells Fargo’s rose 68 percent and Bank of America’s, including BAC Home Loans Servicing, jumped nearly seven-fold — 251 starts versus 37 in the same period in 2011. Bank of America said it does not comment on data provided by other sources. Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank did not comment.

(Reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by Martin Howell and William Schomberg; Desking by Andrew Hay)

see entire article at NEW FORECLOSURES WILL SET RECORD IN 2012

Quiet Title is No Magic Bullet

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Beware of those who promise you perfect salvation, especially when they lack the garments and training of clergy. If there was a magic bullet that would end foreclosures or get all the houses back, it would already be done. Hundreds of lawyers and thousands of pro se litigants have been adding quiet title to their quiver of arrows to fire at the pretender lenders. It is true that the “free house” myth gets in the way of lawyers understanding the goals in quiet title actions and the same “free house” myth raises the hackles of most judges, but it is something I recommend you discuss with competent legal counsel and not someone who knows someone who knows someone. (especially if they are asking for money).

Quiet title is a lawsuit you need to prove. As Darrell Blomberg ably pointed out last night, there are three main categories that can give rise to a lawsuit in which you ask the Judge to quiet title: cloud on title, unmarketable title and defective title. Ken McLeod showed a knowledge of procedure and thinking about strategy and tactics can certainly give the advantage to homeowners in quiet title actions. But in all cases, the situation is taken case by case, and mere pleading and quoting some less than thrilling authority is going to narrow the focus of the order quieting title at the very least or get your case dismissed.

The major point that needs to be made here is that there is no quiet title action in which it is guaranteed that you will win and even if you did, the only thing you will have accomplished is to uncouple the mortgage (deed of trust) from the note (which is probably defective as well). In a quiet title action the most that a Judge will say that as to the people you sued, you have title free and clear of any encumbrances they might assert. In a quiet title action, the Court will hardly, if ever, mention the status of the obligation or note.

Quiet title actions, as the name implies are all about title not liability. But in many cases, the decoupling of the security instrument from the obligation could result in the pretender lender holding an enforceable obligation because of homestead exemptions and other laws. Don’t think for a minute that Judges don’t understand that your attack on the title proffered by the pretender lender is anything less than an part of an overall plan to get rid of the liability for the loan. But without properly alleging your case and proving it with witnesses, you are just another “deadbeat” trying to get out of a “legitimate” debt.

There is some confusion out there that has led people to assert and believe that mere pleading of the requirements for quiet title will or might get you the order you are seeking. That can only happen if the other side doesn’t answer and you get a default. If they defend, then you are in for a fight. So you will need a witness or other evidence that is accepted by the court as evidence to show that the party seeking to oppose your quiet title claim has no interest in the title to the property — and that had better not be based upon the fact that the loan was paid off by bailout, insurance etc. Those factors are currently deemed irrelevant in determining title.

It is true that if the loan was paid off or waived, then you have a right to demand the satisfaction and sue for it if that is the case — bot that is not exactly the same thing as a quiet title, although it could be coupled with it.

Filed under: AMGAR, bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, evidence, expert witness, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, MODIFICATION, Mortgage, Pleading, securities fraud, Servicer | Tagged: 60 minutes, affidavits • attesting • Daniel Edstrom • DTC-Systems • fabricating • false information • false sworn documents • foreclose • illicit business practices • improper statements • imp, AHMSI, appraisal fraud, attorney general, auction fraud, Chris Koster, credit bids, DocX Indictment, foreclosure fraud, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, housing market, housing prices, investors, linda green, LPS, Missouri, mortgage fruad, mortgages, Robo-Signing, settlement, strategic default, Wells Fargo | 64 Comments »

Foreclosure Strategists: Upcoming Meetings

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Editor’s Comment:

Tuesday April 17, 2012 Guest Speaker: Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett We will be discussing notarizations and all that is associated with that. More details will follow.

Meeting: Tuesday, April 03, 2012

There is much confusion (and lots of disinformation!) about what QUIET TITLE is and what it is not. We will closely look at what quiet title is and what you can expect from a quiet title action. Perhaps, even more importantly, we will look at what quiet title is not and why it may not be the answer you are looking for. It is very apparent to me that too many people are putting too much faith into a fundamentally misguided quiet title effort and they are being very disappointed with the result.

Quiet title is a tool. It is only one tool in your arsenal. A mechanic uses many tools to get you the result of a repaired automobile. Would you trust and employ a mechanic that only had a hammer to work on your car?

Why are you expecting a better result in your foreclosure defenses if you are only willing to use the quiet title tool?

To supplement your efforts, I’ll be digging out my Pro Se homeowner defense Tool Kit. We will discuss all aspects of what you need to assemble and assimilate to increase your chances of getting closer to the result you want.

This meeting will prepare you with a solid understanding of what you need to learn.

If you know someone just starting their foreclosure defense, this will be an excellent opportunity for them to get up to speed. Please invite them.

Thank you to all attendees at last week’s meeting!

The long and short of last week’s meeting is that there is a change in the wind but the powers that be are exercising every tactic possible to deny us the benefit of those changes.

Diligent efforts on our part will keep the pressure on everybody.

We meet every week!

Every Tuesday: 7:00pm to 9:00pm. Come early for dinner and socialization. (Food service is also available during meeting.) Macayo’s Restaurant, 602-264-6141, 4001 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85012. (east side of Central Ave just south of Indian School Rd.) COST: $10… and whatever you want to spend on yourself for dinner, helpings are generous so bring an appetite. Please Bring a Guest! (NOTE: There is a $2.49 charge for the Happy Hour Buffet unless you at least order a soft drink.)

MEETUP PAGE FOR FORECLOSURE STRATEGISTS:

I have set up a MeetUp page. The page can be viewed at www.MeetUp.com/ForeclosureStrategists. Please get the word out and send your friends and other homeowners the link.

We’re quickly approaching 50 strategists on MeetUp!!

May your opportunities be bountiful and your possibilities unlimited.

“Emissary of Observation”

Darrell Blomberg

602-686-7355

Darrell@ForeclosureStrategists.com

Impossible? Home Prices Drop Again in 16 Metro Areas

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Editor’s Comment:

Every day, every week, every month and every day we are bombarded by conflicting news reports. If you believe the pundits, the housing recovery has already begun. Their logic and their facts are convoluted, but they are sure. And they are sure because the banks paid them to be sure and to spread disinformation such that the pubic will be lulled into apathy.

The facts are simple. Prices are at their lowest level since 2001, the bottom is continuing to fall, and the “bottom” will never be reached until we remove the downward pressure on pricing. The downward pressure comes from two sources — the enormous inventory overhanging the Market and the knowledge that even if you did buy property, there is a high probability that your title will come under attack.

The news media has been fast to report the fines and penalties against the banks for wrongful foreclosures but very slow to report or investigate what happens to those wrongful foreclosures. No fine or penalty will ever correct title deficiencies. It’s time to face up to the world of reality — title will never be cleared without the signature of the dispossessed owner on a brand new document — and this time the signature better be real.

Home prices drop in 16 metro areas: Case-Shiller

By Kerri Panchuk

Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price indices for the month of January show prices falling in most major metro areas.

The latest report shows annual price declines of 3.9% and 3.8%, respectively, for the 10- and 20-city composite indexes in the month of January.

Both composites combined fell 0.8% in January, with 16 of the 19 metropolitan statistical areas surveyed experiencing price drops over the prior month. Analysts with Econoday said “the unadjusted monthly decline of 0.8 percent is the best reading since September with the year-on-year rate, where adjustments play a much less significant role than on month-to-month rates, at minus 3.8 percent rate for the same rate as the unadjusted data.”

The only cities with price increases for the month included Miami, Phoenix and Washington D.C.

S&P says eight metro areas and both composite indexes posted new lows in January on the index chart.

Still, the 10- and 20-city composites marginally improved their annual return rates over the month of December. The Dallas, Denver, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, Tampa and Washington D.C. metros saw their annual rates improve over the month of December while price returns fell in nine other areas.

“Despite some positive economic signs, home prices continued to drop. The 10- and 20- city composites and eight cities – Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Las Vegas, New York, Portland, Seattle and Tampa – made new lows,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P indices. “Detroit and Phoenix, two cities that have suffered massive price declines, plus Denver, saw increasing prices versus January 2011. The 10-city composite was down 3.9% and the 20-city was down 3.8% compared to January 2011.”

Atlanta continues to suffer severe price drops with its index score down 2.1% from the previous month and 19.7% over the past six months.

“It also posted the worst annual return, down 14.8%. Seven of the cities were down by 1.0% or more over the month,” S&P said. “With the new lows, both composites are now 34.4% off their relative 2006 peaks.”

Rick Sharga, executive vice president of Carrington Mortgage Holdings, summed up the report saying it “suggests that buying activity is focused on the low end of the market, especially distressed assets, which continue to drag down home prices. With several million more properties in various stages of delinquency and foreclosure, pricing will continue to suffer while

Economy Cannot Grow Fast Enough

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Editor’s Comment:

Bernanke’s comments corroborate years of projections on this blog and by others including Johnson and Roubini. We are kidding ourselves if we think that the economy is going to improve without addressing the housing problem. In order to bring unemployment down to a level where the threat of financial chaos is truly diminished aggregate demand must increase significantly. In our country aggregate demand is largely determined by consumer demand. Consumer demand exists only where consumers have sufficient resources available to them to buy things.

At one time credit was relatively unimportant since median income for the middle class was sufficient to run a household on one income and still purchase the goods and services that the economy had to offer. For the last 35 years median income has either been stagnant or decreased in real dollar terms depending upon which analysis is used as an index. Unemployment is high and as Bernanke admits, any indication that unemployment is improving is coming largely from a decrease in layoffs rather than an increase in hiring. Savings are virtually non-existent. Therefore we can safely assume that consumer demand, representing 70% of aggregate demand will not improve as a result of money held by consumers or earned by consumers.

In the wake of the neo conservative flood where it was stupidly assumed that reducing wages would not have a long term negative effect on consumer demand, the replacement for wages was debt. We have run the gamut of credit card debt and other consumer finance to the extreme of payday loans which collectively siphon a substantial amount of what would be aggregate demand. The recipients of this largesse are the banks and the losers are the eager institutional investors seeking higher returns. Consumers are mostly maxed out on every form of credit that could be available to them. Therefore any hope of an increase in aggregate demand from consumers based upon their willingness to spend even if they lack the financial resources is a fairy tale. Simply stated, consumers lack money and credit and therefore lack the ability to make significant purchases in the marketplace. Those who point to minor upticks in the purchases of ipads or iphones are ignoring the greater reality.

The financial industry chased most of America and corralled them into a scenario in which “pretend” money was used instead of real money. They did it using housing as the bait. Again the investors are the losers but so are the homeowners and the tax payers who are now paying the fictitious bill with freshly minted dollars that are constantly diminishing in value. The use of the home as a piggy bank from which one could make an ATM like withdrawal for the purchase of goods and services is also gone.

That leaves us with aggregate demand being 70% dependent upon a class of people who have been cut out from participation at the table where commerce is intended to flow. The only remedy is to create incentives for those consumers who are or were homeowners to return to that table. In order for this to happen the pornographic amounts of money blowing through the few major banks who remain in charge of our financial system must be stopped and the flow must be reversed. There is ample reason to reverse that flow besides the fact that the banks have grown too fat. Most of the money controlled by those banks consists of ill gotten gains produced by fraud at the closing table with investors and the same fraud at the closing table with borrowers. The obvious solution is to restore the victims of the fraud through restitution which would also have the even greater benefit of restoring confidence in the american financial system.

Those who are pursuing policy that depends on the status quo being maintained are ignoring a basic legal fact. Chain of title in real property is determined by reference to hundreds of years of common law, statutory law and constitutional law. Eventually this game must end. Ultimately if we are to see the kind of improvement that Bernanke and others feel is necessary for the economy to actually recover they are going to be required to give up on the myth of too big to fail and to embrace the possibilities of bringing 7,000 community banks and credit unions to the table where a handful of mega banks once reigned supreme.

Perhaps if they give fairness and equity a chance they will come to realize that getting the cooperation of banks to purchase US Treasury Debt does not have to be a deal with the devil. Right now only a handful of banks are in on that deal where they borrow money at the Fed Window at an effective rate of zero and purchase US Treasury debt to keep the government running. The spread between the overnight Fed Window rate and the rate paid by the US Treasury is a gift to the banks that caused us this misery. If we are going to pursue that kind of policy to kick the can down the road is to give the gift to the innocent banks rather than to the merchants of doom.

Bernanke says U.S. needs faster growth

By Pedro da Costa and Jason Lange

(Reuters) – The U.S. economy needs to grow more quickly to bring the unemployment rate down further, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday, defending the central bank’s policy of very low interest rates.

While he offered no indication the Fed is keen to embark on a third round of bond purchases, Bernanke also made clear the central bank is in no rush to reverse course after responding aggressively to a deep recession.

The jobless rate has dropped to 8.3 percent from 9.1 percent last summer, a move Bernanke said was “somewhat out of sync” with the rather modest pace of economic growth.

He said the decline could reflect an effort by businesses to recalibrate their payrolls after unusually heavy job cuts during the recession. If this is the case, he said, progress may stall.

“To the extent that this reversal has been complete, further significant improvements in the unemployment rate will likely require a more rapid expansion of production and demand from consumers and businesses, a process that can be supported by continued accommodative policies,” Bernanke told the National Association for Business Economics.

U.S. stocks climbed on hopes that Bernanke’s speech could be a precursor to more Fed bond purchases, with each of the major indexes up at least 1 percent. The dollar fell against the euro, but prices for U.S. government debt also slipped as worries about Europe’s debt crisis eased, sapping a safe-haven bid.

The U.S. central bank lowered overnight interest rates to near zero in December 2008 and has bought $2.3 trillion in debt securities to drive other borrowing costs lower in an effort to spur faster growth and cut unemployment.

“Reading between the lines, it sounds like he’s pushing the ball forward toward having a discussion about doing more,” said Chris Rupkey, economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, on the sidelines of the NABE conference.

After its last two meetings, the Fed said it would likely keep rates near zero at least through late 2014, but upbeat economic signs, including solid employment growth, have led investors to bet on a move as early as the middle of next year.

Bernanke’s speech appeared aimed at pushing back against those expectations.

BOND BUYING PROSPECTS

U.S. gross domestic product grew 3 percent in the fourth quarter, but is expected to have slowed to just below 2 percent in the first three months of this year. For all of last year, it grew only 1.7 percent, which would normally be too slow to move the unemployment rate lower.

Sluggish economic demand has kept alive the potential for more Fed bond purchases, despite the signs of improvement in the labor market.

The policy does have detractors, including some inside the central bank. Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser on Monday said central banks should not have unfettered ability to purchase assets because that violates the traditional separation of monetary and fiscal policymaking and can allow governments to inflate away debts.

“Granting vast amounts of discretion to our central banks in the expectation that they can cure our economic ills or substitute for our lack of fiscal discipline is a dangerous road to follow,” Plosser told a conference in Paris.

That discomfort and differences over the outlook for the economy have led to an unusually wide range of views among policymakers over the proper course.

While a few officials are pushing for a further easing of monetary policy and some think rates might not need to rise until 2016, a hawkish minority believe the Fed would do well to reverse course this year. Bernanke is likely in the middle, biding his time to determine whether more bond purchases are needed but resolute in his thinking that any rate hikes can wait until 2014, analysts say.

The Fed chief reiterated his concern about long-term unemployment, which he said could cause workers’ skills to atrophy, but he argued against the notion that much of the problem was due to shifts in the economy that had made workers’ skills obsolete. If that were the case, the Fed might need to tighten policy sooner rather than later.

“The continued weakness in aggregate demand is likely the predominant factor. Consequently, the Federal Reserve’s accommodative monetary policies, by providing support for demand and for the recovery, should help, over time, to reduce long-term unemployment as well,” he said.

Setting the Stage for the Next Great Depression

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Editor’s Comment:

Special Note to Readers: Thank you for your good wishes on my speedy recovery. It helps a lot to know that the people whom I seek to serve feel the same way about me as I do about them.

Despite the huge loss taken by homeowners thus far ($13 trillion) and the even larger loss taken by the American taxpayers for fabricated bailouts of fake losses (around $25 trillion, thus far) the banks and their paid politicians are presenting us with the prospect of making the last 4 years only a dress rehearsal for the big one.

By removing investor protections and by obscuring what little transparency we had left in terms of required disclosures, there is only one thing standing between us and complete oblivion: wishful thinking. With this “JOBS” bill, we add insult to injury to investors. And the reason is obvious as well — as long as the Banks have the power and control the narrative, they are going to use that power. As long as the Banks wield that kind of power, investment in anything American will be subject to caveat emptor — let the buyer beware.

The Banks and the administration seem to believe that they can literally bully investors into making investments in American assets — stocks, binds and real estate, in particular. This is a stupid assumption. Just because other governments and large investors have had to play along with the American fiscal and financial policies while they regain their balance, doesn’t mean that central bankers and prospective investors have forgotten that Wall Street essentially committed an act of financial terrorism on the scale of Ghengis Khan. Nor will they forget that the American regulators not only let it happen, they promoted the cover-up afterwards.

We don’t need to read tea leaves anymore. The bond market, never regulated properly is now the wildwest. Almost anywhere else seems more attractive than the U.S. because only the U.S. has broken its promise of protection and regulation of the banks. So we are now stuck in a holding position where auctions are failing or faked. The only major buyer of U. S. Treasuries are the big banks who are buying the bonds with our own money printed by the Federal Reserve. It’s a Ponzi scheme. People are simply biding their time waiting for a better reserve currency to emerge — which now only requires the issuer to enforce common sense rules.

The housing Market is no mystery either. Each year we hear that this is the bottom of the Market. Each year the market drops a little more. The reason is simple: we have allowed the great masses of people to enter into loan deals that created an inventory of millions of homes — with millions more on the way — that nobody wants at any price. They’re bulldozing them now. The argument is that investors will feel assured and confident once they know that the notes and mortgages will be enforced even if the loans were defective in every conceivable way. We don’t need conjecture here. Reality supplies us with a ready answer to that argument — investors are not buying it, the Market is frozen and cannot recover.

Contrary to the exotic theories of policy-makers driven by bank narratives, it is the Banks that are not trusted, not the borrowers. It is the regulators that are not trusted not homeowners. And yet we insist on loading the burden of this mess mostly on the back of homeowners and taxpayers who are buying “homes” without title, buying mortgage bonds that don’t exist and leaving foreign investors to buy homes for cash also without title and very possibly acquiring a liability that has never been disclosed. If the banks had lost money like the rest of us then we could make the argument that they had simply screwed up. But they didn’t. They made money.

Confidence in American financial markets can only be restored if prospective investors, already burned recently by horribly disfigured bonds, perceive that it is truly safe to invest in American assets. That can’t happen unless disclosure is required and unless the message is sent loud and clear that the banks suffer the penalty for violations, management goes to jail for committing fraud, and property is returned to victims of the largest financial scam in human history — so far.

Last Ditch Attempt To Save A Little Bit Of Investor Protection In The United States

By Simon Johnson

As it currently stands, the “JOBS” bill now before the Senate would gut investor protection in the United States. The title of the bill is a complete misnomer – anything that weakens investor protection makes it more risky to invest in companies and increases the cost of capital to honest entrepreneurs. (For more background on the bill and links, see this piece.)

Much of the 1930s-era Securities legislation, which served us well for more than 70 years, is about to be repealed in a moment of bipartisan madness.

Almost all attempts to amend the House version of this legislation – and to make it more favorable to investors – have now failed in the Senate, and the “cloture motion” received more than 60 votes (so the bill cannot be filibustered). But Senator Jack Reed (D., Rhode Island) is leading one last charge to make the Senate version more reasonable.

Here is the issue with H.R. 3606 (as the House version of the bill is known), from Senator Reed’s website:

“The SEC requires public companies to disclose meaningful financial information to the public. This provides a common pool of knowledge for all investors to judge for themselves whether to buy, sell, or hold a particular security. Only through the steady flow of timely, comprehensive, and accurate public information can people make sound investment decisions. The result of this information flow is a far more active, efficient, and transparent capital market that facilitates the capital formation so important to our nation’s economy. H.R. 3606 would roll back key investor protections, denying the public critical information that is essential to make sound judgments and would ultimately not lead to the proposed goal of the bill: providing for access to capital, particularly for small emerging companies.”

The “JOBS” bill would permit even very large companies to avoid all public disclosures.

Amazingly, it would also exempt these companies from having to comply with the federal regulation regarding mergers and acquisition. Private equity firms would even be able to manipulate the market while making a tender offer for shares – the kind of behavior that has really been taboo (and illegal) since the 1930s.

Senator Reed has put forward an amendment, #1931, that will at least partially retain some of our existing investor protections and disclosure requirements.

Specifically, Senator Reed’s amendment would close or limit a major loophole that will allow large companies to avoid registering with the SEC (and therefore escape much regulation). The Reed Amendment would clarify how to define “shareholders” for the purpose of determining if a business is so widely owned that it must register with the SEC. Under the Amendment, the count should be based on beneficial owners of the shares, i.e., real people. The goal is to prevent evasion of the SEC registration threshold through “nominal” owners holding the shares for large numbers of beneficial owners.

Big companies like H.R. 3606 – they will be regulated less and if the cost of capital rises for start-ups, that actually helps them. The Chamber of Commerce, the American Bankers’ Association, and the Independent Community Bankers of America have all weighed in heavily against the Reed Amendment – the idea of escaping SEC scrutiny greatly appeals to them.

The Chamber of Commerce’s letter against the Amendment to Senators closes with this statement – or you might call it a threat (bold and underlining in the original):

“The Chamber strongly opposes this amendment and may consider including votes on, or in relation to, this amendment in our How They Voted scorecard.”

Under Senate rules, the Reed Amendment would need just 51 votes today in order to pass. But against this kind of corporate firepower, does this entirely reasonable Amendment have any chance?

PRESS RELEASE: NEIL F GARFIELD HOME FROM SURGERY

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

March 21, 2012. Phoenix, Az. Neil F Garfield had emergency open heart surgery on Wednesday, March 7. The surgery was successful and he has been discharged from the hospital. He is now recovering at home. Many thanks to our guest bloggers who filled in during the time that Neil was “under the weather”. Neil has started writing again, and is hoping to return to his usual output soon. Services have continued without interruption. A former Wall Street insider and trial attorney, Neil Garfield has been the editor and author of the blog livinglies.wordpress.com for nearly 5 years and has served as expert witness across the country.

Please Donate to Support Neil Garfield’s Efforts to stop Foreclosure Fraud.

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U.S. Bailout

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Demand an Administrative Hearing

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2008 Legal Memo at BKR Conference

Cautions Banks and Lawyers Against Lying About Ownership

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It’s Not a Theory

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BANKS PAYING HOMEOWNERS TO AVOID FORECLOSURES

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Last Ditch Attempt To Save A Little Bit Of Investor Protection In The United States

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