Hawai’i Appellate Court Strikes at the Root of Fraudulent Foreclosures: HSBC Deutsch and PNC Crash and Burn

Posted on April 23, 2018 by Neil Garfield

This decision, although not yet for publication, brings us another step closer to exposure to the largest economic crime in human history. Every lawyer should read it more than once in its entirety. It contains the arguments and the narrative for most successful defense strategies against fraudulent foreclosures.

Fundamental to understanding why foreclosures are fraudulent and why most borrowers should prevail is an examination of how the banks and servicers attempt to paper over the absence of (a) ownership of the debt and the failure to identify the owner and (b) any evidence of an actual nexus with the supposed contract they are seeking to enforce — in the absence of anyone else claiming the right to enforce. Their entire premise rests on bank control of who knows about the subject debt.

That void is what produced this decision and the decisions around the country in discovery, in motions (especially motions for summary judgment), and at trial that have been in favor of homeowners and then buried under settlements restricted by the seal of confidentiality —- thousands of them.

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

====================================

See HSBC, Deutsch, PNC adv Felicitas Moore, Intermediate Court of Appeals, Hawai’i

Hat Tip to Da Goose and Awesome Order on Failure of Qualified Witness and Documents

Special kudos to Hawai’i Dubin Law Offices, representing the homeowner.

Whether this case will stand up to further appeal is a question that can only be answered by time. But I think that it will and that this case, like many in the past few weeks and months, is striking at the achilles heal of fraudulent foreclosures. It is worthy of study because it does much of the research and analysis for you. It is not binding in any other state and may not be binding even in Hawai’i, since it is currently designated as “not for Publication.”

If I were to write an article detailing the many fine points raised by this appellate court, it would be a book. So read the article and look for the following points:

  1. The existence and administration of the books and records of the supposed “REMIC” Trustee for the supposed trust is directly challenged, although indirectly.
  2. Summary Judgment just became more difficult for the banks and servicers, if you use the reasoning in this opinion.
  3. Verification of complaint by “authorized Signor” or the “attorney” does NOT end the inquiry into the facts.
  4. Presumptions work against the foreclosing party in motions for summary judgment.
  5. Courts are getting suspicious of anything proffered by a foreclosing party when there is an alleged “REMIC” “trust” involved.
  6. Affidavits or declarations that the affiant personally has possession of the note do NOT establish (a) possession or (b) the right to enforce before the foreclosure was initiated. [This will lead to even more backdating of documents]
  7. FOUNDATION: Self declaration of knowledge and competency are insufficient. Foundation requires that the affiant or declarant specifically state how he/she came into such knowledge and why he/she is competent to testify.
  8. A self-serving declaration that the affiant is the custodian of records as to one case” raises red flags. Such declarations are only proper when they come from an individual who is, in the ordinary course of business, the records custodian for the business. [This raises some very uncomfortable questions for the banks and servicers, to wit: there are no business records for the trust because (a) the trustee has no right to keep them or even review information that would be entered on such records and (b) the trust has no business that requires record-keeping. So the assumption that the servicer’s records are the records of the trust named as the foreclosing party is simply not true and more importantly, lacks the required foundation to get such records into evidence.]
  9. Self-serving declarations do not necessarily authenticate any documents.
  10. Attorneys for the banks and servicers are put on notice that chickens may come home to roost — for  filing attestations to facts, about which they knew nothing or worse, about which they knew were untrue.

 

Filed under: burden of persuasion, burden of pleading, BURDEN OF PROOF, CORRUPTION, discovery, evidence, Fabrication of documents, foreclosure, forgery, legal standing, Servicer | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Expert Testimony and Expert Reports

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Neil Garfield
Homeowners are dismayed and even claim court bias when the report of a self-proclaimed expert is barred from evidence. Or they become equally incensed when the court allows the report into evidence but gives it zero weight in rendering a decision. But the court is, to that extent, merely following the rules that govern what Judges should or should not do.

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THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
—————-
It goes without saying that any report that has not been read and any testimony that has not been heard will be disregarded as a practical matter and in many cases as a legal matter. The Internet has been awash in offers of “magic bullet” analyses and reports that either directly or indirectly make the false promise of relief from foreclosure. Nearly all of the forensic analysts are self-proclaimed, unlicensed in any field requiring a license, inexperienced and untrained. What they are seem to share in common is the hope or belief that once a Judge lays eyes on the report, the decision will be rendered swiftly in favor of the homeowner.
 *
Forensic analysis can theoretically be performed by anyone, which of course means that they are predominantly worthless even in their inception. Most analysts are looking for the wrong things and/or looking for things that are irrelevant and/or looking for things that will not be admitted into court record as evidence. Even an unopposed expert declaration or affidavit will either not be admitted into evidence by written report or oral testimony if it is delivered by such analysts. Homeowners are dismayed and even claim court bias when the report of a self-proclaimed expert is barred from evidence. Or they become equally incensed when the court allows the report into evidence but gives it zero weight in rendering a decision. But the court is, to that extent, merely following the rules that govern what Judges should or should not do.
 *
The one thing in which most “successful” forensic analysts excel is selling. They tell homeowners what they want to hear when they need to hear it. It’s akin to imbibing a libation or drug to take the edge off for the moment but it doesn’t change a thing.
 *
So let’s go to the other end of the spectrum. Does it matter if the analyst is unlicensed? NO. But if the analyst is unlicensed he or she will need to spend a lot more time giving testimony about how they acquired their expertise and how their work is based upon established frameworks of prior work in teases and other sources — and not merely a theory in their own head.
 *
But the interesting thing is that when such experts do survive the challenges under Daubert or Frye (see below) the seemingly less qualified analyst frequently is able to explain to the court how he or she arrived at an opinion and then explains both the opinion and the basis of the opinion in clearer language than most “qualified” experts with far superior credentials.
 *
Further the Banks’ Ostrich Strategy appears to have been working for the last 10 years. After tens of thousands of reports and expert declarations have been filed or served on behalf of homeowners, there are no reported instances in which an expert from the banks or servicers ever filed an affidavit or declaration in opposition to the experts who execute expert declarations for the homeowners. In fact, there are few instances in which the “expert” is even deposed, which thus removes the ability of the banks to challenge the expert. The end result has been that expert testimony is nearly always discounted or completely ignored. If the banks ignore it in litigation then so does the court.
 *
But the unwillingness to make an issue of the expert declarations filed by homeowners may well have a downside, especially as more and more Motions for Summary Judgment are filed. As the courts are gradually changing course to consider the possibility that homeowners should win and that banks should lose, the time has come to file a motion for partial summary judgment on issues specifically raised and supported in a properly drafted expert declaration.
 *
In the absence of an opposing affidavit, the court has little choice but to take the assertions as true as stated in the expert declaration for the homeowner. That leaves only the legal argument of whether the homeowner is entitled to the entry of summary judgment on the issues raised, inasmuch as the homeowner has effectively eliminated the issue or issues to be heard at trial.
 *
For example suppose the expert’s opinion is that the trust was never funded, that the trust has no legal authority to administer the alleged loan because the loan was not in the trust, and that the trust therefore could never have purchased the debt or the note or the mortgage, and that the “servicer” appointed as servicer in the trust instrument (PSA) has no authority because the property (i.e., the loan) was never transferred into the trust and that the Trustee named in the trust instrument (PSA) also has no power over the subject loan because the trust never purchased the loan, the debt, the note or the mortgage, and perhaps also that the foreclosure is a grand illusion in which the banks and servicers are completing a scheme of civil theft of the investors’ money, and perhaps that the debtor-creditor relationship consists of the homeowner and the investors whose identities have been withheld by the banks.
 *
In order to take those conclusions seriously, the court must hear that those conclusions are supported by understandable evidence that is based upon widespread axioms; since the conclusion is counterintuitive, it is important that the declaration be credible.
 *
Hence the expert must bring in corroboration as part of the explanation of the reasoning in the expert declaration. Corroboration could be direct evidence (by the way, hearsay is allowed in expert testimony) or clear deductive reasoning that eliminates anything else as an alternative explanation; (e.g., if the trust had actually entered into a transaction in which it purchased the alleged loan or some part of it, then it would not assert that it was a holder but rather, as is custom and practice in the industry the trust would declare itself to be a holder in due course or the actual owner of the debt (not just the note and mortgage) and would gleefully have proven the purchase by offering a canceled check or wire transfer receipt into evidence).
 *
By elimination of the elements of “good faith” and lack of knowledge of the borrower’s defenses (e.g. lack of consideration, non-merger of debt and note etc.) the only missing element would be that the Trust was not a successor to the original creditor regardless of whether the original creditor(s) was or were victims of theft or the actual payee on the note. Thus the conclusion that the Trust is not a holder in due course and should not be treated as one. And if it was the agent for an actual creditor, the Trust had failed to identify the creditors fro whom it was acting as agent. Note that such an admission would crash the entire trust and its beneficiaries under the weight of several violations of the Internal revenue Code turning all money handled by the “REMIC” into ordinary revenue and income.
==============================
One trick often used to bar such expert testimony is the 11th hour challenge either the day before or during trial. One New Jersey appellate court correctly assessed the situation has revealed in the following article:
Appeals Court Reverses Grant of “11th Hour” Motion to Strike Expert

Parties will frequently seek to strike the opinions offered by their adversaries’ experts as legally insufficient. While there are a variety of bases for such motions—including that the report does not set forth the “whys and wherefores” of the expert’s opinion, or that it does not satisfy other evidentiary rules for its admissibility—the strategic purpose is clearly to weaken or even destroy the opposing party’s case by barring key testimony. These limiting, or in limine, motions typically will be brought just before trial after the expert’s opinions have been discovered and often after the expert has given deposition testimony about the support for the opinion. A recent New Jersey Appellate Division case now seems to suggest that due process requires that (1) such a limiting motion must be made with enough time for the opponent to respond adequately, and (2) the trial judge must conduct a hearing prior to deciding to exclude the challenged expert’s opinions.

The issues arose in a lawsuit over a failed real estate deal, Berman, Sauter, Record & Jardim, P.C. v. Robinson, Dkt. No. A-5650-11T3 (App. Div., Nov. 17, 2016). The plaintiff law firm sued a seller claiming that it wrongfully breached a purchase agreement and caused the law firm’s loss of fees from the deal. The defendant seller then counterclaimed and filed a third-party claim alleging that the plaintiff and third-party defendant law firms had committed legal malpractice by failing to include an express termination clause in the purchase agreement, a claim supported by the opinion of a legal malpractice expert. The plaintiff law firm filed a pre-trial motion to strike the expert’s testimony because the expert did not explain the bases for his legal malpractice conclusion and his testimony was therefore an inadmissible “net opinion.” One week before trial, the pre-trial judge denied that motion “so that the trial judge can hear the testimony and determine whether the expert’s opinions—which seem to set forth the whys and wherefores at least in their reports—were [legally] sufficient[ ] . . .” Because the pretrial judge was not going to be available for the entire trial, a different judge presided over the trial. After jury selection, the trial judge decided to revisit the court’s prior in limine ruling on the expert. Without taking testimony, he concluded the expert had rendered a net opinion and thus excluded the testimony. Because the defendant was left without an expert to support its case, the trial judge also entered an order dismissing the legal malpractice claim and the remainder of the lawsuit quickly settled.

The Appellate Division reversed. The appeals court first noted that the motion to strike the expert was “nothing more than a thinly veiled summary judgment motion” because it essentially was dispositive of the defendant’s claims. The court recognized that the notice provisions for summary judgment motions were meant to satisfy due process by giving parties an opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful matter. In addition to failing to provide the 28-day notice required for summary judgment motions, the motion did not give the “one week in advance of trial” notice required for an in limine motion, leaving the defendant with no opportunity to present written opposition. And, because the trial judge had not ruled on the earlier summary judgment motions in the case, he did not have the defendants’ opposition to that motion.

The appeals court held that the trial court should not have granted a motion that was dispositive of the plaintiff’s claim without holding a hearing under Rule 104 of the New Jersey Rules of Evidence. The trial court had decided the motion in a way that was “fundamentally unfair” to the defendant. Fairness required the trial court have conducted a hearing before “barring an expert’s testimony based upon a report, particularly if doing so will be dispositive of a case, when the expert has not had the opportunity to explain his opinions through testimony.” Slip op. at 10. The court left it to the trial court’s discretion whether to conduct the hearing before or during the trial.

The importance of the Berman, Sauter decision is that trial counsel can no longer leave to the last minute in limine motions that seek to exclude expert testimony or any other evidence that could be dispositive of the lawsuit. If trial counsel believes that expert’s opinions are inadmissible, it must give sufficient notice to the court and its adversary—and the Appellate Division suggested that it might not be enough just to comply with the one week notice provision if the in limine motion would have the same effect as a summary judgment motion. Berman, Sauter will make trial judges more likely to order pre-trial hearings when an in limine motion seeks to preclude the expert’s opinions and virtually a certainty if such a motion is made without the expert having given deposition testimony explaining his or her opinions.

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Expert Declarations, Affidavits and Testimony

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Neil Garfield

The fundamental problem is that while virtually anyone can be accepted as an expert, the weight given to their testimony is zero. The reason is simple. The author most often lacks any traditional credentials other than experience as a “forensic analyst” and their work product sounds pretty good to the homeowner but sounds like advocacy to the court, presented in confused form. Such “experts” should stay away from opinions on ultimate facts or law of the case and stick with the evidence — or absence of evidence — despite all their work in attempting to dig out the truth. Then they would be taken seriously. Until then, most experts will have little or no effect on most of the cases for which they were hired.

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

—————-
I have consistently stated in my expert witness seminars, writings and appearances that forensic analysts must be very careful NOT to call themselves experts in fields for which they lack qualifications and that it is far better to stay away from opinion evidence, which sounds like advocacy and lacks credibility, and stick with the facts that when presented carefully, might indeed hold sway with a court.I would add that for each time a forensic analyst gives testimony, there should also be n accountant who says “Yes, he/she used the correct standards.”
At this point most work done by most forensic analysts is between good and excellent —  but for their presentation — or at least that part that contains advocacy and opinions. Most have zero qualifications to really give opinions except MAYBE on the weight or quality of evidence. Their testimony has been thrown out of court or rejected because of this.

They would do much better by presenting FACTUAL findings as a forensic analyst and then applying instructions from counsel, answering the questions posed to them. Their graphs are meaningless to anyone other than people like me who already know the details. The Judges do not give any weight to such graphs and drawings because it comes off as advocacy instead of an independent expert.

They should state their qualifications which CAN include experience. Then they should state what questions have been posed to them. Then state the simple answer to the question. Then state the factual reason for the answer — something besides “everyone knows” or “it’s on the internet.”

The “expert” witness should state the work performed in coming to THAT SPECIFIC ANSWER. Don’t cross the line regularly into opinion evidence for which the witness has no qualifications to render an opinion — generally the witness is not an expert in banking practices, underwriting practices for loans or issuance of securities, bond trading, title, law, or accounting. If these witnesses would remove opinions their presentation would be much improved.

The way you get around opinions is to ask the right question. Instead of an opinion of who owns what loan, which the “expert” is not qualified to give they can still contribute without doing any different work. The witness  should be asked a question like “can you find any evidence to support the claim of XYZ that they are the owner of this loan?” or “Can you find any evidence that would identify the creditor in this transaction?” Then he/she could answer no, and tell the story about what standards were used, how and why those standards were applied, how he/she was given those standards to use, and how he/she tried to find the evidence but could not locate it and his/her opinion, as a forensic analyst for many years, that he/she has looked in all the places where one would expect to find such evidence. She therefore has concluded that notwithstanding the assertions of the XYZ company, there is no such evidence that would pass muster in the real world — in either a legal or accounting setting.

She could refer to the auditing standards of the FASB as what she used for guidance. Everything must be based upon some accepted standard. There is plenty of material there that says that what the banks are using in court is not acceptable in performing an audit and giving a clear opinion that the financial statements fairly represent the financial condition of the entity or their interest in an entity. Testimony from a CPA who performs audits verifying that the auditing standards she used were correct would go along way to giving the witness credibility.

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Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

CA BKR DENIES STAY, ORDERS SANCTIONS AGAINST ONEWEST, INDYMAC

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Neil Garfield

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

COMBO Title and Securitization Search, Report, Documents, Analysis & Commentary GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION ANALYSIS – CLICK HERE — EVIDENCE COUNTS!!!

“the Court will not participate in a process where OneWest increases its profits by disobeying the rules of this Court and by providing the Court with erroneous information”

NEW NOTE GAMBIT ANGERS JUDGE

EDITOR’S COMMENT: We’ve been watching this for years. If one document doesn’t work, the pretender comes up with another “original” document. They are all fake, fabricated and forged. People have been asking us since 2007, “If what you are saying why are the Judges going along with it? Why are they not levying sanctions, referring the lawyers to the Bar for discipline and referring the banks to the justice system for criminal prosecution?” The simple answer is that the Judges didn’t believe it. They were stuck in the mental trap of believing that the banks would never intentionally do something in court that amounted to perjury, subornation of perjury and fraud. The Judges could not get their heads wrapped around the idea that the banks were in the process of a fraudulent land grab. It just didn’t make sense to them. It seemed far more likely to them, from their prior experience with foreclosures, that the process was largely clerical, that no bank would foreclose if there wasn’t a good reason and it couldn’t be worked out.

In California this attitude was particularly evident but in other states, Neil Garfield and Living lies was cited as the problem because we were filling the media with false statements of law and fact. Fast forward to the present and you see an increasing number of judges getting increasingly bold in switching their position on the banks and allowing for the possibility, even the probability that the homeowners win and the pretenders lose because they are pretenders, interlopers in a process meant to satisfy the requirements of judicial economy but which was being used (nonjudicial) to get around the basic requirements of black letter law and due process requirements contained in every state constitution and the United States Constitution.

Lawyers saw the references to me and my blog and the derisive wording about me, and they got scared that if they argued the same points they too would be the subject of derision, lose credibility with the court, and lose cases. And in fact, they were losing more cases than they were winning because even if they used the material on this blog, even if they got the COMBO title and securitization search, report and analysis that lays out everything chapter and verse, they were still losing — as a direct consequence of (a) Judges prejudging the cases and (b) the lawyers and litigants failing to object immediately as the first words were coming out of the mouths of the lawyers for the pretenders and failing to object to the first documents proffered. Most of all they were losing because they failed to deny the default, deny the right right of the forecloser to be initiating any collection or foreclosure proceeding, and deny that the originating papers were representative of the actual cash transaction that took place.

If you don’t object to an allegation, you are admitting it. If you don’t object to a document, it comes in as “evidence.” And the reason the lawyers were not objecting was that they had the same mindset as the Judges. How could they deny a default when they knew that the homeowner had not made payments on the note and mortgage that was attached as copies to the pleadings of the pretenders? If you don’t make the payments, you’re in default, right? WRONG! A default occurs only if the creditor fails to receive payment, not when the borrower decides to not make the payment. A default exists only if there is a gap in payments that are due, not payments that are shown on a piece of paper. If the payments were made anyway by a third party, there is no default and none can be declared.

And the declarer of the default must be someone who has an interest in the obligation. And the default must reference the obligation which normally is on the loan documents signed at closing but in the case of table funded loans that are enmeshed in a false securitization scheme, those documents do NOT set forth the terms or the parties involved in the transaction — so they can’t be used. If the loan documents at the so-called “closing” can’t be used we are left with an undocumented transaction between the homeowner, who is not known to the investor-lender, and the investors lender who is not known to the homeowner-borrower. They each got a separate set of documents including terms, conditions guarantees, cross collateralization, insurance and other third party payments (from servicers who keep paying in order to collect higher fees for “non-performing” loans. So in terms of documents there was no deal, and if the truth was told to both real parties in interest there wouldn’t have been a deal.

Nonetheless an obligation arose between the homeowner-borrower and the investor lender because the homeowner-borrower received the benefit of funding from the investor-lender, albeit under false pretenses including appraisal fraud at the loan level and ratings fraud at the investment level. The transaction is both undocumented and unsecured. And the obligation is subject to offset from a menu of affirmative defenses, rescission remedies, and counterclaims from the homeowners borrower. The property is now worth a small fraction of what was represented at the loan level closing and the investment level closing. So the investors are ignoring any remedies against homeowners because they don’t want to get tied up in litigation in which their net recovery is negative — i.e., they owe more to the homeowner than the homeowner owes on the obligation.

Enter the pretenders who figure that if the investors don’t want to go after the homes, then the banks will and who will challenge the banks since they appear to be the lenders in these transactions, even if they are not. Their defects in documentation and the facts (they were not included in the money trail of the loan transaction) were glossed over by lawyers and judges and even the media. Now, the Judges are taking a closer look and finding that not only do these pretenders lack standing, not only are they not the real parties in interest, but that that they and their lawyers are probably guilty of intentional fraud on the court and in this case, as well as others across the country, the Judge is ordering sanctions and fines.

FROM STOPFORECLOSURENOW.COM

IN RE ARIZMENDI | CA Bank. Court Denies Stay, Order to Show Cause “Contempt, Sanctions, (2) ONEWEST Notes; 1 Endorsed, 1 Unendorsed” “MERS Assignment”

In re: Jessie M. Arizmendi, Debtor.
OneWest Bank FSB, its assignees and/or successors, Moving Party,
v.
Jessie M. Arizmendi, Debtor; Thomas H. Billingslea, Chapter 13 Trustee; and Indymac Mortgage Services, Junior Lien, Respondents.

Bk. No. 09-19263-PB13, RS No. CNR-2.

United States Bankruptcy Court, S.D. California.

May 26, 2011.

Not for Publication

MEMORANDUM DECISION

LAURA S. TAYLOR, Bankruptcy Judge

EXCERPTS:

Additional Briefing.

At the trial, the Court carefully considered the demeanor of the various witnesses and the testimony provided. In connection with the trial, the Court also reviewed all other evidence and argument appropriately before the Court. Notwithstanding, however, significant questions continued, and the Court required additional briefing in connection with several issues as outlined in the Order Setting Briefing Schedule, Outlining Preliminary Determinations, and Establishing Procedures for Final Resolution of Issues (Dkt. No. 56) (the “Briefing Order”).

OneWest’s post-trial documents provided the analysis and argument required by the Briefing Order. But, these documents also contained factual assertions inconsistent with the OneWest Declaration and the Claim. OneWest now provided a standing argument based on a new version of the Note (the “Endorsed Note”).[3] The Endorsed Note attached an allonge dated July 24, 2007 evidencing a transfer from Original Lender to “IndyMac Bank, FSB” and bore an endorsement in blank from IndyMac Bank F.S.B. OneWest argued in connection therewith that it had enforcement rights under the Endorsed Note as a holder notwithstanding the admittedly accurate testimony at trial indicating that OneWest is a servicer for Freddie Mac and not the secured creditor. The OneWest post-trial memorandum also references a separate agreement with Freddie Mac, but fails to further evidence or discuss this agreement. The OneWest post-trial memorandum, finally, bases a standing argument on physical possession of the Endorsed Note and OneWest’s alleged status as a trust deed beneficiary based on the Assignment.

[…]

But, there are key assumptions that the Court must make in order for this set of facts to withstand scrutiny. And they are that OneWest, in fact, holds the Endorsed Note and held the Endorsed Note at all appropriate points in time. Frankly, the Court is not willing to make such assumptions at this time. OneWest attached the Unendorsed Note to both its Proof of Claim and the Declaration. The Declaration stated under penalty of perjury, that the Unendorsed Note was a true and accurate copy of the Note held by OneWest. The Proof of Claim implicitly stated the same and OneWest, of course, is obligated to provide only accurate information in connection with its Proof of Claim. The problem is that the Unendorsed Note does not bear the endorsement or attach the allonge found on the Endorsed Note, a document produced only after trial and the close of evidence. One West, thus, leaves the Court with the quandary of guessing which promissory note OneWest holds, whether and when One West held the Endorsed Note, and what the explanation is for the failure to provide the Endorsed Note prior to the close of evidence.[10]

A further evidentiary anomaly arises on account of the Assignment; MERS executed this document as a nominee for the Original Lender. But the allonge to the Endorsed Note makes clear that the Original Lender assigned its interests in the Note more than three years prior to execution of the Assignment. And rights under the Trust Deed follow the Note. Polhemas v. Trainer, 30 Cal. 686, 688 (1866). Thus, MERS’ purported assignment of the Trust Deed and the related note as nominee for the Original Lender and without a reference to either IndyMac Bank, FSB or Freddie Mac appears designed to disguise rather than to illuminate the facts.

And finally, even if OneWest’s second post-trial discussion of standing and submission of evidence were accurate, one thing remains clear: OneWest failed to tell the true and complete story in the OneWest Declaration and in the Claim.

The Court is concerned, as a result, that OneWest does not hold the Endorsed Note. But, perhaps more significantly, the Court is concerned that OneWest has determined that business expediency and cost containment are more important than complete candor with the courts. On these points, Ms. Arizmendi has a right to be heard, and the Court has a right to explanation.

Further, this is not the first time that OneWest has provided less than complete information in the Southern District of California. See “Memorandum Decision Re Motion to Vacate Clerk’s Entry of Default and Motion to Dismiss Complaint; Order to Show Cause for Contempt of Court”, docket no. 39, Adv. Pro. 10-90308-MM (In re Doble; Bk. Case No. 10-11296) (Defendants, including OneWest, were neither candid nor credible in explaining failure to respond timely to complaint and submitted multiple and different notes as “true and correct”); “Order to Show Cause Why OneWest Bank, FSB and Its Attorneys Law Offices of Randall Miller and Christopher Hoo Should Not Appear Before the Court to Explain Why They Should Not Be Held in Contempt or Sanctioned”, docket no. 47, In re Carter, Bk. Case No. 10-10257-MM13 (among other things OneWest provides inconsistent evidence as to its servicer status); and “Order After Hearing to Show Cause Why Indymac Mortgage Services; OneWest Bank, FSB; Randall S. Miller & Associates, P.C.; Christopher J. Hoo; Barrett Daffin Frappier Treder & Weiss, LLP; and Darlene C. Vigil Should Not Appear Before the Court to Explain Why They Should Not Be Held in Contempt or Sanctioned”, docket no. 47, In re Telebrico, Bk. No. 10-07643-LA13 (Court concerned that OneWest provided evidence that was either intentionally or recklessly false).

The curious thing about these cases is that OneWest likely would prevail in each of them if it completely and candidly explained the basis for its motion and its standing in connection therewith. Undoubtedly, however, doing so is more costly than using a form declaration that is not customized as to the facts on a case by case basis and that is signed by an uninformed declarant. OneWest perhaps assumes that it really does not matter if the Court provides relief based on erroneous information. But, OneWest should remember an earlier theme in this decision and that is that the law is the law, rules are rules, and both must be obeyed. And, when it becomes clear that OneWest did not obey the rules, the Court can and, indeed, must act.

In short, the Court will not participate in a process where OneWest increases its profits by disobeying the rules of this Court and by providing the Court with erroneous information. The Court, thus, will take two steps. First, the Court will deny the Stay Motion without prejudice based first on the evidentiary problems that make it impossible for the Court to determine that OneWest is properly before the Court and that render evidence critical to OneWest’s prima facie case unreliable and second based on the Court’s inherent authority to regulate and control proceedings. Next, the Court hereafter will issue an order to show cause why One West should not be held in contempt and/or otherwise sanctioned. In connection therewith, the Court will consider a compensatory sanction to include a recovery of any costs Ms. Arizmendi would not have incurred but for OneWest’s improper actions. The compensatory sanction, frankly, could be quite limited. But, the Court also believes that a coercive sanction may well be appropriate. Given the orders to show cause that pre-date the one this Court will issue, it appears that the Court must create an economic disincentive for OneWest that will counter balance the economic benefit of a lack of complete candor. Further detail on the Court’s sanctions considerations will be set forth in the order to show cause and will not be further discussed here.

The Court finally notes that the order to show cause will issue only as to OneWest and possibly as to MERS. OneWest uses a variety of law firms. The Court was in a position to observe the demeanor of the lawyers handling this matter when the witness stated that OneWest was a mere servicer. The Court concludes based on this observation that they were unaware of this fact and unaware that OneWest supplied questionable documentary evidence. And frankly, there is nothing to be gained in pursuing the individual attorneys who must regularly appear in front of this Court. OneWest can simply change counsel and then be less than candid with a new set of attorneys.[11] The Court is interested in modifying OneWest’s behavior at an entity level, and any coercive sanction will be designed to achieve the same.

CONCLUSION

Based on the foregoing, the Stay Motion is denied without prejudice to the right of OneWest to refile a stay relief motion. In so doing, OneWest must provide declaratory evidence that explains when and how it obtained physical possession of the Endorsed Note and/or Unendorsed Note and that otherwise provides case specific evidence of standing given its servicer status.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 44 Comments »

Wall Street Banks Don’t Own Toxic Loans: ABC

Posted on January 3, 2010 by Neil Garfield

NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON/KINDLE!!!

This is why it is critically important that (a) you get help in organizing your information (b) getting a forensic analysis, review or even a TILA Audit (c) that you secure a third party expert declaration that puts the the facts in issue and (d) that you aggressively pursue discovery without trying to convince the Judge that the mortgage, note or obligation is invalid.

see how-to-be-an-expert-witness

Everyone seems to be getting it right — including the New York Times lead editorial this morning — except the main point. It’s been said that there are two kinds of truth — reality and the collective perception of reality whether it is wrong or right. see self-dealing-part-ii-investigations-started
REALITY: The main point missed by nearly everyone is that in the securitization of real estate loans — residential and commercial — the Wall Street Banks do not own the toxic loans and never did. The simple ABC is that the loans were executed by homeowners and then trafficked like illegal drugs through middlemen until they ended up in the hands of investors (pension funds, sovereign wealth funds etc.).
The actual amount and movement of money was kept carefully hidden from investors and homeowners, violating Federal, State, and common law. Much of this money actually belongs in the hands of homeowners, investors, and taxing authorities from Federal State and Local governments.

CONSENSUS FALSEHOOD: The banks made loans that were too risky and “relaxed” their underwriting standards. A slew of defaults occurred causing a danger of a run on the banks. [The truth is that risk never entered the picture: there is no risk in arranging a loan (with investor funds) that you know for sure is guaranteed to fail because it will reset to a payment level that the homeowner could never be able to pay under any conceivable circumstances.]

THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH: Profits piled up off-shore that are being repatriated on a gradual basis showing incredible gains at the Wall Street Banks that supposedly lost hundreds of billions of dollars. The truth is they never lost a dime. The truth is the loan was sold multiple times through multiple intermediaries each of whom in each “sale” were paid fees and profits vastly exceeding any prior compensation to those who arranged or made loans prior to securitization.
Second Hidden Yield Spread Premium: As I have pointed out before the hidden yield spread premium was jaw-dropping (when the loans were packaged by the aggregator and then sold to the Special Purpose Vehicle that issued and sold the mortgage-backed securities. This second YSP was sent off-shore to the Bahamas or the Caymans to Structured Investment Vehicles with their own trustees, who scattered the actual depository accounts all around the world. The beneficiaries were the 100 Club — the main players in the creation, promotions and protection of the scheme through government contacts, plausible deniability, and simple non-disclosure sometimes achieved through the sheer complexity of the arrangements.

Nobody wants to acknowledge this fact because it would be admission that the con game is still on and that government is still part of it. They took many trillions of dollars to “bail out” banks that had arranged the bad loans but never underwrote them.

After centuries of lending in which banks made loans and were the obvious source of funds and the obvious losers if the loans went bad, it seems that there is hardly a soul in media, government, or the judiciary that is willing to come right out and say the banks are by nature intermediaries and that they carried their business of intermediation too far (removing the risk for bad loans).

In the old model, prior to Glass Steagel being repealed, the use of money held on deposit (i.e, your checking, savings or CD account) at a depository institution was the source of funds for the loans, thus putting the bank at risk. A bad loan meant that the payback had to be covered by the bank’s capital reserves that were regulated to make sure there was always enough money on hand to satisfy the demands of depositors who needed the use of the money they had deposited into the bank, for safe-keeping.

In fact, the scheme was built upon the premise that by not actually having any risk and by entering into “hedge (insurance) contracts, they could make far more money arranging bad loans than good loans. Logistically they guaranteed their profit by inserting terms into mortgage backed bond indentures that cut the investor out of the bounty.
The result, as always, was that Wall Street won and everyone else lost. 1 in 50 people now are living strictly on food stamps in this country. And the number is rising. Leading the pack are white-haired white people whose numbers are growing exponentially, followed by blacks and Hispanics. Fifty percent of the securitized loans were refi’s. Yet the misconception is that this crisis only affects people who bought houses they could not afford.
January 3, 2010
New York Times Editorial

Avoiding a Japanese Decade

Thankfully, 2009 ended better than it began. Economists talk about green shoots of recovery taking hold. Consumer confidence has improved. Equity markets have soared. But for all the progress, the American economy remains extremely vulnerable.

To understand those economic risks, it is worth considering Japan’s experience in the 1990s. A bursting housing bubble there sparked a banking crisis that was followed by a decade of economic stagnation.

The Japanese government lacked the resolve to do what was necessary. It failed to fix its banks and stopped its early fiscal stimulus before recovery had taken hold, leaving the economy all too vulnerable to outside shocks, including the Asian currency crisis and the dot-com collapse in 2001. Japan’s annual growth rate — which had averaged 4 percent since 1973 — slowed to less than 1 percent, on average, from 1992 to 2003.

President Obama’s economic advisers have learned from Japan’s experience. But they may not have learned enough. (Certainly Congress has not been paying attention.) If they are not careful, they could end up repeating some of the big mistakes that condemned Japan’s economy to a lost decade.

The green shoots are barely out of the ground and Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress are already demanding that the administration “do something” to cut the budget gap. We worry that the political drumbeat may be too hard to resist. In 1997, after three years of tepid growth, the Japanese government stopped its stimulus: it raised a consumption tax, ended a temporary income tax cut, increased social security premiums and nipped recovery in the bud.

Japan’s other blunder was its unwillingness to fix its banks. Regulators did not force banks and indebted firms to recognize trillions of yen worth of bad loans. Banks trundled along like zombies, squandering credit to keep insolvent firms on their feet. When the Asian currency crisis hit, many undercapitalized banks toppled over.

The Obama administration has not been quite as forgiving with the banks, but it still has been nowhere near aggressive enough. The regulatory reform meant to curb bankers’ destructive risk-taking is moving at a snail’s pace through Congress. While the Treasury has forced banks to raise capital, many — including some of the largest — remain thinly capitalized and weak.

Banks have been unwilling to sell bad assets and take a loss. They remain stuffed with risky commercial and residential mortgages and consumer debt. Bankers, meanwhile, have made things worse by insisting on paying themselves huge bonuses after profiting so handsomely from the taxpayers’ tolerance and largess.

There are two big problems with that. The bankers’ taste for risk has not been in any way quenched. And the American public is, justifiably, fed up. That means if there is another bank crisis — say when the Federal Reserve takes away the punch bowl of low interest rates — it will be a lot harder to get Congress to approve another bailout, no matter how necessary.

The Obama administration has still done a far better job — up to now — in addressing the crisis than Japan’s governments did. As dismal as 2009 was, it pales when compared with what would have happened without the fiscal stimulus and the Fed’s enormous monetary boost.

The White House is now pushing another mini-stimulus plan for next year. Chances are it will need to do a lot more to push reform and boost the economy. If there is an overarching lesson from Japan’s lost decade, it is that half measures don’t pay.

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