MERS/GMAC Note and Mortgage Discharged

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Neil Garfield

If only all courts would entertain the possibility that everything presented to them should be the subject of intense scrutiny, 90%+ of all foreclosures would have been eliminated. Imagine what the country would look like today if the mortgages and fraudulent foreclosures failed.

The Banks say that if the mortgages failed they all would go bust and that there is nothing to backstop the financial system. The rest of us say that illegal mortgage lending and foreclosures was too high a price to pay for a dubious theory of national security.

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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.
—————-

I received the email quoted below from David Belanger who, like many others has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that persistence pays off. (BOLD IS EMPHASIS SUPPLIED BY EDITOR)

Besides the obvious the big takeaway for me was what I have been advocating since 2007 — if any company in in the alleged chain of “creditors” has gone out of business, there probably is a bankruptcy involved or an FDIC receivership. Those records are available for inspection. And what those records will show is that the the bankrupt or insolvent entity did not own the debt that arose when you signed documents for the benefit of parties other than the source of funding. It will also show that the bankrupt or insolvent entity did not own the note or mortgage either.

This is instructional for virtually all parties “involved” in a foreclosure but particularly clear in the cases of OneWest, whose entire business plan depended upon fraudulent foreclosures, and Chase Bank who bet heavily on getting away with it and they have, so far. BUT looking at the bankruptcy and receivership filings of IndyMac and WAMU respectively the nature of the fraud was obvious and born out of pure arrogance and apparently a correct perception of invincibility.

All such bankruptcy proceedings and receivership require schedules of assets right down to the last nickle in bankruptcy. Belanger simply looked at the schedule, knowing he never took the loan, and found without surprise that the bankrupt entity never claimed ownership of the debt, note or mortgage.

The big message here though is not just for those who are being pursued in collection for loans they never asked for nor received. The message here is to look at those schedules to see if your debt, note or mortgage is listed. Lying on those forms is a federal felony punishable by jail. Those forms are the closest you are ever going to get to the truth. Odds are your loan is nowhere to be found — even if you did get a loan.

And the second takeaway is the nonexistence of the “trust.” In most cases it never existed. Your “REMIC Trust” was almost certainly formed under the laws of the State of New York or Delaware that permit common law trusts (i.e., trusts that don’t need to be registered with the state in order to exist). BUT uniform trust laws adopted in virtually all states require for the trust to be considered a “person” it needs to have these elements — (1) trustor (2) trustee (3) trust instrument (PSA) and (4) a “thing” (res in Latin) that is committed to the trust by someone who owns the thing. It is the last element that is wholly absent from nearly all REMIC “Trusts.”

And now, David Belanger’s email:

JUST WANTED TO TELL YOU ALL SOMETHING,  THAT I JUST GOT DONE , FROM MERSCORP!  ON OUR PROPERTY THERE WAS A 2d MORTGAGE ON IT, IT WAS A LINE OF CREDIT THAT WE DID NOT DO, AND WE DID REPORT IT TO THE RIGHT AUTHORITY’S, BACK IN 2006/2007. NOW THE COMPANY WAS GMAC MORTGAGE CORP.

OVER THE YRS, FROM 2006 TILL NOW, IT REMAINED ON PROPERTY, UNTIL JUST LAST WEEK, WHEN I DEMANDED THAT MERS DISCHARGE IT.  AND AFTER THEY FOUND OUT IT WAS NEVER ASSIGNED OUT OF MERS, THEY HAD TO DISCHARGE IT. BECAUSE GMAC MORTGAGE IS DEAD.  NOW THIS GO TO WHAT WE ALL HAVE SAID HERE.

ANY ASSIGNMENT THAT HAS NOT BEEN DONE, OR RECORDED AT REGISTRY OF DEEDS, OUT OF MERS, AND THE MORTGAGE COMPANY IS A DEAD MORTGAGE COMPANY. THEN MERS WILL DISCHARGE IT . I HAVE A COPY OF THE DISCHARGE IN HAND.

AM STILL FIGHTING, BECAUSE OF THIS NEWS,  I HAVE ASK MY ATTORNEY TO NO AVAIL TO DO A QWR ON THE COMPANY THAT RECORDED AN ASSIGNMENT IN 2012, EVEN THOUGH GMAC MORTGAGE CORP WAS IN BK AND AFTER GOING THROUGH ALL BK RECORDS OF EACH ENTITY, THAT HAD TO FILE ALL ASSET OF THERE COMPANY, AND FOUND THAT NO ONE IN GMAC HAD THE MORTGAGE AND NOTE, 3 MONTHS PRIOR TO THE ASSIGNMENT BEING PUT ON MY RECORD.
https://www.kccllc.net/rescap/document/1212020120703000000000033

UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW …
http://www.kccllc.net
Southern District of New York, New York In re: GMAC Mortgage, LLC UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT Case No. 12-12032 (MG) B6 Summary (Official Form 6 – Summary) (12/07)

THIS IS AGAIN THE REASON, THIS FRAUD TRUST  DOES NOT EXIST, AND I DO HAVE ALL SECRETARY OF STATES, INCLUDING ALL STATING THAT  THIS FRAUD TRUST IN FACT HAS NEVER
BEEN REGISTERED IN ANY STATE. LET ALONG THE STATE OF DELAWARE, THE STATE THEY SAY IT IS REGISTERED IN.  THE SECRETARY OF STATE SAID NO. AND HAS NEVER BEEN A LEGAL OPERATING TRUST, EVER. SIGNED AND NOTARIZED BY THE SECRETARY. THE FRAUD TRUST NAME IS AS FOLLOWS.
GMACM MORTGAGE LOAN TRUST 2006-J1,

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Everything Built on Myth Eventually Fails

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Editor’s Comment:

The good news is that the myth of Jamie Dimon’s infallaibility is at least called into question. Perhaps better news is that, as pointed out by Simon Johnson’s article below, the mega banks are not only Too Big to Fail, they are Too Big to Manage, which leads to the question, of why it has taken this long for Congress and the Obama administration to conclude that these Banks are Too Big to Regulate. So the answer, now introduced by Senator Brown, is to make the banks smaller and  put caps on them as to what they can and cannot do with their risk management.

But the real question that will come to fore is whether lawmakers in Dimon’s pocket will start feeling a bit squeamish about doing whatever Dimon asks. He is now becoming a political and financial liability. The $2.3 billion loss (and still counting) that has been reported seems to be traced to the improper trading in credit default swaps, an old enemy of ours from the mortgage battle that continues to rage throughout the land.  The problem is that the JPM people came to believe in their own myth which is sometimes referred to as sucking on your own exhaust. They obviously felt that their “risk management” was impregnable because in the end Jamie would save the day.

This time, Jamie can’t turn to investors to dump the loss on, thus drying up liquidity all over the world. This time he can’t go to government for a bailout, and this time the traction to bring the mega banks under control is getting larger. The last vote received only 33 votes from the Senate floor, indicating that Dimon and the wall Street lobby had control of 2/3 of the senate. So let ius bask in the possibility that this is the the beginning of the end for the mega banks, whose balance sheets, business practices and public announcements have all been based upon lies and half truths.

This time the regulators are being forced by public opinion to actually peak under the hood and see what is going on there. And what they will find is that the assets booked on the balance sheet of Dimon’s monolith are largely fictitious. This time the regulators must look at what assets were presented to the Federal Reserve window in exchange for interest free loans. The narrative is shifting from the “free house” myth to the reality of free money. And that will lead to the question of who is the creditor in each of the transactions in which a mortgage loan is said to exist.

Those mortgage loans are thought to exist because of a number of incorrect presumptions. One of them is that the obligation remains unpaid and is secured. Neither is true. Some loans might still have a balance due but even they have had their balances reduced by the receipt of insurance proceeds and the payoff from credit default swaps and other credit enhancements, not to speak of the taxpayer bailout.

This money was diverted from investor lenders who were entitled to that money because their contracts and the representations inducing them to purchase bogus mortgage bonds, stated that the investment was investment grade (Triple A) and because they thought they were insured several times over. It is true that the insurance was several layers thick and it is equally true that the insurance payoff covered most if not all the balances of all the mortgages that were funded between 1996 and the present. The investor lenders should have received at least enough of that money to make them whole — i.e., all principal and interest as promissed.

Instead the Banks did the unthinkable and that is what is about to come to light. They kept the money for themselves and then claimed the loss of investors on the toxic loans and tranches that were created in pools of money and mortgages — pools that in fact never came into existence, leaving the investors with a loose partnership with other investors, no manager, and no accounting. Every creditor is entitled to payment in full — ONCE, not multiple times unless they have separate contracts (bets) with parties other than the borrower. In this case, with the money received by the investment banks diverted from the investors, the creditors thought they had a loss when in fact they had a claim against deep pocket mega banks to receive their share of the proceeds of insurance, CDS payoffs and taxpayer bailouts.

What the banks were banking on was the stupidity of government regulators and the stupidity of the American public. But it wasn’t stupidity. it was ignorance of the intentional flipping of mortgage lending onto its head, resulting in loan portfolios whose main characteristic was that they would fail. And fail they did because the investment banks “declared” through the Master servicer that they had failed regardless of whether people were making payments on their mortgage loans or not. But the only parties with an actual receivable wherein they were expecting to be paid in real money were the investor lenders.

Had the investor lenders received the money that was taken by their agents, they would have been required to reduce the balances due from borrowers. Any other position would negate their claim to status as a REMIC. But the banks and servicers take the position that there exists an entitlement to get paid in full on the loan AND to take the house because the payment didn’t come from the borrower.

This reduction in the balance owed from borrowers would in and of itself have resulted in the equivalent of “principal reduction” which in many cases was to zero and quite possibly resulting in a claim against the participants in the securitization chain for all of the ill-gotten gains. remember that the Truth In Lending Law states unequivocally that the undisclosed profits and compensation of ANYONE involved in the origination of the loan must be paid, with interest to the borrower. Crazy you say? Is it any crazier than the banks getting $15 million for a $300,000 loan. Somebody needs to win here and I see no reason why it should be the megabanks who created, incited, encouraged and covered up outright fraud on investor lenders and homeowner borrowers.

Making Banks Small Enough And Simple Enough To Fail

By Simon Johnson

Almost exactly two years ago, at the height of the Senate debate on financial reform, a serious attempt was made to impose a binding size constraint on our largest banks. That effort – sometimes referred to as the Brown-Kaufman amendment – received the support of 33 senators and failed on the floor of the Senate. (Here is some of my Economix coverage from the time.)

On Wednesday, Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, introduced the Safe, Accountable, Fair and Efficient Banking Act, or SAFE, which would force the largest four banks in the country to shrink. (Details of this proposal, similar in name to the original Brown-Kaufman plan, are in this briefing memo for a Senate banking subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, available through Politico; see also these press release materials).

His proposal, while not likely to immediately become law, is garnering support from across the political spectrum – and more support than essentially the same ideas received two years ago.  This week’s debacle at JP Morgan only strengthens the case for this kind of legislative action in the near future.

The proposition is simple: Too-big-to-fail banks should be made smaller, and preferably small enough to fail without causing global panic. This idea had been gathering momentum since the fall of 2008 and, while the Brown-Kaufman amendment originated on the Democratic side, support was beginning to appear across the aisle. But big banks and the Treasury Department both opposed it, parliamentary maneuvers ensured there was little real debate. (For a compelling account of how the financial lobby works, both in general and in this instance, look for an upcoming book by Jeff Connaughton, former chief of staff to former Senator Ted Kaufman of Delaware.)

The issue has not gone away. And while the financial sector has pushed back with some success against various components of the Dodd-Frank reform legislation, the idea of breaking up very large banks has gained momentum.

In particular, informed sentiment has shifted against continuing to allow very large banks to operate in their current highly leveraged form, with a great deal of debt and very little equity.  There is increasing recognition of the massive and unfair costs that these structures impose on the rest of the economy.  The implicit subsidies provided to “too big to fail” companies allow them to boost compensation over the cycle by hundreds of millions of dollars.  But the costs imposed on the rest of us are in the trillions of dollars.  This is a monstrously unfair and inefficient system – and sensible public figures are increasingly pointing this out (including Jamie Dimon, however inadvertently).

American Banker, a leading trade publication, recently posted a slide show, “Who Wants to Break Up the Big Banks?” Its gallery included people from across the political spectrum, with a great deal of financial sector and public policy experience, along with quotations that appear to support either Senator Brown’s approach or a similar shift in philosophy with regard to big banks in the United States. (The slide show is available only to subscribers.)

According to American Banker, we now have in the “break up the banks” corner (in order of appearance in that feature): Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas; Sheila Bair, former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Tom Hoenig, a board member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City; Jon Huntsman, former Republican presidential candidate and former governor of Utah; Senator Brown; Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England; Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont; and Camden Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers of America. (I am also on the American Banker list).

Anat Admati of Stanford and her colleagues have led the push for much higher capital requirements – emphasizing the particular dangers around allowing our largest banks to operate in their current highly leveraged fashion. This position has also been gaining support in the policy and media mainstream, most recently in the form of a powerful Bloomberg View editorial.

(You can follow her work and related discussion on this Web site; on twitter she is @anatadmati.)

Senator Brown’s legislation reflects also the idea that banks should fund themselves more with equity and less with debt. Professor Admati and I submitted a letter of support, together with 11 colleagues whose expertise spans almost all dimensions of how the financial sector really operates.

We particularly stress the appeal of having a binding “leverage ratio” for the largest banks. This would require them to have at least 10 percent equity relative to their total assets, using a simple measure of assets not adjusted for any of the complicated “risk weights” that banks can game.

We also agree with the SAFE Banking Act that to limit the risk and potential cost to taxpayers, caps on the size of an individual bank’s liabilities relative to the economy can also serve a useful role (and the same kind of rule should apply to non-bank financial institutions).

Under the proposed law, no bank-holding company could have more than $1.3 trillion in total liabilities (i.e., that would be the maximum size). This would affect our largest banks, which are $2 trillion or more in total size, but in no way undermine their global competitiveness. This is a moderate and entirely reasonable proposal.

No one is suggesting that making JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo smaller would be sufficient to ensure financial stability.

But this idea continues to gain traction, as a measure complementary to further strengthening and simplifying capital requirements and generally in support of other efforts to make it easier to handle the failure of financial institutions.

Watch for the SAFE Banking Act to gain further support over time.

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Like I said, the loans never made into the “pools”

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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Editor’s Comment:

When I first suggested that securitization itself was a lie, my comments were greeted with disbelief and derision. No matter. When I see something I call it the way it is. The loans never left the launch pad, much less flew into a waiting pool of investor money. The whole thing was a scam and AG Biden of Đelaware and Schniedermann of New York are on to it.

The tip of the iceberg is that the note was not delivered to the investors. The gravitas of the situation is that the investors were never intended to get the note, the mortgage or any documentation except a check and a distribution report. The game was on.

First they (the investment banks) took money from the investors on the false pretenses that the bonds were real when anyone with 6 months experience on Wall street could tell you this was not a bond for lots of reasons, the most basic of which was that there was no borrower. The prospectus had no loans because there were no loans made yet. The banks certainly wouldn’ t take the risks posed by this toxic heap of loans, so they were waiting for the investors to get conned. Once they had the money then they figured out how to keep as much of it as possible before even looking for residential home borrowers. 

None of the requirements of the Internal Revenue Code on REMICS were followed, nor were the requirements of the pooling and servicing agreement. The facts are simple: the document trail as written never followed the actual trail of actual transactions in which money exchanged hands. And this was simply because the loan money came from the investors apart from the document trail. The actual transaction between homeowner borrower and investor lender was UNDOCUMENTED. And the actual trail of documents used in foreclosures all contain declarations of fact concerning transactions that never happened. 

The note is “evidence” of the debt, not the debt itself. If the investor lender loaned money to the homeowner borrower and neither one of them signed a single document acknowledging that transaction, there is still an obligation. The money from the investor lender is still a loan and even without documentation it is a loan that must be repaid. That bit of legal conclusion comes from common law. 

So if the note itself refers to a transaction in which ABC Lending loaned the money to the homeowner borrower it is referring to a transaction that does not now nor did it ever exist. That note is evidence of an obligation that does not exist. That note refers to a transaction that never happened. ABC Lending never loaned the homeowner borrower any money. And the terms of repayment intended by the securitization documents were never revealed to the homeowner buyer. Therefore the note with ABC Lending is evidence of a non-existent transaction that mistates the terms of repayment by leaving out the terms by which the investor lender would be repaid.

Thus the note is evidence of nothing and the mortgage securing the terms of the note is equally invalid. So the investors are suing the banks for leaving the lenders in the position of having an unsecured debt wherein even if they had collateral it would be declining in value like a stone dropping to the earth.

And as for why banks who knew better did it this way — follow the money. First they took an undisclosed yield spread premium out of the investor lender money. They squirreled most of that money through Bermuda which ” asserted” jurisdiction of the transaction for tax purposes and then waived the taxes. Then the bankers created false entities and “pools” that had nothing in them. Then the bankers took what was left of the investor lender money and funded loans upon request without any underwriting.

Then the bankers claimed they were losing money on defaults when the loss was that of the investor lenders. To add insult to injury the bankers had used some of the investor lender money to buy insurance, credit default swaps and create other credit enhancements where they — not the investor lender —- were the beneficiary of a payoff based on the default of mortgages or an “event” in which the nonexistent pool had to be marked down in value. When did that markdown occur? Only when the wholly owned wholly controlled subsidiary of the investment banker said so, speaking as the ” master servicer.”

So the truth is that the insurers and counterparties on CDS paid the bankers instead of the investor lenders. The same thing happened with the taxpayer bailout. The claims of bank losses were fake. Everyone lost money except, of course, the bankers.

So who owns the loan? The investor lenders. Who owns the note? Who cares, it was worth less when they started; but if anyone owns it it is most probably the originating “lender” ABC Lending. Who owns the mortgage? There is no mortgage. The mortgage agreement was written and executed by the borrower securing terms of payment that were neither disclosed nor real.

Bank Loan Bundling Investigated by Biden-Schneiderman: Mortgages

By David McLaughlin

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Delaware’s Beau Biden are investigating banks for failing to package mortgages into bonds as advertised to investors, three months after a group of lenders struck a nationwide $25 billion settlement over foreclosure practices.

The states are pursuing allegations that some home loans weren’t correctly transferred into securitizations, undermining investors’ stakes in the mortgages, according to two people with knowledge of the probes. They’re also concerned about improper foreclosures on homeowners as result, said the people, who declined to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The probes prolong the fallout from the six-year housing bust that’s cost Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and other lenders more than $72 billion because of poor underwriting and shoddy foreclosures. It may also give ammunition to bondholders suing banks, said Isaac Gradman, an attorney and managing member of IMG Enterprises LLC, a mortgage-backed securities consulting firm.

“The attorneys general could create a lot of problems for the banks and for the trustees and for bondholders,” Gradman said. “I can’t imagine a better securities law claim than to say that you represented that these were mortgage-backed securities when in fact they were backed by nothing.”

Countrywide Faulted

Schneiderman said Bank of America Corp. (BAC)’s Countrywide Financial unit last year made errors in the way it packaged home loans into bonds, while investors have sued trustee banks, saying documentation lapses during mortgage securitizations can impair their ability to recover losses when homeowners default. Schneiderman didn’t sue Bank of America in connection with that criticism.

The Justice Department in January said it formed a group of federal officials and state attorneys general to investigate misconduct in the bundling of mortgage loans into securities. Schneiderman is co-chairman with officials from the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The next month, five mortgage servicers — Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Ally Financial Inc. (ALLY) — reached a $25 billion settlement with federal officials and 49 states. The deal pays for mortgage relief for homeowners while settling claims against the servicers over foreclosure abuses. It didn’t resolve all claims, leaving the lenders exposed to further investigations into their mortgage operations by state and federal officials.

Top Issuers

The New York and Delaware probes involve banks that assembled the securities and firms that act as trustees on behalf of investors in the debt, said one of the people and a third person familiar with the matter.

The top issuers of mortgage securities without government backing in 2005 included Bank of America’s Countrywide Financial unit, GMAC, Bear Stearns Cos. and Washington Mutual, according to trade publication Inside MBS & ABS. Total volume for the top 10 issuers was $672 billion. JPMorgan acquired Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual in 2008.

The sale of mortgages into the trusts that pool loans may be void if banks didn’t follow strict requirements for such transfers, Biden said in a lawsuit filed last year over a national mortgage database used by banks. The requirements for transferring documents were “frequently not complied with” and likely led to the failure to properly transfer loans “on a large scale,” Biden said in the complaint.

“Most of this was done under the cover of darkness and anything that shines a light on these practices is going to be good for investors,” Talcott Franklin, an attorney whose firm represents mortgage-bond investors, said about the state probes.

Critical to Investors

Proper document transfers are critical to investors because if there are defects, the trusts, which act on behalf of investors, can’t foreclose on borrowers when they default, leading to losses, said Beth Kaswan, an attorney whose firm, Scott + Scott LLP, represents pension funds that have sued Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK) and US Bancorp as bond trustees. The banks are accused of failing in their job to review loan files for missing and incomplete documents and ensure any problems were corrected, according to court filings.

“You have very significant losses in the trusts and very high delinquencies and foreclosures, and when you attempt to foreclose you can’t collect,” Kaswan said.

Laurence Platt, an attorney at K&L Gates LLP in Washington, disagreed that widespread problems exist with document transfers in securitization transactions that have impaired investors’ interests in mortgages.

“There may be loan-level issues but there aren’t massive pattern and practice problems,” he said. “And even when there are potential loan-level issues, you have to look at state law because not all states require the same documents.”

Fixing Defects

Missing documents don’t have to prevent trusts from foreclosing on homes because the paperwork may not be necessary, according to Platt. Defects in the required documents can be fixed in some circumstances, he said. For example, a missing promissory note, in which a borrower commits to repay a loan, may not derail the process because there are laws governing lost notes that allow a lender to proceed with a foreclosure, he said.

A review by federal bank regulators last year found that mortgage servicers “generally had sufficient documentation” to demonstrate authority to foreclose on homes.

Schneiderman said in court papers last year that Countrywide failed to transfer complete loan documentation to trusts. BNY Mellon, the trustee for bondholders, misled investors to believe Countrywide had delivered complete files, the attorney general said.

Hindered Foreclosures

Errors in the transfer of documents “hampered” the ability of the trusts to foreclose and impaired the value of the securities backed by the loans, Schneiderman said.

“The failure to properly transfer possession of complete mortgage files has hindered numerous foreclosure proceedings and resulted in fraudulent activities,” the attorney general said in court documents.

Bank of America faced similar claims from Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, who accused the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender of conducting foreclosures without authority in its role as mortgage servicer due improper document transfers. In an amended complaint last year, Masto said Countrywide failed to deliver original mortgage notes to the trusts or provided notes with defects.

The lawsuit was settled as part of the national foreclosure settlement, Masto spokeswoman Jennifer Lopez said.

Bank of America spokesman Rick Simon declined to comment about the claims made by states and investors. BNY Mellon performed its duties as defined in the agreements governing the securitizations, spokesman Kevin Heine said.

“We believe that claims against the trustee are based on a misunderstanding of the limited role of the trustee in mortgage securitizations,” he said.

Biden, in his complaint over mortgage database MERS, cites a foreclosure by Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) as trustee in which the promissory note wasn’t delivered to the bank as required under an agreement governing the securitization. The office is concerned that such errors led to foreclosures by banks that lacked authority to seize homes, one of the people said.

Renee Calabro, spokeswoman for Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank, declined to comment.

Investors have raised similar claims against banks. The Oklahoma Police Pension and Retirement System last year sued U.S. Bancorp as trustee for mortgage bonds sold by Bear Stearns. The bank “regularly disregarded” its duty as trustee to review loan files to ensure there were no missing or defective documents transferred to the trusts. The bank’s actions caused millions of dollars in losses on securities “that were not, in fact, legally collateralized by mortgage loans,” according to an amended complaint.

“Bondholders could have serious claims on their hands,” said Gradman. “You’re going to suffer a loss as bondholder if you can’t foreclose, if you can’t liquidate that property and recoup.”

Teri Charest, a spokeswoman for Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp (USB), said the bank isn’t liable and doesn’t know if any party is at fault in the structuring or administration of the transactions.

“If there was fault, this unhappy investor is seeking recompense from the wrong party,” she said. “We were not the sponsor, underwriter, custodian, servicer or administrator of this transaction.”

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MBS TRUSTEES UNDER INVESTIGATION

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Neil Garfield

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“ROYALTY” FEES FOR USE OF THEIR NAME UNDER SCRUTINY

EDITOR’S COMMENT: Investors are starting to get restless as they see what is left of their “equity” in the MBS deals they advanced money to buy, dwindling to zero. They are onto the game and the pension fund and other fund managers responsible for the purchase had best start acting to protect their pensioners or they will find themselves in the same position as the so-called trustees of what are now emerging as non-existent trusts for pools of money that have nothing but the investor money in them as assets and no loans.

Let’s first get our terms straight so you know who the players are and what they do. Start at the beginning:

  1. Working people get a pension benefit that vests to them after a certain number of years of employment. Sometimes they contribute to the fund themselves, and sometimes it is entirely funded by their employer. 
  2. Those contributions are then aggregated into a fund which often is an entity unto itself — like  a corporation, LLC, Trust etc. organized and existing under the laws of the state where the pension fund is located.
  3. A fund manager is hired to invest those funds to assure that the balances keep up with inflation and so forth. Usually there are restrictions as to what kind of investments the fund manager is allowed to buy for the fund, whose purpose is to give the pensioners, the monthly payment they are expecting when they retire. 
  4. The hired fund manager could be an individual or a company. If it is a company then some person who works at the company is appointed to take care of that fund and perhaps some others.
  5. Usually when the media speaks of “investors” they mean the pension funds or other types of funds under management that constitute qualified investors because they are professionally managed by people of financial sophistication and they have a lot more money than the average Joe so they can check things out pretty carefully. When you have $1 billion under management, it doesn’t take much to spend $50,000 checking out a potential investment. 
  6. So “investors” are basically conduits through which the money funding pensions and the money paying pension benefits are processed, managed and invested. The real people who are affected by the performance of the fund manager are those people who worked for their pension benefits.
  7. The fund manager is usually paid for performance and hired and fired on the same basis. If the fund balances are properly maintained and the investments are all AAA and were checked out by the fund manager, they avoid most of the tricks and scams that Wall Street is always generating.
  8. So the fund manager, in order to preserve his employment, compensation and bonuses (everything on Wall Street is about bonuses) has a vested interest in managing the information that reaches the media and members of the fund. If there is a Board of Directors or other overseeing body they should be checking under the hood as well to make sure that the fund manager is investing according to the rules and make sure that the fund manager is not embezzling funds.
  9. Thus fund managers who invested heavily into MBS Mortgage Bonds or other MBS products that carved up and pooled debts arising from student loans, credit cards etc, all with AAA ratings from the rating agencies, are now sitting on some liabilities that they don’t want to report because if they do, then they will probably lose their bonus, job or other compensation.
  10. Enter the MBS Trustee seen often as Deutsch Bank, as Trustee for series abcnde-2005a. As Reynaldo Reyes has stated in taped interviews, the function of Deutsch Bank is to do nothing. Only the servicer calls the shots, along with instructions from other entities created by the investment banks in order to put layers between them and the acts that caused all this mess. See organized crime structure as the model for what Wall Street did. 
  11. The fund managers for the pension funds (investors) are actually representing real people who are expecting their pension benefits. So now some of them are looking to the MBS Trustee to ACT like a Trustee and ACT like they care what happens to the investors (pension funds) and all the pensioners depending upon that fund. But the same disdain and contempt that has been shown to homeowners in foreclosure is being displayed against the pensioners. They are the “little people” who in the culture of Wall Street “don’t count.”
  12. Many fund managers were duped by several attributes of these bogus MBS Bonds. The AAA ratings were a big factor as was the presence of the largest banks in the world acting as “Trustees.” The Trustees’ deal with Wall Street was to get paid a fee so their name could be used in foreclosures and other transactions. That is why the actual Trust Departments of the same banks serving as MBS Trustees don’t have anything to do with the MBS Trusts. Besides the fact that the Trusts probably don’t exist at all, the deal was that the MBS Trustee would be completely insulated from all the actual workings of the securitization chain.
  13. Recent case decisions are pointing  the way toward holding the MBS Trustees liable for their inaction. That is what Biden And Schneiderman are looking into as well, to see if laws were broken with those deals. Of course laws were broken. The MBS Trustee was advertised as a Trustee with fiduciary duties. Neither the Trust nor the duties actually existed, and even if they did the MBS Trustee had no intention of doing anything because that wasn’t the deal. [You might want to look at both the original Trustee on Deed of Trust and the “substitute Trustee” for additional potential liability — to borrowers.]

At the end of the day, everybody knows everything. I first heard that on Wall Street of all places but they keep forgetting their own little axioms. The MBS Trustees like Deutsch, US BANK, etc. have long been known to be doing absolutely nothing. The purpose of using their name was to provide window dressing: a big name like HSBC is more likely to be taken seriously than some unknown title agent, which is why in the non-judicial states that ALWAYS have a substitution of trustee. The other reason is that the original trustee would insist on performing the due diligence that the statutes require and oops, they are not going foreclose on property at the instruction of someone who is out of the chain of title.

Biden of Delaware and Schneiderman of New York, both Attorney generals in the center of the securitization playground, are now looking at one of the weakest links in the Great Securitization Scam — i.e., the claim that securitization happened when it didn’t. The fact is that the parties took the money as though the securitization documents were followed but they didn’t have the the loans, transfer documents, mortgage documents, or for that matter even a conforming mortgage that was an actual lien on anyone’s property.

Pauley’s BofA MBS ruling is boon to New York, Delaware AGs

10/25/2011 COMMENTS (0)

In 1998, 400 investors in a trust that distributed revenue from a communications satellite got word that their securitization trustee had settled a $41-million suit against the satellite’s fuel supplier. The trustee, IBJ Schroeder, filed a New York State Article 77 proceeding to obtain a judge’s endorsement of the $8.5 million settlement. Some of the investors protested the deal, arguing that the trustee didn’t have the power to settle the case without consulting them. In 2000, a New York appeals court ruled that, in fact, IBJ Schroeder did have that power, under both New York law and the contract governing the satellite revenue trust. The lower court ultimately ruled in the Article 77 case that even if investors considered the settlement amount too low, Schroeder hadn’t acted unreasonably or imprudently in striking the deal.

If you’re wondering why I’m telling you about an 11-year old ruling involving a defunct communications satellite, it’s because the IBJ Schroeder opinion is sure to be invoked by Bank of New York Mellon, the trustee of those Countrywide mortgage-backed securities, as well as the 22 Countrywide MBS investors represented by Gibbs & Bruns as they appeal last week’s decision by U.S. District Judge William Pauley III of Manhattan federal court. In holding that the federal courts have jurisdiction over Bank of America’s proposed $8.5 billion settlement, Pauley took issue with BNY Mellon’s use of an Article 77 proceeding to get the deal approved. The judge wrote that Article 77 is usually employed to resolve garden-variety trust administration issues; BNY Mellon and Gibbs & Bruns will use the IBJ Schroeder ruling to argue at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that, contrary to Pauley’s assertion, there’s precedent for using Article 77 exactly as they did in the BofA MBS case.

But even as the Second Circuit decides whether to take up the issue of the rights and responsibilities of securitization trustees, state attorneys general are likely to pounce upon some of the language in Pauley’s 21-page ruling. I warned that there might be unintended consequences for indentured trustees when the judge asked for briefing on the BNY Mellon’s duties. After Pauley’s ruling, that warning is now a red alert. New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman and his faithful follower, Joseph Biden III of Delaware, have both announced that they’re investigating MBS securitization trustees. Schneiderman showed he’s serious by filing state-law fraud claims against BNY Mellon along with his petition to intervene in the BofA Article 77 proceeding. In his complaint against BNY, Schneiderman argued that once an investment goes south, as many of the MBS trusts have, the indentured trustee has a fiduciary duty to trust beneficiaries under New York common law.

BNY Mellon’s lawyers, on the other hand, argued in a brief to Pauley that an indentured trustee does not have a fiduciary duty to beneficiaries. The investment contract, BNY Mellon said, governs the trustee’s responsibilities. Standard securitization contracts, known as pooling and servicing agreements, say the indentured trustee serves a ministerial function, mostly making revenue distributions to investors. BNY Mellon told the judge that its only responsibilities, aside from those specified in pooling and servicing agreements, are common law duties to avoid conflicts of interest and to exercise due care.

The judge, however, took a broader view of the source of the trustee’s responsibilities — and that’s good news for regulators who are trying to find routes to liability for securitization trustees. Pauley considered the question in the context of determining whether the proposed BofA settlement falls into an exception to federal court jurisdiction in the Class Action Fairness Act. But his reasoning, of course, can be cited in other contexts.

Pauley cited Judge Learned Hand — who sat on the same court a century ago — to conclude that indentured trustees can’t evade a duty of loyalty to beneficiaries just because their responsibilities are defined by a contract. BNY Mellon had asserted its only duty to act in good faith came from the Countrywide pooling and servicing agreements. Pauley said it comes instead from state common law. As New York and Delaware regulators consider causes of action against securitization trustees, they’re going to have stronger claims if they can argue that trustees breached their state-law duties to investors. Similarly, trustee defenses are weakened if they can’t argue that their responsibilities were strictly defined by pooling and servicing agreements.

The New York and Delaware AGs are in an awkward limbo right now in the BofA MBS litigation. When Grais & Ellsworth removed the case to federal court, their intervention petitions were pending before Judge Barbara Kapnick in New York State Supreme Court. (BNY Mellon and Gibbs & Bruns, you may recall, filed fiery briefs opposing the N.Y. AG’s intervention.) The AGs stayed out of the federal court case while Pauley decided whether to remand it. But now they’re likely to renew their intervention petitions before the federal court judge, who has already raised a lot of the same questions as the AGs about the fairness of a binding settlement that was reached without consulting most of the investors it will affect. (The New York AG’s Martin Act counterclaim against BNY Mellon, in case you’re wondering, can technically proceed in federal court as well.) As I’ve said before, it’s too soon to say for sure that the proposed settlement will stay with Pauley. But if it does, invigorated attorneys general are the last thing BofA, BNY Mellon, and the Gibbs & Bruns group need.

(Reporting by Alison Frankel)

Follow On the Case on Twitter: @AlisonFrankel

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DELAWARE TO MERS: NOT IN OUR STATE!

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Neil Garfield

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Delaware sues MERS, claims mortgage deception

Posted on Stop Foreclosure Fraud

Posted on27 October 2011.

Delaware sues MERS, claims mortgage deceptionSome saw this coming in the last few weeks. Now all HELL is about to Break Loose.

This is one of the States I mentioned MERS has to watch…why? Because the “Co.” originated here & under Laws of Delaware…following? [see below].

Also look at the date this TM patent below was signed 3-4 years after MERS’ 1999 date via VP W. Hultman’s secretary Kathy McKnight [PDF link to depo pages 29-39].

New York…next!

Delaware Online-

Delaware joined what is becoming a growing legal battle against the mortgage industry today, charging in a Chancery Court suit that consumers facing foreclosure were purposely misled and deceived by the company that supposedly kept track of their loans’ ownership.

By operating a shadowy and frequently inaccurate private database that obscured the mortgages’ true owners, Merscorp made it difficult for hundreds of Delaware homeowners to fight foreclosure actions in court or negotiate new terms on their loans, the suit filed by the Attorney General’s Office said.

[DELAWARE ONLINE]

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CAL. AG DROPS OUT OF TALKS WITH BANKS: AMNESTY OFF THE TABLE

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Neil Garfield

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EDITOR’S NOTE: California has approximately a 1/3 share of all foreclosures. So Harris’ decision to drop out of the talks is a huge blow to the mega banks who were banking (pardon the pun) on using it to get immunity from prosecution. The answer is no, you will be held accountable for what you did, just like anyone else. As I have stated before when the other AG’s dropped out of the talks (Arizona, Nevada et al), this growing trend is getting real traction as those in politics have discovered an important nuance in the minds of voters: they may have differing opinions on what should be done about foreclosures but they all hate these monolithic banks who are siphoning off the lifeblood of our society. And there is nothing like hate to drive voting.

This is a process, not an event. We are at the end of the 4th inning in a 9-inning game that may go into overtime. The effects of the mortgage mess created by the banks are being felt at the dinner table of just about every citizen in the country. The politics here is creating a huge paradox and irony — the largest source of campaign donations has turned into a pariah with whom association will be as deadly at the polls as organized crime.

The fact that so many attorneys general of so many states are putting distance between themselves and the banks means a lot. It means that the banks are in serious danger of indictment and conviction on criminal charges for fraud, forgery, perjury and potentially many other crimes.

IDENTITY THEFT: One crime that is being investigated, which I have long felt was a major element of the securitization scam for the “securitization that never happened” is the theft of identities. By signing onto what appeared to be mortgage documents, borrowers were in fact becoming issuers or pawns in the issuance of fraudulent securities to investors. Those with high credit scores were especially valued for the “cover” they provided in the upper tranches of the CDO’s that were “sold” to investors. An 800 credit score could be used to get a AAA  rating from the rating agencies who were themselves paid off to provide additional cover.

But it all comes down to the use of people’s identities as “borrowers” when in fact there was no “Lending” going on. What was going on was “pretend lending” that had all the outward manifestations of a loan but none of the substance. Yes money exchanged hands, but the real parties never met and never signed papers with each other. In my opinion, the proof of identity theft will put the borrowers in a superior position to that of the investors in suits against the investment bankers.

NO UNDERWRITING=NO LOAN: There was no underwriting committee, there was no underwriting, there was no review of the appraisal, there was no confirmation of the borrower’s income and there was no decision about the risk and viability of the so-called loan, because it wasn’t about that. The risk was already eliminated when they sold the bogus mortgage bonds to investors and thus saddled pension funds with the entire risk of loss on empty “mortgage backed pools.” So if the loan wasn’t paid, the players at ground level had no risk. Their only incentive was to get the signature of the borrower. That is what they were paid for — not to produce quality loans, but to produce signatures.

Little did we know, the more loans that defaulted, the more money the banks made — but they were able to mask the gains with apparent losses as an excuse to extract emergency money from the US Treasury using taxpayer dollars without accounting for the “loss” or what they did with the money. Meanwhile the gains were safely parked off shore in “off-balance sheet” transaction accounts.

The question that has not yet been asked, but will be asked as prosecutors and civil litigators drill down into these deals is who controls that off-shore money? My math is telling me that some $2.6 trillion was siphoned off (second level — hidden — yield spread premium) the investors money before the balance was used to fund “loans.”

When all is said and done, those loans will be seen for what they really were — part of the issuance of unregistered fraudulent securities. And you’ll see that the investors didn’t get any more paperwork than the borrowers did as to what was really going on. The banks want us to focus on the the paperwork when in fact it is the actual transactions involving money that we should be following. The paperwork is a ruse. It is faked.

NOTE TO LAW ENFORCEMENT: FOLLOW THE MONEY. IT WILL LEAD YOU TO THE TRUTH AND THE PERPETRATORS. YOUR EFFORTS WILL BE REWARDED.

California AG Harris Exits Multistate Talks
in News > Mortgage Servicing
by MortgageOrb.com on Monday 03 October 2011
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The multistate attorneys general group working toward a foreclosure settlement with the nation’s biggest banks suffered a blow Friday, when California’s Kamala Harris announced her departure from negotiations.

Harris notified Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and U.S. Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli of her decision in a letter that was obtained and published by the New York Times Friday. According to the letter, Harris is exiting the talks because she opposes the broad scope of the settlement terms under discussion.

“Last week, I went to Washington, D.C., in hopes of moving our discussions forward,” Harris wrote. “But it became clear to me that California was being asked for a broader release of claims than we can accept and to excuse conduct that has not been adequately investigated.”

“[T]his not the deal California homeowners have been waiting for,” Harris adds one line later.

Harris, who earlier this year launched a mortgage fraud task force, says she will continue investigating mortgage practices – including banks’ bubble-era securitization activities – independent of the multistate group.

“I am committed to doing as thorough an investigation as is needed – and to taking the time that is necessary – to set the stage for achieving appropriate accountability for misconduct,” she wrote.

Harris also told Miller and Perrelli that she intends to advocate for legislation and regulations that increase transparency in the mortgage markets and “eliminate incentives to disregard borrowers’ rights in foreclosure.”

Harris’ departure is considered significant given the high number of distressed loans in California. In August, approximately one in every 226 housing units in the state had a foreclosure filing of some kind, according to RealtyTrac data.

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DISCOVERY AND PRACTICE TIPS: SEC RULE DISCLOSURE DOCUMENTS Carrington Mortgage – Stanwich – EMC Mortgage Corporation – New Century Mortgage Corporation (“NCMC”

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Neil Garfield

FROM drhDe.u5a.htm

This is both a HERS post and a general post for those seeking discovery of documentation. You can Google this information also. This is also what I am asking all of you to send in to me for posting. I’m backdating the HERS posts like this generally to February and March so as not to crowd out current articles but if you look at the search index and bring up “HERS or even the particular name of an institution or unfamiliar name of an individual company or institution it will come up with increasing frequency as we expand this aspect of the blog.

DISCOVERY: You ask for all SEC filings including but not limited to 8k filings and back-up documents, custodians of those records, and people with personal knowledge of the information contained in those filings, together with their names, addresses, phone numbers, title, scope of duties etc. Then you call them and ask them what they know where there are other documents. Note these are words of art and have a general meaning that cannot be disputed in the industry. CFR= Code of Federal Regulations

EMC Mortgage Corporation transferred the servicing of mortgage loans with respect to the Carrington Mortgage Loan Trust Asset-Backed Pass-Through Certificates, Series 2007-HE1, to Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC. Prior to November 1, 2007, the Mortgage Loans were serviced by EMC Mortgage Corporation pursuant to the Pooling and Servicing Agreement, among Stanwich Asset Acceptance Company, L.L.C., Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., EMC Mortgage Corporation, Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC and HSBC Bank USA, National Association, a copy of which was filed as Exhibit 10.1 pursuant to Form 8-K on July 27, 2007 under the same Central Index Key (CIK) as this periodic report on Form 8-K (the “Pooling and Servicing Agreement”). On and after November 1, 2007, Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC will service the Mortgage Loans pursuant to the Pooling and Servicing Agreement. These are the SEC entries of data relating to this event.

STANWICH ASSET ACCEPTANCE COMPANY, L.L.C., on behalf of Carrington Mortgage Loan Trust, Series 2007-HE1 Asset-Backed Pass-Through Certificates

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

SEC File 333-139507-02

Carrington Mortgage Loa..2007-HE1

8-K{6

Mayer Brown & Platt/FA

11/01/07

Carrington Mortgage Loan Trust/Series 2007-HE1

STANWICH ASSET ACCEPTANCE COMPANY, L.L.C.

STANWICH ASSET ACCEPTANCE COMPANY, L.L.C. (as depositor under a Pooling and Servicing Agreement, dated as of June 1, 2007, providing for, inter alia, the issuance of Carrington Mortgage Loan Trust, Series 2007-HE1 Asset-Backed Pass-Through Certificates)

(Commission File Number)333-139507-02

Delaware

(IRS Employer Identification No.) 20-2698835

Seven Greenwich Office Park
599 West Putnam Avenue

Greenwich, Connecticut

06830

(203) 661-6186

Rule 425 under the Securities Act (17 CFR 230.425)

Rule 14a-12 under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14a-12)
Rule 14d-2(b) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.14d-2(b)
Rule 13e-4(c) under the Exchange Act (17 CFR 240.13e-4(c))
Written communications pursuant to Rule 425
Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 14d-2(b)
Pre-commencement communications pursuant to Rule 13e-4(c)
Item 6.02.  Change in Servicer or Trustee

Carrington Mortgage Services, LLC (“CMS”) is a Delaware limited liability company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Carrington Capital Management, LLC. CMS maintains its executive and principal offices at 1610 E. St. Andrews Place, Santa Ana, CA 92705. Its telephone number is (949) 517-7000.

On June 29, 2007, CMS acquired substantially all of the servicing assets of New Century Mortgage Corporation (“NCMC”), an indirect wholly-owned operating subsidiary of New Century Financial Corporation (“New Century”) as provided in the prospectus filed pursuant to Rule 424 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, on July 11, 2007 under the same Central Index Key (CIK) as this periodic report on Form 8-K (the“Prospectus”)

DISCOVERY HINT. IN ORDER TO GET APPROVALS THEY HAD TO SUBMIT FORMS (APPLICATION ETC.). ASK FOR THOSE FORMS AND THE DISCLOSURES ON THOSE FORMS FROM BOTH THE COMPANY YOU ARE SEEKING INFORMATION ABOUT AND THE AGENCY UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT. CMS has the approvals necessary to service mortgage loans in accordance with the related servicing agreements. CMS is qualified to service mortgage loans on behalf of Freddie Mac, a corporate instrumentality of the United States, and has received the approval of the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to service mortgage loans. CMS has received approvals from the rating agencies with respect to the acquisition of the servicing platform. The residential mortgage servicing operations of CMS are currently rated -RPS4” by Fitch Ratings (“Fitch”). PRACTICE HINT: FILE AN ADMINISTRATIVE GRIEVANCE WITH THE AGENCY REGARDING THE VIOLATIONS YOU ARE ALLEGING. IN MANY CASES IT IS QUICKER AND THREATENS THE ABILITY OF THE SERVICER TO CONTINUE BUSINESS. DISCOVERY HINT: ASK FOR MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR RATING FROM BOTH THE COMPANY (ISSUER) AND THE RATING AGENCY. SUBPOENA IF NECESSARY. DO DEPOSITIONS UPON WRITTEN QUESTIONS ON RATING AGENCIES AND GOVERNMENT AGENCIES TO ESTABLISH POINTS THAT YOU FEEL WILL BE UNCONTROVERTIBLE ONCE ENTERED INTO THE RECORD. PRACTICE HINT: IN ORDER TO DO THAT YOU WILL PROBABLY NEED TO FILE A MOTION TO TAKE THE DEPOSITION IN LIEU OF LIVE TESTIMONY THUS GIVING THE OTHER SIDE AN OPPORTUNITY TO CROSS EXAMINE THE WITNESS EITHER LIVE OR IN PERSON. YOU COULD ALSO TAKE THE BETTER ROUTE OF GETTING THE DEPOSITION DONE BY TELEPHONE OR VIDEO BUT THESE CAN GET EXPENSIVE. EITHER WAY MAKE SURE EACH DOCUMENT IS SPECIFICALLY LABELED AS AN EXHIBIT AND EVENTUALLY BATES STAMPED. START CREATING AN INDEX OF EXHIBITS WITH SHORT SUMMARIES OF WHAT YOU WANT TO SUE THEM FOR IN WORD FORMAT OR SOME OTHER SPREADSHEET OR DATABASE FORMAT SO THAT YOU CAN DO EASY SEARCHES. PRACTICE HINT: THE LONGER YOU MAKE THE JUDGE WAIT FOR THE PRODUCTION OF THE DOCUMENT, THE LOWER YOUR CREDIBILITY. SHUFFLING PAPERS AROUND MAKES IT LOOK LIKE YOU MAY NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT AND THAT YOU ARE UNPREPARED.

Stanwich Asset Acceptance Company L.L.C.
By:
Name:  Bruce M. Rose
Title:  President



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Discovery, Forensic Analysis and Motion Practice: The Prospectus

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Neil Garfield

USE THIS AS A GUIDE FOR DISCOVERY, FORENSIC ANALYSIS AND MOTION PRACTICE TO COMPEL DISCLOSURE

see for this example SHARPS%20CDO%20II_16.08.07_9347

Comments in Red: THIS IS A PARTIAL ANNOTATION OF THE PROSPECTUS. IF YOU WANT A FULL ANNOTATION OF THIS PROSPECTUS OR ANY OTHER YOU NEED AN EXPERT IN SECURITIZATION TO DO IT. THERE ARE THREE OBVIOUS JURISDICTIONS RECITED HERE: CAYMAN ISLANDS, UNITED STATES (DELAWARE), AND IRELAND WITH MANY OTHER JURISDICTIONS RECITED AS WELL FOR PURPOSES OF THE OFFERING, ALL INDICATING THAT THE INVESTORS (CREDITORS) ARE SPREAD OUT ACROSS THE WORLD.

Note that the issuance of the bonds/notes are “non-recourse” which further corroborates the fact that the issuer (SPV/REMIC) is NOT the debtor, it is the homeowners who were funded out of the pool of money solicited from the investors, part of which was used to fund mortgages and a large part of which was kept by the investment bankers as “profit.”There is no language indicative that anyone other than the investors own the notes from homeowner/borrowers/debtors. Thus the investors are the creditors and the homeowners are the debtors. Without the investors there would have been no loan. Without the borrowers, there would would have been no investment. Hence, a SINGLE TRANSACTION.

If you read carefully you will see that there is Deutsch Bank as “initial purchaser” so that the notes (bonds) can be sold to pension funds, sovereign wealth funds etc. at a profit. This profit is the second tier of yield spread premium that no TILA audit I have ever seen has caught.

The amount of the “LEVEL 2” yield spread premium I compute on average to be approximately 30%-35% of the total loan amount that was funded FOR THE SUBJECT LOAN on average, depending upon the method of computation used.Thus a $300,000 loan would on average spawn two yield spread premiums, “level 1” being perhaps 2% or $6,000 and “level 2” being 33% or $100,000, neither of which were disclosed to the borrower, a violation of TILA.

The amount of the yield spread premium is a complex number based upon detailed information about the what actually took place in the sale of all the bonds and what actually took place in the sale of all the loan products to homeowners and what actually took place in the alleged transfer or assignment of “loans” into a master pool and what actually took place in the alleged transfer or assignment of “loans” into specific SPV pools and the alleged transfer or assignment of “loans” into specific tranches or classes within the SPV operating structure.

Here is the beginning of the prospectus with some of the annotations that are applicable:

Sharps CDO II Ltd., (obviously a name that doesn’t show up at the closing with the homeowner when they sign the promissory note, mortgage (or Deed of Trust and other documents. You want to ask for the name and contact information for the entity that issued the prospectus which is not necessarily the same company that issued the securities to the investors) an exempted company (you might ask for the identification of any companies that are declared as “exempted company” and their contact information to the extent that they issued any document or security relating to the subject loan) incorporated with limited liability you probably want to find out what liabilities are limited) under the laws of the Cayman Islands (ask for the identity of any foreign jurisdiction in which enabling documents were created, or under which jurisdiction is claimed or referred in the enabling documentation) (the “Issuer”) (Note that this is the “issuer” you don’t see don’t find about unless you ask for it), and Sharps CDO II Corp., (it would be wise to check with Delaware and get as much information about the names and addresses of the incorporators) a Delaware corporation (the “Co-Issuer” and together with the Issuer, the “Co-Issuers”), pursuant to an indenture (don’t confuse the prospectus with the indenture. The indenture is the actual terms of the bond issued just like the “terms of Note” specify the terms of the promissory note executed by the borrower/homeowner at closing) (the “Indenture”), among the Co-Issuers and The Bank of New York, as trustee (Note that BONY is identified “as trustee” but the usual language of “under the terms of that certain trust dated….etc” are absent. This is because there usually is NO TRUST AGREEMENT designated as such and NOT TRUST. In fact, as stated here it is merely an agreement between the co-issuers and BONY, which it means that far from being a trust it is more like the operating agreement of an LLC) (the “Trustee”), will issue up to U.S.$600,000,000 Class A-1 Senior Secured Floating Rate Notes Due 2046 (the “Class A-1 Notes”), U.S.$100,000,000 Class A-2 Senior Secured Floating Rate Notes Due 2046 (the “Class A-2 Notes”), U.S.$60,000,000 Class A-3 Senior Secured Floating Rate
Notes Due 2046 (the “Class A-3 Notes” and, together with the Class A-1 Notes and the Class A-2 Notes, the “Class A Notes”), U.S.$82,000,000 Class B Senior Secured Floating Rate Notes Due 2046 (the “Class B Notes”), U.S.$52,000,000 Class C Secured Deferrable Interest Floating Rate Notes Due 2046 (the “Class C Notes”), U.S.$34,000,000 Class D-1 Secured Deferrable Interest Floating Rate Notes Due 2046 (the “Class D-1 Notes”) and U.S.$27,000,000 Class D-2 Secured Deferrable Interest Floating Rate Notes Due 2046 (the “Class D-2 Notes” and, together with the Class D-1 Notes, the “Class D Notes”). The Class A Notes, the Class B Notes, the Class C Notes and the Class D Notes are collectively referred to as the “Senior Notes.” The Class A-2 Notes, the Class A-3 Notes, the Class
B Notes, the Class C Notes and the Class D Notes and the Subordinated Notes (as defined below) are collectively referred to as the “Offered Notes.” Concurrently with the issuance of the Senior Notes, the Issuer will issue U.S.$27,000,000 Class D-2 Secured Deferrable Interest Floating Rate Notes Due 2046 (the “Class D-2 Notes” and, together with the Class D-1 Notes, the “Class D Notes pursuant to the Indenture and U.S.$45,000,000 Subordinated Notes due 2046 (the “Subordinated Notes”) pursuant to the Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Issuer (the “Issuer Charter”) and in accordance with a Deed of Covenant (“Deed of Covenant”) and a Fiscal Agency Agreement (the “Fiscal Agency Agreement”), among the Issuer, The Bank of New York, as Fiscal Agent (in such capacity, the “Fiscal Agent”) and the Trustee, as Note Registrar (in such capacity, the “Note Registrar”). The Senior Notes and the Subordinated Notes are collectively referred to as the “Notes.” Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft (“Deutsche Bank”), New York Branch (“Deutsche Bank AG, New York Branch” and, in such capacity, the “TRS Counterparty”) will enter into a total return swap transaction (the “Total Return Swap”) with the Issuer pursuant to which it will be obligated to purchase (or cause to be purchased) the Class A-1 Notes issued from time to time by the Issuer under the circumstances described herein and therein. (cover continued on next page)

It is a condition to the issuance of the Notes on the Closing Date that the Class A-1 Notes be rated “Aaa” by Moody’s Investors Service, Inc. (“Moody’s”) and “AAA” by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (“Standard & Poor’s,” and together with Moody’s, the “Rating Agencies”), that the Class A-2 Notes be rated “Aaa” by Moody’s and “AAA” by Standard & Poor’s, that the Class A-3 Notes be rated “Aaa” by Moody’s and “AAA” by Standard & Poor’s, that the Class B Notes be rated at least “Aa2” by Moody’s and at least “AA” by Standard & Poor’s, that the Class C Notes be rated at least “A2” by Moody’s and at least “A” by Standard & Poor’s, that the Class D-1 Notes be rated “Baa1” by Moody’s and “BBB+” by Standard & Poor’s, that the Class D-2 Notes be rated “Baa3” by Moody’s and “BBB-” by Standard & Poor’s.
This Offering Circular constitutes the Prospectus (the “Prospectus”) for the purposes of Directive 2003/71/EC (the “Prospectus Directive”). Application has been made to the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority (the “Financial Regulator”) (you could ask for the identification and contact information of any financial regulator referred to in the offering circular, prospectus or other documents relating to the securitization of the subject loan), as competent authority under the Prospectus Directive for the Prospectus to be approved. Approval by the Financial Regulator relates only to the Senior Notes that are to be admitted to trading on the regulated market of the Irish Stock Exchange or other regulated markets for the purposes of the Directive 93/22/EEC or which are to be offered to the public in any Member State of the European Economic Area. Any foreign language text that is included within this document is for convenience purposes only and does not form part of the Prospectus.
Application has been made to the Irish Stock Exchange for the Senior Notes to be admitted to the Official List and to trading on its regulated market.
APPROVAL OF THE FINANCIAL REGULATOR RELATES ONLY TO THE SENIOR NOTES WHICH ARE TO BE ADMITTED TO TRADING ON THE REGULATED MARKET OF THE IRISH STOCK EXCHANGE OR OTHER REGULATED MARKETS FOR THE PURPOSES OF DIRECTIVE 93/22/EEC OR WHICH ARE TO BE OFFERED TO THE PUBLIC IN ANY MEMBER STATE OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA.
SEE “RISK FACTORS” IN THIS OFFERING CIRCULAR FOR A DESCRIPTION OF CERTAIN FACTORS THAT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED IN CONNECTION
WITH AN INVESTMENT IN THE NOTES. THE SENIOR NOTES ARE NON-RECOURSE OBLIGATIONS OF THE CO-ISSUER AND THE NOTES ARE LIMITED
RECOURSE OBLIGATIONS OF THE ISSUER, PAYABLE SOLELY FROM THE COLLATERAL DESCRIBED HEREIN.
THE NOTES DO NOT REPRESENT AN INTEREST IN OR OBLIGATIONS OF, AND ARE NOT INSURED OR GUARANTEED BY, THE TRUSTEE, DEUTSCHE BANK SECURITIES INC., DEUTSCHE BANK OR ANY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE AFFILIATES. Note that you have more than one trustee without any specific description of where one trustee ends and the other begins. It is classic obfuscation and musical chairs. NOTE ALSO THAT TRUSTEE DISCLAIMS ANY INTEREST IN THE BONDS BEING ISSUED [REFERRED TO AS “NOTES” JUST TO MAKE THINGS MORE CONFUSING].

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