I have not followed Prommis Holdings closely but I can recall that some people have sent in reports that Prommis was the named creditor in some foreclosure proceedings. The reason I am posting this is because the bankruptcy filings including the statement of affairs will probably give some important clues to the real money story on those mortgages where Prommis was involved. I’m sure you will not find the loan receivables account that are mysteriously absent from virtually all such filings and FDIC resolutions.
And remember that when the petition for bankruptcy is filed it must include a look-back period during which any assignments or transfers must be disclosed. So there is a very narrow window in which the petitioner could even claim ownership of the loan with or without any fabricated evidence.
US Trustees in bankruptcy are making a mistake when they do not pay attention to alleged assignments executed AFTER the petition was filed and sometimes AFTER the plan is confirmed or the company is liquidated. Such an assignment would indicate that either the petitioner lied about its assets or was committing fraud in executing the assignment — particularly without the US Trustee’s consent and joinder.
The Courts are making the same mistake if they accept such an assignment that does not have US Trustees consent and joinder, besides the usual mistake of not recognizing that the petitioner never had a stake in the loan to begin with. The same logic applies to receivership created by court order, the FDIC or any other “estate” created.
That would indicate, as I have been saying all along, that the origination and transfer paperwork is nothing more than paper and tells the story of fictitious transactions, to wit: that someone “bought” the loan. Upon examination of the money trail and demanding wire transfer receipts or canceled checks it is doubtful that you find any consideration paid for any transfer and in most cases you won’t find any consideration for even the origination of the loan.
Think of it this way: if you were the investor who advanced money to the underwriter (investment bank) who then sent the investor’s funds down to a closing agent to pay for the loan, whose name would you want to be on the note and mortgage? Who is the creditor? YOU! But that isn’t what happened and there is nothing the banks can do and no amount of paperwork can cover up the fact that there was consideration transferred exactly once in the origination and transfer of the loans — when the investors put up the money which the investment bank acting as intermediary sent to the closing agent.
The fact that the closing documents and transfer documents do not show the investors as the creditors is incompatible with the realities of the money trail. Thus the documents were fabricated and any signature procured by the parties from the alleged borrower was procured by fraud and deceit — causing an immediate cloud on title.
At the end of the day, the intermediaries must answer one simple question: why didn’t you put the investors’ name or the trust name on the note and mortgage or a “valid” assignment when the loan was made and within the 90 day window prescribed by the REMIC statutes of the Internal Revenue Code and the Pooling and Servicing Agreement? Nobody would want or allow someone else’s name on the note or mortgage that they funded. So why did it happen? The answer must be that the intermediaries were all breaching every conceivable duty to the investors and the borrowers in their quest for higher profits by claiming the loans to be owned by the intermediaries, most of whom were not even handling the money as a conduit.
By creating the illusion of ownership, these intermediaries diverted insurance mitigation payments from investors and diverted credit default swap mitigation payments from the investors. These intermediaries owe the investors AND the borrowers the money they took as undisclosed compensation that was unjustly diverted, with the risk of loss being left solely on the investors and the borrowers.
That is an account payable to the investor which means that the accounts receivables they have are off-set and should be off-set by actual payment of those fees. If they fail to get that money it is not any fault of the borrower. The off-set to the receivables from the borrowers caused by the receivables from the intermediaries for loss mitigation payments reduces the balance due from the borrower by simple arithmetic. No “forgiveness” is necessary. And THAT is why it is so important to focus almost exclusively on the actual trail of money — who paid what to whom and when and how much.
And all of that means that the notice of default, notice of sale, foreclosure lawsuit, and demand for payments are all wrong. This is not just a technical issue — it runs to the heart of the false securitization scheme that covered over the PONZI scheme cooked up on Wall Street. The consensus on this has been skewed by the failure of the Justice department to act; but Holder explained that saying that it was a conscious decision not to prosecute because of the damaging effects on the economy if the country’s main banks were all found guilty of criminal fraud.
You can’t do anything about the Holder’s decision to prosecute but that doesn’t mean that the facts, strategy and logic presented here cannot be used to gain traction. Just keep your eye on the ball and start with the money trail and show what documents SHOULD have been produced and what they SHOULD have said and then compare it with what WAS produced and you’ll have defeated the foreclosure. This is done through discovery and the presumptions that arise when a party refuses to comply. They are not going to admit anytime soon that what I have said in this article is true. But the Judges are not stupid. If you show a clear path to the Judge that supports your discovery demands, coupled with your denial of all essential elements of the foreclosure, and you persist relentlessly, you are going to get traction.
Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GARFIELD GWALTNEY KELLEY AND WHITE, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: bankruptcy, debt, Deny and Discover, document trail, investment bank, Investor, look-back period, money trail, Mortgage, note, Prommis, schedules, statement of affairs, Underwriter | 70 Comments »