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In the mortgage world “successor by merger” is simply a living lie that continues as you read this article. Like many other major illusions in our world economy, the Chase-WAMU merger was nothing more than illusion

The reason for the rebellion showing up as votes for Sanders and trump and the impending exit of the UK from the European Union is very simple — every few decades the populace gets a ahead of their elected leaders and yanks their leash so hard that some of them choke.

see FDIC_ Failed Bank Information – WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK – Receivership Balance Sheet Summary (Unaudited)

see wamu_amended_unsealed_opinion

When Bill Clinton was asked how he balanced the budget and came out with a $5 Trillion surplus when he left office his reply was unusually laconic — “Arithmetic.” And he was right, although it wasn’t just him who had put pencil to paper. Many Republican and Democrats had agreed that with the rising economy, the math looked good and that their job was not to screw it up. THAT was left to the next president.

I’m not endorsing Clinton or Trump nor saying that Democrats or Republicans are better that the other. Indeed BOTH major political parties seem to agree on one egregiously erroneous point — the working man doesn’t matter.

The people who matter are those with advanced degrees and who reach the pinnacle of the economic medal of honor when they are dubbed “innovators.”

The reason for the rebellion showing up as votes for Sanders and Trump and the impending exit of the UK from the European Union is very simple — every few decades the populace gets a ahead of their elected leaders and yanks their leash so hard that some of them choke. To say that the BREXIT vote was surprising is the height of arrogance and stupidity. People round the world are voicing their objection to an establishment that doesn’t give a damn about them and measures success by stock market indexes, money supply and GDP activity that is manipulated at this point that it bare little if any resemblance to the GDP index we had come to rely upon, albeit that index was also arbitrarily and erroneously based on the wrong facts.

The fact that large percentages of the populace of many countries around the world are challenged to put food on the table and a roof over their heads doesn’t matter as long as the economic indices are up. But truth be told even when those indices go down, the attitude is the same — working people don’t matter. They are merely resources like gold, coal and oil from which we draw ever widening gaps between the people who run the society and the economy and those who drive the economy and society with their purchases.

In the mortgage world “successor by merger” is simply a living lie that continues as you read this article. Like many other major illusions in our world economy, the Chase-WAMU merger was nothing more than illusion — just like BOA’s merger with BAC/Countrywide (see Red Oak Merger Corp); Wells Fargo’s merger with Wachovia who had acquired World Savings; OneWest’s acquisition of IndyMac;  CitiMortgage acquisition of ABN AMRO, CPCR-1 Trust;  BOA’s merger with LaSalle; Ditech’s acquisition by multiple entities GMAC, RESCAP, Ally,  Walter investment etc.) when DiTech was dead and the name was the only this being traded, and so much more. All these mergers bear one thing in common — they were cover screen for one simple fact: they had not in one instance acquired any loans but then relied on the illusion of the merger to call themselves “successors by mergers.”

Let’s take the example of WAMU. When they went broke they had less than $3 Billion in assets (see link above). This totally congruent with the $2 billion committed by Chase to acquire the WAMU estate form the FDIC receiver Richard Schoppe (located in Texas) and the US Trustee in bankruptcy — especially when you consider the little known fact that Chase received 1/3 of a tax refund due to WAMU.

That share of the Tax refund was, as you might already have guessed, MORE than the $2 billion committed by Chase. whether Chase ever actually paid the $2 billion is another question.But in any event, pure arithmetic shows that the consideration for the purchase of WAMU by Chase was LESS THAN ZERO, which means we paid Chase to acquire WAMU.

This in turn is completely corroborated by the Purchase and Assumption Agreement between WAMU, the FDIC Receiver, the US Trustee in Bankruptcy and of course Chase. On the first page of that agreement is a express recital that says the consideration for this merger is “-$0-.” But before you look up the “Reading Room on the FDIC FOIA cite, here is one caveat: some time after the original agreement was published on the site, a “different” agreement was posted long after WAMU was dead, the US Trustee had been discharged, and the FDCI receiver was discharged as a receiver. The “new” agreement implies that loans were or may have been acquired but does not state which loans or how much was paid for these loans. The problem with the new agreement of course is that Chase paid nothing and was not entitled to nothing, except the servicing rights on some fo those loans.

The so-called new agreement placed there by nobody knows, also stands in direct contrast of the interview and depositions of Richard Schoppe — that if there were loans to sell the principal amount would have been hundreds of billions of dollars for which Chase need pay nothing. I dare say there are millions of people and companies who would have taken that deal if it was real. But Schoppe states directly that the number of assignments was NONE, zero, zilch.

Schoppe also stated that the total amount of loan originations was just under $1 Trillion. And he said that the loan portfolio might have been, at some time, around 1/3 of the total loans originated. Putting pencil to paper that obviously means that 2/3 of all originated loans were either pre-funded in table funded “loans” or that they were immediately sold into the secondary market for securitization. All evidence points to the fact that WAMU never owned the loans at all — as they were table funded  through multiple layers of conduits none of whom were disclosed as required under the Truth in lending Act.  Because the big asset that WAMU retained were (a) the servicing rights and (b) the right to claim recovery for servicer advances. It could be said that the only way they could perfect their claim for “recovery” of “servicer” “Advances” was by acquiring WAMU since Chase was the Master servicer on nearly all WAMU originations.

The interesting point of legal significance is that Chase emerges as the real party in interest even though it it appeared only as the servicer in the background after subsequent servicers were given “powers” of attorney to prevent the new “servicer” (actually an enforcer) from claiming a recovery  for “servicer” “Advances.,” that are recoverable not from the borrower, not from the investor, and not from the trust but in a foggy chaos in which the property was liquidated.

So the assets of WAMU at the time it went belly up was under $3 Billion which means that after you deduct the brick and mortar locations and the servicing rights Chase still got the deal of a lifetime — but one thing doesn’t add up. If WAMU had less than $3 Billion in assets and 99% of that were conventional bank assets excluding loans, then the “value” of the loan portfolio, using FDIC Schoppe estimates was $3 Million. If the WAMU loan portfolio implied by the a,test antics of Chase was true — then Chase acquired $300 BILLION in loans for $3 MILLION. Even the toxic waste loans were worth more than one tenth of one percent.

Chase continues to assert ownership with impunity on an epic scale of fraud, theft and manipulation of the courts, investors and borrowers. The finding that Chase NOT assumed repurchase obligations in relation to the originated loans goes further to corroborate everything I had written here. There seems to be an oblique reference to attempted changes in the “P&A” Agreement, and the finding that the original deal cannot be changed, but the actual finding of two inconsistent agreements posted on the FDIC site is worth investigating. I can assure the reader that I have found and read both.

And lastly I have already published numerous articles on victories in court (one fo which was mine and Patrick Giunta) for the borrower based upon the exact principles and facts written in this article — where the judge concluded that US Bank had never acquired the loan, that the “servicer” in court testifying through a robo-signer had no power over the loan because their power was  derived from Chase who was named as servicer for a REMIC Trust that never acquired the loan nor any rights to the loan.

The use of powers of attorney were found to be inadequate simply because the party who executed the POA had no rights to the money, the enforcement of the loan nor any collection or foreclosure. If Chase had acquired the loan from WAMU they would have won. Their total reliance on deflective legal presumptions based upon presumed fact that were untrue completely failed.

BOTTOM LINE: CHASE ACQUIRED NO LOANS FROM WAMU. Hence subsequent documents of transfer or powers (Powers of attorney) are void.

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Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: bankruptcy, borrower, Chase, disclosure, FDIC, FDIC receiver, foreclosure defense, foreclosure offense, fraud, Schoppe, securitization, WAMU | 25 Comments »