Modification Offers Are Enforceable Contracts

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Neil Garfield

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

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

We have all seen it, heard and experienced it over and over again. In this case Wells Fargo offered a “temporary” modification, it was accepted and the trial payments were made. Wells Fargo said the modification offer and acceptance lacked consideration — the height of arrogance since they have no transaction with consideration supporting their claim of ownership of the debt, note or mortgage.

Wells disavowed the settlement and went forward with foreclosure. The homeowner’s claim to enforce the modification contract was dismissed for failure to state a cause of action, agreeing with Wells Fargo that there was no consideration. The appellate court reversed stating that there was consideration and that it was more than adequate. There are now hundreds of cases in which trial judges and appellate courts have enforced the modification agreements.

Here is one you can look at:

http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Unpublished/132390.U.pdf

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: acceptacne, consideration, contract, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, LOAN MODIFICATION, offer, Wells Fargo | 17 Comments »

Foreclosures on Nonexistent Mortgages

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Neil Garfield

I have frequently commented that one of the first things I learned on Wall Street was the maxim that the more complicated the “product” the more the buyer is forced to rely on the seller for information. Michael Lewis, in his new book, focuses on high frequency trading — a term that is not understood by most people, even if they work on Wall Street. The way it works is that the computers are able to sort out buy or sell orders, aggregate them and very accurately predict an uptick or down-tick in a stock or bond.

Then the same investment bank that is taking your order to buy or sell submits its own order ahead of yours. They are virtually guaranteed a profit, at your expense, although the impact on individual investors is small. Aggregating those profits amounts to a private tax on large and small investors amounting to billions of dollars, according to Lewis and I agree.

As Lewis points out, the trader knows nothing about what happens after they place an order. And it is the complexity of technology and practices that makes Wall Street behavior so opaque — clouded in a veil of secrecy that is virtually impenetrable to even the regulators. That opacity first showed up decades ago as Wall Street started promoting increasing complex investments. Eventually they evolved to collateralized debt obligations (CDO’s) and those evolved into what became known as the mortgage crisis.

in the case of mortgage CDO’s, once again the investors knew nothing about what happened after they placed their order and paid for it. Once again, the Wall Street firms were one step ahead of them, claiming ownership of (1) the money that investors paid, (2) the mortgage bonds the investors thought they were buying and (3) the loans the investors thought were being financed through REMIC trusts that issued the mortgage bonds.

Like high frequency trading, the investor receives a report that is devoid of any of the details of what the investment bank actually did with their money, when they bought or originated a mortgage, through what entity, for how much and what terms. The blending of millions of mortgages enabled the investment banks to create reports that looked good but completely hid the vulnerability of the investors, who were continuing to buy mortgage bonds based upon those reports.

The truth is that in most cases the investment banks took the investors money and didn’t follow any of the rules set forth in the CDO documents — but used those documents when it suited them to make even more money, creating the illusion that loans had been securitized when in fact the securitization vehicle (REMIC Trust) had been completely ignored.

There were several scenarios under which property and homeowners were made vulnerable to foreclosure even if they had no mortgage on their property. A recent story about an elderly couple coming “home” to find their door padlocked, possessions removed and then the devastating news that their home had been sold at foreclosure auction is an example of the extreme risk of this system to ALL homeowners, whether they have or had a mortgage or not. This particular couple had paid off their mortgage 15 years ago. The bank who foreclosed on the nonexistent mortgage and the recovery company that invaded their home said it was a mistake. Their will be a confidential settlement where once again the veil of secrecy will be raised.

That type of “mistake” was a once in a million possibility before Wall Street directly entered the mortgage loan business. So why have we read so many stories about foreclosures where there was no mortgage, or was no default, or where the mortgage loan was with someone other than the party who foreclosed?

The answer lies in how these properties enter the system. When a bank sells its portfolio of loans into the system of aggregation of loans, they might accidentally or intentionally include loans for which they had already received full payment. Maybe they issued a satisfaction maybe they didn’t. It might also include loans where life insurance or PMI paid off the loan.

Or, as is frequently the case, the “loan” was sold after the homeowner was merely investigating the possibility of a mortgage or reverse mortgage. As soon as they made application, since approval was certain, the “originator” entered the data into a platform maintained by the aggregator, like Countrywide, where it was included in some “securitization package.

If the loan closed then it was frequently sold again with the new dates and data, so it would like like a different loan. Then the investment banks, posing as the lenders, obtained insurance, TARP, guarantee proceeds and other payments from “co-obligors” on each version of the loan that was sold, thus essentially creating the equivalent of new sales on loans that were guaranteed to be foreclosed either because there was no mortgage or because the terms were impossible for the borrower to satisfy.

The LPS roulette wheel in Jacksonville is the hub where it is decided WHO will be the foreclosing party and for HOW MUCH they will claim is owed, without any allowance for the multiple sales, proceeds of insurance, FDIC loss sharing, actual ownership of the loans or anything else. Despite numerous studies by those in charge of property records and academic studies, the beat goes on, foreclosing by entities who are “strangers to the transaction” (San Francisco study), on documents that were intentionally destroyed (Catherine Ann Porter study at University of Iowa), against homeowners who had no idea what was going on, using the money of investors who had no idea what was going on, and all based upon a triple tiered documentary system where the contractual meeting of the minds could never occur.

The first tier was the Prospectus and Pooling and Servicing Agreement that was used to obtain money from investors under false pretenses.

The second tier consisted of a whole subset of agreements, contracts, insurance, guarantees all payable to the investment banks instead of the investors.

And the third tier was the “closing documents” in which the borrower, contrary to Federal (TILA), state and common law was as clueless as the investors as to what was really happening, the compensation to intermediaries and the claims of ownership that would later be revealed despite the borrower’s receipt of “disclosure” of the identity of his lender and the terms of compensation by all people associated with the origination of the loan.

The beauty of this plan for Wall Street is that nobody from any of the tiers could make direct claims to the benefits of any of the contracts. It has also enabled then to foreclose more than once on the same home in the name of different creditors, making double claims for guarantee from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FDIC loss sharing, insurance and credit default swaps.

The ugly side of the plan is still veiled, for the most part in secrecy. even when the homeowner gets close in court, there is a confidential settlement, sometimes for millions of dollars to keep the lawyer and the homeowner from disclosing the terms or the reasons why millions of dollars was paid to a homeowner to keep his mouth shut on a loan that was only $200,000 at origination.

This is exactly why I tell people that most of the time their case will be settled either in discovery where a Judge agrees you are entitled to peak behind the curtain, or at trial where it becomes apparent that the witness who is “familiar” with the corporate records really knows nothing and ahs nothing about the the real history of the loan transaction.

Filed under: AMGAR, CDO, CORRUPTION, discovery, escrow agent, evidence, expert witness, Fannie MAe, foreclosure, foreclosure defenses, foreclosure mill, GARFIELD KELLEY AND WHITE, GTC | Honor, investment banking, Investor, MBS TRUSTEE, MODIFICATION, Mortgage, originator, Pleading, securities fraud, Servicer, STATUTES, TRUST BENEFICIARIES, trustee | Tagged: appraisal fraud, bailout, countrywide, disclosure, Fannie, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure offense, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, fraud, RESPA, securitization, TILA audit | 64 Comments »

Warren, Cummings and Waters to Banks and Regulators: Not So Fast!!!

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Neil Garfield

CHECK OUT OUR EXTENDED DECEMBER SPECIAL!

What’s the Next Step? Consult with Neil Garfield

For assistance with presenting a case for wrongful foreclosure, please call 520-405-1688, customer service, who will put you in touch with an attorney in the states of Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, California, Ohio, and Nevada. (NOTE: Chapter 11 may be easier than you think).

Editor’s Analysis: As we move into the fifth inning of a nine inning game, it looks like we are going into overtime. Just as the GOP failed to read the census and lost the national elections, the Banks have failed to read the Congressional Census and are finding that the “deals” they made with regulators and law enforcement are not the end of the story. There are people in office now who do actually give a damn and who want to do something about Wall Street grifting.

Elizabeth Warren is leading the charge: They want full disclosure of the failed review process, and full disclosure of the deal that was reached. This could be a problem for banks who are holding worthless mortgage bonds and for entities claiming that they own loans that either never existed at all or were misstated in every meaningful way.

Warren and others want oversight of the deal this time and they are likely to get it, one way or another. It would be nice is the President took some time out of his schedule, albeit precious little free time exists, and decide for himself the direction that should be taken now that Geithner is leaving. Maybe he already has.

The questions that remain in the context of doing what is best for the country remain unresolved:

Knowing that the title chain is corrupted in all 50 states and that the amount of chaos ranges all the way up to 80%, what are the remedial steps required to boost confidence in the title registries around the country? At present it is a leap of faith to even buy a plot of empty land.

Knowing now that the investors put up the money and borrowers put down payments on homes and refinancing, how will the victims of Wall Street chicanery be compensated by a appointment of a receiver? Restitution is a fundamental bedrock for fraudulent deals. What economic, legal or financial reason would there be to allow the Wall Street banks that took and kept the loss mitigating payments from insurance, credit default swaps, and bailouts for the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve.

Knowing that the quantitative easing and Federal bailouts, insurance and credit default swaps were supposed to mitigate damages and most importantly re-start lending and commerce, how do we move those trillions (estimates run as high as $17+ trillion) back to the economy which remains gasping for air.

Knowing that the Wall Street frequently diverted documents and money from investors, this leaving borrowers with no authorized party with whom they could negotiate a modification based upon the true balance owed on the loans, how will the government announce its conclusions without starting a run on the big banks that may bleed over to the small banks.

Knowing that some 14 banks have grown to a size with cross border relationships that there is no one regulatory agency to watch and correct them, how will the banks be brought down to a size that can be regulated? And in a related matter, how do we level the playing field such that the mega banks no longer control the size, growth, and business plans of smaller banks.

AND knowing the criminal acts performed by or on behalf of the mega banks by specially created corporations, law offices and other vendors, how will the government bring these people to justice in a way that is meaningful — i.e., that will deter Wall Street titans from doing it again?

How will the government take the reigns of regulation such that settlements for pennies on the dollar avoids civil and criminal prosecution by the government that is supposed to protect those who cannot adequately protect themselves, and avoids administrative complaints against the bank charter.

How will the administration demonstrate to every American that the Government is running the show, not the Banks.

Knowing that the vast majority of foreclosures were completed” by strangers to the transactions, what do we do the displaced homeowners and the homes that were put in distress as a result of a ball of lies?

If the review process was revealing damages to homeowners (and indirectly to investors) that were vastly understated, as alleged by numerous whistle-blowers, then what will be installed as a watchdog over that process and what resources will be applied to get to the truth rather than a PR result?

Warren Demands Transparency On Failed Foreclosures
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/31/elizabeth-warren-foreclosure-reviews_n_2592551.html

Elizabeth Warren Demands Mortgage Settlement Documents From Regulators
http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/01/31/elizabeth-warren-demands-mortgage-settlement-documents-from-regulators/

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: agency settlements with banks, Bank of America, Business News, Elizabeth Warren, Failed Foreclosure Reviews, foreclosure crisis, FORECLOSURE REVIEW, foreclosure reviews, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, independent foreclosure review, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, transparency | 65 Comments »

Foreclosure Strategists: Phx. Meet tonight: Make the record in your case

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Neil Garfield

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

NEW! 2nd Edition Attorney Workbook,Treatise & Practice Manual – Pre-Order NOW for an up to $150 discount

LivingLies Membership – Get Discounts and Free Access to Experts

For Customer Service call 1-520-405-1688

Want to read more? Download entire introduction for the Attorney Workbook, Treatise & Practice Manual 2012 Ed – Sample

Pre-Order the new workbook today for up to a $150 savings, visit our store for more details. Act now, offer ends soon!

Editor’s Comment:

Contact: Darrell Blomberg Darrell@ForeclosureStrategists.com 602-686-7355

Meeting: Tuesday, May 15th, 2012, 7pm to 9pm

Make the Record

It appears the most rulings against homeowners are predicated on some arcane and minute failure of the homeowner to make the record. We’ll be discussing how to make sure you cover all of those points by Making the Record as your case moves along. We’ll also look at how the process of Making the Record starts long before you even think of going to court

We meet every week!

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

FACEBOOK PAGE FOR “FORECLOSURE STRATEGIST”

I have set up a Facebook page. (I can’t believe it but it is necessary.) The page can be viewed at www.Facebook.com, look for and “friend” “Foreclosure Strategist.”

I’ll do my best to keep it updated with all of our events.

Please get the word out and send your friends and other homeowners the link.

MEETUP PAGE FOR FORECLOSURE STRATEGISTS:

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

May your opportunities be bountiful and your possibilities unlimited.

“Emissary of Observation”

Darrell Blomberg

602-686-7355

Darrell@ForeclosureStrategists.com

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: appeal, attorney general, bankruptcy, borrower, court, Darrell Blomberg, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure offense, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, Foreclosure Strategists, foreclosures, forgery, homeowners, housing market, housing prices, Lender Liability, Macayo's Restaurant Phoenix, Make the record, making the record, Mortgage, mortgage meltdown, mortgages, predatory lending | 1 Comment »

AP Fannie, Freddie and BOA set to Reduce Principal and Payments

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Neil Garfield

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

NEW! 2nd Edition Attorney Workbook,Treatise & Practice Manual – Pre-Order NOW for an up to $150 discount

LivingLies Membership – Get Discounts and Free Access to Experts

For Customer Service call 1-520-405-1688

Want to read more? Download entire introduction for the Attorney Workbook, Treatise & Practice Manual 2012 Ed – Sample

Pre-Order the new workbook today for up to a $150 savings, visit our store for more details. Act now, offer ends soon!

Editor’s Comment:

Partly as a result of the recent settlement with the Attorneys General and partly because they have run out of options and excuses, the banks are reducing principal and offering to reduce payments as well. What happened to the argument that we can’t reduce principal because it would be unfair to homeowners who are not in distress? Flush. It was never true. These loans were based on fake appraisals at the outset, the liens were never perfected and the banks are staring down a double barreled shotgun: demands for repurchase from investors who correctly allege and can easily prove that the loans were underwritten to fail PLUS the coming rash of decisions showing that the mortgage lien never attached to the land. The banks have nothing left. BY offering principal reductions they get new paperwork that allows them to correct the defects in documentation and they retain the claim of plausible deniability regarding origination documents that were false, predatory, deceptive and fraudulent.

Fannie, Freddie are set to reduce mortgage balances in California

The mortgage giants sign on to Keep Your Home California, a $2-billion foreclosure prevention program, after state drops a requirement that lenders match taxpayer funds used for principal reductions.

By Alejandro Lazo

As California pushes to get more homeowners into a $2-billion foreclosure prevention program, some Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac borrowers may see their mortgages shrunk through principal reduction.

State officials are making a significant change to the Keep Your Home California program. They are dropping a requirement that banks match taxpayers funds when homeowners receive mortgage reductions through the program.

The initiative, which uses federal funds from the 2008 Wall Street bailout to help borrowers at risk of foreclosure, has faced lackluster participation and lender resistance since it was rolled out last year. By eliminating the requirement that banks provide matching funds, state officials hope to make it easier for homeowners to get principal reductions.

The participation by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, confirmed Monday, could provide a major boost to Keep Your Home California.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own about 62% of outstanding mortgages in the Golden State, according to the state attorney general’s office. But since the program was unveiled last year, neither has elected to participate in principal reduction because of concerns about additional costs to taxpayers.

Only a small number of California homeowners — 8,500 to 9,000 — would be able to get mortgage write-downs with the current level of funds available. But given the previous opposition to these types of modifications by the two mortgage giants, housing advocates who want to make principal reduction more widespread hailed their involvement.

“Having Fannie and Freddie participate in the state Keep Your Home principal reduction program would be a really important step forward,” said Paul Leonard, California director of the Center for Responsible Lending. “Fannie and Freddie are at some level the market leaders; they represent a large share of all existing mortgages.”

The two mortgage giants were seized by the federal government in 2008 as they bordered on bankruptcy, and taxpayers have provided $188 billion to keep them afloat.

Edward J. DeMarco, head of the federal agency that oversees Fannie and Freddie, has argued that principal reduction would not be in the best interest of taxpayers and that other types of loan modifications are more effective.

But pressure has mounted on DeMarco to alter his position. In a recent letter to DeMarco, congressional Democrats cited Fannie Mae documents that they say showed a 2009 pilot program by Fannie would have cost only $1.7 million to implement but could have provided more than $410 million worth of benefits. They decried the scuttling of that program as ideological in nature.

Fannie and Freddie last year made it their policy to participate in state-run principal reduction programs such as Keep Your Home California as long as they or the mortgage companies that work for them don’t have to contribute funds.

Banks and other financial institutions have been reluctant to participate in widespread principal reductions. Lenders argue that such reductions aren’t worth the cost and would create a “moral hazard” by rewarding delinquent borrowers.

As part of a historic $25-billion mortgage settlement reached this year, the nation’s five largest banks agreed to reduce the principal on some of the loans they own.

Since then Fannie and Freddie have been a major focus of housing advocates who argue that shrinking the mortgages of underwater borrowers would boost the housing market by giving homeowners a clear incentive to keep paying off their loans. They also say that principal reduction would reduce foreclosures by lowering the monthly payments for underwater homeowners and giving them hope they would one day have more equity in their homes.

“In places that are deeply underwater, ultimately those loans where you are not reducing principal, they are going to fail anyway,” said Richard Green of USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate. “So you are putting off the day of reckoning.”

The state will allocate the federal money, resulting in help for fewer California borrowers than the 25,135 that was originally proposed. The $2-billion program is run by the California Housing Finance Agency, with $790 million available for principal reductions.

Financial institutions will be required to make other modifications to loans such as reducing the interest rate or changing the terms of the loans.

The changes to the program will roll out in early June, officials with the California agency said. The agency will increase to $100,000 from $50,000 the amount of aid borrowers can receive.

Spokespeople for the nation’s three largest banks — Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. — said they were evaluating the changes. BofA has been the only major servicer participating in the principal reduction component of the program.

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: attorneys general, Bank of America, Bank of America Corp, BOA, BofA, borrower, California Housing Finance Agency, Edward J DeMarco, fake appraisals, Fannie MAe, foreclosure, foreclosure prevention, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, Freddie Mac, housing market, housing prices, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Keep Your Home California, Lender Liability, LOAN MODIFICATION, Mortgage, mortgage lien, mortgage meltdown, mortgages, origination documents, predatory lending, principal reduction, reduce foreclosures, reduce mortgage balances, reduce payments, reduce principal and payments, reducing principal, Richard Green, settlement, underwater homeowners, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, Wall Street bailout, Wells Fargo & Co | 85 Comments »

The Banks, Rushing To Foreclose So They Can Sit On Vacant Homes

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Neil Garfield

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

NEW! 2nd Edition Attorney Workbook,Treatise & Practice Manual – Pre-Order NOW for an up to $150 discount

LivingLies Membership – Get Discounts and Free Access to Experts

For Customer Service call 1-520-405-1688

Want to read more? Download entire introduction for the Attorney Workbook, Treatise & Practice Manual 2012 Ed – Sample

Pre-Order the new workbook today for up to a $150 savings, visit our store for more details. Act now, offer ends soon!

Editor’s Comment:

Author: Matthew D. Weidner, Esq.

These damn judges here in Florida, they really need to wake up, start working harder and grant more foreclosures more quickly. Hurry up already, and stop whining about budget cuts and staff positions cut, and who cares that the entire state court system is funded by less than one percent of the state budget, and shut up about case loads that have tripled to 3,000 or more cases per judge and frazzled judicial assistant. Just grant those damn foreclosure judgments….after all, everyone knows the economy cannot recover until these damn slacking judges push through this foreclosure backlog….right?

Oh wait a minute, there’s apparently a bit of a fly in this ointment. You see, apparently the banks are cancelling foreclosure sales just as quickly as our good judges are able to sign those damn Final Judgments of Foreclosure…yup…apparently, now wait just a dadgummed minute.

You mean to tell me our elected circuit court judges are busy throwing families out into the streets just so the banks can amass ever larger portfolios of vacant and abandoned properties that they are apparently not responsible for taking care of?

Well shut my mouth! You don’t say? Really! No way? Do you mean to tell me we can’t blame all this on our under-funded judges and this ain’t the fault of those damn ethically-challenged foreclosure defense attorneys what with all their delay tactics and pesky rules and those absurd arguments about THE LAW…blah, blah, blah.

When exactly will this nation wake up and start directing appropriate anger and rage at the real evil that’s hard at work, everyday all across this sleeping nation?

From the Tampa Times:

It’s an oft-repeated pattern.

In the last 12 months, lenders have canceled auctions on 4,204 properties in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. Sales have been canceled two, three, even nine times on some homes.

In many cases, banks delay seizures to avoid having to pay maintenance bills or homeowner association fees. Meanwhile, neighbors fend off vandals and thieves and worry about property values falling because of the deteriorating houses.

The repeated cancellations burden the court system.

“These never seem to go away,” said Thomas McGrady, chief judge of the Pinellas-Pasco County Circuit. “It’s a nuisance.”

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: borrower, Eviction, Florida, foreclosure, foreclosure backlog, foreclosure defense, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure judgement, foreclosure offense, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, Hillsborough county, homeowner association, housing market, judges, Matthew D Weidner, Mortgage, Pinellas county, Pinellas-Pasco County Circuit, predatory lending, rush to foreclosure, Tampa Times, Thomas McGrady, vacant homes | 33 Comments »

Banks Pushing Homeowners Over Foreclosure Cliff

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Neil Garfield

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

NEW! 2nd Edition Attorney Workbook,Treatise & Practice Manual – Pre-Order NOW for an up to $150 discount

LivingLies Membership – Get Discounts and Free Access to Experts

For Customer Service call 1-520-405-1688

Want to read more? Download entire introduction for the Attorney Workbook, Treatise & Practice Manual 2012 Ed – Sample

Pre-Order the new workbook today for up to a $150 savings, visit our store for more details. Act now, offer ends soon!

Editor’s Comment:

Whether it is force-placed insurance or any other device available, banks and servicers are pushing homeowners, luring homeowners and tricking homeowners into foreclosures. It is the only way they can put distance between them and the collosal corruption of title, the fact that strangers are foreclosing on homes, and claims of predatory, deceptive and fraudulent lending practices.

Most of those five million homes belong back in the hands of the people who lost them in fake foreclosures. And that day is coming.

Foreclosures are good but short- sales are better as those in the real estate Market will tell you. Either way it has someone other than the bank or servicer signing the deed to the ” buyer” and eventually it will all come tumbling down. But what Banks and servicers are betting is that the more chaotic and confused the situation the less likely the blame will fall on them.

Watch out Mr. Banker, you haven’t seen our plan to hold you accountable. You might think you have control of the narrative but that is going to change because the real power is held by the people. Go read the constitution — especially the 9th Amendment.

Look Who’s Pushing Homeowners Off the Foreclosure Cliff

By the Editors

One of the more confounding aspects of the U.S. housing crisis has been the reluctance of lenders to do more to assist troubled borrowers. After all, when homes go into foreclosure, banks lose money.

Now it turns out some lenders haven’t merely been unhelpful; their actions have pushed some borrowers over the foreclosure cliff. Lenders have been imposing exorbitant insurance policies on homeowners whose regular coverage lapses or is deemed insufficient. The policies, standard homeowner’s insurance or extra coverage for wind damage, say, for Florida residents, typically cost five to 10 times what owners were previously paying, tipping many into foreclosure.

The situation has caught the attention of state regulators and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is considering rules to help homeowners avoid unwarranted “force- placed insurance.” The U.S. ought to go further and limit commissions, fine any company that knowingly overcharges a homeowner and require banks to seek competitive bids for force- placed insurance policies. Because insurance is not regulated at the federal level, states also need to play a stronger role in bringing down rates.

All mortgages require homeowners to maintain insurance on their property. Most mortgages also allow the lender to purchase insurance for the home and “force-place” it if a policy lapses or is deemed insufficient. These standard provisions are meant to protect the lender’s collateral — the property — if a calamity occurs.

High-Priced Policies

Here’s how it generally works: Banks and their mortgage servicers strike arrangements — often exclusive — with insurance companies in which the banks agree to buy high-priced policies on behalf of homeowners whose coverage has lapsed. The bank advances the premium to the insurer, and the insurer pays the bank a commission, which is priced into the premium. (Insurers say the commissions compensate banks for expenses like “advancing premiums, billing and collections.”) The homeowner is then billed for the premium, commissions and all.

It’s a lucrative business. Premiums on force-placed insurance exceeded $5.5 billion in 2010, according to the Center for Economic Justice, a group that advocates on behalf of low- income consumers. An investigation by Benjamin Lawsky, who heads New York State’s Department of Financial Services, has found nearly 15 percent of the premiums flow back to the banks.

It doesn’t end there. Lenders often get an additional cut of the profits by reinsuring the force-placed policy through the bank’s insurance subsidiary. That puts the lender in the conflicted position of requiring insurance to protect its collateral but with a financial incentive to never pay out a claim.

Both New York and California regulators have found the loss ratio on these policies — the percentage of premiums paid on claims — to be significantly lower than what insurers told the state they expected to pay out, suggesting that premiums are too high. For instance, most insurers estimate a loss ratio of 55 percent, meaning they’ll have to pay out about 55 cents on the dollar. But actual loss ratios have averaged about 20 percent over the last six years.

It’s worth noting that force-placed policies often provide less protection than cheaper policies available on the open market, a fact often not clearly disclosed. The policies generally protect the lender’s financial interest, not the homeowner’s. If a fire wipes out a house, most force-placed policies would pay only to repair the structure and nothing else.

Lack of Clarity

Homeowners can obviously avoid force-placed insurance by keeping their coverage current. Banks are required to remove the insurance as soon as a homeowner offers proof of other coverage. But the system, as the New York state investigation and countless lawsuits have demonstrated, is defined by a woeful lack of clarity, so much so that Fannie Mae has issued a directive to loan servicers to lower insurance costs and speed up removal times. And it said it would no longer reimburse commissions. The recent settlement with five financial firms over foreclosure abuses also requires banks to limit excessive coverage and ensure policies are purchased “for a commercially reasonable price.”

That’s not enough. Tougher standards should be applied uniformly, regardless of the loan source. Freddie Mac should follow Fannie Mae’s lead and require competitive pricing on the loans it backs. The consumer bureau should require mortgage servicers to reinstate a homeowner’s previous policy whenever possible, or to obtain competitive bids when not.

The bureau should also prevent loan servicers from accepting commissions or, at the very least, prohibit commissions from inflating the premium. It should require servicers to better communicate to borrowers that their policy has lapsed, explain clearly what force-placed insurance will cost and extend a grace period to secure new coverage. Finally, states should follow the example of California, which recently told force-placed insurers to submit lower rates that reflect actual loss ratios.

Many homeowners who experience coverage gaps have severe financial problems that lead them to stop paying their insurance bills. They are already at great risk of foreclosure. Banks and insurers shouldn’t be allowed to add to the likelihood of default by artificially inflating the cost of insurance.

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: 9th Amendment, advancing premiums, Benjamin Lawsky, billing and collections, Center for Economic Justice, constitution, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, corruption of title, cost of insurance, deceptive lending, Department of financial Services, fake foreclosures, Fannie MAe, Force Placed Insurance, foreclosure, foreclosure cliff, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, fraudulent lending, Freddie Mac, Housing crisis, housing market, insurance policies, insurance subsidiary, mortgage insurance, mortgage servicers, predatory lending, short sales, strangers foreclosing | 45 Comments »

White Paper: Many Causes of Foreclosure Crisis

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Neil Garfield

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

NEW! 2nd Edition Attorney Workbook,Treatise & Practice Manual – Pre-Order NOW for an up to $150 discount

LivingLies Membership – Get Discounts and Free Access to Experts

For Customer Service call 1-520-405-1688

Want to read more? Download entire introduction for the Attorney Workbook, Treatise & Practice Manual 2012 Ed – Sample

Pre-Order the new workbook today for up to a $150 savings, visit our store for more details. Act now, offer ends soon!

Editor’s Comment:

I attended Darrell Blomberg’s Foreclosure Strategists’ meeting last night where Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne defended the relatively small size of the foreclosure settlement compared with the tobacco settlement. To be fair, it should be noted that the multi-state settlement relates only to issues brought by the attorneys general. True they did very little investigation but the settlement sets the guidelines for settling with individual homeowners without waiving anything except that the AG won’t bring the lawsuits to court. Anyone else can and will. It wasn’t a real settlement. But the effect was what the Banks wanted. They want you to think the game is over and move on. The game is far from over, it isn’t a game and I won’t stop until I get those homes back that were ripped from the arms of homeowners who never knew what hit them.

So this is the first full business day after AG Horne promised me he would get back to me on the question of whether the AG would bring criminal actions for racketeering and corruption against the banks and servicers for conducting sham auctions in which “credit bids” were used instead of cash to allow the banks to acquire title. These credit bids came from non-creditors and were used as the basis for issuing deeds on foreclosure, each of which carry a presumption of authenticity. But the deeds based on credit bids from non-creditors represent outright theft and a ratification of a corrupt title system that was doing just fine before the banks started claiming the loans were securitized.

Those credit bids and the deeds issued upon foreclosure were sham transactions — just as the transactions originated with borrowers were based upon the lies and false pretenses of the acting lenders who were paid for their acting services. By pretending that the loan came from these thinly capitalised sham companies (all closed with no forwarding address), the banks and servicers started the lie that the loan was sold up the tree of securitization. Each transaction we are told was a sale of the loan, but none of them actually involved any money exchanging hands. So much for, “value received.”

The purpose of these loans was to create a process that would cover up the theft of the investor money that the investment bank received in exchange for “mortgage bonds” based upon non-existent transactions and the title equivalent of wild deeds.

So the answer to the question is that borrowers did not make bad decisions. They were tricked into these loans. Had there been full disclosure as required by TILA, the borrowers would never have closed on the papers presented to them. Had there been full disclosure to the investors, they never would have parted with a nickel. No money, no lender, no borrower no transactions. And practically barring lawyers from being hired by borrowers was the first clue that these deals were upside down and bogus. No, they didn’t make bad decisions. There was an asymmetry of information that the banks used to leverage against the borrowers who knew nothing and who understood nothing.

“Just sign everywhere we marked for your signature” was the closing agent’s way of saying, “You are now totally screwed.” If you ask the wrong question you get the wrong answer. “Moral hazard” in this context is not a term anyone knowledgeable uses in connection with the borrowers. It is a term used to express the context in which unscrupulous Bankers acted without conscience and with reckless disregard to the public, violating every applicable law, rule and regulation in the process.

**Why Did So Many People Make So Many Ex Post Bad Decisions? The Causes of the Foreclosure Crisis**

Public Policy Discussion Paper No. 12-2 

by Christopher L. Foote, Kristopher S. Gerardi, and Paul S. Willen

This paper presents 12 facts about the mortgage market. The authors argue that the facts refute the popular story that the crisis resulted from financial industry insiders deceiving uninformed mortgage borrowers and investors. Instead, they argue that borrowers and investors made decisions that were rational and logical given their ex post overly optimistic beliefs about house prices. The authors then show that neither institutional features of the mortgage market nor financial innovations are any more likely to explain those distorted beliefs than they are to explain the Dutch tulip bubble 400 years ago. Economists should acknowledge the limits of our understanding of asset price bubbles and design policies accordingly.

To ready the entire paper please go to this link: www.bostonfed.org/economic/ppdp/2012/ppdp1202.htm

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: AG Horne, asset price bubbles, asymmetry of information banks used to leverage against borrowers, attorney general, AZ AG Tom Horne, borrower, bostonfed.org, Christopher L Foote, compare the tobacco settlement to the foreclosure settlement, corrupt title system, credit bids, credit bids from non-creditors, criminal actions against banks and services, Darrell Blomberg, deeds on foreclosure, design policies, Economists, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure offense, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, Foreclosure Strategist, foreclosures, homeowners tricked, Kristopher S Gerardi, Moral Hazard, Mortgage, mortgage bonds, mortgage fraud, mortgage meltdown, mortgages, Paul S Willen, predatory lending, public policy discussion paper no. 12-2, racketeering of banks and services, reckless disregard, securitized loans, settlement, sham auctions, sham transactions, The causes of the foreclosure crisis, theft of investor money, TILA, Tom Horne, uninformed mortgage borrowers, unscrupulous bankers, wild deeds | 23 Comments »

Foreclosure Strategists: Phx. Meet tomorrow with AZ AG Tom Horne

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Neil Garfield

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

NEW! 2nd Edition Attorney Workbook,Treatise & Practice Manual – Pre-Order NOW for an up to $150 discount

LivingLies Membership – Get Discounts and Free Access to Experts

For Customer Service call 1-520-405-1688

Want to read more? Download entire introduction for the Attorney Workbook, Treatise & Practice Manual 2012 Ed – Sample

Pre-Order the new workbook today for up to a $150 savings, visit our store for more details. Act now, offer ends soon!

Editor’s Comment:

Contact: Darrell Blomberg Darrell@ForeclosureStrategists.com 602-686-7355

Meeting: Tuesday, May 8th, 2012, 7pm to 9pm

Special guest speaker: Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne

We will be discussing among other things:

Brief bio / history

Arizona v Countrywide / Bank of America lawsuit settlement

National Attorneys’ General Mortgage Settlement

Appropriation of National Mortgage Settlement Funds

Attorney General’s Legislative Efforts pertaining to foreclosures

Submitted and submitting complaints to the Attorney General’s office

Joint efforts between the Attorney General’s office and other agencies

Adding effectiveness to homeowner’s OCC Complaints

Please send me your thoughts and questions you’d like to ask Tom Horne.

We meet every week!

FACEBOOK PAGE FOR “FORECLOSURE STRATEGIST”

I have set up a Facebook page. (I can’t believe it but it is necessary.) The page can be viewed at www.Facebook.com, look for and “friend” “Foreclosure Strategist.”

I’ll do my best to keep it updated with all of our events.

Please get the word out and send your friends and other homeowners the link.

MEETUP PAGE FOR FORECLOSURE STRATEGISTS:

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

May your opportunities be bountiful and your possibilities unlimited.

“Emissary of Observation”

Darrell Blomberg

602-686-7355

Darrell@ForeclosureStrategists.com

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: attorney general, AZ Attorney General, Bank of America, bankruptcy, borrower, countrywide, Darrell Blomberg, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure offense, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, Foreclosure Strategists, foreclosures, forgery, fraud, housing market, housing prices, Lender Liability, Macayo's Restaurant Phoenix, Mortgage, mortgage meltdown, mortgages, predatory lending, Tom Horne | 1 Comment »

People Have Answers, Will Anyone Listen?

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Neil Garfield

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

CLICK HERE TO GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION REPORT

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Editor’s Comment:

Thanks to Home Preservation Network for alerting us to John Griffith’s Statement before the Congressional Progressive Caucus U.S. House of Representatives. See his statement below.

People who know the systemic flaws caused by Wall Street are getting closer to the microphone. The Banks are hoping it is too late — but I don’t think we are even close to the point where the blame shifts solidly to their illegal activities. The testimony is clear, well-balanced, and based on facts.

On the high costs of foreclosure John Griffith proves the point that there is an “invisible hand” pushing homes into foreclosure when they should be settled modified under HAMP. There can be no doubt nor any need for interpretation — even the smiliest analysis shows that investors would be better off accepting modification proposals to a huge degree. Yet most people, especially those that fail to add tacit procuration language in their proposal and who fail to include an economic analysis, submit proposals that provide proceeds to investors that are at least 50% higher than the projected return from foreclosure. And that is the most liberal estimate. Think about all those tens of thousands of homes being bull-dozed. What return did the investor get on those?

That is why we now include a HAMP analysis in support of proposals as part of our forensic analysis. We were given the idea by Martin Andelman (Mandelman Matters). When we performed the analysis the results were startling and clearly showed, as some judges around the country have pointed out, that the HAMP loan modification proposals were NOT considered. In those cases where the burden if proof was placed on the pretender lender, it was clear that they never had any intention other than foreclosure. Upon findings like that, the cases settled just like every case where the pretender loses the battle on discovery.

Despite clear predictions of increased strategic defaults based upon data that shows that strategic defaults are increasing at an exponential level, the Bank narrative is that if they let homeowners modify mortgages, it will hurt the Market and encourage more deadbeats to do the same. The risk of strategic defaults comes not from people delinquent in their payments but from businesspeople who look at the principal due, see no hope that the value of the home will rise substantially for decades, and see that the home is worth less than half the mortgage claimed. No reasonable business person would maintain the status quo.

The case for principal reductions (corrections) is made clear by the one simple fact that the homes are not worth and never were worth the value of the used in true loans. The failure of the financial industry to perform simple, long-standing underwriting duties — like verifying the value of the collateral created a risk for the “lenders” (whoever they are) that did not exist and was present without any input from the borrower who was relying on the same appraisals that the Banks intentionally cooked up so they could move the money and earn their fees.

Many people are suggesting paths forward. Those that are serious and not just positioning in an election year, recognize that the station becomes more muddled each day, the false foreclosures on fatally defective documents must stop, but that the buying and selling and refinancing of properties presents still more problems and risks. In the end the solution must hold the perpetrators to account and deliver relief to homeowners who have an opportunity to maintain possession and ownership of their homes and who may have the right to recapture fraudulently foreclosed homes with illegal evictions. The homes have been stolen. It is time to catch the thief, return the purse and seize the property of the thief to recapture ill-gotten gains.

Statement of John Griffith Policy Analyst Center for American Progress Action Fund

Before

The Congressional Progressive Caucus U.S. House of Representatives

Hearing On

Turning the Tide: Preventing More Foreclosures and Holding Wrong-Doers Accountable

Good afternoon Co-Chairman Grijalva, Co-Chairman Ellison, and members of the caucus. I am John Griffith, an Economic Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, where my work focuses on housing policy.

It is an honor to be here today to discuss ways to soften the blow of the ongoing foreclosure crisis. It’s clear that lenders, investors, and policymakers—particularly the government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—must do all they can to avoid another wave of costly and economy-crushing foreclosures. Today I will discuss why principal reduction—lowering the amount the borrower actually owes on a loan in exchange for a higher likelihood of repayment—is a critical tool in that effort.

Specifically, I will discuss the following:

1      First, the high cost of foreclosure. Foreclosure is typically the worst outcome for every party involved, since it results in extraordinarily high costs to borrowers, lenders, and investors, not to mention the carry-on effects for the surrounding community.

2      Second, the economic case for principal reduction. Research shows that equity is an important predictor of default. Since principal reduction is the only way to permanently improve a struggling borrower’s equity position, it is often the most effective way to help a deeply underwater borrower avoid foreclosure.

3      Third, the business case for Fannie and Freddie to embrace principal reduction. By refusing to offer write-downs on the loans they own or guarantee, Fannie, Freddie, and their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, or FHFA, are significantly lagging behind the private sector. And FHFA’s own analysis shows that it can be a money-saver: Principal reductions would save the enterprises about $10 billion compared to doing nothing, and $1.7 billion compared to alternative foreclosure mitigation tools, according to data released earlier this month.

4      Fourth, a possible path forward. In a recent report my former colleague Jordan Eizenga and I propose a principal-reduction pilot at Fannie and Freddie that focuses on deeply underwater borrowers facing long-term economic hardships. The pilot would include special rules to maximize returns to Fannie, Freddie, and the taxpayers supporting them without creating skewed incentives for borrowers.

Fifth, a bit of perspective. To adequately meet the challenge before us, any principal-reduction initiative must be part of a multipronged

To read John Griffith’s entire testimony go to: http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2012/04/pdf/griffith_testimony.pdf

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: appraisal fraud, auction fraud, bailout, bankruptcy, borrower, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Congressional Progressive Caucus U.S. House of Representatives, disclosure, Eviction, Fannie MAe, Federal reserve, FHFA, foreclosure, foreclosure crisis, foreclosure defense, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure offense, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, fraud, Freddie Mac, Grijalva, HAMP, housing market, housing policy, housing prices, investors, John Griffith, Jordan Eizenga, Lender Liability, LOAN MODIFICATION, Martin Andelman, MERS, mortgage meltdown, mortgages, predatory lending, Preventing more foreclosures, principal reduction, rescission, RESPA, Robo-Signing, securitization, settlement, strategic default, TILA audit, trustee | 44 Comments »

Guest Writer Shares Info on Fraud in CA Foreclosure Cases

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Neil Garfield

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

CLICK HERE TO GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION REPORT

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Editor’s Comment: The following information was submitted to the blog by a law firm. We do not know this law firm. We are simply passing along information that may be of interest to Californians. As always, please do your research.

From counsel for Consumer Rights Defenders for our loyal followers, you may be interested in this California information which is not meant to be legal advise, just some information that is public knowledge. Call if you need foreclosure help at 818.453.3585 ask for Steve or Sara. Ms. Stephens Esq7777@aol.com

___________

Elements of fraud cause of action: A plaintiff seeking a remedy based upon fraud must allege and prove all of the following basic elements:

· Defendant’s false representation or concealment of a ‘material’ fact (see Rest.2d Torts | 538(2)(a); Engalla v. Permanente Med. Group, Inc. (1997) 15 Cal.4th 951, 977, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 843, 859–misrepresentation deemed ‘material’ if ‘a reasonable (person) would attach importance to its existence or nonexistence in determining his choice of action in the transaction’);

· Defendant made the representation with knowledge of its falsity or without sufficient knowledge of the subject to warrant a representation;

· The representation was made with the intent to induce plaintiff (or a class to which plaintiff belonged) to act upon it (see Blickman Turkus, LP v. MF Downtown Sunnyvale, LLC (2008) 162 Cal.App.4th 858, 869, 76 Cal.Rptr.3d 325, 333–fraud by false representations means intent to induce ‘reliance’; fraud by concealment involves intent to induce ‘conduct’);

· Plaintiff entered into the contract in ‘justifiable reliance’ upon the representation (see Ostayan v. Serrano Reconveyance Co. (2000) 77 Cal.App.4th 1411, 1419, 92 Cal.Rptr.2d 577, 583–P’s admission of no reliance on a representation made by D precludes cause of action for intentional or negligent misrepresentation); and

· As a result of reliance upon the false representation, plaintiff has suffered damages. [Alliance Mortgage Co. v. Rothwell (1995) 10 Cal.4th 1226, 1239, 44 Cal.Rptr.2d 352, 359; see Manderville v. PCG & S Group, Inc. (2007) 146 Cal.App.4th 1486, 1498, 55 Cal.Rptr.3d 59, 68; and Auerbach v. Great Western Bank (1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 1172, 1184, 88 Cal.Rptr.2d 718, 727–‘Deception without resulting loss is not actionable fraud’ (¶ 11:357.1)]

(1) [11:354.1] Particularized pleading required: A fraud cause of action must be pleaded with particularity; i.e., every element of the cause of action must be alleged factually and specifically in full. [Committee on Children’s Television, Inc. v. General Foods Corp. (1983) 35 Cal.3d 197, 216, 197 Cal.Rptr. 783, 795; see Stansfield v. Starkey (1990) 220 Cal.App.3d 59, 73, 269 Cal.Rptr. 337, 345–complaint must plead facts showing ‘how, when, where, to whom, and by what means the representations were tendered’; Nagy v. Nagy (1989) 210 Cal.App.3d 1262, 1268-1269, 258 Cal.Rptr. 787, 790–fraud complaint deficient if it neither shows cause and effect relationship between alleged fraud and damages sought nor alleges definite amount of damages suffered]

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: bankruptcy, borrower, court cases, creditor, Eviction, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure offense, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, fraud, fraud as cause of action, housing market, housing prices, Mortgage, mortgage fraud, mortgages, predatory lending | 40 Comments »

Don’t leave or enter short sale home without quiet title and adequate title insurance.

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Neil Garfield

U.S. home short sales surpass foreclosure deals for first time

Editor’s Comment:

Well of course short sales will be higher than REO sales. REO sales of foreclosed property where the bank or its agent owns the property presents a virtually impossible situation with respect to title. The odds are rising every day that a homeowner is going to sue, reverse the eviction, reverse the foreclosure, get title free of the mortgage and note and have the right to exclusive possession. We are getting reports of this across the country. While the banks are trying to keep a stiff upper lip about it all they are in a state of panic (!) because of the loss of ill-gotten gains they thought they had in the bag and (2) because this loss must now be written down on their balance sheet which means that their capital reserves must be correspondingly increased. Where will they get the money?

SO REO sales are going to be increasingly problematic.

But in a short sale it is the actual homeowner who signs the deed. That eliminates a wild card that is totally out of the control of the banks. The balance of the problem is that the satisfaction of the old mortgage is being executed by parties who have no ownership of the loan nor any agency authority to represent the true creditors (in most cases). But if the short-sale goes thorugh the new buyer can file a quiet title action for a few hundred dollars in fees and a couple of hundred dollars in court costs, and get a judge to sign off on all title claims. To paraphrase American Express’ “don’t leave home without it” It is the best interest of both the old homeowner who could be subject to liability a second time if the real creditor wakes up and in the interest of the new buyer who doesn’t want to lose his home to the claims of some creditor who can actually prove a case. So don’t leave or enter a short-sale home with quiet title — and a REAL title insurance policy that does not exclude claims arising from supposed securitization of the loan.

U.S. home short sales surpass foreclosure deals for first time New Mexico Business Weekly

In a sign that banks are becoming more willing to sell houses for less than the amount that is owed on them, the number of U.S. home short sales surpassed foreclosure deals for the first time, Bloomberg reports, citing Lender Processing Services Inc.

Short sales accounted for 23.9 percent of home purchases in January, the most recent month available, compared with 19.7 percent for sales of foreclosed homes, data compiled by the company show. A year earlier, 16.3 percent of transactions were short sales and 24.9 percent involved foreclosures.

The three largest banks in New Mexico are Wells Fargo, Bank of America and U.S. Bancorp , respectively.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: bankruptcy, borrower, creditor, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure offense, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, housing market, housing prices, Mortgage, mortgage fruad, mortgage meltdown, mortgages, New Mexico, predatory lending, quiet title, REO sales, reverse eviction, reverse foreclosure, short-sale, title insurance | 23 Comments »

ANOTHER VICTORY IN OKLAHOMA

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Neil Garfield

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

CLICK HERE TO GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION REPORT

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Editor’s Comment:

There is no doubt that the tide is turning and that Judges are increasingly uncomfortable with the presence of forged, fabricated documents containing fraudulent statements of fact on transactions that never actually occurred. As this article explains, in Oklahoma — a very conservative red state — they are beginning to realize that it isn’t the borrower seeking the free house it is the foreclosing party who has no financial stake in the outcome except a windfall if they get the house on a “credit bid.”

by Brian Mahany

We have been saying for several months that the tide is beginning to turn against big banks and mortgage lenders. Many courts are beginning to get fed up with the abusive practices of lenders. Recently several state supreme courts have been weighing in on a wide variety issues including missing paperwork, forged affidavits, questionable title and abusive foreclosure or loan modification practices.

When a state supreme court decides a case, the decision takes on considerable weight. As the highest court in the land, a state supreme court decision is generally binding on all trial courts in that state. We were happy to learn that the Oklahoma Supreme Court decided 7 cases this month in favor of homeowners.

The facts in each of the cases were similar. In each case, the court ruled that in order to bring a foreclosure action, the plaintiff must prove that it has the right to enforce the promissory note. No note means no standing to bring the complaint.

It’s in the details that the Oklahoma cases become important.

Many lenders have problems producing the note and mortgage. In recent years, most lenders sell the mortgage shortly after the closing. Banks rarely hold their own paper any more. The mortgages are often packaged, securitized and sold several times. In that process, paperworks frequently is lost. The lost or incomplete paperwork issue was addressed by the court.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court opinion is helpful to homeowners in several ways.

First, the court reaffirmed that the plaintiff must prove it has the right to enforce the note. Courts shouldn’t simply rely on an affidavit from a lawyer saying the bank or servicer has the right to enforce the note. They must prove it.

Next, the court said that the foreclosing party needs to have the note. Just having an assignment of mortgage is not enough. (Often the servicing bank will draft an assignment of mortgage. That requires the lender’s signature. The note, obviously, contains the borrowers signature. If documents are missing it is much easier for a lender to forge a mortgage assignment than to forge a homeowners signature.)

FInally, the court said that the lack of standing (missing note) can be raised at any time. That can be extremely important in foreclosure cases. Often borrowers seek legal counsel after a judgment of foreclosure has issued. Many folks don’t seek legal help until well into the foreclosure process. By the time a lawyer gets the case, discovery periods have elapsed and often there is already a judgment of foreclosure. The Oklahoma court said as long as the case isn’t closed, its not too late to challenge jurisdiction.

Postscript- There are tens of millions of homeowners under water. Many are facing foreclosure. Unfortunately, there are few lawyers that truly understand how to fight big lenders and even fewer actually willing to do so. If you are facing foreclosure, seek professional assistance as soon as possible. Don’t settle for a bankruptcy lawyer or a fly by night foreclosure “rescue” consultant. Foreclosures can be won but it’s not easy.

The average cost for a lawyer to file an answer and defend a foreclosure action is between $2500 and $5000. While there are some highly qualified lawyers that do this work, we think the only thing big banks understand is a counterclaim and aggressive lawyer.

Everyday we receive calls from homeowners across the U.S. Although we write about foreclosure defense, we rarely take such cases. Our primary purpose in writing is to provide general information and offer hope. The cases we do take are lawsuits against banks and lenders for illegal lending, loan modification and foreclosure practices. If you sufered a particularly bad experience, we certainly want to listen.

Our mortgage fraud team is currently co-counsel in the largest federal false claims act case in the nation, the $2.4 billion action on behalf of HUD against Allied Home Mortgage. Large or small, suing banks and getting justice for victims of predatory lending and foreclosure practices is what we enjoy.

Mahany & Ertl, America’s Fraud Lawyers. Offices in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Detroit, Michigan; Portland, Maine & Minneapolis, Minnesota. Services available in many jurisdictions.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: Allied Home Mortgage, appraisal fraud, auction fraud, borrower, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure offense, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, fraud, homeowner, housing market, HUD, Lender Liability, Mortgage, mortgage assignment, mortgage fruad, mortgages, Oklahoma Supreme Court, predatory lending | 55 Comments »

Current Bank Plan Is Same as $10 million Interest Free Loan for Every American

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Neil Garfield

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

CLICK HERE TO GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION REPORT

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

“I wonder how many audience members know that Bair’s plan is more or less exactly the revenue model for all of America’s biggest banks. You go to the Fed, get a buttload of free money, lend it out at interest (perversely enough, including loans right back to the U.S. government), then pocket the profit.” Matt Taibbi

From Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi on Sheila Bair’s Sarcastic Piece

I hope everyone saw ex-Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chief Sheila Bair’s editorial in the Washington Post, entitled, “Fix Income Inequality with $10 million Loans for Everyone!” The piece might have set a world record for public bitter sarcasm by a former top regulatory official.

In it, Bair points out that since we’ve been giving zero-interest loans to all of the big banks, why don’t we do the same thing for actual people, to solve the income inequality program? If the Fed handed out $10 million to every person, and then got each of those people to invest, say, in foreign debt, we could all be back on our feet in no time:

Under my plan, each American household could borrow $10 million from the Fed at zero interest. The more conservative among us can take that money and buy 10-year Treasury bonds. At the current 2 percent annual interest rate, we can pocket a nice $200,000 a year to live on. The more adventuresome can buy 10-year Greek debt at 21 percent, for an annual income of $2.1 million. Or if Greece is a little too risky for you, go with Portugal, at about 12 percent, or $1.2 million dollars a year. (No sense in getting greedy.)

Every time I watch a Republican debate, and hear these supposedly anti-welfare crowds booing the idea of stiffer regulation of Wall Street, I wonder how many audience members know that Bair’s plan is more or less exactly the revenue model for all of America’s biggest banks. You go to the Fed, get a buttload of free money, lend it out at interest (perversely enough, including loans right back to the U.S. government), then pocket the profit.

Considering that we now know that the Fed gave out something like $16 trillion in secret emergency loans to big banks on top of the bailouts we actually knew about, you might ask yourself: How are these guys in financial trouble? How can they not be making mountains of money, risk-free? But they are in financial trouble:

• We’re about to see yet another big blow to all of the usual suspects – Goldman, Citi, Bank of America, and especially Morgan Stanley, all of whom face potential downgrades by Moody’s in the near future.

We’ve known this was coming for some time, but the news this week is that the giant money-managing firm BlackRock is talking about moving its business elsewhere. Laurence Fink, BlackRock’s CEO, told the New York Times: “If Moody’s does indeed downgrade these institutions, we may have a need to move some business around to higher-rated institutions.”

It’s one thing when Zero Hedge, William Black, myself, or some rogue Fed officers in Dallas decide to point fingers at the big banks. But when big money players stop trading with those firms, that’s when the death spirals begin.

Morgan Stanley in particular should be sweating. They’re apparently going to be downgraded three notches, where they’ll be joining Citi and Bank of America at a level just above junk. But no worries: Bank CFO Ruth Porat announced that a three-level downgrade was “manageable” and that only losers rely totally on agencies like Moody’s to judge creditworthiness. “A lot of clients are doing their own credit work,” she said.

• Meanwhile, Bank of America reported its first-quarter results yesterday. Despite that massive ongoing support from the Fed, it earned just $653 million in the first quarter, but astonishingly the results were hailed by most of the financial media as good news. Its home-turf paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, crowed that BOA “Posts Higher Profits As Trading Results Rebound.” Bloomberg, meanwhile, summed up results this way: “Bank of America Beats Analyst Estimates As Trading Jumps.”

But the New York Times noted that BOA’s first-quarter profit of $653 million was down from $2 billion a year ago, and paled compared to results of more successful banks like Chase and Wells Fargo.

Zero Hedge, meanwhile, posted an amusing commentary on BOA’s results, pointing out that the bank quietly reclassified nearly two billion dollars’ worth of real estate loans. This is from BOA’s report:

During 1Q12, the bank regulatory agencies jointly issued interagency supervisory guidance on nonaccrual policies for junior-lien consumer real estate loans. In accordance with this new guidance, beginning in 1Q12, we classify junior-lien home equity loans as nonperforming when the first-lien loan becomes 90 days past due even if the junior-lien loan is performing. As a result of this change, we reclassified $1.85B of performing home equity loans to nonperforming.

In other words, Bank of America described nearly two billion dollars of crap on their books as performing loans, until the government this year forced them to admit it was crap.

ZH and others also noted that BOA wildly underestimated its exposure to litigation, but that’s nothing new. Anyway, despite the inconsistencies in its report, and despite the fact that it’s about to be downgraded – again – Bank of America’s shares are up again, pushing $9 today.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: appraisal fraud, attorney general, auction fraud, Bank of America, big banks, BlackRock's CEO, Business News, Child Poverty, Children, Children In Recession, Chris Koster, Citi, credit bids, FDIC, Foreclosure Children, foreclosure crisis, foreclosure fraud, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, Goldman, housing market, housing prices, investors, Kids In Recession, Laurence Fink, Matt Taibbi, Moody's, Morgan Stanley, mortgage fruad, mortgage settlement, mortgages, Poverty, Robo-Signing, settlement, Sheila Bair, strategic default, the Fed, Wells Fargo, Zero Hedge | 4 Comments »

Foreclosure Strategists: Meeting in Phx: Learn about QWRs

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Neil Garfield

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

CLICK HERE TO GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION REPORT

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Editor’s Comment:

Contact: Darrell Blomberg Darrell@ForeclosureStrategists.com 602-686-7355

Meeting: Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 7pm to 9pm

Qualified Written Requests (QWRs)

10-day Owner / Assignee Requests

Payoff Demand Requests

The goal of this meeting is to build an effective set of requests that operate within the law get us real answers from our loan servicers.

We will be discussing recent updates to Qualified Written Requests laws. We will look at what the appropriate contents of the QWR should be.

Many people are blindly sending bloated letters demanding every possible bit of discovery. A QWR loaded with arbitrary demands diminishes the effectiveness of your effort. We will focus on drafting a succinct, laser-focused QWR that gets you the results you want.

Well also be studying the key points for effective 10-day Owner / Assignee and Payoff Request Letters.

**** PLEASE SEND ME ANY QUALIFIED WRITTEN REQUESTS (or 10-day assignee or payoff demand requests) THAT YOU HAVE ACCESS TO. I WILL USE THESE AS A BASIS FOR THIS MEETING. ****

Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Special guest speaker: Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne

We will be discussing among other things:

Arizona v Countrywide / Bank of America lawsuit National Attorneys General Mortgage Settlement Attorney General Legislative Efforts (Vasquez?) OCC Complaints notarizations and all that is associated with that.

Please send me your thoughts and questions you’d like to ask Tom Horne. More details for this meeting will follow.

We meet every week!

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

FACEBOOK PAGE FOR “FORECLOSURE STRATEGIST”

I have set up a Facebook page. (I can’t believe it but it is necessary.) The page can be viewed at www.Facebook.com, look for and “friend” “Foreclosure Strategist.”

I’ll do my best to keep it updated with all of our events.

Please get the word out and send your friends and other homeowners the link.

MEETUP PAGE FOR FORECLOSURE STRATEGISTS:

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

May your opportunities be bountiful and your possibilities unlimited.

“Emissary of Observation”

Darrell Blomberg

602-686-7355

Darrell@ForeclosureStrategists.com

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: borrower, Darrell Blomberg, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure offense, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, Foreclosure Strategists, foreclosures, forgery, investors, LOAN MODIFICATION, Mortgage, mortgage fruad, mortgage meltdown, predatory lending, qualified written request, quiet title, QWR, securitization, settlement, strategic default, TILA audit | 1 Comment »

Bringing in the Clowns Through Breach of Fiduciary Duties

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Neil Garfield

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

CLICK HERE TO GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION REPORT

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Editor’s Comment: In my many conversations with both attorneys and pro se litigants they frequently express intense frustration about those invisible relationships and entities that permeate the entire mortgage model starting in the 1990’s and continuing to the present day, every day court is in session.

I think they are right. This article takes it as given, whether the courts wish to recognize it or not, that the parties at the closing table with the homeowner were all fiduciaries and included all those who were getting fees paid out of the closing proceeds — in other words paid out either the homeowner’s hapless down payment (worthless the moment it was tendered) or the proceeds of a loan (undocumented as to the source of the loan and documented falsely as to the creditor and the terms of repayment.

This article also takes it as a given, whether the courts are ready to recognize it or not, that the parties at the closing table with the investors who were the source of funds pooled or not were all fiduciaries and included all those who were getting fees paid out of the closing proceeds — in other words paid out either the hopeless plunge into an abyss with no loans purchased or funded until long after the money was in “escrow” with the investment banker in exchange for a completely worthless mortgage backed security without any mortgages backing the security.

But the interesting fact is that while some of the parties were known to the investor, and some of the parties were known to the homeowners, the investor did not know the parties at the closing table with the homeowner; and the borrower did not know the parties at the closing table with the investor.

In point of fact, the borrower did not even know there was a table or an investor or a table funded loan until long after closing, if ever. Remember that for years MERS, the servicers and others brought foreclosures that are still final (but subject to challenge) while they vigorously denied the very existence of a pool or any investors.

While this is interesting from the perspective of Reg Z that states that a pattern of table-funded loans is to be regarded as “predatory” per se, which the courts have refused to enforce or even recognize, I have a larger target — all the participants in the securitization chain, each of whom actually claims to have been some sort of escrow agent giving rise to a fiduciary relationship per se — meaning that the cause of action is simple and cannot be barred by the economic loss rule because they had no contract with the homeowners and probably had no contracts with the investors.

Again, I warn about the magic bullet. there isn’t one. But this one comes close because by including these fiduciaries by name from your combo title and securitization report and by description where the fake securitization was dubbed “private label” they are all brought into the courtroom and they are all subject to a simple action for accounting which can be amended later to allege damages, or if you think you have enough information already, state your damages.

Based upon my research of the fiduciary relationship there are no limits anywhere if the action is not based upon a direct contract, and some states and culled that down to a “no limit’ doctrine (see Florida cases) except in product liability or similar cases.

The allegation is simply that the homeowner bought a loan product that was known to be defective, poorly documented, if at all, and subject to a shell game (MERS) in which the homeowner would never know the identity of the chosen creditor until the homeowner was maneuvered into foreclosure. There are several potential channels of damages that can be alleged.

Lawyers are encouraged to do about 30 minutes of research into fiduciary liability in your state and match up the elements of the cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty with the securitization documents that either has already been admitted or that has been discovered.

Go through the PSA and look at it from the point of view of assumed agency and escrowing or holding documents, receivables, notes, money and mortgages. Each one of those is low hanging fruit for a breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit.

And of course any party specifically named as a “trustee” whether a trust exists or not raises the issue of trust duties which are fiduciary as well, whether it is the trustee of a “pool” or the trustee on the deed of trust (or more likely the alleged substitution trustee on the DOT).

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: appraisal fraud, attorney general, auction fraud, closing table, DocX Indictment, fiduciary duty, fiduciary relationship, foreclosure fraud, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, forgery, housing market, housing prices, investors, MERS, mortgage fruad, mortgages, PSA, Reg Z, Robo-Signing, settlement, strategic default, Substitution of Trustee, trustee | 85 Comments »

Wrongful Foreclosure Creates New Official Diagnosis

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Neil Garfield

Legal Abuse Syndrome: A Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Editor’s Comment:

Dr. Karin Huffer writes in the Preface to her book, Overcoming the Devastation of Legal Abuse Syndrome:

*If you are deeply disillusioned and feeling oppressed as an American citizen, resulting from experience with our justice system you may be suffering from Legal Abuse Syndrome.

*If you’ve been a litigant in court and justice was not to be obtained at any price, you may be suffering from Legal Abuse Syndrome

*If you fantasize about an act of vigilante vengeance because it seems like the only resource, you may be suffering from Legal Abuse Syndrome

*If you’ve reported a crime and found that you were punished instead of the criminal, you may be suffering from Legal Abuse Syndrome

*If creativity and dreams have been left in the past because their development was ripped from you and torn to shreds by your protective systems, you may be suffering from Legal Abuse Syndrome

*If you feel numb, disconnected, and vulnerable, you may be suffering from Legal Abuse Syndrome

*If you feel that the “system” will defeat you at every turn and there is nothing you can do about it, you may be suffering from Legal Abuse Syndrome

*If you feel that you have been victimized twice, once by a perpetrator and then by your protective system, you may be suffering from Legal Abuse Syndrome

*If you feel that you are a decent and honorable taxpayer who’s been subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment” by lawyers, judges, and officers of the court, you may be suffering from Legal Abuse Syndrome

Anthony G Sousa, Esq. former United States Trustee for Region 17 covering bankruptcy administration for the Northern and Eastern districts of California and the district of Nevada who writes the Foreward to Huffer’s book, states, “Competent, confident, outgoing entrepreneurs are reduced to “shell-shocked” paranoia, unable to make the most basic decisions. Polite, law-abiding individuals are transformed into raging extremists, after being lulled unsuspectingly in many cases into believing that they will emerge from bankruptcy able to pick up the pieces with a fresh start. Karin Huffer’s book, in my opinion, is a most timely and worthy effort to explain the trauma and pain suffered by those who have been victimized by legal abuse.”

While this book covers a wide spectrum of legal abuses, every homeowner enmeshed in this legal quagmire, in this maze of foreclosure issues, would benefit from reading this book. It is a testimony to our struggle. Huffer understands and describes what we live on a daily basis. The roller coaster feelings of devastation, isolation, confusion, betrayal, shame, anger, terror, overwhelm, grief, pain, fatigue and much more has finally been heard, analyzed, validated and given a name, Legal Abuse Syndrome (LAS), a subcategory of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which falls in statutes under the Americans with Disabilities Act. While writing in detail of the eight steps to recovery, Huffer’s book gives empowerment to our efforts. She holds back no punches to the lawyers and legal systems who betrayed us at every turn. She includes an extensive bibliography, a comprehensive listing of Resources for the Empowerment of the Ordinary Person, questionnaires and worksheets for those who have been victimized, a news release from Congress in reference to the corruption in the federal bankruptcy system, sample letters to be used, and definitions. Huffer’s work is a tremendous resource and a beam of light. Further information can be found on her website: http://www.equalaccessadvocates.com. To purchase her book go to: www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Devastation-Legal-Abuse-Syndrome/dp/0964178605

Dr. Huffer conducts “Beyond Rage” seminars and also serves as an expert witness. To request specifics you can write to her at: legalabuse@gmail.com and khuffer@lvaallc.com As stated in the Reader Summary of Diogenes the magazine, Fall edition, 2005, “Courts are accepting diagnoses of psychiatric injury as a subcategory of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and respecting psychological treatment provided by distance services allowing for more accurate diagnoses and needs to be communicated to the court. Both Daubert and Frye standards have been met by focusing on access to the court using creative means to accommodate PTSD sufferers. Medicare, Medicaid and most insurance companies recognize and approve distance therapy by qualified professionals as compensable.” It is encouraging to know that the American Disabilities Act includes the category of PTSD with LAS as a subcategory.

There are millions of us who have been ripped to shreds, lost everything we held dear, had the paths of our lives immeasurably changed by a system that was supposed to protect us. What this means to us as members of this society, and where this will end up, I’m not sure. But I am sure without a doubt that slowly, there is recognition of what we are living.

Dr. Huffer includes a firm warning to those who would use the information in her book to damage or discredit any citizen in any manner:

“Legal Abuse Syndrome is a natural and normal response to an abnormal, unnatural, cumulative trauma, as with all post traumatic stress disorders. Any attempt by any person to discredit an individual’s testimony, character, or actions due to their suffering from LAS is to clearly demonstrate the aberrant nature of our system of problem-solving. Any ally of civilization must clearly identify such behavior as abusive, put a halt to destructive actions, and devote their energies to restoration of victims of the “system”.

Social Security Disability damages are awarded by the Social Security Administration. If there is a dispute, then there is a hearing. While you can also take the information about the emotional and psychological damage that’s been done to you into court, if you begin with this, it will not help your case. Dr. Huffer’s research will never prove wrongful foreclosure. The wording of the new diagnosis might permit the award of social security disability benefits without any proof of a wrongful foreclosure, but it’s important to know that she only provides information on the personal toll the legal fight has taken on your life. This is a very important distinction to make.

This is not a magic bullet. If you want social security disability benefits you can’t simply say you have been injured. You have to have been injured as of the time to the point of filing for the benefits and as of the time of the review or the decision that you are unable to work. And the claim is not that your work is not as good as it was, but must be that you are unable to work. So for example, if you’re a lineman for the electrical company and your job is to climb a ladder and you lost your leg, there’s a good chance you’ll get disability. That’s why you need a good and experienced attorney for these disability claims as well.

There are other facets to consider in how these disability claims may affect your court case. For example, if someone is being medicated can they testify? It puts them in a catch-22. On the other side of it, there’s the, “we’ve got to take a break” strategy due to the stress and the lawyer and client talk during the break.

In closing we recommend you buy and read this book. Is it required reading for all the classifications of people? It depends on the context. In the sense that everyone should read the book to understand the impact on society of this crisis, is one thing, but if the implication is that this information might change the results of foreclosure hearings, it won’t.

Here are some other reviews of Dr. Huffer’s work:

“As a trial attorney for over 20 years (principally plaintiff cases involving legal malpractice), i can unequivocally state that this book is mandatory reading for everyone coming into contact with the legal system” Philip A Putnam Esq

“The intangible health problems associated with the legal system in America have created a social malady. Physicians must respond now to this legal cancer which has driven this nation into economic and moral bankruptcy.” Cary Savitch, MD, FACP Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine UCLA

“Huffer describes how many victims of white-collar crime, court abuse and bureaucratic bungling have come to suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of having brushed up against various phases of our legal system.” – Alan M. Dershowitz, Professor, Harvard Law School

“A must-read self-preservation guide for anyone who is caught up in civil litigation.” Ken Johnson, Victim/Litigant

“All courthouse personnel and public interest lawyers who wish to see citizen litigants given the proper opportunities for their day in court will find some background material and answers to help in solving this growing problem through the device of Karin Huffer’s treatise, Overcoming the Devastation of Legal Abuse Syndrome.” – Frank Alan Herch, Esq., Director Clark County Law Library

“Should be required reading for all attorneys, judges and jurors, bureaucrats, regulators–all those who work for the legally instituted protective systems.” Lorne Quigley, Veteran of Viet Nam War

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: bankruptcy, borrower, Dr. Karin Huffer, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure offense, FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT, foreclosures, LAS, Legal Abuse Syndrome, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, Social Security Disability Benefits | 31 Comments »

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

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Neil Garfield

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

By: David Dayen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Check out this part about LPS:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Citi’s Parsons Blames Glass-Steagall Repeal for Crisis

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Neil Garfield

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

CLICK HERE TO GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION REPORT

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

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

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

Parsons Blames Glass-Steagall Repeal for Crisis

By Kim Chipman and Christine Harper

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

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

Enlarge image Citigroup Inc.

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

Parsons Says End of Glass-Steagall Led to Crisis

Play Video

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

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

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

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

‘Dynamic World’

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

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

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

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

‘Separate Houses’

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

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

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

U.S. Bailout

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

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

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

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

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

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

OCC Review Getting Few Takers

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Neil Garfield

MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

CLICK HERE TO GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION REPORT

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Demand an Administrative Hearing

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

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

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

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

Here are just a few items to get you going:

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

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

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

Pages

Spread the word

Like this:

Spread the word

Like this:

Spread the word

Like this:

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

Make the Record

Spread the word

Like this:

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

Fannie, Freddie are set to reduce mortgage balances in California

Spread the word

Like this:

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

Spread the word

Like this:

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

Look Who’s Pushing Homeowners Off the Foreclosure Cliff

Spread the word

Like this:

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

Why Did So Many People Make So Many Ex Post Bad Decisions? The Causes of the Foreclosure Crisis

Spread the word

Like this:

Featured Products and Services by The Garfield Firm

Spread the word

Like this:

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Spread the word

Like this:

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Spread the word

Like this:

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

U.S. home short sales surpass foreclosure deals for first time

Spread the word

Like this:

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Spread the word

Like this:

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Spread the word

Like this:

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Spread the word

Like this:

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Spread the word

Like this:

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Legal Abuse Syndrome: A Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Spread the word

Like this:

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Spread the word

Like this:

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Parsons Blames Glass-Steagall Repeal for Crisis

‘Dynamic World’

‘Separate Houses’

U.S. Bailout

Spread the word

Like this:

CUSTOMER SERVICE 520-405-1688

Demand an Administrative Hearing

Spread the word

Like this:

Living Lies Services

Follow LivingLies Blog

Recent Posts

1 Links to Related External Sites

CALCULATORS

economics

foreclosure defense

Glossaries

Help Yourself

Landmark Cases

**Why Did So Many People Make So Many Ex Post Bad Decisions? The Causes of the Foreclosure Crisis**