Don’t Ask Who Holds the Note, Ask Who REALLY Owns Your Debt

One of the most important things I learned from Neil Garfield in the time he was mentoring me and preparing me to take over his practice is this: When you’re trying to figure out who has the rights to your home loan, don’t get caught up asking about who has the paper note. Instead, focus on who truly has a claim on the money you owe.

Why? Because there’s a tricky part in the law. If someone just shows they have the note, people might assume:

  1. They got it from someone who had the right to give it.
  2. That person really owned the note.
  3. They can now ask you for the money.
  4. They accepted the role of being the new main person in charge of the note.

But Judges have been making these assumptions too easily, especially when alleged creditors legal standing in cases is not being challenged early in the process. Making assumptions can inadvertently validate a baseless claim.

For example, if U.S. Bank says they now control your note, no one really checks if the bank truly accepted that responsibility.

Having the note doesn’t mean they REALLY have it. Often, when you start digging deeper, these companies don’t even admit they have the note or any papers related to your loan. They avoid questions about records and just point you to someone else who’s supposed to be managing the loan.

Imagine if someone said you hurt them, and when you ask to see the injury, they just point to their friend and say, “Ask them.” That’s the kind of runaround happening with home loans.

So, when these companies act based on fake papers, big banks like U.S. Bank can just wash their hands and say they didn’t know anything.

If you change your approach, you could ask if the claimed debt owner really has the legal right as the main person in charge. Or, you could ask who really has a claim on the money you owe.

Don’t get lost in the wrong details. If you focus too much on who holds the note, you might miss the real issue. Foreclosure is all about the claim on your home. The note and the mortgage are different, and they’re treated differently by the law.

 

In summary

These issues are critical in your foreclosure defense and are important to be addressed in any discovery process that’s part of any lawsuit. Don’t mistakenly admit that the alleged creditor that is trying to take your home has a right to do so. Challenge their status as a holder in due course or creditor. If discovery is done correctly, and an accurate forensic loan audit is performed and submitted as evidence with expert declarations, the fraudulent parties trying to take your home won’t succeed. They won’t even be able to respond properly in the discovery process. That’s why knowing how and when to act when the discovery window is still “open” is so important. Reach out to us to early in your process when the most important defenses are still open to you. Early actions like debt validation letters, complaints to the CFSB (consumer financial protection bureau) and the follow ups are so important as they lay the groundwork for future defense efforts. These can be accessed by our Administrative Strategy. Submit your case analysis form here for free insights as to how best to proceed in your individual circumstances. Or call us toll free at 844.478.6774 to learn how best to access our services in helping you defend you home.

Remember, your home is your castle and we help you defend it.

Tonight! Is it time to sue Black Knight? 6PM EDT 3PM PDT The Neil Garfield Show

Thursdays LIVE! Click in to the Neil Garfield Show

Tonight’s Show Hosted by Neil Garfield, Esq.

Call in at (347) 850-1260, 6pm Eastern Thursdays

Tonight I will discuss the curious case of blatant economic fraud on the entire country by investment banks. They figured out how to eliminate the risk of loss on lending, how not to be labelled as a lender subject to lending laws, and who pursue collection, administration and enforcement of obligations that do not exist.  And then by denying the receipt of funds that paid off the loan on their own books they continue to operate as though the loan exists, and to designate fictitious entities who are falsely represented by foreclosure mills as owning the defunct obligation.

Specifically we explore how to stop this scheme from operating at all.

Foreclosure litigation is like the game of Chess. The banks line up a set of pawns for you to fight with while their real players hide behind multiple layers of curtains. In my opinion it is time to subpoena Black Knight to the table in most instances. Make them produce documents and answer questions. Note that with Chase (and possibly Wells Fargo) there are periods of time when they had their own alter-ego to Black Knight, so forensic investigation is required.

Black Knight, fka LPS (Lender Processing Services), owner of  DOCX and employer of Lorraine Brown who went to jail for fabricating tens of thousands of documents to create the false impression that homeowner obligations still existed and that some designated hitter (e.g., US Bank as trustee for the registered holders of pass through certificates issued by the SASCO Trust a1-2009) owned the obligation.

And then following that logic, since they own  the obligation, the refusal of the homeowner to pay the obligation is assumed to have produced a loss (financial damage). And then, following the logic, being the owner of the obligation and having suffered a loss that was caused by the homeowner’s refusal to pay, the lawyers declare a default on behalf of this designated hitter. And then they foreclose.

The possibility that there is no obligation and that there is no financial loss suffered by anyone  is currently thought of as stupid theory, thanks to the prolific PR efforts of the investment banks. And yet there is not a single case in which any foreclosure mill has produced any admissible evidence regarding the establishment or current status of the account reflecting ownership of the alleged homeowner’s obligation. Not a single case where actual loss has been in the pleading or notices. For two decades this game has been played by investment banks.

In addition, after the origination  or acquisition of the apparent loan transaction,  a new player is introduced (e.g. Ocwen), who claims to have been hired to service the loan accounts that are apparently owned by the designated hitter. But Ocwen only partially “services” the account. It might  have authority to act as agent for the designated hitter,  but the designated hitter has neither authority or ownership of the obligation. So Ocwen is a designated hitter for who ever is really doing the servicing. That party is in most cases Black Knight. In the Chess analogy Black Knight is the Knight who serves its masters (investment banks) and is willing to sacrifice itself and the self-proclaimed “servicers” to protect the King (investment bank).

This means that all records, payment history and document handling does not originate with Ocwen, but rather with Black Knight, who is actually answering to an investment bank who receives both proceeds from homeowner payments, and proceeds from illegal foreclosure sales. And the investment bank receives it as off balance sheet transactions that are actually revenue that is untaxed.

So interrupting the game of foreclosure mills in using “representatives” employed by “servicers” like Ocwen undermines the admissibility of any testimony or evidence from that representative, including foundation testimony for the admission of “business records” as an exception to the hearsay rule. It also brings you one step closer to the King. The harder they fight against you for doing this the more confident you will become that you have hit a nerve — or rather, the achilles heal of this entire scheme that would be a farce if it wasn’t so real.

And lawsuits against the designated hitter might have more credibility if you included not only the designated fake servicer but also the real servicer like Black Knight. And remember the truth is that in virtually so-called loans the end result is that there is no lender and there is no loan account on the books of any company claiming ownership of the obligation. They all get paid in full from “securitization” of the data.  But that means that they never sold the debt, which is an absolute condition precedent and standing requirement for bringing a claim.

So when US Bank is named as a claimant by lawyers, those lawyers have had no contact and no retainer agreement with US Bank who is completely unwilling to grant such right of representation for litigation in their name. But for a fee they are willing to stay silent as long as they don’t really need to do anything. And when Ocwen comes in as servicer, they have no original records and they did not board the records of another servicing company. They merely have access to the same proprietary database maintained and owned and operated by Black Knight who has full control over entries (largely automated through the use of lockbox contracts and then scanned), changes and reports.

So maybe it is time to subpoena  Black Knight who serves as the representatives of the investment banks and maybe it’s time to sue them for being party to a scheme specifically designed to deceive the courts and homeowners.

Take a look at a submission I just received from Summer Chic:

I received the rest of prop.  taxes from 2017 and here is a very interesting detail I want to share.

On November 6, 2019 Black Knight (who deny any involvement to my property*) filed a legal case against PennyMac whom BK accused on theft of their trade secrets and removed from their system.

Almost immediately customers started to complain that PennyMac is unable to perform their “servicing” due to a “major glitch” in their “updated system”.

In other words, PM is NOT able to conduct any functions without access to Black Knight’s MSP.

Since 2017 my taxes were purportedly paid by Caliber – whose tax PO Box  was different than PO box for my check payments.

On Sept. 15, 2019 PennyMac purportedly “paid” my taxes.

But on December 31, 2019 (!) my taxes were paid  by CoreLogic while the receipt shows as Coreligic-PM. I assume these were Spring taxes (which are due in March) because I don’t see any March receipts.

On September 16, 2020 my taxes were again paid by CoreLogic , now without any reference to PennyMac.

During all time in question CoreLogic repeatedly deny any relationship to my property even though they also conducted appraisal for my property via  la mode appraisal software.

In other words, it is clear who handles all escrow accounts.
*On June 15, 2016, or the same day as I filed my application for the loan, Black Knight  ordered Flood Map determination acting on behalf of Perl. Determination was done by CoreLogic who is allowed to use FEMA’s forms and who owns a Hazard Map determination company.
*
Neil F Garfield, MBA, JD, 73, is a Florida licensed trial attorney since 1977. He has received multiple academic and achievement awards in business and law. He is a former investment banker, securities broker, securities analyst, and financial analyst.
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FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
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  • Yes you DO need a lawyer.
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The Economics of Justice

There is no doubt in the minds of most serious trial lawyers who dig deep enough that homeowners can and should win all or most of the foreclosure cases. There is also little doubt that homeowners will lose by default or by inadequate presentation and well-founded attacks on the foreclosing party’s existence and ownership of the loan.

But in the absence of a well founded presentation, in the absence of well founded objections and in the absence of appropriate cross examination and aggressive investigation and analysis, a complete stranger will emerge as the victor in a fight over whether the home should be sold in foreclosure.

This leaves the homeowner and the investor whose money was used to fund or acquire the loan in the dust. It eliminates workouts that are best for both the investors and the homeowners. It rewards the culprits who condemned this country to more than a decade, so far, of strife and inequality of wealth. And it happens because of a defect in the judicial system that is wholly reliant on the financial resources of parties to a dispute.

Let us help you plan for trial and draft your foreclosure defense strategy, discovery requests and defense narrative: 202-838-6345. Ask for a Consult.

I provide advice and consultation to many people and lawyers so they can spot the key required elements of a scam — in and out of court. If you have a deal you want skimmed for red flags order the Consult and fill out the REGISTRATION FORM. A few hundred dollars well spent is worth a lifetime of financial ruin.

PLEASE FILL OUT AND SUBMIT OUR FREE REGISTRATION FORM WITHOUT ANY OBLIGATION. OUR PRIVACY POLICY IS THAT WE DON’T USE THE FORM EXCEPT TO SPEAK WITH YOU OR PERFORM WORK FOR YOU. THE INFORMATION ON THE FORMS ARE NOT SOLD NOR LICENSED IN ANY MANNER, SHAPE OR FORM. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Get a Consult and TERA (Title & Encumbrances Analysis and & Report) 202-838-6345 or 954-451-1230. The TERA replaces and greatly enhances the former COTA (Chain of Title Analysis, including a one page summary of Title History and Gaps).

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

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see The Truth About American Mortgages

I listen to a phone message message. The air of despair is evident in the voice of a homeowner who desperately wants to stay in her home. She correctly believes that the parties seeking foreclosure sale of her property are complete strangers to the loan and the property. She would do a workout with anyone who is entitled to her payments, assuming the debt still exists.
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She knows in her bones that what is happening is legally and morally wrong. But she can’t do anything about it without spending thousands of dollars on trial lawyers, forensic analysts and ghost writers. In the end she knows that even in cases of blatant fraud, even when it is clear that she is a victim of illegal behavior, the party with the money has multiple layers of lawyers at their disposal who work tirelessly to make every wrongful act appear right.
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It sounds like she is drifting. I can ask around but it is unlikely that any lawyer will take on her case without some upfront retainer and assurance that future fees will be paid. I know this is unfair but this is how our system has always worked. Organizations like Legal Aid do not generally accept cases involving foreclosure defense.

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The American judicial system boils down to this: if you want representation in a courtroom and it is not a criminal matter, you are on your own. People who commit wide scale fraud across the country generally have deep or nearly infinite pockets. They have lawyers for their lawyers. The bottom line is that anyone can commit fraud and get away with it if they have the assistance of lawyers drafting the documents to make the illusion seem real and more lawyers to represent “clients” in court that either don’t exist or who have no nexus to the loan, debt, note or mortgage. The only risk in committing fraud is the risk of targeting a victim who has equal access to lawyers, money and investigators. Consumers are fair game.
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The appropriate defense of foreclosure actions would include private investigators and aggressive discovery, in addition to carefully worded pleadings and motions. It would require adept lawyers who understand how to present a motion, how to play the discovery game and how to use well-founded objections and good cross examination at trial.
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If the homeowner had deep or infinite pockets, the cost of defense would be over $100,000 and in at least one case of mine was close to $200,000. Very few homeowners have access to that kind of money. If they did, they would have won most of the time. And now that fee awards have virtually been eliminated in a twist of a legal fiction, there is little hope of collecting fees from the foreclosing party except as damages for wrongful foreclosure and related claims.
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Even on the fee awards that exist, the generally accepted amount of “appropriate” or “reasonable” fees is usually set at around $25,000-$50,000. Sometimes that is right but more often it is not. So a lawyer seeking to recover his fees upon winning the case is going to get, in the best of circumstances a fraction of the billable time he/she spent on the case.

*
Lawyers are required to do some pro bono work, but those cases typically take a back seat to the cases where the client is paying “full freight.” So file research and analysis is scarce when the fees are low or nonexistent. In large firms pro bono cases are frequently treated with the same respect as clients paying the fees. But that is because they can. A solo practitioner needs to pay his own mortgage and living expenses. Taking a foreclosure defense case pro bono and giving it all it deserves would mean virtually endless hours spent in investigation, analysis, legal research and strategic planning for presentations.
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So the upshot is that really good legal representation is scarce even from the best of trial lawyers. And getting any legal representation is getting increasingly difficult because lawyers don’t like losing. They also privately admit that they don’t want to “look silly” or “anger the judge” because deep inside they believe their client does owe the money and it doesn’t matter who is collecting. It doesn’t matter that a typical loan workout would have eliminated most foreclosures. They are going to lose most of the time without presenting a well focused defense based upon the lies, fabrications and forgeries that are used to pursue foreclosures.
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Most lawyers go through the motions and are content to say that at least they bought time for their clients. It’s easy for me to say that it shouldn’t work that way. Lawyers should seek to win because they can win. But reality sides with the lawyers who do not have clients who are able to pay the going rates for legal representation or who cannot pay the extra amounts necessary to present a full throated defense.
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But reality  does not side with lawyers who refuse to work on contingency in an action for damages based upon false and fraudulent presentation of falsified evidence. For lawyers who take the time to truly understand what the banks have done, they will then understand why the homeowner should not only be able to avoid foreclosure, but should also get monetary damages including in many cases punitive damages.
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But it takes a genuine belief on the part of the lawyer to do it. Most lawyers don’t have that belief because they are ignorant of the true facts and the law. Those lawyers who have done the work have been rewarded handsomely for their efforts in what are not confidential settlements under seal of confidentiality. I know because I have seen many of them but I am restricted as well.
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In every system lawyers are not required to work unless they get paid a reasonable fee. Unfortunately reasonable fees are usually beyond the means of the typical homeowner.
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So like the other intrepid homeowners who won’t give up their home without a fight, you must piece together a defense using your own skills, perhaps a paralegal, a forensic analyst and ghost writers like me to get you over the top. You are right that you should win because most foreclosures are fraudulent and probably criminal schemes. And that is why homeowners do win cases — if they present their defense correctly and they are able to gain access to some attorney who can guide them on trial practice.

Wells Fargo Bank: Fraud or “Error”

This was no mistake. It is one of many ploys to make modification unlikely or impossible. WFB wants foreclosures not modifications. That way they get to steal from investors, steal from homeowners and get away with it!

Once again, WFB is caught cheating homeowners, producing needless foreclosures (using the so-called “modification” process), leaving the homeowners in the dirt with an offer of $20,000 to settle the claims of fraudulent foreclosures.

Even though they claim the “error” existed — adding the attorney fees to the amount supposedly due — they knew three years ago and did nothing to  make the homeowners whole.

And this is a company that gets the benefit of the doubt when their lawyers proffer “documents” (i.e., fabrications) to the court seeking legal presumptions of validity.

The court is empowered to tell them they have no such presumptions and to prove the truth of the matters asserted. It’s time they did so.

see Wells Fargo Admits 400 Wrongful Foreclosures

Pay Attention! Look at the money trail AFTER the foreclosure sale

My confidence has never been higher that the handling of money after a foreclosure sale will reveal the fraudulent nature of most “foreclosures” initiated not on behalf of the owner of the debt but in spite of the the owner(s) of the debt.

It has long been obvious to me that the money trail is separated from the paper trail practically “at birth” (origination). It is an obvious fact that the owner of the debt is always someone different than the party seeking foreclosure, the alleged servicer of the debt, the alleged trust, and the alleged trustee for a nonexistent trust. When you peek beneath the hood of this scam, you can see it for yourself.

Real case in point: BONY appears as purported trustee of a purported trust. Who did that? The lawyers, not BONY. The foreclosure is allowed and the foreclosure sale takes place. The winning “bid” for the property is $230k.

Here is where it gets real interesting. The check is sent to BONY who supposedly is acting on behalf of the trust, right. Wrong. BONY is acting on behalf of Chase and Bayview loan servicing. How do we know? Because physical possession of the check made payable to BONY was forwarded to Chase, Bayview or both of them. How do we know that? Because Chase and Bayview both endorsed the check made out to BONY depositing the check for credit in a bank account probably at Chase in the name of Bayview.

Let us help you plan your foreclosure defense strategy, discovery requests and defense narrative: 202-838-6345. Ask for a Consult.

Purchase now Neil Garfield’s Mastering Discovery and Evidence in Foreclosure Defense webinar including 3.5 hours of lecture, questions and answers, plus course materials that include PowerPoint Presentations. Presenters: Attorney and Expert Neil Garfield, Forensic Auditor Dan Edstrom, Attorney Charles Marshall and and Private Investigator Bill Paatalo. The webinar and materials are all downloadable.

Get a Consult and TEAR (Title & Encumbrances Analysis and & Report) 202-838-6345. The TEAR replaces and greatly enhances the former COTA (Chain of Title Analysis, including a one page summary of Title History and Gaps).

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments. It’s better than calling!

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

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OK so we have the check made out to BONY and TWO endorsements — one by Chase and one by Bayview supposedly — and then an account number that might be a Chase account and might be a Bayview account — or, it might be some other account altogether. So the question who actually received the $230k in an account controlled by them and then, what did they do with it. I suspect that even after the check was deposited “somewhere” that money was forwarded to still other entities or even people.

The bid was $230k and the check was made payable to BONY. But the fact that it wasn’t deposited into any BONY account much less a BONY trust account corroborates what I have been saying for 12 years — that there is no bank account for the trust and the trust does not exist. If the trust existed the handling of the money would look very different OR the participants would be going to jail.

And that means NOW you have evidence that this is the case since BONY obviously refused to do anything with the check, financially, and instead just forwarded it to either Chase or Bayview or perhaps both, using copies and processing through Check 21.

What does this mean? It means that the use of the BONY name was a sham, since the trust didn’t exist, no trust account existed, no assets had ever been entrusted to BONY as trustee and when they received the check they forwarded it to the parties who were pulling the strings even if they too were neither servicers nor owners of the debt.

Even if the trust did exist and there really was a trust officer and there really was a bank account in the name of the trust, BONY failed to treat it as a trust asset.

So either BONY was directly committing breach of fiduciary duty and theft against the alleged trust and the alleged trust beneficiaries OR BONY was complying with the terms of their contract with Chase to rent the BONY name to facilitate the illusion of a trust and to have their name used in foreclosures (as long as they were protected by indemnification by Chase who would pay for any sanctions or judgments against BONY if the case went sideways for them).

That means the foreclosure judgment and sale should be vacated. A nonexistent party cannot receive a remedy, judicially or non-judicially. The assertions made on behalf of the named foreclosing party (the trust represented by BONY “As trustee”) were patently false — unless these entities come up with more fabricated paperwork showing a last minute transfer “from the trust” to Chase, Bayview or both.

The foreclosure is ripe for attack.

CHASE BOMBSHELL! Investigator Bill Paatalo Follow-Up: JPMorgan Chase Ordered To Produce Wire Transfers Of Borrower’s Payments To Trust

Follow-Up: JPMorgan Chase Ordered To Produce Wire Transfers Of Borrower’s Payments To Trust

https://bpinvestigativeagency.com/jpmorgan-chase-ordered-to-produce-wire-transfers-of-borrowers-payments-to-trust/

On February 23, 2018 JPMorgan Chase filed an emergency motion seeking clarification and an in camera review. (See: Chase Emergency Motion – Proodian (1)  ) Here are some excerpts from the motion with my comments in CAPS:

II. ARGUMENT

A. Motion For Clarification And Request For In Camera

13. The Order specifically orders Chase to produce “(1) wire transfer history for Plaintiff’s account reflecting payments made to JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and forwarded to Wells Fargo, or any other entity, via wire transfer.

14. After a diligent search, Chase is not in possession, custody or control of documents responsive to the Order as phrased.

15. Specifically, Chase does not maintain loan level information regarding its payments to the investor, Wells Fargo. In other words, Chase does not have a wire transfer history to Wells Fargo (or any other entity) for Plaintiff’s account alone. [“DOES NOT MAINTAIN LOAN LEVEL INFORMATION TO THE INVESTOR?” THIS STATEMENT SHOWS A COMPLETE DISCONNECT WITH THE CASH-FLOW BETWEEN A BORROWER AND THE ALLEGED INVESTOR(S), AND CLEARLY SUGGESTS THAT THERE IS NO WAY TO PROVE, THROUGH VERIFIABLE ACCOUNTING, THAT THE ALLEGED INVESTOR(S) RECEIVE THE ACTUAL PAYMENTS “FROM THE BORROWER.” WHEN IT COMES TO ACCOUNTING, PLAYING “HORSESHOES & HAND GRENADES” WHERE CLOSE ENOUGH IS ALL THAT MATTERS ISN’T GOING TO CUT IT, NOR SHOULD “TRUST US YOUR HONOR.”]

16. The records that Chase maintains, therefore, show the total monthly payment (in millions of dollars) made to Wells Fargo, regardless of whether any individual borrower in the pool made their payment to Chase. [WELLS FARGO GETS PAID “REGARDLESS OF WHETHER ANY INDIVIDUAL BORROWER IN THE POOL MADE PAYMENT TO CHASE.” FIRST OF ALL, WELLS FARGO IN THIS INSTANCE IS THE TRUSTEE, AND NOT THE “INVESTOR” AS THEY WANT THE COURT TO BELIEVE. WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO FROM WELLS FARGO? AGAIN, HERE IS AN ADMITTED DISCONNECT IN THE MONEY TRAIL THAT CHASE, AND ALL OTHERS SIMILARALY SITUATED, DO NOT WANT ANYONE TO SEE. IN FACT, CHASE ARGUES IN THIS CASE THAT BORROWER’S AREN’T ENTITLED TO, AND DON’T HAVE STANDING TO DEMAND ALL THE ACCOUNTING INFORMATION BETWEEN THE SECURITIZATION PARTICIPANTS. REALLY? THIS IS NOTHING BUT DIVERSION FROM THE FACT THAT CHASE CANNOT PRODUCE THE MONEY TRAIL ON THIS BORROWER’S LOAN, OR ANY SECURITIZED LOAN.]

17. Chase’s records will show (i) Plaintiff’s loan is part of the pool of loans; and (ii) that Chase makes one large lump sum payment to Wells Fargo each month for that pool, regardless of whether it receives a payment from Plaintiff’s.

18. In short, the documents that Plaintiffs seek and were the subject of the Court’s recent discovery Order – i.e. wire transfer history for Plaintiff’s account alone – do not exis[t.] [THERE WE HAVE IT, FOLKS. THERE IS NO WIRE TRANSFER HISTORY FOR ANY INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNT SHOWING PAYMENTS TO ANY INVESTOR(S). THEY “DO NOT EXIST.” I STILL FIND THIS HARD TO BELIEVE. CHASE IS ESSENTIALLY SAYING THAT IT SENDS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS EACH MONTH TO WELLS FARGO ON BEHALF OF A POOL OF LOANS, BUT CANNOT BREAK DOWN THAT LUMP SUM PAYMENT TO SHOW THE ORIGINS AND SOURCES OF THESE PAYMENTS? AND, WELLS FARGO ISN’T SEEKING TO KNOW THE ORIGINS AND SOURCES OF THESE ENORMOUS SUMS OF MONEY? WITHOUT ANY FORMAL ACCOUNTING, “RED FLAGS” OF PONZI SCHEMES AND MONEY LAUNDERING ARE FLYING HIGH.]

Bill Paatalo

Private Investigator – OR PSID# 49411

BP Investigative Agency, LLC

bill.bpia@gmail.com

 

The Neil Garfield Show with Attorney Charles Marshall: What areas should you target when you litigate?

Thursdays LIVE! Click in to the The Neil Garfield Show

Or call in at (347) 850-1260, 6pm Eastern Thursdays

What areas should you target when you litigate?

In foreclosure litigation there are many pointless rabbit-holes an attorney or homeowner can attempt to go down, but they serve only to confuse and distract.  Instead, litigants should focus on areas where actual leverage can be obtained.  Neil Garfield has warned litigants not to focus on the lender’s vulnerabilities that are not provable.

Recently Neil Garfield held a consultation with an attorney who requested advice on how to deal with two defective instruments.  His advice to the attorney was to cancel two instruments:

(1) as assignment allegedly signed by an authorized person from MERS as nominee for BNC Mortgage which had ceased to exist 3 years earlier. (2) appointment of substitute trustee by the assignee of the void assignment. The lender was handicapped by the cancellation of these instruments.

Despite all of the fraud and fabrication that continues, it is the bias of the courts which has created an uneven playing field that prejudices homeowners.  Therefore homeowners must obtain meaningful discovery related to standing and questionable transfers.  This should be done by examining the chain of title, a forensic examination of the note, trust closing date, and other violations of law by the servicers.  We also recommend that you hire an experienced investigator upfront to root out any major discrepancies that will be beneficial later in litigation (we recommend Bill Paatalo at http://www.bpinvestigativeagency.com).

In order to get something tangible that can be used to leverage your case consider strategic depositions of the pawns the servicer uses to verify ownership. The person signing off on the certification of note possession who files an affidavit claiming the servicer has standing to foreclose is vulnerable because they possess limited knowledge about the actual creditor, movement of the note and have no personal knowledge.

If you spoke with the Master Servicer or Trustee of a mortgage-backed trust they would tell you they don’t own anything and they are only a reporting agent.  They would direct you to the loan servicer for anything related to the loan.  The Servicer actually hired the foreclosure mill law firm to file the foreclosure – and is engaged in camouflaged equitable subrogation.

Foreclosure occurs because fraudster servicers routinely create a MERS assignment of mortgage coupled with a fraudulent note, add an undated stamp on a blank page of a note or allonge and create standing where none exists.  Add a corporate witness who knows nothing about the loan’s movement and boarding process, and the fact they are trained to parrot words like, “normal course of business” or “policy and procedure”– and the court will rule in their favor if not challenged.

Even worse, there is a new foreclosure platform that has morphed into a business model where new servicing companies who have nothing to do with the loan are being created out of thin air (think SPS or Ocwen) claiming they are the servicer for a bogus trust and the court requires NO INQUIRY INTO THE PURPORTED TRUST AT ALL!  The court accepts the validity of the trust without proof despite state requirements for a trust to conduct business in the state and be registered.

In order to gain traction you should depose:

  • The Complaint Verifier
  • Certification of Possession of Note Witness
  • Affidavit in Support of Summary Judgment Signers
  • Asset Manager/Trustee/Master Servicer of a Plaintiff Named Trust

Depose the corporate witnesses for trial and subpoena dues tecum the “policy and procedure” manuals, loan transfer histories and any deposition they intend to rely on.  Anticipate heavy resistance but remember if they don’t turn over the necessary documents those claims must be excluded from testimony.

Southern California attorney Charles Marshall advises homeowners to remember that in judicial foreclosure states where typically the borrower is the defendant, counterclaims or cross-complaints can sometimes be used to bring the legal pleading approach described.

In order to prevail in discovery, motions to compel discovery, summary judgment and at trial, you will need an attorney who can litigate like a mad dog and who is not afraid to become a Country Club pariah.  At the end of the day this is about verbal and evidential combat.

This article and the radio show are for educational purposes only and are not legal advice.

Charles Marshall, Esq.

Law Office of Charles T. Marshall

415 Laurel St., #405

San Diego, CA 92101

cmarshall@marshallestatelaw.com

Phone 619.807.2628

Drafting Causes of Action

Get a consult! 202-838-6345

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.
 
THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
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This is for reference only. You should check with a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction to make sure the elements of each cause of action are understood, that they apply, and that you have the facts or sufficient reason to plead that cause of action.

There usually specific state or local forms like a “Civil Cover Sheet” and potentially other forms, including a summons to be issued for service of process. Consultation with an attorney is strongly advised.

The Florida Rules of Civil procedure contain sample pleadings for certain types of actions but not all causes of action. Most states have the same thing. The structure of any cause of action is as follows:

1. Why the court has jurisdiction over the parties
2. Why the court has jurisdiction over the matter in controversy
3. What is the name of the cause of action (e.g. negligence)
4. What is the duty that Plaintiff alleges that defendant had.
5. Defendant breached that duty by ….
6. As a direct and proximate cause of the breach of the aforesaid duty by Defendant, Plaintiff suffered [financial, emotional, physical] damages in excess of minimum jurisdictional amount in controversy for court to hear it]
7. Wherefore, Plaintiff prays that this Honorable Court will enter Judgment for the Plaintiff in an amount in excess of [jurisdictional amount] and grant such other and further relief that the Court may deem just and proper, plus attorney fees, costs of this action and
8. Plaintiff demands trial by jury on all issues triable as of right by jury. [It is typical to place in all capital letters on the first page of the pleading “JURY TRIAL DEMANDED”]

If the action is to get the court to enter an order to do or stop doing something, that is called equitable relief.
1. Why the court has jurisdiction over the parties
2. Why the court has jurisdiction over the matter in controversy
3. What is the name of the cause of action (e.g. injunction)
4. What is the duty that Plaintiff alleges that defendant had.
5. Defendant breached that duty by ….
6. As a direct and proximate cause of the breach of the aforesaid duty by Defendant, Plaintiff suffered [financial, emotional, physical] damages in excess of [minimum jurisdictional amount in controversy for court to hear it], which are continuing [and possibly escalating]
7. Wherefore, Plaintiff prays that this Honorable Court will enter Judgment for the Plaintiff in which the Defendant is enjoined from [describe the activity] and grant such other and further relief that the Court may deem just and proper, plus attorney fees, costs of this action
8. No jury trial is typical for equitable claims although you can ask for it.

If the action is for an intentional tort (e.g. fraud)
1. Why the court has jurisdiction over the parties
2. Why the court has jurisdiction over the matter in controversy
3. What is the name of the cause of action (e.g. fraudulent misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation must be stated separately as a different cause fo action)
4. What is the duty that Plaintiff alleges that defendant had.
5. Defendant breached that duty by ….
6. Defendant’s breach was intentional and/or grossly negligent in that Defendant knew or must have known that its actions would damage the Plaintiff
7. [OPTIONAL] Defendant’s action were motivated by its intention to conceal its activities under the umbrella of a larger fraud, to wit: [describe the umbrella]
8. Defendant’s actions were undertaken with actual malice or with reckless indifference to the consequences to its illegal and wrongful actions
9. As a direct and proximate cause of the breach of the aforesaid duty by Defendant, Plaintiff suffered [financial, emotional, physical] damages in excess of [minimum jurisdictional amount in controversy for court to hear it]
10. Defendants actions were reprehensible as well as illegal and ongoing in nature such that Defendant should be required to pay punitive, exemplary or treble damages [if there is a statute providing for treble damages]
11. Wherefore, Plaintiff prays that this Honorable Court will enter Judgment for the Plaintiff in an amount in excess of [jurisdictional amount], plus punitive or exemplary damages and grant such other and further relief that the Court may deem just and proper, plus attorney fees, costs of this action and
12. Plaintiff demands trial by jury on all issues triable as of right by jury. [It is typical to place in all capital letters on the first page of the pleading “JURY TRIAL DEMANDED”]

CHECKLIST — FDCPA Damages and Recovery: Revisiting the Montana S Ct Decision in Jacobson v Bayview

What is unique and instructive about this decision from the Montana Supreme Court is that it gives details of each and every fraudulent, wrongful and otherwise illegal acts that were committed by a self-proclaimed servicer and the “defective” trustee on the deed of trust.

You need to read the case to see how many different times the same court in the same case awarded damages, attorney fees and sanctions against Bayview who persisted in their behavior even after the judgment was entered.

Get a consult! 202-838-6345

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.
 
THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
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*

This case overall stands for the proposition that the violations of federal law by self proclaimed servicers, trusts, trustees, substituted trustees, etc. are NOT insignificant or irrelevant. The consequences of merely applying the law in a fair and balanced way could and should be devastating to the TBTF banks, once the veil is pierced from servicers like Bayview, Ocwen et al and the real players are revealed.

I offer the following for legal practitioners as a checklist of issues that are usually present, in one form or another, in virtually all foreclosure cases and the consequences to the bad actors when the law is actually applied. The interesting thing is that this checklist does not just represent my perspective. It comes directly from the Jacobson decision by the high court in Montana. That decision should be read, studied and analyzed several times. You need to read the case to see how many different times the same court in the same case awarded damages, attorney fees and sanctions against Bayview who persisted in their behavior even after the judgment was entered.

One additional note: If you think about it, you can easily see how this case represents the overall infrastructure employed by the super banks. It is obvious that all of Bayview’s actions were at the behest of Citi, who like any other organized crime figure, sought to avoid getting their hands dirty. The self proclamations inevitably employ the name of US Bank whose involvement is shown in this case to be zero. Nonetheless the attorneys for Bayview and Peterson sought to pile up paper documents to create the illusion that they were acting properly.

  1. FDCPA —abusive debt collection practices by debt collectors
  2. FDCPA who is a debt collector — anyone other than the creditor
  3. FDCPA Strict Liability 
  4. FDCPA for LEAST SOPHISTICATED CONSUMER
  5. FDCPA STATUTORY DAMAGES
  6. FDCPA COMPENSATORY DAMAGES
  7. FDCPA PUNITIVE DAMAGES
  8. FDCPA INHERENT COURT AUTHORITY TO LEVY SANCTIONS
  9. CUMULATIVE BAD ACTS TEST — PATTERN OF CONDUCT
  10. HAMP Modifications Scam — initial and incentive payments
  11. Estopped and fraud: 90 day delinquency disinformation — fraud and UPL
  12. Rejected Payment
  13. Default Letter: Not authorized because sender is neither servicer nor interested party.
  14. Default letter naming creditor
  15. Default letter declaring amount due — usually wrong
  16. Default letter with deadline date for reinstatement: CURE DATE
  17. Late charges improper
  18. Extra interest improper
  19. Fees even after they lose added to balance “due.”
  20. Notice of acceleration based upon default letter which contains inaccurate information. [Not authorized because sender is neither servicer nor interested party.]
  21. Damages: Negative credit rating — [How would bank feel if their investment rating dropped? Would their stock drop? would thousands of stockholders lose money as a result?]
  22. damages: emotional stress
  23. Damages: Lost opportunities to save home
  24. Damages: Lost ability to receive incentive payments for modification
  25. FDCPA etc: Use of nonexistent or inactive entities
  26. FDCPA Illegal notarizations
  27. Illegal notarizations on behalf of nonexistent or uninvolved entities.
  28. FDCPA naming self proclaimed servicer as beneficiary (creditor/mortgagee)
  29. Assignments following self proclamation of beneficiary (creditor/mortgagee)
  30. Falsely Informing homeowner they cannot reinstate
  31. Wrongful appointment of Trustee under deed of trust
  32. Wrongful and non existent Power of Attorney
  33. False promises to modify
  34. False representations to the Court
  35. Musical entities
  36. False and fraudulent utterance of a document
  37. False and fraudulent recording of a false document
  38. False representations concerning “US Bank, Trustee” — a whole category unto itself. (the BOA deal and others who “sold” trustee position of REMICs to US Bank.) 

Bank Fraud From the Top Down

MERS is not, as its proponents claim, a device for eliminating the recording charges on legitimate purchases and sales of mortgage loans; instead it is a “layering” device (another Wall Street term) for creating the illusion of such transfers even though no transaction actually took place.

Get a consult! 202-838-6345

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.
 
THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
—————-

I recently had the occasion to ghost write something for a customer in relation to claims based upon fraud, MERS, and “Successors.” Here is what I drafted, with references to actual people and entities deleted:

  •  MERS was created in 1996 as a means for private traders to create the illusion of loan transfers. On its website MERS states emphatically that it specifically disclaims any interest in any debt and disclaims any interest in any documentation of debt (i.e., a promissory note) and specifically disclaims any interest in any agreement for collateralizing the obligations stated on the note.
  • There is no agreement in which MERS is authorized as an agent of any creditor. The statement on the note and/or mortgage that it is named as nominee for a “lender” is false. No agreement exists that sets forth the terms or standards of agency relationship between the Payee on the subject “note” or the mortgagee on the subject mortgage. MERS is merely named on instruments without any powers to exercise on behalf of any party who would qualify as a bona fide mortgagee or beneficiary.
  • No person in MERS actually performs ANY action in connection with loans and no officer or employee of MERS did perform any banking activity in relation tot he subject loan. MERS is a passive database for which access is freely given to anyone who wants to make an entry, regardless of the truth or falsity of that entry. It is a platform where the person accessing the MERS IT system appoints themselves as “assistant secretary” or some other false status in relation to MERS. MERS is not, as its proponents claim, a device for eliminating the recording charges on legitimate purchases and sales of mortgage loans; instead it is a “layering” device (another wall Street term) for creating the illusion of such transfers even though no transaction actually took place.
  • Hence there is no basis under existing law under which MERS, in this case, was either a nominee for a real creditor and no basis under existing law under which MERS, in this case, could possibly claim that it was either a mortgagee or beneficiary under a deed of trust.
  • MERS has not claimed and never will claim that it is a mortgagee or beneficiary.
  • The lender, under the alleged “closing documents” was also a sham nominee. None of the parties in the alleged “chain” were at any times a creditor, lender, purchaser, mortgagee, beneficiary, or holder of any note. None of them have any financial interest or risk of loss in the performance of the alleged “loan” obligations.
  • Plaintiff reasonably relied upon the representations at the “Closing” that the originator who was named as Payee on the note was lending her money. But in fact the originator was merely acting as a broker, conduit or sales agent whose job was to get the Plaintiff to sign papers — an event that triggered windfall compensation to all the participants (except the Plaintiff), equal to or even greater than the amount of principal supposedly due from the “loan.”
  • In fact, the originator and multiple other parties had entered into a scheme that was memorialized in an illegal contract violating public policy regarding the disclosure of the identity of the “lender” and the compensation by all parties who received any remuneration of any type arising out the “Closing of the transaction.” The name of the contract is probably a “Purchase and Assumption Agreement” — a standard agreement that is used in the banking industry after the loan has been underwritten, approved and funded. In the case at bar those parties entered into the Purchase and Assumption Agreement before the subject “loan” was closed”, before the Plaintiff even applied for a loan.
  • The source of the money for the alleged “loan” was a “dark pool” (a term used by investment bankers) consisting of the money advanced by investors who thought they were buying mortgage bonds issued by a Trust, in which their money would be managed by the Trustee. In fact, the Trust is either nonexistent or inchoate having never been funded with the investors’ money. The dark pool contains money commingled from hundreds of investors in thousands of trusts.
  • The investors were generally stable managed funds including pension, retirement, 401K money for people relying upon said money for their living expenses after retirement. They are the unwitting, unknowing source of funds for the transaction described as a “closing.” Hence the loan contract upon which the Defendants rely is based upon fraudulent representations designed to mislead the court and mislead the Plaintiff and the byproduct of a broader scheme to defraud investors in “Mortgage backed securities” that were issued by a nonexistent trust that never owned the assets supposedly “backing” the “security” often described as a mortgage bond.
  • Thus the fraud starts with the misrepresentation to investors that the managed funds would be managed by a trustee and would be used to acquire existing loans rather than originate new loans. Instead their funds were used directly on the “closing” table by presumably unwitting “Closing agents.” The fact that the funds arrived created the illusion that the party named on the note and mortgage was actually funding the loan to the “borrower.” This was a lie. But it explains why the Defendants have continually refused to provide any evidence of the “purchase” of the loan by the parties they claim to form a “Chain.”
  • In the alleged “transfer” of the loan, there was no purchase and no payment of money because at the base of their chain, the originator, there was no right to receive the money that would ordinarily be a requirement for purchase of the loan. There also was no Purchase and Assumption Agreement, which is basic standard banking practice in the acquisition of loans, particularly in pools.
  • As Plaintiff as recently learned, the originator was not entitled to receive any payment from “successors” and not entitled to receive any money from the Plaintiff who was described as a “borrower.” In simple accounting terms there was no debit and so there could be no “corresponding” credit. And in fact, the originator never did receive any money for purchasing the loan nor any payments that were credited to a loan receivable account in its accounting records. Yet the originator executed or allowed instruments to be executed in which the completely fraudulent assertion that the originator had sold the loan was memorialized.
  • The “closing” was completely improper in which Plaintiff was fraudulently induced to execute a promissory note as maker and fraudulently induced to execute a mortgage as collateral for the performance under the note. Plaintiff was unaware that she had just created a second liability because the debt could not be legally merged into an instrument that named a party who was not the lender, not a creditor, and not a proper payee for a note memorializing a loan of money from the “lender” to the Plaintiff.
  • The purpose of the merger rule is to prevent a borrower from creating two liabilities for one transaction. The debt is merged into the note upon execution such that no claim can be made on the debt. None of these fine points of law were known to Plaintiff until recently. The reason she did not know is that the originator and the rest of the parties making claims based upon the fraudulent “loan” memorialized in the note all conspired to withhold information that was required to be disclosed to “borrowers” under Federal and State Law.
  • In the case at bar, the debt arises from the fact that Plaintiff did in fact receive money or the benefit of payments on her behalf — from third parties who have no contractual, constructive or other relationship with the source of funds for the transaction. The note is based upon a transaction that never existed — a loan from the originator to the Plaintiff. The debt is based upon the receipt of money from a party who was clearly not intending to make a gift to Plaintiff. The debt and the note are two different liabilities.
  • Assuming the original note exists, Plaintiff is entitled to its its cancellation and return, along with release and satisfaction of the mortgage that collateralizes the obligation set forth on the sham promissory note.
  • In the interim, as this case clearly shows, the Plaintiff is at risk of a second liability even if she prevails in her claim that the note was a sham, to wit: Under UCC Article 3, if an innocent third party actually purchases the mortgage or deed of trust, the statute shifts the risk of loss onto the maker of the instrument regardless of how serious and egregious the practices of the originator and the background “players” who engineered this scheme.
  • Further the financial identity and reputation of the Plaintiff was fraudulently used without her knowledge and consent to conduct “trades” based upon her execution of the above referenced false instruments in which many undisclosed players were reaping what they called “trading profits” arising from the “closing” and the illegal and unwanted misuse of her signatures on instruments in which she was induced to sign by fraudulent misrepresentations as to the nature and content of the documents.
  • Plaintiff suffered damages in that her title was slandered and emotional distress damages and damage to her financial identity and reputation. Further damages arising from violation of her right to quiet enjoyment of the property was violated by this insidious scheme.

California Suspends Dealings with Wells Fargo

The real question is when government agencies and regulators PLUS law enforcement get the real message: Wells Fargo’s behavior in the account scandal is the tip of the iceberg and important corroboration of what most of the country has been saying for years — their business model is based upon fraud.

Wells Fargo has devolved into a PR machine designed to raise the price of the stock at the expense of trust, which in the long term will most likely result in most customers abandoning such banks for fear they will be the next target.

Get a consult! 202-838-6345

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.
THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
—————-

see http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article104739911.html

John Chiang, California Treasurer, has stopped doing business with Wells Fargo because of the scheme involving fraud, identity theft and customer gouging for services they never ordered on accounts they never opened. It is once again time for Government to scrutinize the overall business plan and business map of Wells Fargo and indeed all of the top (TBTF) banks.

Wells Fargo is attempting to do crisis management, to wit: making sure that nobody looks at other schemes inside the bank.

It is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that was conceived by Senator Elizabeth Warren who has revealed the latest example of big bank fraud.

The simple fact is that in this case, Wells Fargo management made an absurd demand on their employees. Instead of the national average of 3 accounts per person they instructed managers and employees to produce 8 accounts per customer. Top management of Wells Fargo have been bankers for decades. They knew that most customers would not want, need or accept 5 more accounts. Yet they pressed hard on employees to meet this “goal.” Their objective was to defraud the investing public who held or would buy Wells Fargo stock.

In short, Wells Fargo is now the poster child for an essential defect in business structure of public companies. They conceive their “product” to be their stock. That is how management makes its money and that is how investors holding their stock like it until they realize that the entire platform known as Wells Fargo has devolved into a PR machine designed to raise the price of the stock at the expense of trust, which in the long term will most likely result in most customers abandoning such banks for fear they will be the next target. Such companies are eating their young and producing a bubble in asset values that, like the residential mortgage market, cannot be sustained by fundamental facts — i.e., real earnings on a real trajectory of growth.

So the PR piece about how they didn’t know what was going on is absurd along with their practices. Such policies don’t start with middle management or employees. They come from the top. And the goal was to create the illusion of a rapidly growing bank so that more people would buy their stock at ever increasing prices. That is what happens when you don’t make the individual members of management liable under criminal and civil laws for engaging in such behavior.

There was only one way that the Bank could achieve its goal of 8 accounts per customer — it had to be done without the knowledge or consent of the customers. Now Wells Fargo is trying to throw 5,000 employees under the bus. But this isn’t the first time that Wells Fargo has arrogantly thrown its customers and employees under the bus.

The creation of financial accounts in the name of a person without that person’s knowledge or consent is identity theft, assuming there was a profit motive. The result is that the person is subjected to false claims of high fees, their credit rating has a negative impact, and they are stuck dealing with as bank so large that most customers feel that they don’t have the resources to do anything once the fraud was discovered by the Consumer Financial protection Board (CFPB).

Creating a loan account for a loan that doesn’t exist is the same thing. In most cases the “loan closings” were shams — a show put on so that the customer would sign documents in which the actual party who loaned the money was left out of the documentation.

This was double fraud because the pension funds and other investors who deposited money with Wells Fargo and the other banks did so under the false understanding that their money would be used to buy Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) issued by a trust with assets consisting of a loan pool.

The truth has emerged — there were no loan pols in the trusts. The entire derivative market for residential “loans” is built on a giant lie.  But the consequences are so large that Government is afraid to do anything about it. Wells Fargo took money from pension funds and other “investors,” but did not give the proceeds of sale of the alleged MBS to the proprietary vehicle they created in the form of a trust.

Hence the trust was never funded and never acquired any property or loans. That means the “mortgage backed securities” were not mortgage backed BUT they were “Securities” under the standard definition such that the SEC should take action against the underwriters who disguised themselves as “master Servicers.”

In order to cover their tracks, Wells Fargo carefully coached their employees to take calls and state that there could be no settlement or modification or any loss mitigation unless the “borrower” was at least 90 days behind in their payments. So people stopped paying an entity that had no right to receive payment — with grave consequences.

The 90 day statement was probably legal advice and certainly a lie. There was no 90 day requirement and there was no legal reason for a borrower to go into a position where the pretender lender could declare a default. The banks were steering as many people, like cattle, into defaults because of coercion by the bank who later deny that they had instructed the borrower to stop making payments.

So Wells Fargo and other investment banks were opening depository accounts for institutional customers under false pretenses, while they opened up loan accounts under false pretenses, and then  used the identity of BOTH “investors” and “borrowers” as a vehicle to steal all the money put up for investments and to make money on the illusion of loans between the payee on the note and the homeowner.

In the end the only document that was legal in thee entire chain was a forced sale and/or judgment of foreclosure. When the deed issues in a forced sale, that creates virtually insurmountable presumptions that everything that preceded the sale was valid, thus changing history.

The residential mortgage loan market was considerably more complex than what Wells Fargo did with the opening of the unwanted commercial accounts but the objective was the same — to make money on their stock and siphon off vast sums of money into off-shore accounts. And the methods, when you boil it all down, were the same. And the arrogant violation of law and trust was the same.

 

Who is the Creditor? NY Appellate Decision Might Provide the Knife to Cut Through the Bogus Claim of Privilege

The crux of this fight is that if the foreclosing parties are forced to identify the creditors they will only have two options, in my opinion: (a) commit perjury or (b) admit that they have no knowledge or access to the identity of the creditor

Get a consult! 202-838-6345

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.
THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
—————-

see http://4closurefraud.org/2016/06/10/opinion-here-ny-court-says-bank-of-america-must-disclose-communications-with-countrywide-in-ambac-suit/

We have all seen it a million times — the “Trustees”, the “servicers” and their agents and attorneys all beg the question of identifying the names and contact information of the creditors in foreclosure actions. The reason is simple — in order to answer that question truthfully they would be required to admit that there is no party that could properly be defined as a creditor in relation to the homeowner.

They have successfully pushed the point beyond the point of return — they are alleging that the homeowner is a debtor but they refuse to identify a creditor; this means they are being allowed to treat the homeowner as a debtor while at the same time leaving the identity of the creditor unknown. The reason for this ambiguity is that the banks, from the beginning, were running a scheme that converted the money paid by investors for alleged “mortgage backed securities”; the conversion was simple — “let’s make their money our money.”

When inquiry is made to determine the identity of the creditor the only thing anyone gets is some gibberish about the documents PLUS the assertion that the information is private, proprietary and privileged.  The case in the above link is from an court of appeals in New York. But it could have profound persuasive effect on all foreclosure litigation.

Reciting the tension between liberal discovery and privilege, the court tackles the confusion in the lower courts. The court concludes that privilege is a very narrow shield in specific situations. It concludes that even the attorney-client privilege is a shield only between the client and the attorney and that adding a third party generally waives that privilege. The third party privilege is only extended in narrow circumstances where the parties are seeking a common goal. So in order to prevent the homeowner from getting the information on his alleged creditor, the foreclosing parties would need to show that there is a common goal between the creditor(s) and the debtor.

Their problem is that they can’t do that without showing, at least in camera, that the identity of the creditor is known and that somehow the beneficiaries of an empty trust have a common goal (hard to prove since the trust is empty contrary to the terms of the “investment”). Or, they might try to identify a creditor who is neither the trust nor the investors, which brings us back to perjury.

Self Serving Fabrications: Watch for “Attorney in Fact”

In short, the proffer of a document signed not by the grantor or assignor but by a person with limited authority and no knowledge, on behalf of a company claiming to be attorney in fact is an empty self-serving document that provides escape hatches in the event a court actually looks at the document. It is as empty as the Trusts themselves that never operated nor did they purchase any loans.

Get a consult! 202-838-6345

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.

If you had a promissory note that was payable to someone else, you would need to get it endorsed by the Payee to yourself in order to negotiate it. No bank, large or small, would accept the note as collateral for a loan without several conditions being satisfied:

  1. The maker of the note would be required to verify that the debt and the fact that it is not in dispute or default. This is standard practice in the banking industry.
  2. The Payee on the note would be required to endorse it without qualification to you. Like a check, in which you endorse it over to someone else, you would say “Pay to the order of John Smith.”
  3. The bank would need to see and probably keep the original promissory note in its vault.
  4. The credit-worthiness of the maker would be verified by the bank.
  5. Your credit worthiness would be verified by the bank.

Now imagine that instead of an endorsement from the payee on the note, you instead presented the bank with an endorsement signed by you as attorney in fact for the payee. So if the note was payable to John Jones, you are asking the bank to accept your own signature instead of John Jones because you are the authorized as an agent of John Jones.  No bank would accept such an endorsement without the above-stated requirements PLUS the following:

  1. An explanation  as to why John Jones didn’t execute the endorsement himself. So in plain language, why did John Jones need an agent to endorse the note or perform anything else in relation to the note? These are the rules of the road in the banking and lending industry. The transaction must be, beyond all reasonable doubt, completely credible. If the bank sniffs trouble, they will not lend you money using the note as collateral. Why should they?
  2. A properly executed Power of Attorney naming you as attorney in fact (i.e., agent for John Jones).
  3. If John Jones is actually a legal entity like a corporation or trust, then it would need a resolution from the Board of Directors or parties to the Trust appointing you as attorney in fact with specific powers to that completely cover the proposed authority to endorse the promissory note..
  4. Verification from the John Jones Corporation that the Power of Attorney is still in full force and effect.

My point is that we should apply the same rules to the banks as they apply to themselves. If they wouldn’t accept the power of attorney or they were not satisfied that the attorney in fact was really authorized and they were not convinced that the loan or note or mortgage was actually owned by any of the parties in the paper chain, why should they not be required to conform to the same rules of the road as standard industry practices which are in reality nothing more than commons sense?

What we are seeing in thousands of cases, is the use of so-called Powers of Attorney that in fact are self serving fabrications, in which Chase (for example) is endorsing the note to itself as assignee on behalf of WAMU (for example) as attorney in fact. A close examination shows that this is a “Chase endorses to Chase” situation without any actual transaction and nothing else. There is no Power of Attorney attached to the endorsement and the later fabrication of authority from the FDIC or WAMU serves no purpose on loans that had already been sold by WAMU and no effect on endorsements purportedly executed before the “Power of Attorney” was executed. There is no corporate resolution appointing Chase. The document is worthless. I recently had a case where Chase was not involved but US Bank as the supposed Plaintiff relied upon a Power of Attorney executed by Chase.

This is a game to the banks and real life to everyone else. My experience is that when such documents are challenged, the “bank” generally loses. In two cases involving US Bank and Chase, the “Plaintiff” produced at trial a Power of Attorney from Chase. And there were other documents where the party supposedly assigning, endorsing etc. were executed by a person who had no such authority, with no corporate resolution and no other evidence that would tend to show the document was trustworthy. We won both cases and the Judge in each case tore apart the case represented by the false Plaintiff, US Bank, “as trustee.”

The devil is in the details — but so is victory in the courtroom.

ABSENCE OF CREDITOR: Breaking Down the Language Of The “Trust”

The problem with all this is that the REMIC Trust never received the proceeds of sale of the MBS and therefore could not have paid for or purchased any loans. It had no assets. And THAT is why the Trust never shows up as a Holder in Due Course (HDC).  HDC is a very strong status that changes the risk of loss on a note. Under state law (UCC) of every state alleging and proving HDC status means that the entire risk shifts to the maker of the note (the person who signed it) even if there were fraudulent or other circumstances when the note was signed.

Get a consult! 202-838-6345

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.
THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
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A reader pointed to the following language, asking what it meant:

The certificates represent obligations of the issuing entity only and do not represent an interest in or obligation of CWMBS, Inc., Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. or any of their affiliates.   (See left side under the 1st table –  https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/906410/000114420407029824/v077075_424b5.htm)

If an “investor” pays money to the underwriter of the issuance of MBS from a “REMIC Trust” they are getting a hybrid security that (a) creates a liability of the REMIC Trust to them and (2) an indirect ownership of the loans acquired by the trust.

The wording presented means that only the REMIC Trust owes the investors any money and the ownership interest of the investors is only as beneficiaries of the trust with the trust assets being subject to the beneficiaries’ claim of an ownership interest in the loans. But if the Trust is and remains empty the investors own nothing and will never see a nickle except by (a) the generosity of the underwriter (who is appointed “Master Servicer” in the false REMIC Trust, (b) PONZI and Pyramid scheme payments (I.e., receipt fo their own money or the money of other “investors) or (c) settlement when the investors catch the investment bank with its hand in the cookie jar.

The wording of the paperwork in the false securitization scheme reads very innocently because the underwriting and selling institutions should not be the obligor for payback of the investor’s money nor should the investors be allocated any ownership interest in the underwriting or selling institutions.

The problem with all this is that the REMIC Trust never received the proceeds of sale of the MBS and therefore could not have paid for or purchased any loans. It had no assets. And THAT is why the Trust never shows up as a Holder in Due Course (HDC).  HDC is a very strong status that changes the risk of loss on a note. Under state law (UCC) of every state alleging and proving HDC status means that the entire risk shifts to the maker of the note (the person who signed it) even if there were fraudulent or other circumstances when the note was signed.

By contrast, the allegation and proof that a Trust was a holder before suit was filed or before notice of default and notice of sale in a deed of trust state, means that the holder must overcome the defenses of the maker. If one of the defenses is that the holder received a void assignment, then the holder must prove up the basis of its stated or apparent claim that it is a holder with rights to enforce. The rights to enforce can only come from the creditor, directly or indirectly.

And THAT brings us to the issue of the identity of the creditor. This is something the banks are claiming is “proprietary” information — a claim that has been accepted by most courts, but I think we are nearing the end of the silly notion that a party can claim the right to enforce on behalf of a creditor who is never identified.

“Credit Bid” Comes Under Scrutiny in 9th Circuit

As I have been writing and talking about the forced judicial sales, my opinion has always been that in most cases there is an absence of evidence that the party making the credit bid was in fact the creditor thus entitled to make a “credit bid” at the auction. The credit bid is an allowance for the creditor to bid up to the amount of the debt owed to them without paying cash at the sale. This has been ignored since I first started writing about it. I think the credit bid is void and fraudulent if a non-creditor submits a credit bid when it is not the creditor. In nonjudicial states this is an easier proposition than in judicial states where a Final Judgment has been rendered.

This case is also notable because it finally addresses the issue of the liability of the Trustee on a deed of trust, concluding that if the party claiming to be the beneficiary was in fact not the beneficiary, and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise, the trustee is potentially liable. It would be helpful to pursue discovery against the Trustee, since it is always a “substituted trustee” that is in fact under the thumb or owned by the parties who are making self-serving declarations of their status as “beneficiaries” under the deed of trust. THAT of course provides grounds to object and challenge the substitution of trustee and everything that follows. If the self-proclaimed beneficiary is a nonexistent entity or otherwise does not conform to the statutory definition of a beneficiary, then it has no power to substitute a new trustee. And everything that the trustee does after that point is void. In discovery look for the agreement that says the new Trustee is indemnified and held harmless for all claims, violations etc. It’s there — but you need to force the issue.

THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER. ALSO NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT YET PUBLISHED AND THEREFORE IS NOT MANDATORY AUTHORITY YET.
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Get a consult! 202-838-6345

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.
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see 9th Circuit decision, Jacobsen v. Aurora Loan Services, Case No. 12-17021

Wrongful foreclosure. We reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Aurora on the wrongful foreclosure claim. In California, the elements of a wrongful foreclosure action are (1) the trustee or mortgagee caused an illegal, fraudulent, or willfully oppressive sale of real property pursuant to a power of sale in a mortgage or deed of trust; (2) the party attacking the sale was prejudiced or harmed; and (3) in cases where the trustor or mortgagor challenges the sale, the trustor or mortgagor tendered the amount of the secured indebtedness or was excused from tendering. Sciarratta v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n, 202 Cal. Rptr. 3d 219, 226 (Ct. App. 2016). The district court erred by granting summary judgment on the ground that it found nothing wrong with the foreclosure sale.
First, the district court failed to review the record in the light most favorable to the non-movants when the district court assumed that the form of Aurora’s bid at the foreclosure sale was a cash bid. On appeal, the parties now agree that the form of the bid was a credit bid.
Second, a genuine dispute of material fact remains regarding whether Aurora properly made a credit bid. California law permits “present beneficiary of the deed of trust” to credit bid at the foreclosure sale. Cal. Civ. Code § 2924h(b). However, it is not uncontroverted that Aurora was the present beneficiary of the deed of trust. A deed of trust is “inseparable from the note it secures.” Yvanova v. New Century Mortg. Corp., 365 P.3d 865, 850 (Cal. 2016); see also Domarad v. Fisher & Burke, Inc., 76 Cal. Rptr. 529, 536 (Ct. App. 1969) (“[A] deed of trust has no assignable quality independent of the debt, it may not be assigned or transferred apart from the debt, and an attempt to assign the deed of trust without a transfer of the debt is without effect.”). The record contains evidence that Aurora did not “own” O’Brien’s loan before the foreclosure. ER 19-20, 136-38, 181. However, the record also contains evidence that Aurora is “currently in possession” of the original promissory note, which was endorsed in blank, although it is not clear from Aurora’s declaration when Aurora became the holder of the note.[4] [ER 179-80; 185-195]. It appears that there remains a question of fact whether Aurora was the “beneficiary” of the deed of trust at the time of the foreclosure and thus whether it was entitled to make a credit bid at the foreclosure sale, and we remand for the district court to address this issue in the first instance.
Moreover, in order to prevail on their claim of wrongful foreclosure, Plaintiffs must also show that they suffered prejudice or harm as a result of irregularities or illegalities in the foreclosure sale. Sciarratta, 202 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 226. Because the district court granted summary judgment to Aurora on a different ground, the court did not address the element of prejudice or harm. In the circumstances, we also deem it prudent to remand this claim to the district court to consider the prejudice question in the first instance. We therefore reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment on the wrongful foreclosure claim and remand for further proceedings.[5]
AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED AND REMANDED IN PART. The parties shall bear their own costs on appeal.
[**] The Honorable James V. Selna, United States District Judge for the Central District of California, sitting by designation.
[*] This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
[1] The district court did not address standing. However, “[w]e may affirm on any ground supported by the record, even it if differs from the rationale used by the district court.” Buckley v. Terhune, 441 F.3d 688, 694 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc).
[2] We GRANT both parties’ requests for judicial notice.
[3] In their reply, Plaintiffs suggest that their cancellation of instruments claim survives their contention that the note and deed of trust were void ab initio. Because this argument was first raised in the reply brief, we deem it waived. Delgadillo v. Woodford, 527 F.3d 919, 930 n.4 (9th Cir. 2008).
[4] Note that in today’s modern mortgage world, the “owner” of the underlying debt (that is, the entity who will receive the ultimate economic benefit of payments from the note, less a servicing fee) and “holder” of the note (the party legally entitled to enforce the obligations of the note) are not always one and the same. See, e.g., Brown v. Wash. State Dep’t of Commerce, 359 P.3d 771, 776-77 (Wash. 2015) (discussing modern mortgage practices and the secondary market for mortgage notes; “Freddie Mac owns [borrower’s] note. At the same time, a servicer . . . holds the note and is entitled to enforce it.“)(emphasis added). It thus appears possible that the “beneficiary” under the deed of trust would follow with the note (and with the entity “currently entitled to enforce [the] debt”), rather than the income stream. See Yvanova, 365 P.3d at 850-51; see also Hernandez v. PNMAC Mortg. Opp. Fund Investors, LLC, 2016 WL 3597468, *6 (Cal. Ct. App. June 27, 2016) (unpublished) (if the foreclosing party “could properly and conclusively establish . . . that it did hold the Note at the [time of foreclosure], that would be dispositive and preclude a wrongful foreclosure cause of action because a deed of trust automatically transfers with the Note it secures—even without a separate assignment.”)(citing Yvanova).
[5] We also reverse the district court’s grant of Cal-Western’s motion to dismiss the wrongful foreclosure claim. The trustee must conduct the foreclosure sale “fairly, openly, reasonably, and with due diligence” “to protect the rights of the mortgagor and others.” Hatch v. Collins, 275 Cal. Rptr. 476, 480 (Ct. App. 1990). Here, the complaint alleges that Cal-Western’s acceptance of a void credit bid was unlawful. If the credit bid was void and the acceptance of the credit bid was unlawful, Cal-Western failed to conduct the foreclosure sale with due diligence, and thus the complaint states a claim against Cal-Western.

 

Predominant Interest Defines “True Lender”

Based on the totality of the circumstances, the Court concludes that CashCall, not Western Sky, was the true lender. CashCall, and not Western Sky, placed its money at risk. It is undisputed that CashCall deposited enough money into a reserve account to fund two days of loans, calculated on the previous month’s daily average and that Western Sky used this money to fund consumer loans. It is also undisputed CashCall purchased all of Western Sky’s loans, and in fact paid Western Sky more for each loan than the amount actually financed by Western Sky. Moreover, CashCall guaranteed Western Sky a minimum payment of $100,000 per month, as well as a $10,000 monthly administrative fee. Although CashCall waited a minimum of three days after the funding of each loan before purchasing it, it is undisputed that CashCall purchased each and every loan before any payments on the loan had been made. CashCall assumed all economic risks and benefits of the loans immediately upon assignment. CashCall bore the risk of default as well as the regulatory risk. Indeed, CashCall agreed to “fully indemnify Western Sky Financial for all costs arising or resulting from any and all civil, criminal or administrative claims or actions, including but not limited to fines, costs, assessments and/or penalties . . . [and] all reasonable attorneys fees and legal costs associated with a defense of such claim or action.”

Accordingly, the Court concludes that the entire monetary burden and risk of the loan program was placed on CashCall, such that CashCall, and not Western Sky, had the predominant economic interest in the loans and was the “true lender” and real party in interest. [E.S.]

See 8-31-2016-cfpb-v-cash-call-us-dist-ct-cal

Federal District Court Judge John Walter appears to be the first Judge in the nation to drill down into the convoluted “rent-a-bank” (his term, not mine) schemes in which the true lender was hidden from borrowers who then executed documents in favor of an entity that was not in the business of lending them money. This decision hits the bulls eye on the importance of identifying the true lender. Instead of blindly applying legal presumptions under the worst conditions of trustworthiness, this Judge looked deeply at the flawed process by which the “real lender” was operating.

A close reading of this case opens the door to virtually everything I have been writing about on this blog for 10 years. The court also rejects the claim that the documents can force the court to accept the law or venue of another jurisdiction. But the main point is that the court rejected the claim that just because the transactions were papered over doesn’t mean that the paper meant anything. Although it deals with PayDay loans the facts and law are virtually identical to the scheme of “securitization fail” (coined by Adam Levitin).

Those of you who remember my writings about the step transaction doctrine and the single transaction doctrine can now see how substance triumphs over form. And the advice from Eric Holder, former Attorney General under Obama, has come back to mind. He said go after the individuals, not just the corporations. In this case, the Court found that the CFPB case had established liability for the individuals who were calling the shots.

SUMMARY of FACTS: CashCall was renting the name of two banks in order to escape appropriate regulation. When those banks came under pressure from the FDIC, CashCall changed the plan. They incorporated Western Sky on the reservation of an an Indian nation and then claimed they were not subject to normal regulation. This was important because they were charging interest rates over 100% on PayDay loans.

That fact re-introduces the reality of most ARM, teaser and reverse amortization loans — the loans were approved with full knowledge that once the loan reset the homeowner would not be able to afford the payments. That was the plan. Hence the length of the loan term was intentionally misstated which increases the API significantly when the fees, costs and charges are amortized over 6 months rather than 30 years.

Here are some of the salient quotes from the Court:

CashCall paid Western Sky the full amount disbursed to the borrower under the loan agreement plus a premium of 5.145% (either of the principal loan amount or the amount disbursed to the borrower). CashCall guaranteed Western Sky a minimum payment of $100,000 per month, as well as a $10,000 monthly administrative fee. Western Sky agreed to sell the loans to CashCall before any payments had been made by the borrowers. Accordingly, borrowers made all of their loan payments to CashCall, and did not make a single payment to Western Sky. Once Western Sky sold a loan to CashCall, all economic risks and benefits of the transaction passed to CashCall.

CashCall agreed to reimburse Western Sky for any repair, maintenance and update costs associated with Western Sky’s server. CashCall also reimbursed Western Sky for all of its marketing expenses and bank fees, and some, but not all, of its office and personnel costs. In addition, CashCall agreed to “fully indemnify Western Sky Financial for all costs arising or resulting from any and all civil, criminal or administrative claims or actions, including but not limited to fines, costs, assessments and/or penalties . . . [and] all reasonable attorneys fees and legal costs associated with a defense of such claim or action.”

Consumers applied for Western Sky loans by telephone or online. When Western Sky commenced operations, all telephone calls from prospective borrowers were routed to CashCall agents in California.

A borrower approved for a Western Sky loan would electronically sign the loan agreement on Western Sky’s website, which was hosted by CashCall’s servers in California. The loan proceeds would be transferred from Western Sky’s account to the borrower’s account. After a minimum of three days had passed, the borrower would receive a notice that the loan had been assigned to WS Funding, and that all payments on the loan should be made to CashCall as servicer. Charged-off loans were transferred to Delbert Services for collection.

“[t]he law of the state chosen by the parties to govern their contractual rights and duties will be applied, . . ., unless either (a) the chosen state has no substantial relationship to the parties or the transaction and there is no other reasonable basis for the parties’ choice, or (b) application of the law of the chosen state would be contrary to a fundamental policy of a state which has a materially greater interest than the chosen state in the determination of the particular issue and which, under the rule of § 188, would be the state of the applicable law in the absence of an effective choice of law by the parties.”
Restatement § 187(2). The Court concludes that the CRST choice-of-law provision fails both of these tests, and that the law of the borrowers’ home states applies to the loan agreements.

after reviewing all of the relevant case law and authorities cited by the parties, the Court agrees with the CFPB and concludes that it should look to the substance, not the form, of the transaction to identify the true lender. See Ubaldi v. SLM Corp., 852 F. Supp. 2d 1190, 1196 (N.D. Cal. 2012) (after conducting an extensive review of the relevant case law, noting that, “where a plaintiff has alleged that a national bank is the lender in name only, courts have generally looked to the real nature of the loan to determine whether a non-bank entity is the de facto lender”); Eastern v. American West Financial, 381 F.3d 948, 957 (9th Cir. 2004) (applying the de facto lender doctrine under Washington state law, recognizing that “Washington courts consistently look to the substance, not the form, of an allegedly usurious action”); CashCall, Inc. v. Morrisey, 2014 WL 2404300, at *14 (W.Va. May 30, 2014) (unpublished) (looking at the substance, not form, of the transaction to determine if the loan was usurious under West Virginia law); People ex rel. Spitzer v. Cty. Bank of Rehoboth Beach, Del., 846 N.Y.S.2d 436, 439 (N.Y. App. Div. 2007) (“It strikes us that we must look to the reality of the arrangement and not the written characterization that the parties seek to give it, much like Frank Lloyd Wright’s aphorism that “form follows function.”).4 “In short, [the Court] must determine whether an animal which looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, is in fact a duck.” In re Safeguard Self-Storage Trust, 2 F.3d 967, 970 (9th Cir. 1993). [Editor Note: This is akin to my pronouncement in 2007-2009 that the mortgages and notes were invalid because they might just as well have named Donald Duck as the payee, mortgagee or beneficiary. Naming a fictional character does not make it real.]

In identifying the true or de facto lender, courts generally consider the totality of the circumstances and apply a “predominant economic interest,” which examines which party or entity has the predominant economic interest in the transaction. See CashCall, Inc. v. Morrisey, 2014 WL 2404300, at *14 (W.D. Va. May 30, 2014) (affirming the lower court’s application of the “predominant economic interest” test to determine the true lender, which examines which party has the predominant economic interest in the loans); People ex rel. Spitzer v. Cty. Bank of Rehoboth Beach, Del., 846 N.Y.S.2d 436, 439 (N.Y. App. Div. 2007) (“Thus, an examination of the totality of the circumstances surrounding this type of business association must be used to determine who is the ‘true lender,’ with the key factor being ‘who had the predominant economic interest’ in the transactions.); cf. Ga. Code Ann. § 16-17-2(b)(4) (“A purported agent shall be considered a de facto lender if the entire circumstances of the transaction show that the purported agent holds, acquires, or maintains a predominant economic interest in the revenues generated by the loan.”).

Although a borrower electronically signed the loan agreement on Western Sky’s website, that website was, in fact, hosted by CashCall’s servers in California. While Western Sky performed loan origination functions on the Reservation, the Court finds these contacts are insufficient to establish that the CRST had a substantial relationship to the parties or the transaction, especially given that CashCall funded and purchased all of the loans and was the true lender. Cf. Ubaldi v. SLM Corp., 2013 WL 4015776, at *6 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 5, 2013) (“If Plaintiffs’ de facto lender allegations are true, then Oklahoma does not have a substantial relationship to Sallie Mae or Plaintiffs or the loans.”).

The Court concludes that the CFPB has established that the Western Sky loans are void or uncollectible under the laws of most of the Subject States.7 See CFPB’s Combined Statement of Facts [Docket No. 190] (“CFPB’s CSF”) at ¶¶ 147 – 235. Indeed, CashCall has admitted that the interest rates that it charged on Western Sky loans exceeded 80%, which substantially exceeds the maximum usury limits in Arkansas, Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, and North Carolina. (Arkansas’s usury limit is 17%; Colorado’s usury limit is 12%; Minnesota’s usury limit is 8%; New Hampshire’s usury limit is 36%; New York’s usury limit is 16%; and North Carolina’s usury limit is 8%). A violation of these usury laws either renders the loan agreement void or relieves the borrower of the obligation to pay the usurious charges. In addition, all but one of the sixteen Subject States (Arkansas) require consumer lenders to obtain a license before making loans to consumers who reside there. Lending without a license in these states renders the loan contract void and/or relieves the borrower of the obligation to pay certain charges. CashCall admits that, with the exception of New Mexico and Colorado, it did not hold a license to make loans in the Subject States during at least some of the relevant time periods.

Based on the undisputed facts, the Court concludes that CashCall and Delbert Services engaged in a deceptive practice prohibited by the CFPA. By servicing and collecting on Western Sky loans, CashCall and Delbert Services created the “net impression” that the loans were enforceable and that borrowers were obligated to repay the loans in accordance with the terms of their loan agreements. As discussed supra, that impression was patently false — the loan agreements were void and/or the borrowers were not obligated to pay.

The Court concludes that the false impression created by CashCall’s and Delbert Services’ conduct was likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably under the circumstances

The Court concludes that Reddam is individually liable under the CFPA.

“An individual may be liable for corporate violations if (1) he participated directly in the deceptive acts or had the authority to control them and (2) he had knowledge of the misrepresentations, was recklessly indifferent to the truth or falsity of the misrepresentation, or was aware of a high probability of fraud along with an intentional avoidance of the truth.” Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau v. Gordon, 819 F.3d 1179, 1193 (9th Cir. 2016) (quotations and citations omitted).

The Court concludes that Reddam both participated directly in and had the authority to control CashCall’s and Delbert Services’ deceptive acts. Reddam is the founder, sole owner, and president of CashCall, the president of CashCall’s wholly-owned subsidiary WS Funding, and the founder, owner, and CEO of Delbert Services. He had the complete authority to approve CashCall’s agreement with Western Sky and, in fact, approved CashCall’s purchase of the Western Sky loans. He signed both the Assignment Agreement and the Service Agreement on behalf of WS Funding and CashCall. In addition, as a key member of CashCall’s executive team, he had the authority to decide whether and when to transfer delinquent CashCall loans to Delbert Services.

 

So all that said, here is what I wrote to someone who was requesting my opinion: Don’t use this unless and until you (a) match up the facts and (b) confer with counsel:

Debtor initially reported that the property was secured because of (a) claims made by certain parties and (b) the lack of evidence to suggest or believe that the property was not secured. Based upon current information and a continuous flow of new information it is apparent that the originator who was named on the note and deed of trust in fact did not loan any money to petitioner. This is also true as to the party who would be advanced as the “table funded” lender. As the debtor understands the applicable law, if the originator did not actually complete the alleged loan contract by actually making a loan of money, the executed note and mortgage should never have been released, much less recorded. A note and mortgage should have been executed in favor of the “true lender” (see attached case) and NOT the originator, who merely served as a conduit or the conduit who provided the money to the closing table.

Based upon current information, debtor’s narrative of the case is as follows:

  1. an investment bank fabricated documents creating the illusion of a proprietary common law entity
  2. the investment bank used the form of a trust to fabricate the illusion of the common law entity
  3. the investment bank named itself as the party in control under the label “Master Servicer”
  4. the investment bank then created the illusion of mortgage backed securities issued by the proprietary entity named in the fabricated documents
  5. the investment bank then sold these securities under various false pretenses. Only one of those false pretenses appears relevant to the matter at hand — that the proceeds of sale of those “securities” would be used to fund the “Trust” who would then acquire existing mortgage loans. In fact, the “Trust” never became active, never had a bank account, and never had any assets, liabilities or business. The duties of the Trustee never arose because there was nothing in the Trust. Without a res, there is no trust nor any duties to enforce against or by the named “Trustee.”
  6. the investment bank then fabricated documents that appeared facially valid leading to the false conclusion that the Trust acquired loans, including the Petitioner’s loan. Without assets, this was impossible. None of the documents provided by these parties show any such purchase and sale transaction nor any circumstances in which money exchanged hands, making the Trust the owner of the loans. Hence the Trust certainly does not own the subject loan and has no right to enforce or service the loan without naming an alternative creditor who does have ownership of the debt (the note and mortgage being void for lack of completion of the loan contract) and who has entered into a servicing agreement apart from the Trust documents, which don’t apply because the Trust entity was ignored by the parties seeking now to use it.
  7. The money from investors was diverted from the Trusts who issued the “mortgage backed securities” to what is known as a “dynamic dark pool.” Such a pool is characterized by the inability to select both depositors and beneficiaries of withdrawal. It is dynamic because at all relevant times, money was being deposited and money was being withdrawn, all at the direction of the investment bank.
  8. What was originally perceived as a loan from the originator was in fact something else, although putting a label to it is difficult because of the complexity and convolutions used by the investment bank and all of its conduits and intermediaries. The dark pool was not an entity in any legals sense, although it was under the control of the investment bank.
  9. Hence the real chain of events for the money trail is that the investment bank diverted funds from its propriety trust and used part of the funds from investors to fund residential mortgage loans. The document trail is very different because the originator and the conduits behind what might be claimed a “table funded loan” were not in privity with either the investors or the investment bank. Hence it is clear that some liability arose in which the Petitioner owed somebody money at the time that the Petitioner received money or the benefits of money paid on behalf of the Petitioner. That liability might be framed in equity or at law. But in all events the mortgage or deed of trust was executed by the Petitioner by way of false representations about the identity of the lender and false representations regarding the compensation received by all parties, named or not,
  10. The current parties seek to enforce the deed of trust on the false premise that they have derived ownership of the debt, loan, note or mortgage (deed of trust). Their chain is wholly dependent upon whether the originator actually completed the loan contract by loaning the money to the Petitioner. That did not happen; thus the various illusions created by endorsements and assignments convey nothign because the note and mortgage (deed of trust) were in fact void. They were void because the debt was never owned by the originator. hence the signing of the note makes it impossible to merge the debt with the note — an essential part of making the note a legally enforceable negotiable instrument. The mortgage securing performance under the note is equally void since it secures performance of a void instrument. Hence the property is unsecured, even if there is a “John Doe” liability for unjust enrichment, if the creditor can be identified.
  11. The entire thrust of the claims of certain self-proclaimed creditors rests upon reliance on legal presumptions attached to facially valid documents. These same entities have been repeatedly sanctioned, fined and ordered to correct their foreclosure procedures which they have failed and refused to do — because the current process is designed to compound the original theft of investors’ money with the current theft of the debt itself and the subsequent theft of the house, free from claims of either the investors or the homeowner. The investment bank and the myriad of entities that are circulated as if they had powers or rights over the loan, is seeking in this case, as in all other cases in which it has been involved, to get a court judgment or any order that says they own the debt and have the right to enforce the evidence of the debt (note and mortgage).
  12. A Judgment or forced sale is the first legal document in their entire chain of fabricated documentation; but the entry of such a document in public records, creates the presumption, perhaps the conclusive presumption that all prior acts were valid. It is the first document that actually has a legal basis for being in existence. This explains the sharp decline in “workouts’ which have dominated the handling of distressed properties for centuries. Workouts don’t solve the problem for those who have been acting illegally. They must pursue a court order or judgment that appears to ratify all prior activities, legal or not.

 

Expert Declarations, Affidavits and Testimony

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Call 202-838-6345 for consult

https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.

 

 

Florida FCCPA Has Teeth

The FCCPA is one of those statutes that are often missed opportunities to hold the banks and servicers accountable for illegal conduct. It is like “Mail Fraud” which only applies to US Postal Services (the reason why servicers prefer to communicate through Fedex or other private mail carriers.

REMEMBER THE ONE YEAR STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS. THE TIME RUNS FROM EACH NEW ACT PROHIBITED BY THE STATUTES.

Some of the prohibited practices are self explanatory. But others deserve comment and guidance:

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

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§559.72(5): Disclosure of alleged debt. This could be one of the grounds for an FCCPA action. If you accept the premise that in most cases the disclosing party has neither ownership nor authorization over the alleged debt, then it would follow that reporting to third parties about the debt would illegal under this section. This is escalated in the event that the “debt” (i.e., a description of a liability owed by A to B) does not exist. B may not be the creditor. Neither B nor any successor or other third party would be acting appropriately if they communicated with each other if neither “successors” nor B had any ownership or authority over the liability of A.
§559.72(6): Failure to disclose to third party that debtor disputes the debt. The catch here is “reasonably disputed.” But as you look at an increasing number of case decisions Judges are finding an absence of evidence supporting the claims of banks and servicers. After a failed attempt t foreclosure, it might be reasonably presumed that the debtor/homeowner was reasonably disputing the debt. After all he/she won the case.
§559.72(9): Enforcing an illegitimate debt. This one is self evident and yet it forms the basic structure and strategy of the banks and servicers. Perhaps my labeling is too narrow. The facts are that (A) alleged REMIC Trusts are making completely false claims about the Mortgage Loan Schedule and (B) banks and servicers are directly making false claims without the charade of the alleged trusts. This one has traction.
§559.72(15): Improper identification of the debt collector. My reasoning is that when the debt collector calls and says they are the servicer for the creditor, this section is being violated and the breach interferes with the HAMP and other loan modification programs. It is a pretty serious breach designed to lure the homeowner into foreclosure. Continued correspondence with the false servicer and the  false or undisclosed creditor probably doesn’t waive anything but it does given them an argument that you never objected. So my suggestion is that homeowners and their attorneys object to all such communications until they provide adequate evidence that they can identify the creditor (with evidence that can be confirmed) and adequate evidence that the creditor has indeed selected the debt collector as the servicer. My thinking is that as soon as they refuse to identify the creditor(s) they are in potential violation of this section.
§559.72(18): Communication with person represented by counsel. This is meant to prevent the debt collector from making an end run around the the lawyer. But it does get in the way of efficient communications. The alleged “servicer” starts sending correspondence tot he lawyer thus delaying the response. And the debt collector will call the lawyer to disclose the loan and ask for details about the loan, the property or the alleged debtor that are known only by the homeowner.

Florida Statutes §559.72 Prohibited practices generally.—In collecting consumer debts, no person shall:

(1) Simulate in any manner a law enforcement officer or a representative of any governmental agency.
(2) Use or threaten force or violence.
(3) Tell a debtor who disputes a consumer debt that she or he or any person employing her or him will disclose to another, orally or in writing, directly or indirectly, information affecting the debtor’s reputation for credit worthiness without also informing the debtor that the existence of the dispute will also be disclosed as required by subsection (6).
(4) Communicate or threaten to communicate with a debtor’s employer before obtaining final judgment against the debtor, unless the debtor gives her or his permission in writing to contact her or his employer or acknowledges in writing the existence of the debt after the debt has been placed for collection. However, this does not prohibit a person from telling the debtor that her or his employer will be contacted if a final judgment is obtained.
(5) Disclose to a person other than the debtor or her or his family information affecting the debtor’s reputation, whether or not for credit worthiness, with knowledge or reason to know that the other person does not have a legitimate business need for the information or that the information is false.
(6) Disclose information concerning the existence of a debt known to be reasonably disputed by the debtor without disclosing that fact. If a disclosure is made before such dispute has been asserted and written notice is received from the debtor that any part of the debt is disputed, and if such dispute is reasonable, the person who made the original disclosure must reveal upon the request of the debtor within 30 days the details of the dispute to each person to whom disclosure of the debt without notice of the dispute was made within the preceding 90 days.
(7) Willfully communicate with the debtor or any member of her or his family with such frequency as can reasonably be expected to harass the debtor or her or his family, or willfully engage in other conduct which can reasonably be expected to abuse or harass the debtor or any member of her or his family.
(8) Use profane, obscene, vulgar, or willfully abusive language in communicating with the debtor or any member of her or his family.

(9) Claim, attempt, or threaten to enforce a debt when such person knows that the debt is not legitimate, or assert the existence of some other legal right when such person knows that the right does not exist.

(10) Use a communication that simulates in any manner legal or judicial process or that gives the appearance of being authorized, issued, or approved by a government, governmental agency, or attorney at law, when it is not.
(11) Communicate with a debtor under the guise of an attorney by using the stationery of an attorney or forms or instruments that only attorneys are authorized to prepare.
(12) Orally communicate with a debtor in a manner that gives the false impression or appearance that such person is or is associated with an attorney.
(13) Advertise or threaten to advertise for sale any debt as a means to enforce payment except under court order or when acting as an assignee for the benefit of a creditor.
(14) Publish or post, threaten to publish or post, or cause to be published or posted before the general public individual names or any list of names of debtors, commonly known as a deadbeat list, for the purpose of enforcing or attempting to enforce collection of consumer debts.

(15) Refuse to provide adequate identification of herself or himself or her or his employer or other entity whom she or he represents if requested to do so by a debtor from whom she or he is collecting or attempting to collect a consumer debt.

(16) Mail any communication to a debtor in an envelope or postcard with words typed, written, or printed on the outside of the envelope or postcard calculated to embarrass the debtor. An example of this would be an envelope addressed to “Deadbeat, Jane Doe” or “Deadbeat, John Doe.”
(17) Communicate with the debtor between the hours of 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. in the debtor’s time zone without the prior consent of the debtor.

(a) The person may presume that the time a telephone call is received conforms to the local time zone assigned to the area code of the number called, unless the person reasonably believes that the debtor’s telephone is located in a different time zone.
(b) If, such as with toll-free numbers, an area code is not assigned to a specific geographic area, the person may presume that the time a telephone call is received conforms to the local time zone of the debtor’s last known place of residence, unless the person reasonably believes that the debtor’s telephone is located in a different time zone.
(18) Communicate with a debtor if the person knows that the debtor is represented by an attorney with respect to such debt and has knowledge of, or can readily ascertain, such attorney’s name and address, unless the debtor’s attorney fails to respond within 30 days to a communication from the person, unless the debtor’s attorney consents to a direct communication with the debtor, or unless the debtor initiates the communication.
(19) Cause a debtor to be charged for communications by concealing the true purpose of the communication, including collect telephone calls and telegram fees.
History.—s. 18, ch. 72-81; s. 3, ch. 76-168; s. 1, ch. 77-457; ss. 1, 6, ch. 81-314; ss. 2, 3, ch. 81-318; ss. 1, 3, ch. 83-265; ss. 7, 13, ch. 93-275; s. 819, ch. 97-103; s. 1, ch. 2001-206; s. 4, ch. 2010
https://www.vcita.com/v/lendinglies to schedule CONSULT, leave message or make payments.

 

CHASE FALSE CLAIMS COMPLAINT REVEALED IN INVESTOR LAWSUIT

This lawsuit reveals a reason for Chase slipping in a new servicer into the chain. Having already discharged or released a loan, the “accounts” were nonetheless transferred or sold in derogation of the rights of investors who had already purchased them from Chase.

Chase decreased its liabilities, increased its revenues, avoided its obligations, and provided little to no relief to consumers.

all loan modification programs must be made available to all borrowers, who may then apply to determine eligibility. Hundreds of thousands of borrowers’ accounts, in the RCV1 system of records, were not considered for all eligible loss mitigation options (even though they could likely have qualified).

Hundreds of thousands of borrowers’ mortgage loan accounts in the RCV1 system of records were not offered and thereby unable to be considered for all eligible loss mitigation options (even though they likely could have qualified)

numerous borrowers, whose 1st mortgages had been sold by Chase to the Relator, had their 1st mortgages liens quietly released.

The Program Guidelines pursuant to the Treasury Directives are cataloged in the MHA Handbook (“Handbook”).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE
STATES OF CALIFORNIA,
DELAWARE, FLORIDA, GEORGIA,
HAWAII, ILLINOIS, INDIANA, IOWA,
MASSACHUSETTS, MINNESOTA,
MONTANA, NEVADA, NEW
HAMPSHIRE, NEW JERSEY, NEW
MEXICO, NEW YORK, NORTH
CAROLINA, RHODE ISLAND,
TENNESSEE, VIRGINIA, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.,

Plaintiffs,

Ex rel. LAURENCE SCHNEIDER,
Plaintiff-Relator,

v.

J.P. MORGAN CHASE BANK,
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, J.P.
MORGAN CHASE & COMPANY; AND
CHASE HOME FINANCE LLC,
Defendants.

Case. No. 1:14-cv-01047-RMC

Judge Rosemary M. Collyer

SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT

<excerpt>

I. INTRODUCTION

A. Defendant’s Fraud

3. Defendant Chase’s fraud arises out of its response to efforts by the United States Government (“Government” or “Federal Government”) and the States (the “States”)1 to remedy the misconduct of Chase and other financial institutions whose actions significantly contributed
to the consumer housing crisis.

4. Defendant’s misconduct resulted in the issuance of improper mortgages, premature and unauthorized foreclosures, violation of service members’ and other homeowners’ rights and protections, the use of false and deceptive affidavits and other documents, and the waste and abuse of taxpayer funds.

Each of the allegations regarding Defendant contained herein applies to instances in which one or more, and in some cases all, of the defendants engaged in the conduct alleged.

5. In March 2012, after a lengthy investigation (in part due to other qui tam
plaintiffs) under the Federal False Claims Act, the Government, along with the States, filed a complaint against Chase and the other banks responsible for the fraudulent and unfair mortgage practices that cost consumers, the Federal Government, and the States tens of billions of dollars. Specifically, the Government alleged that Chase, as well as other financial institutions, engaged in improper practices related to mortgage origination, mortgage servicing, and foreclosures, including, but not limited to, irresponsible and inadequate oversight of the banks’ quality control standards.

6. These improper practices had previously been the focus of several administrative enforcement actions by various government agencies, including but not limited to, the Office of the Controller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve Bank and others. Those enforcement actions
resulted in various other Consent Orders that are still in full force and effect.

7. In April 2012, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia approved a settlement between the Federal Government, the States, the Defendant and four other banks, which resulted in the NMSA. The operative document of this agreement was the Consent Judgment (“Consent Judgment” or “Agreement”). The Consent Judgment contains, among other things, Consumer Relief provisions. The Consumer Relief provisions required Chase to provide over $4 billion in consumer relief to their borrowers. This relief was to be in the form of, among other things, loan forgiveness and refinancing. Under the Consent Judgment, Chase received “credits” towards its Consumer Relief obligations by forgiving or modifying loans it maintained as a result of complying with the procedures and requirements contained in Exhibits D and D-1 of the Consent Judgment.

8. The Consent Judgment also contains Servicing Standards in Exhibit A that were intended to be used as a basis for granting Consumer Relief. The Servicing Standards were tested through various established “Metrics” and were designed to improve upon the lack of quality control and communication with borrowers. Compliance was overseen by an
independent Monitor.

9. The operational framework for the Servicing Standards and Consumer Relief requirements of the NMSA was based on a series of Treasury Directives that were themselves designed as part of the Making Home Affordable (MHA) program. The MHA program was a critical part of the Government’s broad strategy to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, stabilize the country’s housing market, and improve the nation’s economy by setting uniform and industry-wide default servicing protocols, policies and procedures for the distribution of federal and proprietary loan modification programs.

10. Before the Consent Judgment was entered into, Chase sold a significant amount of its mortgage obligations to individual investors. Between 2006 and 2010, the Relator bought the rights to thousands of mortgages owned and serviced by Chase. Unbeknownst to the Relator, these mortgages were saturated with violations of past and present regulations, statutes and other governmental requirements for first and second federally related home mortgage loans.

11. After both the Consent Judgment was signed and the MHA program was in effect, numerous borrowers, whose 2nd lien mortgages had been sold by Chase to the Relator, received debt-forgiveness letters from Chase that were purportedly sent pursuant to the Consent Judgment.

12. Relator, through his contacts at Chase, was made aware that 33,456 letters were sent by Chase on September 13, 2012 to second-lien borrowers. On December 13, 2012 another approximately 10,000 letters were sent, and on January 31, 2013 another approximately 8,000 letters were sent, for a total of over 50,000 debt-forgiveness letters. These letters represented to the recipient borrowers that, pursuant to the terms of the NMSA, the borrowers were discharged from their obligations to make further payments on their mortgages, which Chase stated, it had
forgiven as a “result of a recent mortgage servicing settlement reached with the states and federal government.” None of these borrowers made an application for a loan modification as required by the Consent Judgment. These letters were not individually reviewed by Chase to ensure that Chase actually owned the mortgages or to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the borrower’s information but instead were “robo-signed”; each of the letters sent out was signed by “Patrick
Boyle” who identified himself as a Vice President at Chase.

13. Relator’s experience with Chase’s baseless debt-forgiveness letters was not unique. Several other investors were also affected by Chase choosing to mass mail the “robo-signed” debt-forgiveness letters to thousands of consumers from its system of records in order to earn credits under the terms of the Consent Judgment and to avoid detection of its illegal and
discriminatory loan servicing policies and procedures.

14. In addition to the debt forgiveness letters sent, and after both the Consent Judgment was signed and the MHA program was in effect, numerous borrowers, whose 1st mortgages had been sold by Chase to the Relator, had their 1st mortgages liens quietly released.

15. Relator, through his third party servicer, which was handling normal and customary default mortgage servicing activities, was made aware that several lien releases were filed in the public records on mortgage loans that were owned by Relator in the fall of 2013. Through Relator’s subsequent investigation of the property records for 1st mortgage loans that Chase had previously sold to Relator, scores of additional lien releases were also discovered.

16. During the course of Relator’s investigation of Chase’s servicing practices, he discovered that Chase maintains a large set of loans outside of its primary System of Records (“SOR”), which is known as the Recovery One population (“RCV1” or “RCV1 SOR”). RCV1 was described to the Monitor by Chase as an “application” for loans that had been charged off
but still part of its main SOR. However, once loans had been charged off by Chase, the accuracy and integrity of the information pertaining to the borrowers’ accounts whose loans became part of the RCV1 population was and is fatally and irreparably flawed. Furthermore, the loans in the
RCV1 were not serviced according to the requirements of Federal law, the Consent Judgment, the MHA programs or any of the other consent orders or settlements reached by Chase with any government agency prior to the NMSA.2

17. Chase’s practice of sending unsolicited debt-forgiveness letters to intentionally pre-selected borrowers of valueless loans did not meet the Servicing Standards set out in the Consent Judgment to establish eligibility for credits toward its Consumer Relief obligations. This practice enabled Chase to reduce its cost of complying with the Consent Judgment and MHA program, while at the same time enhancing its own profits through unearned Consumer Relief credits and MHA incentives. Chase sought to take credit for valueless charged-off and third-party owned loans instead of applying the Consumer Relief under the NMSA and MHA2 By letter dated September 16, 2015 to Schneider’s counsel, in reference to Relator’s claim that “Chase concealed from the Monitor and MHA-C both the existence of the RCV1 charged-off and the way those loans were treated for purposes of HAMP solicitations and NMS metrics
testing”, Chase’s counsel stated that “Those allegations are wholly incorrect. Chase repeatedly disclosed the relevant facts to both the Monitor and MHA-C.”

Schneider’s counsel requested that Chase provide all documents demonstrating the “relevant facts” to support Chase’s statement. Chase has refused to provide said documents, citing Chase‘s concerns with providing documents that it had previously provided to the U.S.
Government. While Chase has offered to allow Chase’s counsel to read such documents “verbatim” to Schneider’s counsel, Schneider knows of no supportable reason why documents previously disclosed to the U.S. Government should not be shared with Schneider in his capacity
as a Relator under the FCA. No privilege exists for such a claim and therefore Schneider has rejected this limitation. Such documents, if they in fact exist, should be produced before such a defense can be raised, particularly because Chase’s counsel has raised the issue of Rule 11
responsibilities.

18. The Servicing Standards and the Consumer Relief Requirements of the Consent Judgment are set forth in Exhibits A and D of that document. The Consent Judgment is governed by the underlying Servicer Participation Agreements of the MHA program, which required mandatory compliance with the Treasury Directives under the MHA Handbook (“Handbook”). Chase is required to demonstrate compliance with the Handbook’s guidelines in the form of periodic certifications to the government. Chase ignored the requirements of Exhibits A and D of the Consent Judgment, especially with respect to the RCV1 population of loans. Therefore, Chase has been unable to service with any accuracy the charged-off loans it
owns and to segregate those loans that it no longer owns. As such, any certifications of compliance with the Consent Judgment or the Services Participation Agreement (“SPA”) are false claims.

19. Relator conducted his own investigations and found that the Defendants sent loan forgiveness letters to consumers for mortgages that Chase no longer owns or that were not eligible for forgiveness credit. Further, Chase continues to fail to meet its obligations to service
loans and to prevent blight as required by both the Consent Judgment and SPA. Chase’s intentional failure to monitor, report and/or service these loans, and its issuance of invalid loan forgiveness letters and lien releases, evidence an attempt to thwart the goal of the Consent Judgment and the MHA program. The purpose of this scheme was to quickly satisfy the
Defendant’s Consumer Relief obligations as cheaply as possible, without actually providing the relief that Chase promised in exchange for the settlement that Chase reached with the Federal Government and the States. In addition, Chase applied for and received MHA incentive
payments without complying with the MHA mandatory requirements. In short, Chase decreased its liabilities, increased its revenues, avoided its obligations, and provided little to no relief to consumers.

20. The mere existence of RCV1 makes all claims by Chase that it complied with the Servicing Standards and the Consumer Relief Requirements of the Consent Judgment false. Likewise, the existence of RCV1 makes all claims by Chase that it complied with the SPA of the MHA program false.

B. Damages to the Government Related to the NMSA

21. Exhibit E of the Consent Judgment provides for penalties of up to $5 million for failure to meet a prescribed Metric of the Servicing Standards. Exhibit E, ¶ J.3(b) at E15.

22. Exhibit D of the Consent Judgment provides:

If Servicer fails to meet the commitment set forth in these Consumer Relief Requirements within three years of the Servicer’s Start Date, Servicer shall pay an amount equal to 125% of the unmet commitment amount, except that if Servicer fails to meet the two year commitment noted above, and then fails to meet the three year commitment, the Servicer shall pay an amount equal to 140% of the unmet three-year Commitment amount.

Exhibit D, ¶10.d. at D-11.

23. The required payment set out in Exhibit D, ¶10.d is made either to the United States or the States that are parties to the Consent Judgment. Fifty percent of any payment is distributed to the United States. Consent Judgment, Exhibit E, ¶ J.c.(3)c. at E-16.

24. As explained in more detail below, Chase was required to certify that it was in compliance with the Servicing Standards and the Consumer Relief Requirements. Many, if not all, of the loans that Chase identified for credits against the $4 billion Consumer Relief provisions were not eligible for the credit, because Chase did not comply with the Servicing
Standards or the Consumer Relief Requirements. Specifically, all loan modification programs must be made available to all borrowers, who may then apply to determine eligibility. Hundreds of thousands of borrowers’ accounts, in the RCV1 system of records, were not considered for all eligible loss mitigation options (even though they could likely have qualified). Due to this omission none of the loan modification programs qualified for Consumer Relief Credit. Thus,
Chase did not and does not qualify for any of the Consumer Relief Credit for which it applied.

25. For these reasons, each of Chase’s certifications to the Federal Government of compliance represents a “reverse” false claim to avoid paying money to the Government.

26. Under the FCA a person is liable for penalties and damages who: [k]nowingly makes, uses, or causes to be made or used, a false record or
statement material to an obligation to pay or transmit money or property to the Government, or knowingly conceals or knowingly and improperly avoids or decreases an obligation to pay or transmit money or property to the Government. 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(1)(G).

27. Under the FCA, “the term ‘obligation’ means an established duty, whether or not fixed, arising from an express or implied contractual, grantor-grantee, or licensor-licensee relationship, from a fee-based or similar relationship, from statute or regulation, or from the retention of any overpayment.” 31 U.S.C. § 3729(b)(3).

28. Thus, under the FCA, Chase is liable for its false claims whether or not the government fixed the amount of the obligation owed by Chase.

29. Under the FCA, “the term ‘material’ means having a natural tendency to influence, or be capable of influencing, the payment or receipt of money or property.” U.S.C. § 3729(b)(3).

30. Under the “natural tendency” test Chase is liable for its false statements so long as they reasonably could have influenced the government’s payment or collection of money. A statement is false if it is capable of influencing the government’s funding decision, not whether it
actually influenced the government.

31. Each of Chase’s false certifications is actionable under 31 U.S.C. §
3729(a)(1)(G), because they represent a false record or statement that concealed, avoided or decreased an obligation to transmit money to the Government.

32. The Federal Government and the States agreed to the NMSA with Chase, with the understanding that Chase would meet its obligations under the Consent Judgment.

33. As set out in the Consumer Relief Requirements, the measure of the Federal and State Governments’ damages is up to 140 percent of the credits that Chase falsely claimed met the requirements of the Consent Judgment and up to $5 million for each Metric the Chase failed
to meet.

34. These damages are recoverable under the Federal Civil False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729 et seq. (the “FCA”), and similar provisions of the State False Claims Acts of the States of California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina,
Rhode Island, Tennessee, the Commonwealths of Massachusetts and Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

35. The Federal Government and the States are now harmed because they are not receiving the benefit of the bargain for which they negotiated with Chase due to the false claims for credit that have been made by the Defendant.

C. Damages to the Government Related to the HAMP

36. The Amended and Restated Commitment to Purchase Financial Instrument and Servicer Participation Agreement between the United States Government and Chase provided for the implementation of loan modification and foreclosure prevention services (“HAMP
Services”).

37. The value of Chase’s SPA was limited to $4,532,750,000 (“Program Participation Cap”).

38. The value of EMC Mortgage Corporation’s (“EMC”) SPA (Chase is successor in interest) was limited to $1,237,510,000.

39. As explained in more detail below, Chase must certify that it is in compliance with the SPA and the MHA program and must strictly adhere to the guidelines and procedures issued by the Treasury with respect to the programs outlined in the Service Schedules (“Program Guidelines”). The Program Guidelines pursuant to the Treasury Directives are cataloged in the MHA Handbook (“Handbook”). None of the loans that Chase and EMC identified and submitted for payment against their respective Participation Caps were eligible for the incentive payment, because neither Chase nor EMC complied with the SPA and Handbook guidelines. Specifically, all loan modification programs must be made available to all borrowers, who must then apply to determine eligibility. Hundreds of thousands of borrowers’ mortgage loan accounts in the RCV1 system of records were not offered and thereby unable to be considered for all eligible loss mitigation options (even though they likely could have qualified). Due to the omission of the RCV1 population for any loss mitigation options, none of the modifications that Chase provided qualified for HAMP incentives. Thus, Chase does not qualify for any of the
HAMP incentives for which it applied and received funds.
40. Therefore, Chase’s certifications of compliance and its creation of records to support those certifications represent both the knowing presentation of false or fraudulent claims for a payment and the knowing use of false records material to false or fraudulent claims.

41. Under the FCA, a person is liable for penalties and damages who:

(A) knowingly presents, or causes to be presented, a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval; 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(1)(A)
and
(B) knowingly makes, uses, or causes to be made or used, a false record or
statement material to a false or fraudulent claim. 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(1)(G).

42. Each of Chase’s false certifications is actionable under either 31 U.S.C. §3729(a)(1)(A) and (B), because they represent a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval of a false record or statement material to a false or fraudulent claim.
43. Under HAMP, the Federal Government entered into the Commitment with Chase, with the understanding that Chase would meet its obligations under the SPA and related Treasury directives. The Federal Government is now harmed because it is not receiving the benefit of the bargain for which it negotiated with Chase due to the false claims for payment that have been made by the Defendant.

Problems with Lehman and Aurora

Lehman had nothing to do with the loan even at the beginning when the loan was funded, it acted as a conduit for investor funds that were being misappropriated, the loan was “sold” or “transferred” to a REMIC Trust, and the assets of Lehman were put into a bankruptcy estate as a matter of law.

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

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I keep receiving the same question from multiple sources about the loans “originated” by Lehman, MERS involvement, and Aurora. Here is my short answer:
 *

Yes it means that technically the mortgage and note went in two different directions. BUT in nearly all courts of law the Judge overlooks this problem despite clear law to the contrary in Florida Statutes adopting the UCC.

The stamped endorsement at closing indicates that the loan was pre-sold to Lehman in an Assignment and Assumption Agreement (AAA)— which is basically a contract that violates public policy. It violates public policy because it withholds the name of the lender — a basic disclosure contained in the Truth in Lending Act in order to make certain that the borrower knows with whom he is expected to do business.

 *
Choice of lender is one of the fundamental requirements of TILA. For the past 20 years virtually everyone in the “lending chain” violated this basic principal of public policy and law. That includes originators, MERS, mortgage brokers, closing agents (to the extent they were actually aware of the switch), Trusts, Trustees, Master Servicers (were in most cases the underwriter of the nonexistent “Trust”) et al.
 *
The AAA also requires withholding the name of the conduit (Lehman). This means it was a table funded loan on steroids. That is ruled as a matter of law to be “predatory per se” by Reg Z.  It allows Lehman, as a conduit, to immediately receive “ownership” of the note and mortgage (or its designated nominee/agent MERS).
 *

Lehman was using funds from investors to fund the loan — a direct violation of (a) what they told investors, who thought their money was going into a trust for management and (b) what they told the court, was that they were the lender. In other words the funding of the loan is the point in time when Lehman converted (stole) the funds of the investors.

Knowing Lehman practices at the time, it is virtually certain that the loan was immediately subject to CLAIMS of securitization. The hidden problem is that the claims from the REMIC Trust were not true. The trust having never been funded, never purchased the loan.

*

The second hidden problem is that the Lehman bankruptcy would have put the loan into the bankruptcy estate. So regardless of whether the loan was already “sold” into the secondary market for securitization or “transferred” to a REMIC trust or it was in fact owned by Lehman after the bankruptcy, there can be no valid document or instrument executed by Lehman after that time (either the date of “closing” or the date of bankruptcy, 2008).

*

The reason is simple — Lehman had nothing to do with the loan even at the beginning when the loan was funded, it acted as a conduit for investor funds that were being misappropriated, the loan was “sold” or “transferred” to a REMIC Trust, and the assets of Lehman were put into a bankruptcy estate as a matter of law.

*

The problems are further compounded by the fact that the “servicer” (Aurora) now claims alternatively that it is either the owner or servicer of the loan or both. Aurora was basically a controlled entity of Lehman.

It is impossible to fund a trust that claims the loan because that “reporting” process was controlled by Lehman and then Aurora.

*

So they could say whatever they wanted to MERS and to the world. At one time there probably was a trust named as owner of the loan but that data has long since been erased unless it can be recovered from the MERS archives.

*

Now we have an emerging further complicating issue. Fannie claims it owns the loan, also a claim that is untrue like all the other claims. Fannie is not a lender. Fannie acts a guarantor or Master trustee of REMIC Trusts. It generally uses the mortgage bonds issued by the REMIC trust to “purchase” the loans. But those bonds were worthless because the Trust never received the proceeds of sale of the mortgage bonds to investors. Thus it had no ability to purchase loan because it had no money, business or other assets.

But in 2008-2009 the government funded the cash purchase of the loans by Fannie and Freddie while the Federal Reserve outright paid cash for the mortgage bonds, which they purchased from the banks.

The problem with that scenario is that the banks did not own the loans and did not own the bonds. Yet the banks were the “sellers.” So my conclusion is that the emergence of Fannie is just one more layer of confusion being added to an already convoluted scheme and the Judge will be looking for a way to “simplify” it thus raising the danger that the Judge will ignore the parts of the chain that are clearly broken.

Bottom Line: it was the investors funds that were used to fund loans — but only part of the investors funds went to loans. The rest went into the pocket of the underwriter (investment bank) as was recorded either as fees or “trading profits” from a trading desk that was performing nonexistent sales to nonexistent trusts of nonexistent loan contracts.

The essential legal problem is this: the investors involuntarily made loans without representation at closing. Hence no loan contract was ever formed to protect them. The parties in between were all acting as though the loan contract existed and reflected the intent of both the borrower and the “lender” investors.

The solution is for investors to fire the intermediaries and create their own and then approach the borrowers who in most cases would be happy to execute a real mortgage and note. This would fix the amount of damages to be recovered from the investment bankers. And it would stop the hemorrhaging of value from what should be (but isn’t) a secured asset. And of course it would end the foreclosure nightmare where those intermediaries are stealing both the debt and the property of others with whom thye have no contract.

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