Florida Appellate Courts Are Getting It — and so is everyone else

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Neil Garfield

COMBO Title and Securitization Search, Report, Documents, Analysis & Commentary COMBO Title and Securitization Search, Report, Documents, Analysis & Commentary

LIVINGLIES BLOG

41737977-Servedio-v-Us-Bank

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EDITOR’S COMMENT: It all comes down to “black letter law.” None of this is new. It’s just that the pretender lenders thought they could side-step the process by making it LOOK like they were complying with the law. The failure to comply is not just indicative that they tried to short-cut the process like many people are saying in the media.

  • That would mean that they actually DO “own and hold and the note,”
  • that they COULD “tender the original promissory note to the trial court,” or
  • that they COULD prove a case to “re-establish the lost note under [Florida] State statute [673.3091].
  • It would also mean that they could show and prove that the original note was payable to the would-be forecloser OR
  • that the note had a special indorsement in favor of the forecloser
  • [OR, if it isn’t subject to the restrictions against blank indorsements in the securitization documents, that they had a blank indorsement.
  • In the securitization environment it would mean that they could show and prove that the would-be forecloser was the assignee of an assignment “from the payee to the plaintiff”
  • OR in a motion for summary judgment that is unopposed (no questions of fact in dispute) that they have an affidavit from a competent witness to prove the would-be forecloser is the owner and holder of the note.

There are several common-sense presumptions behind each one of these black letter law requirements. This isn’t technical stuff. It is substantive. If the party seeking foreclosure is not the creditor and doesn’t lawfully hold and own the note then THEY can’t foreclose no matter when the last payment was received from anyone including but not limited to the borrower, third party co-obligors set up in the securitization documents or government bailouts. If the loan is subject to foreclosure it can ONLY be by a party fitting the above description as stated in the above case in a per curium (unanimous) opinion of the appellate panel. The reason is not just that we have rules and you can’t pick and choose which rules you will follow and which you can’t.

The reason is that in foreclosure there is a change of ownership and title to the property. Any subsequent party, innocent or otherwise, must know with certainty that if they buy that property or lend money using that property as collateral, that the title is clear, marketable and free from any cloud or defect. Without that certainty, commerce comes to a virtual standstill. Not only would real estate transactions be thrown into chaos, but the principles behind the requirements for foreclosure also are applied to any other debt or the transfer of anything else, tangible or intangible. So if ANY court allows for even the possibility that disinterested parties could legally intervene in the chain without proving their right to do so, all of commerce comes to a halt.

Which brings us to my final point in this article: in the context of securitization, there is no such proof. That’s why they are faking it. If they had it, they would show it. The reason they don’t have it is that it never existed. What they want the courts to do NOW is to allow them to substitute fiction for fact. They want courts to allow them to submit either fake documents or documents that have no legal effect. The basic problem they have is that the evidence of transfers and change of ownership of the note does not reflect the original liability of the borrower nor the existence of the original real creditor. The original payee was not the lender. Thus the mortgage or deed of trust secures a note that is invalid. They can’t bring a legal action to modify the note to reflect the real lender because that would be admitting that they ever made the proper disclosures required under federal (TILA) and state lending laws.

The ONLY way they can correct the title problem, the chain of ownership problem (title and obligation) is by getting BOTH real parties in interest to agree and sign something ratifying such an arrangement or by getting a court to issue a judgment cramming such an arrangement down the throats of investors and borrowers alike. Since their problem is that the property was never worth what was represented and the loan terms, now revealed in all their glory, are not viable, it is impossible to imagine that the investors would agree to anything other than getting their money back or that the borrowers would agree to anything other than a correction of the terms and principal of the obligation to reflect the true value of the property and the losses incurred between the time of closing and the present time.

As brilliant as some of the schemers are, they based their entire framework on a completely unworkable presumption and thought they had the “risk” problem solved. Now Wall Street finds itself the cowardly owner of the risk — because they tried to split the obligation, note and mortgage each from the others in such a complex way, with repeated iterations of “assignment” of receivables that it is in reality not possible to correct in the real world. They convinced the government to be the lender of last resort when the crisis started, but now the FED is asking for its money back , as are the investors. The borrowers are filing individual and class action suits, and the opinions from the bench are turning against Wall Street in strong, angry language from the bench.

Every day it gets worse for Wall Street’s prospects. All eyes are on Wall Street and how they could survive. The answer is that Wall Street will survive because there are hundreds of investment banking firms that would be only too happy to fill the void left by the resolution of the megabanks. There are 7,000 community banks and credit unions, many with assets in the tens of billions, that could and would easily fill the retail banking void. The electronic funds transfer backbone already exists and is in use in all of these firms and banks.

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“It is the culmination of the worst civil procedure nightmare we’ve ever imagined,” said Anne L. Weintraub, a real estate attorney at Sarasota’s Syprett Meshad law firm, referring to the recent appellate rulings.

From Stopforeclosurefraud.com

florida-ruling-might-further-complicate-loan-crisis

RULING MAY COMPLICATE LOAN CRISIS

Ruling might further complicate loan crisis

Published: Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, November 8, 2010 at 10:04 p.m.
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( page of 4 )

Appellate courts in Tallahassee and West Palm Beach have admonished lower courts for allowing foreclosures to proceed without the proper paperwork and kicked the cases back to circuit judges in a move some experts say could further complicate the foreclosure crisis.

At issue is the use of sworn affidavits that convinced circuit judges the borrower’s original promissory note had been lost in the shuffle but that the lender still had a right to foreclose. Experts likened it to a used car dealer selling a vehicle using a photocopy of the title.

Circuit court judges have been using such promises to issue summary judgments, which have sped cases along at a time when the courts have been inundated.

Observers say the rulings from the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee and the 4th District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach could become templates for more challenges.

It is unclear just how many cases could be affected — the chief judge in this region’s circuit says foreclosure paperwork is carefully scrutinized by teams of case managers — but the rulings come as the system already is dealing with disruptions from self-imposed bank moratoriums to deal with questionable paperwork.

“It is the culmination of the worst civil procedure nightmare we’ve ever imagined,” said Anne L. Weintraub, a real estate attorney at Sarasota’s Syprett Meshad law firm, referring to the recent appellate rulings.

What happens next could have widespread implications for the more than 200,000 Floridians who have lost their homes to foreclosure since January 2007, including the more than 12,000 in Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments »

YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO CASH PAYMENT FOR WRONGFUL FORECLOSURE — Coming to a Billboard Near YOU

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Neil Garfield

SERVICES YOU NEED

EDITOR’S NOTE: Well it has finally happened. Three years ago I couldn’t get a single lawyer anywhere to consider this line of work. I predicted that this area of expertise in their practice would dwarf anything they were currently doing including personal injury and malpractice. I even tried to guarantee fees to lawyers and they wouldn’t take it. Now there are hundreds, if not thousands of lawyers who are either practicing in this field or are about to take the plunge. The early adopters who attended my workshops and read my materials, workbooks and bought the DVD’s are making some serious money and have positioned themselves perfectly ahead of the crowd.

Congratulations, everyone, it was the readers who made this happen. Without your support I would not have been able to reach the many thousands of homeowners and lawyers and government officials whoa re now turning the corner in their understanding of this mess and their willingness to do something about it.

The article below from Streitfeld sounds like it was written by me. No attribution though. No matter. The message is out. The foreclosures were and are wrongful, illegal, immoral and the opposite of any notion we have of justice. They were dressed up to look right and they got way with it for years because so many homeowners simply gave up convinced they had only to blame themselves for getting into a raw deal. Those homeowners who gave up were wrong and now they will find themselves approached by lawyers who will promise them return of the house they lost or damages for the wrongful foreclosure. When you left, you thought your loan had not been paid and that the notice you received was legitimate. You were wrong on both counts. The loan had been paid, there were other people who had signed up for liability along with you to justify the price on steroids that was sold to your lender (investor).

For those who are just catching up, here it is in a nutshell: Borrower signs a note to ABC Corp., which says it is the lender but isn’t. So you start right away with the wrong party named on the note and mortgage (deed of trust) PLUS the use of a meaningless nominee on the mortgage (deed of trust) which completely invalidates the documents and clouds the title. Meanwhile the lender gets a mortgage bond NOT SIGNED BY THE BORROWER. The bond says that this new “entity” (which usually they never bothered to actually form) will pay them from “receivables.” The receivables include but ARE NOT LIMITED TO the payments from the borrower who accepted funding of a loan. These other parties are there to justify the fact that the loan was sold at a huge premium to the lender without disclosure to either the borrower or the lender. (The tier 2 Yield Spread Premium that raises some really juicy causes of action under TILA, RESPA and the 10b-5 actions, including treble damages, attorney fees and restitution).

And and by the way for the more sophisticated lawyers, now would be the time to sharpen up your defense skills and your knowledge of administrative laws. Hundreds of thousands of disciplinary actions are going to filed against the professionally licensed people who attended the borrower’s “closing” and who attended the closing with the “lender.” With their livelihood at stake, their current arrogance will morph into abject fear. Here is your line when you quote them fees: “Remember that rainy day you were saving up for? Well, it’s raining!” Many lawyers and homeowners are going to realize that they have easy pickings when they bring administrative grievances in quasi criminal proceedings (don’t threaten it, that’s a crime, just do it) which results in restitution funded by the professional liability insurer. careful about the way you word the grievance. Don’t go overboard or else the insurance carrier will deny coverage based upon the allegation of an intentional act. You want to allege gross negligence.

EVERYBODY in the securitization structure gets paid premium money to keep their mouth shut and money changes hands faster than one of those street guys who moves shells or cards around on a table. Yes everyone gets paid — except the borrower who never got the benefit of his the bargain he signed up for — a home worth whatever they said it was worth at closing. It wasn’t worth that and it will never be worth that and everyone except the borrower knew it with the possible exception of some lenders who didn’t care because the other people who the borrower knew nothing about, had “guaranteed” the value of the lender’s investment and minimized the risk to the level of “cash equivalent” AAA-rated.

The securitization “partners” did not dot their “i’s” nor cross their “t’s.” And that is what the article below is about. But they failed to do that for a reason. They didn’t care about the documents because they never had any intention of using them anyway. It was all a scam cleverly disguised as a legitimate part of the home mortgage industry. It was instead a Ponzi scheme without any of the attributes of real appraisals, real underwriting reviews and committees and decisions. They bought the signature of the borrowers by promising the moon and they sold the apparent existence of signature (which in many cases) did not even exist) to Lenders by promising the stars.

And now, like it wasn’t news three years ago when we first brought it up, suddenly mainstream media is picking up the possibility that  the foreclosures were all fraudulent also. The pretender lenders were intentionally and knowingly misrepresenting themselves as lenders in order to grab property that didn’t belong to them and to which they had no rights — to the detriment of both the borrowers and the lenders. And some judges, government officials and even lawyers appear to be surprised by that, are you?

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GMAC’s Errors Leave Foreclosures in Question

By DAVID STREITFELD

The recent admission by a major mortgage lender that it had filed dubious foreclosure documents is likely to fuel a furor against hasty foreclosures, which have prompted complaints nationwide since housing prices collapsed.

Lawyers for distressed homeowners and law enforcement officials in several states on Friday seized on revelations by GMAC Mortgage, the country’s fourth-largest home loan lender, that it had violated legal rules in its rush to file many foreclosures as quickly as possible.

Attorneys general in Iowa and North Carolina said they were beginning separate investigations of the lender, and the attorney general in California directed the company to suspend all foreclosures in that state until it “proves that it’s following the letter of the law.”

The federal government, which became the majority owner of GMAC after supplying $17 billion to prevent the lender’s failure, said Friday that it had told the company to clean up its act.

Florida lawyers representing borrowers in default said they would start filing motions as early as next week to have hundreds of foreclosure actions dismissed.

While GMAC is the first big lender to publicly acknowledge that its practices might have been improper, defense lawyers and consumer advocates have long argued that numerous lenders have used inaccurate or incomplete documents to remove delinquent owners from their houses.

The issue has broad consequences for the millions of buyers of foreclosed homes, some of whom might not have clear title to their bargain property. And it may offer unforeseen opportunities for those who were evicted.

“You know those billboards that lawyers put up seeking divorcing or bankrupt clients?” asked Greg Clark, a Florida real estate lawyer. “It’s only a matter of time until they start putting up signs that say, ‘You might be entitled to cash payment for wrongful foreclosure.’ ”

The furor has already begun in Florida, which is one of the 23 states where foreclosures must be approved by courts. Nearly half a million foreclosures are in the Florida courts, overwhelming the system.

J. Thomas McGrady, chief judge in the foreclosure hotbed of St. Petersburg, said the problems went far beyond GMAC. Four major law firms doing foreclosures for lenders are under investigation by the Florida attorney general.

“Some of what the lenders are submitting in court is incompetent, some is just sloppy,” said Judge McGrady of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in Clearwater, Fla. “And somewhere in there could be a fraudulent element.”

In many cases, the defaulting homeowners do not hire lawyers, making problems generated by the lenders hard to detect.

“Documents are submitted, and there’s no one to really contest whether it is accurate or not,” the judge said. “We have an affidavit that says it is, so we rely on that. But then later we may find out that someone lost their home when they shouldn’t have. We don’t like that.”

GMAC, which is based in Detroit and is now a subsidiary of Ally Financial, first put the spotlight on its procedures when it told real estate agents and brokers last week that it was immediately and indefinitely stopping all evictions and sales of foreclosed property in the states — generally on the East Coast and in the Midwest — where foreclosures must be approved by courts.

That was a highly unusual move. So was the lender’s simultaneous withdrawal of important affidavits in pending cases. The affidavits were sworn statements by GMAC officials that they had personal knowledge of the foreclosure documents.

The company played down its actions, saying the defects in its foreclosure filings were “technical.” It has declined to say how many cases might be affected.

A GMAC spokeswoman also declined to say Friday whether the company would stop foreclosures in California as the attorney general, Jerry Brown, demanded. Foreclosures in California are not judicial.

GMAC’s vague explanations have been little comfort to some states.

“We cannot allow companies to systematically flout the rules of civil procedure,” said one of Iowa’s assistant attorneys general, Patrick Madigan. “They’re either going to have to hire more people or the foreclosure process is going to have to slow down.”

GMAC began as the auto financing arm of General Motors. During the housing boom, it made a heavy bet on subprime borrowers, giving loans to many people who could not afford a house.

“We have discussed the current situation with GMAC and expect them to take prompt action to correct any errors,” said Mark Paustenbach, a spokesman for the Treasury Department.

GMAC appears to have been forced to reveal its problems in the wake of several depositions given by Jeffrey Stephan, the team leader of the document execution unit in the lender’s Fort Washington, Pa., offices.

Mr. Stephan, 41, said in one deposition that he signed as many as 10,000 affidavits and other foreclosure documents a month; in another he said it was 6,000 to 8,000.

The affidavits state that Mr. Stephan, in his capacity as limited signing officer for GMAC, had examined “all books, records and documents” involved in the foreclosure and that he had “personal knowledge” of the relevant facts.

In the depositions, Mr. Stephan said he did not do this.

In a June deposition, a lawyer representing a foreclosed household put it directly: “So other than the due date and the balances due, is it correct that you do not know whether any other part of the affidavit that you sign is true?”

“That could be correct,” Mr. Stephan replied.

Mr. Stephan also said in depositions that his signature had not been notarized when he wrote it, but only later, or even the next day.

GMAC said Mr. Stephan was not available for an interview. The lender said its “failures” did not “reflect any disrespect for our courts or the judicial processes.”

Margery Golant, a Boca Raton, Fla., foreclosure defense lawyer, said GMAC “has cracked open the door.”

“Judges used to look at us strangely when we tried to tell them all these major financial institutions are lying,” said Ms. Golant, a former associate general counsel for the lender Ocwen Financial.

Her assistants were reviewing all of the law firm’s cases Friday to see whether GMAC had been involved. “Lawyers all over Florida and I’m sure all over the country are drafting pleadings,” she said. “We’ll file motions for sanctions and motions to dismiss the case for fraud on the court.”

For homeowners in foreclosure, the admissions by GMAC are bringing hope for resolution.

One such homeowner is John Turner, a commercial airline pilot based near Detroit. Three years ago he bought a Florida condo, thinking he would move down there with a girlfriend. The relationship fizzled, his finances dwindled, and the place went into foreclosure.

GMAC called several times a week, seeking its $195,000. Mr. Turner says he tried to meet the lender halfway but failed. Last week it put his case in limbo by withdrawing the affidavit.

“We should be able to come to an agreement that’s beneficial to both of us,” Mr. Turner said. “I feel like I’m due something.”

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 62 Comments »

Follow the Trail —Don’t get lost in the documents

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Neil Garfield

I THOUGHT THIS COMMENT WAS WORTHY OF MAKING INTO A POST.

See for Deutsch bank references Prospectus offered all over the world: Anyone who had a Deed of Trust with: Indymac, Wells Fargo, Countrywide, GMAC, Ocwen, American Home, Residential Funding Company, Washington Mutual Bank, BofA, and many others you might want to check this link out. SHARPS%20CDO%20II_16.08.07_9347

Editor’s Note: The only thing I would add is that the obligation arose when the borrower executed a note, but the creditor got a securitized bond with different terms, deriving its value from your note and thousands of others. Once you realize that the obligation is NOT the same as the Note, which is only EVIDENCE of the obligation, and that the MORTGAGE is NOT the obligation, it is only incident to the note, THEN you will understand that following the money means following the obligation, not the note or the mortgage. And figuring out what effect there was on the obligation at each step that the note was transferred, bought or paid, is the key to understanding whether the note became a negotiable instrument, and if it did, if it retained that status as a negotiable instrument.

FROM Jan van Eck

to foreclosurefight:

What you are missing in your attempt to analyze this is that you are trying to follow the “mortgage,” not the Note. the reason you are doing this is that only the “mortgage,” as the Security Instrument, is being recorded on the land records – so it is all you get to see.

the reason your adversaries, whoever they really are, “withdrew” from the relief from Stay Motion in the BK Court is that they do not have the Note. Somebody else does. And you have no clue as to who that is.

You have to start by determining what has happened to the Note, and how the Indorsements on the Note flow. And you have not seen the Note, not in years, so the raw truth is that you have no clue.

the “mortgage” never went into any “Trust.” Mortgages do not go into trusts. Only the Note (“maybe”) went into a trust – and only if it had proper Indorsement. Since Deutsche is involved, you can safely bet that it did not. Deutsche is NOTORIOUS for perpetrating fraud on the Courts and by fabricating documents. You may assume that EVERYTHING that Deutsche shows up with is a fraud, and has been fraudulently fabricated, typically in their offices on Liberty Street in Downtown Manhattan NY.

What is missing in your convoluted chain of title is that there was a ton of other parties involved in setting up that “Trust”, including some Delaware sham entity known as the “Depositor,” and then another sham known as the “Seller,” and more. When you burrow through that Prospectus you will find those entities listed. Now you have to dig out the Note, and find if those entities are individually and sequentially listed on the Note by consecutive Indorsements. Since Deutsche had their sticky fingers in the pie, you already know that they did not.

What State are you in? Yes, you need new counsel. You should never have gotten into this with old counsel.

You can still defeat them, but you probably will have to go file in District (Federal ) Court. You will have to sue Deutsche. Think in terms of suing them in the USDC for the Sou.Distr. NY, in White Plains, NY. Now you are not tangled up in the State-Fed politics of your local judges.

You cannot ask for Quiet title as you are asking for that in the State Court. You have to go in with entirely new grounds or they will not hear your case. So you sue them for fraud in interstate commerce. Try the “Commerce Clause” in the US Constitution (Amendment 16? I forget), to try to get “jurisdiction.” You get “venue” easily as Deutsche Bank is in NY. You do not need to show up; you just file and do your papers by mail. If yo ask for enough money, e.g. 40 million, then DB has something to start worrying about.

Right now, DB has no downside. If they lose, all they lose is some paper on some worthless piece of property in some state that is flooded with empty foreclosed houses that nobody can sell. So what do they care? DB probably does not even know or care that your lawsuit is going on; you are just dealing with lawyers that are running up their tab with DB, and DB has so many tabs that they do not try to keep track of it all. So you have to expose them to some serious hurt. A gigantic lawsuit is a good place to start.

You may assume that everything DB and those attys produce is utterly fraudulent. I have seen documents produced where the entire Trust Agreement was fabricated, and notarized by a notary who did not even get his first commission until two years after he swore that the parties were standing in front of him. Welcome to Wall Street banks – the international predator banks.

Besides Deutsche, Credit Suisse is also notorious for this type of flagrant fraud upon our Courts.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 25 Comments »

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