Flint sends foreclosure notices to 8,000 residents who refused to pay for contaminated water

The ongoing saga of lead-contaminated water in Flint, Michigan, got yet another layer on May 4, when 8,002 residents received foreclosure notices for failure to pay their water bills, according to the Washington Post.

The notices came a few weeks after the city ended a program that assisted residents in paying bills for their contaminated water.

According to letters like this one sent to a local news station, residents will have until February 2018 to pay their past due water bills, but many refuse to pay for water that they believe remains contaminated. There have been a dozen deaths in Flint from Legionnaire’s disease believed to be caused by the contaminated water, in addition to dozens more linked to pneumonia outbreaks that experts believe was cause by the contamination, as well.

Melissa Mays, one of the main plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit that motivated the city to begin replacing the lead pipes contaminating the water supply earlier this year, told the Toronto Star in March, “we just don’t want to pay to have ourselves killed.” Mays, along with thousands of her neighbors, are now facing foreclosure, and told The Week that she plans on paying her $900 bill to avoid foreclosure.

“While I understand this is the way the law reads, we are in a totally different situation,” Mays said.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/flint-sends-foreclosure-notices-to-8000-residents-who-refused-to-pay-for-contaminated-water/

 

Michigan Appellate Court Dismisses BOA Foreclosure for Lack of Standing — but for the wrong reason?

CHASE-WAMU MERGER CONSIDERED IN MICHIGAN COURT OF APPEALS AS NOT AN ASSIGNMENT.  BOA FORECLOSURE DISMISSED AND REMANDED FOR LACK OF STANDING.

And next is an interesting favorable decision in the State of Michigan entered June 6, 2013 but not yet published. Sobh-v-Bof-A, Chase et al

Bank of America was found to LACK STANDING to Foreclose. So far so good. But the reasoning of the Court leads me to question whether the right record was in front of them. They ASSUME that the Chase-Wamu merger transferred the loans only because, as I see it, nobody read the merger agreement. The receiver, as I pointed out in prior posts, acting on behalf of the FDIC, the trustee in WAMU bankruptcy, Chase and WAMU executives were sort of playing fast and loose with the rules.

It turns out that Chase never paid for anything. While it could be argued that they assumed the liability on billions of dollars in deposits, they also got the money that was on deposit. The agreement says the consideration is zero in no uncertain language. In fact, later on in the agreement and then again outside the agreement, they slipped in a provision wherein Chase was putting up $1.9 billion, but getting more than $2 billion back out of a tax refund owed to WAMU, so they had negative consideration and there is no recital of any net loss they were taking when they assumed the deposits of WAMU.

It also turns out that, straight from the receiver’s lips, if you are looking for an assignment, you won’t find one because there isn’t one. And the merger and assumption agreement specifically does NOT include the bogus mortgage loans and other liabilities (put back) in the securitization scheme which is most of all loans originated by WAMU. Chase didn’t want to buy the loans because they correctly perceived that the liabilities on those loans and the liabilities to alleged REMIC structures that never received an interest in the loans, and the liabilities to insures, counterparties on credit default swaps and to the Federal government and Federal Reserve might vastly exceed the nominal value of mortgages originated by WAMU. Then there was also the liability for predatory or fraudulent loan practices. Altogether, Chase didn’t want to be saying it owned ALL the loans. It just wanted to be able to say it some of the time when they had an uncontested foreclosure and they could get a free house.

So Chase got an affidavit from the receiver that said that Chase owned the loans by operation of law because of the merger. That affidavit has been used hundreds if not thousands of times in foreclosures where Chase perceived the risk to be low. Thus in uncontested cases, Chase alleged it owned the loans even if they were “securitized” and got away with it because, well, there was nobody to say otherwise.

A good thing that the Michigan court said was that the Chase had the burden of proving the chain of ownership which was the history of the piece of property. A bad thing that the Court said was that Chase “acquired” the loans but that the foreclosures were voidable because the assignment was never recorded. In Michigan the absence of a recorded assignment is deadly so they ran with that idea and decided fro the borrower and against Chase who will no doubt now enter into a settlement or modification for which they have no authority to even talk about because they do not now nor did they ever own the loans.

Just because the loans were considered a hot potato and nobody wanted them doesn’t mean that anyone can claim them. But that is exactly the plan of engagement adopted by Chase. So all that happened here was that Chase was chased out of Court with permission to come back when it had the assignment recorded. tricky business there. Will they fabricate that instrument or will they simply settle with the borrower for what they can get? Whatever they get, it is free money because at no time in the history of the loan has Chase ever been at risk unless, now that they are acting as though they have control over the loan portfolio, a court decides that if you fake it or made it. Greed has no bounds. If Chase had simply left the loan portfolio to wallow in its own crud, no argument could be made against Chase for all the chicanery that went on with the borrowers and investors. Now that they have led courts to believe they have apparent authority, maybe they have apparent liability as well.

Banks Hedging Their Bets on Wrongful Foreclosures

13 Questions Before You Can Foreclose

foreclosure_standards_42013 — this one works for sure

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The selection of an attorney is an important decision  and should only be made after you have interviewed licensed attorneys familiar with investment banking, securities, property law, consumer law, mortgages, foreclosures, and collection procedures. This site is dedicated to providing those services directly or indirectly through attorneys seeking guidance or assistance in representing consumers and homeowners. We are available to any lawyer seeking assistance anywhere in the country, U.S. possessions and territories. Neil Garfield is a licensed member of the Florida Bar and is qualified to appear as an expert witness or litigator in in several states including the district of Columbia. The information on this blog is general information and should NEVER be considered to be advice on one specific case. Consultation with a licensed attorney is required in this highly complex field.

The need for continuing pressure on state and federal legislators who are relentlessly pursued by Bank lobbyists has never been greater.  Anyone who cares about the state of our economy and the state of our justice system needs to be writing and calling state and federal legislators as well as state and federal agencies to oppose these naked attempts to seal the deal against the homeowners.

Anyone who thinks that our falling bridges and decaying infrastructure is going to be fixed without fixing housing is dreaming. Both the tax revenue and the potential for private investment are severely diminished by the failure of this government and governments around the world to take actual control of the situation, return wealth to those from whom wealth was stolen, and recover taxes from those who have failed to report and pay taxes on transactions that were conducted in the United States but never reported in any detail as to the method utilized to create “off balance sheet” and “offshore” transactions.

Michigan homeowners in foreclosure would have less time to save, sell home under new proposal
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/05/michigan_homeowners_in_foreclo.html

In Michigan the proposal put forth by the banks would extend the time that borrowers could contest an impending foreclosure but shorten the time that borrowers could attack a wrongful foreclosure seeking monetary damages or to overturn the fraudulent auction sale awarded to a party who submitted a credit bid but who was not a creditor.  It is a tacit admission by the banks that they are doing well before a foreclosure judgment is entered but they are afraid of the consequences after the sale.

The fact that they were not a creditor obviously also brings in the issues of jurisdictional standing and whether they have any potential rights to initiate foreclosure. The confusion here is closed by rulings in many states which seem to indicate that almost anyone can initiate a foreclosure proceeding. The mistake made by both pro se litigants and attorneys for homeowners is that they concede the rest of the case once a decision is made that a non-creditor can initiate foreclosure proceedings.

In the initial phase of litigation those early motions will obviously have an effect on the momentum of the case in favor of either the banks or the borrowers. But the fact remains that if the party initiating the foreclosure was doing so in a representative capacity, or if they were doing so in their own name lacking any history or facts supporting their assertions of being a “holder” then the point needs to be made to the court that there is no creditor based upon any evidence in the court record who can submit a credit bid.

The court is presented then with the choice of either dismissing the case because of lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter and potentially lack of jurisdiction over the parties or entering a final order or judgment allowing the foreclosure to proceed but stipulating that the party conducting the auction may not accept a credit bid  in the absence of uncontested proof of payment, proof of loss and proof of ownership of the loan receivable. This step has less far been ignored in nearly all cases of foreclosure litigation throughout the country. It is time to invoke it.

The initiative in Michigan reflects the tacit admission of the banks that while they can still easily prevail in pre-judgment motions, they are highly vulnerable to enormous liabilities after the sale of the property at auction or at a closing table. The fact remains that they must show a canceled check, wire transfer receipts, ACH confirmation or check 21 confirmation in order to establish the loss;  in addition, they must show the same facts for each and every predecessor in the alleged securitization chain which we already know has been falsely presented.

 By hammering on the money trail, you will be educating the judge as to the difference between the actual transactions in which money was exchanged or in which consideration was exchanged and the paper  documents that refer to transactions which never actually occurred. Each transaction requires, for enforcement, and offer, acceptance and consideration. If you closely examine the documents used by the banks in the falsely presented securitization chain you might find an offer but you probably won’t find acceptance and you definitely won’t find consideration. The same holds true in the origination of the loan wherein the designated payee and secured party had nothing to do with the funding of the original loan. It is all smoke and mirrors.

The point needs to be made that if the judge is all fired up about whether or not the borrower made payments that the attorney representing the homeowner agrees that payments are an important issue which is why he is requiring the other side to present proof of their payments to creditors and their receipt of payments from parties other than the borrower. Your argument is obviously that either payments matter where they don’t. It should be pointed out to the judge that a double standard is being applied if the borrower’s payments are at issue but the so-called lenders’ payments and receipts are out of bounds. The point should also be made that rather than arguing about it, if there was no defect in the money trail and if there was therefore complete compliance between the money trail in the document trail, the party initiating foreclosure should be more than anxious to display the canceled check and end the debate.

JPMorgan exposed: Company found guilty of masterminding ‘manipulative schemes’
http://www.naturalnews.com/040481_JP_Morgan_Jamie_Dimon_too_big_to_fail.html

Wasted wealth – The ongoing foreclosure crisis that never had to happen – The Hill’s Congress Blog
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/301415-wasted-wealth–the-ongoing-foreclosure-crisis-that-never-had-to-happen

Negative Home Equity Still Plagues 13 Million Mortgage Loans
http://247wallst.com/2013/05/23/negative-home-equity-still-plagues-13-million-mortgage-loans/

Jon Stewart Tears Apart Obama, DOJ For Prosecuting Whistleblowers And Potheads But Not Bankers
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-stewart-tears-apart-obama-doj-for-prosecuting-whistleblowers-and-potheads-but-not-bankers/

How Many People Have Lost Their Homes? US Home Foreclosures are Comparable to the Great Depression
http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-many-people-have-lost-their-homes-us-home-foreclosures-are-comparable-to-the-great-depression/5335430

As Of This Moment Ben Bernanke Own 30.5% Of The US Treasury Market… And Will Own All By 2018
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-23/moment-ben-bernanke-own-305-us-treasury-market-and-will-own-all-2018

More Charges Against Brown at DOCX

What’s the Next Step? Consult with Neil Garfield

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“Shortcuts like robo-signing are just one piece of the mortgage foreclosure crisis,” said Schuette.  “Our investigation remains ongoing, and we will bring to justice every lawbreaker we find.”

—-

The message is finally getting through. Justice moves slowly. I have mentioned here that it takes a long time for law enforcement to unravel a complex financial scheme and build a case that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Finally it is starting. Brown has already entered plea deals in other states. This time it is in Michigan where the allegations from Attorney General Schuette are virtually identical to the defenses raised and dismissed by thousands of Judges who believed that borrowers were simply trying to get out of a legitimate debt.

Neither the debt nor the documentation turns out to be legitimate — all based upon fraud, forgery, and now with these charges RICO. Incredibly the investigation at the Michigan AG office only began in 2011. The rest of us began our investigations in 2007 or even earlier in some cases like Katherine Ann Porter when she was a professor at the University of Iowa and the Fordham Law students who published the article “Will the real party in interest please stand up” in the Fordham Law Review (see right side of this blog to access article). Students were able to decipher the lies and cover-ups before the issue of PONZI schemes and fraud were raised in an outcry by lawyers and borrowers who were gradually worn down to the bone by Judges who just didn’t believe the “theories” (based upon fact) advanced by borrowers who wanted to get rid of the remedy of foreclosure and a way to modify their mortgages to real value.

Like other states, Michigan is passing laws to protect and provide remedies for the illegal practices used by the Banks, but they still don’t grasp the full import of the false documentation, the credit bids by non-creditors, and the fact that the balances due on the loans are far below the amount demanded by the banks because of payments from insurance, credit default swaps, federal bailouts etc.

The real question is what restitution should be provided to the millions of people who were victims of foreclosure by entities that neither funded nor purchased the loan? Besides getting their house back, how much in damages should the banks be required to pay. When will the AG’s sink their teeth all the way into the largest economic crime in human history?

MIchigan Charges DOCX Brown with Felonies

 

A NEW FACE in Government Activism in Securitization Scam

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Editor’s Comment:

Anyone who wants the job of being the county recorder takes a risk of being blamed for all the warts and defects that come out after they take office. So when somebody runs for public office without prior real estate experience like a Nurse, you know that community activism is on the rise and we all know why. The shell game and run-around that the banks and servicers are playing can only work so long.

The facts remain that the county recorders across the country fully understand that title is corrupted but they are mostly elected officials, a member of  a major political party and thus follow orders when told to do the Texas 2-step when it comes to removing illegal documents from the recording system or requiring proof of the authenticity of the documents and declarations in the documents.

We need many more people to run for office where it counts — the county level, get rid of the hacks who refuse to sue the banks for screwing up title, refuse to collect fees that are owed and would help the county budget, and refuse to hold those who submitted false filings accountable. THAT is where the banks have little influence. That is where they are weak politically. The lower the political office the less influence the bank has in preventing actions that would embarrass the mega banks.

Eventually the truth will all come out. It is seeping in through all the windows and doors. The logjam will break and we’ll know everything. And what we are going to find is that most mortgages were recorded without any transaction commenced between the the parties recited on the documents. We’ll find that the record is devoid of any real documentation between the real lenders (who might be impossible to determine with certainty because of commingling of funds in escrow accounts that ignored the existence of the REMICs). All that means is that the mortgages were fraudulently filed and therefore the foreclosures are invalid. There lies the path to salvation to our economy. Instead of the big boys getting a handout, the little people who were scrunched into the dirt by the boots of Wall Street titans are going to get a break.

Support with your money , effort and contacts and networking every candidate on the local level who runs for office on the platform of rejecting these illegal documents and throwing out the deeds of foreclosure based upon illegal mortgages and illegal, fabricated, forged and unauthorized documents.

Foreclosure Fraud Combatant Eyes Clerk of Court Role in Florida

By Jon Prior

Florida has been ground zero for foreclosure fraud, but even with multibillion-dollar settlements and federal consent orders, the state’s financial services industry may face new scrutiny from a community activist who’s taken a critical look at the industry and its practices.

Lisa Epstein, who’s running for clerk of court in Palm Beach County, was once an oncology nurse. For most of her career she saw her patients strike deals with their banks when they ran into debt problems, particularly with mortgage payments, once they became ill.

But when the housing crisis struck and foreclosures mounted, that changed. Banks and mortgage servicers overloaded with delinquent loans struggled with the paperwork and the complexity of linking struggling borrowers with decision-makers. To speed up the foreclosure process, reams of documentation was mishandled, signed improperly and filed at county courthouses.

In 2007, Epstein noticed her patients were no longer being helped. They were being rushed through the foreclosure system.

“That was my first hint that there was something very different,” Epstein said during a HousingWire interview.

So began her advocacy work in Florida fighting against banks and third-party firms handling the foreclosure process. In June, she was placed on the ballot for clerk of court of Palm Beach County, the third largest clerk office in the state.

If elected in August, she will be in charge of many things, including managing an overloaded docket, acting as treasurer and chief financial officer of the county’s funds, and most importantly, serving as the keeper of public record.

Her major focus will be on what she claims is a broken system, surrounding the cloudy chain of title flaws filed with the counties to this day. If state funding allows, she said she will perform wide-scale audits of the entire county database and develop reforms — even if that means shutting down the process entirely.

“I don’t know if it is fixable,” Epstein said. “But these are not truly legal instruments that convey proper property ownership. Conducting any sort of real estate transaction or sorting who really owns the loans in many cases will become an enormous legal burden because of the morass of documentation fraud.”

The Florida system remains a nightmare after the collapse of the Law Offices of David J. Stern in March 2011. Several other firms came under investigation and some settled claims before being shut down. The $25 billion foreclosure settlement involving 49 states (Oklahoma didn’t participate) includes language that will hold servicers accountable for any third-party firms that handle any aspect of a foreclosure filing.

Consent orders with the Office of the Comptroller and the Federal Reserve will also force servicers to monitor these firms, specifically Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems and Lender Processing Services ($23.87 1.23%).

New foreclosure filings in Palm Beach County increased in May by 3.6% from the previous month as servicers are looking to restart the process. The 1,356 new filings was 61% above levels seen in the year-ago period.

Both Epstein and incumbent Sharon Bock, who’s held the office since 2003 and is running for re-election, are concerned with keeping up because of pending budget cuts.

“We expect that our foreclosure division is one that will be heavily affected by these budget cuts,” Bock said in a statement accompanying the numbers last week. “My fear is if the trend of increased filings continues as it has in recent months, we will not have the ability to keep up with the volume. We will do our best, but it will be a challenge.”

Mortgage servicers have stated they’ve ended past robo-signing practices and are installing new policies to reduce risk in the system. Few, if any, borrowers, they claim, were foreclosed on improperly because of past flawed practices.

But the financial industry is watching this election closely. Should Epstein prevail, her appetite for audits and new investigations could wipe out any restart to an already backlogged foreclosure process.

Some county record keepers in other states already launched investigations of their own, some founded on faulty claims, but some may have real consequences. A report in one Massachusetts county claimed 75% of mortgage assignments were invalid. Another in San Francisco attempted to show similar results through an audit but shrivels under scrutiny through California case law.

The treasurer for the clerk of courts in two Michigan counties filed lawsuits against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get fees levied during the recording of foreclosure property transfers. The GSEs used a government tax status to escape the fees, an exemption now being challenged.

Epstein said she would be on board with taking all of these actions and suggested the federal government go even further with a wide-scale probe. For this, Epstein is running into a lot of pushback. Her race against Bock has become one of the most heated in the local Florida elections.

“We have to solve a fraudulent process that is hurting our property value taxes, hurting our ability to do a short sale, hurting our ability to work with lenders,” she said. “It’s hurting the faith that there would be some protection. It’s damaging our court systems and yet our court systems are allowing this go on and on.”

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Now They See the Light — 40% of Homes Underwater

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Editor’s Comment:

They were using figures like 12% or 18% but I kept saying that when you take all the figures together and just add them up, the number is much higher than that. So as it turns out, it is even higher than I thought because they are still not taking into consideration ALL the factors and expenses involved in selling a home, not the least of which is the vast discount one must endure from the intentionally inflated appraisals.

With this number of people whose homes are worth far less than the loans that were underwritten and supposedly approved using industry standards by “lenders” who weren’t lenders but who the FCPB now says will be treated as lenders, the biggest problem facing the marketplace is how are we going to keep these people in their homes — not how do we do a short-sale. And the seconcd biggest problem, which dovetails with Brown’s push for legislation to break up the large banks, is how can we permit these banks to maintain figures on the balance sheet that shows assets based upon completely unrealistic figures on homes where they do not even own the loan?

Or to put it another way. How crazy is this going to get before someone hits the reset the button and says OK from now on we are going to deal with truth, justice and the American way?

With no demographic challenges driving up prices or demand for new housing, and with no demand from homeowners seeking refinancing, why were there so many loans? The answer is easy if you look at the facts. Wall Street had come up with a way to get trillions of dollars in investment capital from the biggest managed funds in the world — the mortgage bond and all the derivatives and exotic baggage that went with it. 

So they put the money in Superfund accounts and funded loans taking care of that pesky paperwork later. They funded loans and approved loans from non-existent borrowers who had not even applied yet. As soon as the application was filled out, the wire transfer to the closing agent occurred (ever wonder why they were so reluctant to change closing agents for the convenience of the parties?).

The instructions were clear — get the signature on some paperwork even if it is faked, fraudulent, forged and completely outside industry standards but make it look right. I have this information from insiders who were directly involved in the structuring and handling of the money and the false securitization chain that was used to cover up illegal lending and the huge fees that were taken out of the superfund before any lending took place. THAT explains how these banks are bigger than ever while the world’s economies are shrinking.

The money came straight down from the investor pool that included ALL the investors over a period of time that were later broker up into groups and the  issued digital or paper certificates of mortgage bonds. So the money came from a trust-type account for the investors, making the investors the actual lenders and the investors collectively part of a huge partnership dwarfing the size of any “trust” or “REMIC”. At one point there was over $2 trillion in unallocated funds looking for a loan to be attached to the money. They couldn’t do it legally or practically.

The only way this could be accomplished is if the borrowers thought the deal was so cheap that they were giving the money away and that the value of their home had so increased in value that it was safe to use some of the equity for investment purposes of other expenses. So they invented more than 400 loans products successfully misrepresenting and obscuring the fact that the resets on loans went to monthly payments that exceeded the gross income of the household based upon a loan that was funded based upon a false and inflated appraisal that could not and did not sustain itself even for a period of weeks in many cases. The banks were supposedly too big to fail. The loans were realistically too big to succeed.

Now Wall Street is threatening to foreclose on anyone who walks from this deal. I say that anyone who doesn’t walk from that deal is putting their future at risk. So the big shadow inventory that will keep prices below home values and drive them still further into the abyss is from those private owners who will either walk away, do a short-sale or fight it out with the pretender lenders. When these people realize that there are ways to reacquire their property in foreclosure with cash bids that are valid while the credit bid of the pretender lender is invlaid, they will have achieved the only logical answer to the nation’s problems — principal correction and the benefit of the bargain they were promised, with the banks — not the taxpayers — taking the loss.

The easiest way to move these tremendous sums of money was to make it look like it was cheap and at the same time make certain that they had an arguable claim to enforce the debt when the fake payments turned into real payments. SO they created false and frauduelnt paperwork at closing stating that the payee on teh note was the lender and that the secured party was somehow invovled in the transaction when there was no transaction with the payee at all and the security instrumente was securing the faithful performance of a false document — the note. Meanwhile the investor lenders were left without any documentation with the borrowers leaving them with only common law claims that were unsecured. That is when the robosigning and forgery and fraudulent declarations with false attestations from notaries came into play. They had to make it look like there was a real deal, knowing that if everything “looked” in order most judges would let it pass and it worked.

Now we have (courtesy of the cloak of MERS and robosigning, forgery etc.) a completely corrupted and suspect chain of title on over 20 million homes half of which are underwater — meaning that unless the owner expects the market to rise substantially within a reasonable period of time, they will walk. And we all know how much effort the banks and realtors are putting into telling us that the market has bottomed out and is now headed up. It’s a lie. It’s a damned living lie.

One in Three Mortgage Holders Still Underwater

By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer

Got that sinking feeling? Amid signs that the U.S. housing market is finally rising from a long slumber, real estate Web site Zillow reports that homeowners are still under water.

Nearly 16 million homeowners owed more on their mortgages than their home was worth in the first quarter, or nearly one-third of U.S. homeowners with mortgages. That’s a $1.2 trillion hole in the collective home equity of American households.

Despite the temptation to just walk away and mail back the keys, nine of 10 underwater borrowers are making their mortgage and home loan payments on time. Only 10 percent are more than 90 days delinquent.

Still, “negative equity” will continue to weigh on the housing market – and the broader economy – because it sidelines so many potential home buyers. It also puts millions of owners at greater risk of losing their home if the economic recovery stalls, according to Zillow’s chief economist, Stan Humphries.

“If economic growth slows and unemployment rises, more homeowners will be unable to make timely mortgage payments, increasing delinquency rates and eventually foreclosures,” he said.

For now, the recent bottoming out in home prices seems to be stabilizing the impact of negative equity; the number of underwater homeowners held steady from the fourth quarter of last year and fell slightly from a year ago.

Real estate market conditions vary widely across the country, as does the depth of trouble homeowners find themselves in. Nearly 40 percent of homeowners with a mortgage owe between 1 and 20 percent more than their home is worth. But 15 percent – approximately 2.4 million – owe more than double their home’s market value.

Nevada homeowners have been hardest hit, where two-thirds of all homeowners with a mortgage are underwater. Arizona, with 52 percent, Georgia (46.8 percent), Florida (46.3 percent) and Michigan (41.7 percent) also have high percentages of homeowners with negative equity.

Turnabout is Fair Play:

The Depressing Rise of People Robbing Banks to Pay the Bills

Despite inflation decreasing their value, bank robberies are on the rise in the United States. According to the FBI, in the third quarter of 2010, banks reported 1,325 bank robberies, burglaries, or other larcenies, an increase of more than 200 crimes from the same quarter in 2009. America isn’t the easiest place to succeed financially these days, a predicament that’s finding more and more people doing desperate things to obtain money. Robbing banks is nothing new, of course; it’s been a popular crime for anyone looking to get quick cash practically since America began. But the face and nature of robbers is changing. These days, the once glamorous sheen of bank robberies is wearing away, exposing a far sadder and ugly reality: Today’s bank robbers are just trying to keep their heads above water.

Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson—time was that bank robbers had cool names and widespread celebrity. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Jesse James, and John Dillinger were even the subjects of big, fawning Hollywood films glorifying their thievery. But times have changed.

In Mississippi this week, a man walked into a bank and handed a teller a note demanding money, according to broadcast news reporter Brittany Weiss. The man got away with a paltry $1,600 before proceeding to run errands around town to pay his bills and write checks to people to whom he owed money. He was hanging out with his mom when police finally found him. Three weeks before the Mississippi fiasco, a woman named Gwendolyn Cunningham robbed a bank in Fresno and fled in her car. Minutes later, police spotted Cunningham’s car in front of downtown Fresno’s Pacific Gas and Electric Building. Inside, she was trying to pay her gas bill.

The list goes on: In October 2011, a Phoenix-area man stole $2,300 to pay bills and make his alimony payments. In early 2010, an elderly man on Social Security started robbing banks in an effort to avoid foreclosure on the house he and his wife had lived in for two decades. In January 2011, a 46-year-old Ohio woman robbed a bank to pay past-due bills. And in February of this year, a  Pennsylvania woman with no teeth confessed to robbing a bank to pay for dentures. “I’m very sorry for what I did and I know God is going to punish me for it,” she said at her arraignment. Yet perhaps none of this compares to the man who, in June 2011, robbed a bank of $1 just so he could be taken to prison and get medical care he couldn’t afford.

None of this is to say that a life of crime is admirable or courageous, and though there is no way to accurately quantify it, there are probably still many bank robbers who steal just because they like the thrill of money for nothing. But there’s quite a dichotomy between the bank robbers of early America, with their romantic escapades and exciting lifestyles, and the people following in their footsteps today: broke citizens with no jobs, no savings, no teeth, and few options.

The stealing rebel types we all came to love after reading the Robin Hood story are gone. Today the robbers are just trying to pay their gas bills. There will be no movies for them.

Michigan Court Relies on New York Trust Theory, Rules Loan Never Made it to Trust

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EDITOR’S NOTE: In plain language the “securitization” of loans at least with respect to residential mortgage loans is a myth, an illusion, A LIE. It is one of many lies about these mortgages and we are living it as though it was real, which is why this blog is entitled LIVINGLIES. If the loans never made it to the trust, there was no transfer and thus there was no securitization, which means that the investors bought empty mortgage bonds with no value and no prospects for value.

This fact does NOT invalidate the obligation, however. But the fact that securitization was faked doesn’t validate the obligation either. Nor does it create a valid perfected lien against a home. That is a lie too, but for different reasons. In most instances there is no money due to anyone (except to the investors from the investment bankers) because the obligation that would been created was contemporaneously transferred to third parties who paid it. The fact that it was paid to the agents of the investors rather than the trusts or the investors themselves does not remove the fact that the obligation is paid in full and therefore not due, much less capable of being in default.

Where the article misses a key point is in its knee-jerk reaction to the accusation of free house to the borrower. If that is the collateral benefit arising out of Wall Street misconduct, so be it.

The real issue here is not whether there is going to be a free house awarded, but to whom it will be awarded. There is no reason that interlopers (pretenders) should be allowed to get the collateral benefit of a free house, having defrauded all the real parties in interest. It stands to reason that the victims of the fraud should get the collateral benefit. If that means they get a little more than they are entitled to spending upon how you look at it, this seems far more preferable than proceeding in the business as usual manner of only letting collateral benefits flow toward big business and big banks. Every once in a while, if the banks screw up enough and step on enough rakes, the little guy should get the benefits if that is the way the cards fall.

The article below from Naked Capitalism attributes the original idea that securitization was always a myth to others. It happened here first and for a long time was ignored. Now everyone is adopting it as their own idea. That is good news for homeowners. Yet it is only fair that after nearly 4 years of work to get the message out, that credit be given here that the new decisions in the last week are the result of, and in some instances quotes from the expert declarations written and signed by me. 

Michigan Court Relies on New York Trust Theory, Rules Loan Never Made it to Trust

A June 6 trial court decision in Michigan, Hendricks v. US Bank, has not gotten the attention it warrants because to the extent it has been noticed, it has been depicted as invalidating an effort to effect a note (the borrower IOU) transfer via MERS. While that was one of the grounds for a ruling favorable to the borrower, the court also considered and gave a thumbs’ up to what we call the New York trust theory. That has far more significance, as readers will see shortly (hat tip to Foreclosure Fraud for this sighting).

This legal argument, which so far has been tested in a very few cases (primarily in Alabama, since it was perfected by Alabama attorney Nick Wooten) was the basis of a favorable ruling in Alabama trial court. The reason it bears watching is that if the New York trust theory continues to be validated in court, it has devastating consequences for most post 2004 vintage residential mortgage backed securities. it has been the subject of a long-running argument among legal experts, with the Congressional Oversight Panel, Adam Levitin, as well as consumer lawyers like respected bankruptcy attorney Max Gardner on one side, and securitization industry incumbents like the American Securitization Forum and SNR Denton.

The bare bones outline of the argument is that the trusts, the legal vehicle that holds the mortgage loan, in virtually all securitizations, elected New York law as the governing law for the trust. New York law is well established and very rigid. A trust can act ONLY as stipulated; any deviation is a “void act” and has no legal force.

But the problem is that the notes appeared not to have gotten to the trust. As we wrote earlier:

…. there is substantial evidence that in many cases, the notes were not conveyed to the trust as stipulated. As we have discussed, the pooling and servicing agreement, which governs who does what when in a mortgage securitization, requires the note (the borrower IOU) to be endorsed (just like a check, signed by one party over to the next), showing the full chain of title. The minimum conveyance chain in recent vintage transactions is A (originator) => B (sponsor) => C (depositor) => D (trust).

The proper conveyance of the note is crucial, since the mortgage, which is the lien, is a mere accessory to the note and can be enforced only by the proper note holder (the legalese is “real party of interest”). The investors in the mortgage securitization relied upon certifications by the trustee for the trust at and post closing that the trust did indeed have the assets that the investors were told it possessed.

The pooling and servicing agreement also provided that the transfers had to take place by a particular cutoff date, which was typically no later than 90 days after the closing of the deal. That means notes cannot be transferred in at a later date.

The ruling is very clear that the note never made it to the trust:

Note that the judge rules that someone can foreclose, but it’s not the trust, it’s the original lender. But that is unacceptable to the mortgage industrial complex. They cannot afford to admit they defrauded investors, which is what a foreclosure in the name of the original lender amounts to.

So when people complain about borrowers getting free houses, they act as if it’s the borrower’s fault. That’s the wrong place to assign blame. No one is saying the borrower does not owe somebody money. And the borrowers aren’t seeking a free house; they usually came to this juncture because they thought their records had overcharges in them or they thought they were a good candidate for a mod but could not get the servicer to consider their case. It’s the originators and packagers who put themselves in the situation of not being able to enforce the debt, not the borrower.

The apparent widespread abandonment of the practice of crossing the ts and dotting the is potentially devastating. If the failure to convey notes properly is as widespread as we have been told by various observers (and Abigail Field’s sample confirms), the mortgage industry has a monstrous problem on its hands. As the Michigan ruling suggests, at a minimum, notes not transferred properly are actually owned by someone earlier in the securitization chain. But no one wants to admit that; it means the investors were lied to and hold paper that does not have clear legal rights to foreclose and that originatorrs, servicers and trustees have committed massive securities fraud. And in a worse case scenario, if no notes were transferred to the trust by closing, there is a contract formation failure.

This is the sword of Damocles hanging over the bond markets. The incumbents, bizarrely, seem intent on pretending it does not exist rather than trying to do something to alleviate the damage.

I’m including the full ruling below since it’s short and readable and I know some readers enjoy court filings.

Hendricks v. US Bank, June 6, 2011

Citi to Try New Version of Cash for Keys

Editor’s Note: The decision about flight or fight is deeply personal and there is no right answer. The decision you make ought not be criticized by anyone. For those with the fight knocked out of them the prospect of taking on the giant banks in court is both daunting and dispiriting. So if that is where you are, and this Citi program comes your way, it might be acceptable to you. AT THE MOMENT, CITI IS SAYING YOU NEED TO BE 90 DAYS BEHIND IN YOUR PAYMENTS AND NOT HAVE A SECOND MORTGAGE. (A quick call to the holder of a second mortgage or the party claiming to be that holder could result in a double settlement since they are going to get wiped out anyway in a foreclosure. You can offer them pennies on the dollar or simply the chance to avoid litigation.)
Citi, faced with the prospects of increasing legal fees even if they were to “win” the foreclosure battle in court, along with the rising prospects of losing, is piloting a program where they will give you $1,000 and six months in your current residence — and then they take over your house by way of a deed in lieu of foreclosure, which you sign as part of a settlement. Make sure all terms of the settlement are actually in writing and signed by someone who is authorized to sign for Citi.
The deed is simply a grant of your ownership interest to Citi and frankly does little to “cure” the title defect caused by securitization. HOPEFULLY THAT WILL NEVER BE A PROBLEM TO YOU, EVEN THOUGH IT PROBABLY WILL BE CAUSE FOR LITIGATION OR OTHER CONFRONTATIONS BETWEEN PARTIES OTHER THAN YOU WHEN ALL OF THIS UNRAVELS.
The possibility remains that you will have deeded your house to Citi when in fact the mortgage loan was owed to another party or group (investors/creditors).
The possibility remains that you could still be pursued for the full amount of the loan by the REAL holder of the loan.
Yet in this topsy turvy world where up is down and left is right, the Citi program might just take you out of the madness and give you the new start. They apparently intend to offer to waive any claim they have for deficiency which in states where deficiency judgments are allowed at least gives you the arguable point that you gave the house to some party with “apparent” authority. And the hit on your FICO score is less than foreclosure or bankruptcy, under the proposed Citi plan.
In the six months, which can probably be extended through negotiation or other legal means, you can accumulate some cash from what otherwise would have been a rental or mortgage payment. Taken as a whole, even though I would say that you are probably dealing with a party who neither owns the loan nor has any REAL authority to offer you this plan, it probably fits the needs of many homeowners who are just one step away from walking away from their home anyway.
As always, at least consult a licensed real estate attorney or an attorney otherwise knowledgeable about securitized loans before you make your final decision or sign any documents. BEWARE OF HUCKSTERS WHO MIGHT SEIZE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AS A MEANS TO GET YOU TO PART WITH YOUR MONEY. THERE IS NO NEED FOR A MIDDLEMAN IN THIS TYPE OF TRANSACTION.
February 24, 2010

Another Foreclosure Alternative

By BOB TEDESCHI

HOMEOWNERS on the verge of foreclosure will often seek a short sale as a graceful exit from an otherwise calamitous financial situation. Their homes are sold for less than the mortgage amount, and the remaining loan balance is usually forgiven by the lender.

But with short sales beyond the reach of some homeowners — they typically won’t qualify if they have a second mortgage on the home — another foreclosure alternative is emerging: “deeds in lieu of foreclosure.”

In this transaction, a homeowner simply relinquishes the property, turning over the deed to the bank, in exchange for the lender’s promise not to foreclose. In a straight foreclosure, a lender takes legal control of the property and evicts the occupants; in deeds-in-lieu transactions, the homeowner is typically allowed to remain in the home for a short period of time after the agreement.

More borrowers will at least have the chance to consider this strategy in the coming months, as CitiMortgage, one of the nation’s biggest mortgage lenders, tests a new program in New Jersey, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.

Citi recently agreed to give qualified borrowers six months in their homes before it takes them over. It will offer these homeowners $1,000 or more in relocation assistance, provided the property is in good condition. Previously, the bank had no formal process for serving borrowers who failed to qualify for Citi’s other foreclosure-avoidance programs like loan modification.

Citi’s new policy is similar to one announced last fall by Fannie Mae, the government-controlled mortgage company. Fannie is allowing homeowners to return the deed to their properties, then rent them back at market rates.

To qualify for the new program, Citi’s borrowers must be at least 90 days late on their mortgages and must not have a second lien on the home.

That policy may be a significant obstacle for borrowers, since many of the people facing foreclosure originally financed their homes with second mortgages — called “piggyback loans” — or borrowed against the homes’ equity after buying them.

Partly for that reason, Elizabeth Fogarty, a spokeswoman for Citi, said that the bank had only modest expectations for the test. Roughly 20,000 Citi mortgage customers in the pilot states will be eligible for a deed-in-lieu agreement, she said, and of those, about 1,000 will most likely complete the process.

As is often the case with deed-in-lieu settlements, Citi will release the borrower from all legal obligations to repay the loan.

In some states, like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, banks can legally retain the right to pursue borrowers for the balance of the loan after a foreclosure, a short sale or a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. That is one reason why housing advocates say borrowers should carefully weigh these transactions with the help of a lawyer or nonprofit housing counselor before proceeding.

Ms. Fogarty said Citi had no specific timetable for rolling out the program nationally.

Among the other major lenders, there is no formalized program for deeds-in-lieu. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, for instance, generally require borrowers to try a short sale before considering a deed-in-lieu transaction.

A deed-in-lieu is better for banks than a foreclosure because it reduces the company’s legal costs, and it is better for the homeowners because it is less damaging to their credit score.

Banks may also end up with homes in better condition.

J. K. Huey, a senior vice president at Wells Fargo, says her bank usually offers relocation assistance — often $1,000 to $2,500 — as long as the borrower leaves the property in move-in condition after a deed-in-lieu transaction.

“The idea is to help them transition in a way where they can keep their family intact while looking for another place to live,” Ms. Huey said. “This way, they only have to move once, as opposed to getting evicted.”

Michigan, Ohio, Texas Lawyers Wanted: We Know You’re Out There

The business case for taking, handling and litigating residential “mortgage” cases has been proven over and over again. Unfortunately most lawyers are ignoring this opportunity.

The latest estimates are that it will take 6-12 years to clean up this mess and I think that is very conservative. My analysis shows that it will take the better part of 30 years, and even then there will be cases that are still outstanding. One case, just filed, involves a mere $500,000 mortgage but alleges more than $27 million in damages (which could end up north of $81 million), credibly, the proximate cause of which was the eggregious, tortious behavior of loan originators and investment banks who gave the impression that normal underwriting standards and procedures were in place. The complaint alleges breach of Federal Statutes, State Statutes and common law including identity theft, slander of title, and fraudulent or negligent appraisal.

Lawyers who were starving are getting to understand that monthly payments from the client will cover them until the contingency fee kicks in and that there are clear ways to collect damage judgments. Some lawyers we know have $50,000 per month or more coming in from clients.

Let me spell it out for you. Most analysts agree with my estimate from 2 years ago: $13 trillion in erroneous, fraudulent paper was floated producing some $25 trillion in profits that was sequestered off shore. There appears to be some 60 million loans affected by this massive scheme. If your contingency fee is only 20% that means that around $5 trillion in contingency fees is sitting out there waiting to be pocketed. If every lawyer in America took these cases, they would each have around 40-50 cases involving title claims, securities claims defenses. But we all know that only a fraction of the 1 million lawyers are even doing trial practice. The short story is that for every lawyer there are hundreds if not thousands of cases that can be handled each averaging fees in excess of $100,000 per case.

We know there are lawyers out there some of whom are taking a few but not many of these cases. Livinglies takes in requests for services at the rate of 15-20 per day. And THAT is without any promotion. We don’t do any promotion because we have an insufficient number of lawyers to refer these prospective clients. WAKE UP LAWYERS! We have referrals for you and we require NO COMPENSATION for the referral and no co-counsel fee.

Send your resume:

eFAX: 772-594-6244

eMail: ngarfield@msn.com


MICHIGAN REPUBLICANS BARRING VOTERS IN FORECLOSURE IN NOVEMBER ELECTION

Apparently on the assumption that most of these voters are either Democrats or otherwise people who will blame Republicans for not regulating Wall Street and Lenders, Republicans with close ties to the largest foreclosure law firm in the State, which raised $250,000 for them, have taken control of the polling and are removing people from the voting rolls if their address is on any foreclosure list. The theory is that if they are on the list, they don’t live there anymore — even if they do.

First they trick people into doing refi’s when the homeowner wasn’t looking for it and didn’t want it. Then they take away a home that has been in the family for generations (even thought they have received payment in full PLUS 2.5%) and now they won’t let them vote to correct the political climate where this kind of cheating, lying and manipulation occurs regularly. What’s happening to us?

I wrote a piece some months ago about how “Conservatives” do not conserve anything and “Liberals” don’t liberate anyone. We already know that the election figures are in doubt because millions of voter machines still don’t leave an audit trail. The machines which were originally designed with a receipt function, had the receipt function and the printer removed on orders from guess who? Who has had enough of this?

michigan-messenger-c2bb-lose-your-house-lose-your-vote

Foreclosure: Michigan Postponements discussed

> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 14:56:30 +0000
> To: ngarfield@msn.com
> Subject: [Livinglies’s Weblog] Comment: “Mortgage Meltdown: Foreclosure Offense or Defense in Trustee or Non-Judicial Sales

“Comment:
> In Michigan, the trustee CANNOT postpone the sale to another time. There is NO statute allowing them to do that. However, the mortgagee can postpone the the sale if the need arises.
> MCL 600.3220 Sale; adjournment; notice; posting; publication.
> Sec. 3220.
> Such sale may be adjourned from time to time by the sheriff or other officer or person appointed to make such sale at the request of the party in whose name the notice of sale is published by posting a notice of such adjournment before or at the time of and at the place where said sale is to be made, and if any adjournment be for more than 1 week at one time, the notice thereof, appended to the original notice of sale, shall also be published in the newspaper in which the original notice was published, the first publication to be within 10 days of the date from which the sale was adjourned and thereafter once in each full secular week during the time for which such sale shall be adjourned. No oral announcement of any adjournment shall be necessary.

RESPONSE:

Thanks for the info. A court order will usually do the trick. IN securitized transactions, a notice of sale from the Trustee is NOT proper since there are necessary and indispensable parties down and up the securitization chain that have legal, equitable and constructive rights, ownership, or control over the note and mortgage (Deed of Trust). Those must be named in a judicial foreclosure action. There is no way around that and any securitized loan that was sold by -non-judicial foreclosure is void for lack of proper jurisdiction and procedure. Title is clouded, as was found recently in a Texas case and several other cases that are now headed for appeals courts. Trustee breached fiduciary duty and contractual duty and so did the “lender”. The lender was paid and then got the property too. to add insult to injury the borrower can now be sued AGAIN by the real parties in interest, the investors, who possess the only claim to being holders in due course. These inestors are not in privity with any ofthe foreclosing parties — Trustee, Lender etc. Trustee should be removed for breaches of duty and a new one installed by the Court. Case should be referred to judicial foreclosure, if the new trustee determines that it can qualify for legal standing.
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 14:56:30 +0000
> To: ngarfield@msn.com
> From: donotreply@wordpress.com
> Subject: [Livinglies’s Weblog] Comment: “Mortgage Meltdown: Foreclosure Offense or Defense in Trustee or Non-Judicial Sales”
>
> New comment on your post #119 “Mortgage Meltdown: Foreclosure Offense or Defense in Trustee or Non-Judicial Sales”
> Author : C-T0001 (IP: 98.243.133.98 , c-98-243-133-98.hsd1.mi.comcast.net)
> E-mail : retroracers2007@yahoo.com
> URL : http://www.healthyhighway.com/foreclosure.htm
> Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=98.243.133.98
> Comment:
> In Michigan, the trustee CANNOT postpone the sale to another time. There is NO statute allowing them to do that. However, the mortgagee can postpone the the sale if the need arises.
> MCL 600.3220 Sale; adjournment; notice; posting; publication.
> Sec. 3220.
> Such sale may be adjourned from time to time by the sheriff or other officer or person appointed to make such sale at the request of the party in whose name the notice of sale is published by posting a notice of such adjournment before or at the time of and at the place where said sale is to be made, and if any adjournment be for more than 1 week at one time, the notice thereof, appended to the original notice of sale, shall also be published in the newspaper in which the original notice was published, the first publication to be within 10 days of the date from which the sale was adjourned and thereafter once in each full secular week during the time for which such sale shall be adjourned. No oral announcement of any adjournment shall be necessary.

Foreclosure Defense: Pay Attention to the Ankle Biting For Really Good Inside Information


LITIGATORS AND LITIGANTS WHO ARE FIGHTING FORECLOSURE AND USING OFFENSIVE STRATEGIES TO RECOVER REFUNDS, REBATES AND DAMAGES FROM THE COLLECTION OF COMPANIES THAT RAN UPLINE AND DOWNLINE FROM THE LENDER SHOUDL TRACK THESE LAWSUITS AND EVERY FIILNG — THERE IS A LOT OF GOLD IN THOSE PLEADINGS AND A LOT OF WORK YOU WON’T BE REQUIRED TO DO ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU FIND A LAWSUIT AGAINST SOME OF THE SAME PARTIES YOU HAVE IN YOUR CASE. 

THE FRAUDULENT ACTS COMMITTED IN VIOLATION OF MULTIPLE STATUTES AT THE SECURITIES END OF THIS SINGLE TRANSACTION IS A MIRROR IMAGE OF THE FRAUDULENT ACTS AT THE REAL ESTATE END OF THE TRANSACTION. THE SIGNATURE IS THE SAME. INFLATED APPRAISALS AND RATINGS WERE AT THE ROOT OF COVERING UP INTENTIONAL DISREGARD AND DEGREDATION OF UNDERWRITING STANDARDS.

IN ALL CASES UP AND DOWN THE LINE, UNDER FASB ACCOUNTING STANDARDS, THE LOAN WAS NOT ON THE BALANCE SHEET OF ANY ENTITY, WHICH IS WHY WE SAY THAT THE SECURITY WAS SEPARATED FROM THE SECURITY INSTRUMENT AND THE OBLIGATION TO PAY WAS SEPARATED FROM THE NOTE. 

IN ALL CASES WHERE WE HAVE BEEN PRIVY TO THE DETAILS, WE HAVE FOUND NO ENTITY THAT CAN PROVE IT IS OR WAS THE ACTUAL LENDER IN THE REAL ESTATE TRANSACTION AND WE HAVE FOUND NO ENTITY THAT CAN PRODUCE THE ORIGINAL NOTE OR EVEN THE ASSIGNMENTS THAT TOOK PLACE SHORTLY AFTER THE REAL ESTATE TRANSACTION. THIS IS WHY WE SAY THAT THE REAL ESTATE TRANSACTION WAS IN ACTUALITY A SECURITIES TRANSACTION WHERE THE BORROWER WAS PROMISED HIGH RETURNS ON HIS PASSIVE INVESTMENT IN A HYPER-INFLATED APPRAISAL (RATING) OF REAL ESTATE.

Now that things are falling apart, the banks are suing each other, the investors are suing the investment banks, everyone is suing everyone. A lot of what has been reported here and theorized in this site is now supported by the allegations of dozens of lawsuits and changes being made in regulations, accounting standards, and licensing of professionals in securities, real estate and related areas to the Mortgage Meltdown. 

The Buffalo case reported below clearly shows the inside scoop on how the fraud occurred, how clear it is, and how the financial shake-up is not ending but rather just starting a new chapter. The fraud alleged is precisely what has been reported and predicted by this site for months. Deutsch Bank is at the center of this one, but don’t be fooled. They all did it, some more than others. 

New reports from the Financial Accounting Standards Board indicate a long overdue correction in reporting standards for off balance sheet transactions. Until now, incredibly, financial firms were allowed to conduct business “off balance sheet”, reporting the income but NOT the liability.

Firms like Lehman are now going to be required to take all those transactions back onto their balance sheet. This will reveal the 25+ ratio typically used by all investment banking firms for leverage which every investor knows is stupidly suicidal. Their plan was to report the income on the way up and get bailed out by government if everything went to hell.

We also have information on a case that proves our point beyond a reasonable doubt: Wells Fargo was selling (assigning) various aspects of its residential real estate loans as soon as the application was filled out. Which means that at NO time were they ever using their own money. The case involved property in Michigan and will shortly be filed there.

M&T sues German bank

Deutsche Bank AGaccused of impropriety

By Jonathan D. Epstein NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER
Updated: 06/17/08 7:10 AM

M&T Bank Corp. sued German banking giant Deutsche Bank AG Monday evening, accusing the global investment banking powerhouse of knowingly selling M&T unsafe mortgage investments. M&T is seeking to recover $182 million in losses and punitive damages.

The legal action represents an attempt by Buffalo-based M&T to recoup most of the damage it suffered on a trio of mortgage-backed securities in the fourth quarter of last year. That’s when mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures were soaring nationwide, causing vast losses not only for lenders but also for the holders of investments.

The fraud lawsuit, filed Monday in State Supreme Court in Erie County, concerns two investment securities M&T purchased from Deutsche Bank in February 2007. At the time, M&T had hoped to earn higher returns than it could on U. S. Treasury bills and high-grade commercial debt issued by a company like General Electric Co.

Known as “collateralized debt obligations,” the complex layered securities were ultimately backed by “subprime mortgages,” which are loans to borrowers with bad credit. But the investments were highly rated by two of the nation’s major debt-ratings agencies, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Corp., giving the bank some comfort.

In its lawsuit, M&T claims Deutsche Bank deceived M&T by claiming the two securities it sold were “safe, secure, and nearly risk-free” — even safer than corporate debt and nearly as safe as Treasury bills.

In fact, the suit says, Deutsche Bank knew that its underwriting standards and due diligence had deteriorated, and bank officials were already experiencing problems with subprime loans and collateral “under their control” in 2006 and early 2007.

Also, M&T claims the ratings from Moody’s and S&P were also “fraudulent and false” because Deutsche Bank allegedly withheld information from the ratings firms, including about fraud with some of the loans and the refusal by the loan originators to stand behind them.

In the end, M&T cut the value of all three investments from $132 million to just $4.4 million less than a year after buying them.

“If M&T had been aware of the true facts . . . M&T would not have purchased the notes,” the bank said in the 51-page suit.

The bank is seeking to recover the original cost of the two Deutsche Bank securities, about $82 million, plus interest and $100 million in damages. The lawsuit does not cover the third security investment, originally valued at $50 million and sold to M&T by another party.

“We think that we have an incredibly strong case on the facts,” said Robert Lane, partner and head of the litigation department for Buffalo law firm Hodgson Russ LLP, which is handling the bank’s case.

The action by M&T represents the latest effort by an investor that purchased mortgage- backed securities and related bonds to go after the lender or brokerage that sold the investments in the first place.

Several such investor lawsuits have been filed by unions, pension funds, hospitals and municipalities such as Springfield, Mass., alleging they were sold inappropriate investments.

All of those suits are still in the early stages of litigation, with no sign of immediate resolution. But Lane said M&T was confident because its case is based on “very basic, accepted legal theories of fraud and negligent misrepresentation.”

The lawsuit also shines a light into the inner workings of “securitizations,” in which a multitude of loans are packaged by an investment bank into a legal trust, whose cash flow from the loans is then broken into pieces and sold to investors. Ratings agencies bestow their blessings in the form of evaluations such as “AAA,” which Wall Street then touts to sell the securities.

The two securities M&T purchased were “collateralized debt obligations,” which are pieces of debt that in turn are backed by other debt, such as mortgage-backed securities. Cash flow from one is used to repay the debt from the next higher level. And investors can buy into different levels of risk, accepting a bigger chance of default for higher returns. Many CDOs also have used derivatives known as “credit default swaps” to supplement loans.

M&T historically stuck to conservative investments, but opted to buy CDOs for the first time in February 2007. Relying on Deutsche Bank’s marketing, it chose two bonds from the Gemstone VII trust, which Deutsche Bank put together, sold, and administered, with Texas-based HBK Investments LP as collateral manager, the lawsuit said.

The first security, for $42 million, was rated AAA by S&P, while the second, for $40 million, was AA. The Gemstone marketing materials touted HBK’s experience and record, and the historically stable performance of similar investments, while a Deutsche Bank salesman repeatedly reassured M&T.

But within months after the purchase, the loans deteriorated, defaults soared, the bonds behind the CDOs were downgraded, and Gemstone itself was up for downgrade. M&T also learned for the first time that HBK had had claims against one of its biggest lenders, and was fighting with five over loans in default since 2006.

By October, half the bonds in Gemstone were downgraded, and one-fourth were in default. Gemstone itself was next.

Ultimately, M&T cut the Gemstone bonds to just under $2 million. They’re now $1 million.

jepstein@buffnews.com


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