Facially Invalid Recorded Documents

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Neil Garfield

The view proffered by the banks would require them to accept declarations of fact from potential borrowers without any indicia of truth or reliability. It is opposite to the manner in which they do business. Currently they have it both ways, to wit: for purposes of borrowing you must submit documents that are facially valid without reference to external evidence and which can be easily confirmed but for purposes of foreclosure, none of those conditions apply. 

As part of the the scheme of “securitization fail” (see Adam Levitin) banks, servicers and third party vendors have been creating, fabricating and executing documents that are not facially valid nor do they comply with industry standards or even common sense. But once recorded judges take them “at face value” by assuming that somehow the document makes sense, when it clearly does not comport with law or logic. Defenders of foreclosure act at their peril when they fail to attack the facial validity of the documents upon which the foreclosure claims rely.

In a recent article written by Dale Whitman for the ABA he states the following “Conclusion. The recording system is archaic and fraught with the potential for yielding wrong conclusions. Conversion by many recording jurisdictions to computer-based electronic indexes has been helpful, but most of the legally problematic flaws continue to exist. Title insurance has been invaluable in making the weight of the recording system bearable, but it adds a further layer of complexity as buyers try to understand the limitations of their title policies. It seems unlikely that major changes will occur, so it is essential that real estate lawyers understand the peculiarities and limitations of our present system.” (e.s.)

As he points out recording is not required to make a document valid, but once it is recorded the document takes on a life of its own. It also presents numerous trapdoors and pitfalls that should be analyzed before answering the initiation of a foreclosure proceeding with any action on behalf of the homeowner including the motion to dismiss in judicial states, the answer, affirmative defenses and the Petition for TRO or lawsuit for wrongful foreclosure.

see what you didn_t know about recording acts_whitman (2).authcheckdam

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THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
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Common sense tells you that for a document to mean anything it must say enough that a reasonable person would be able to confidently draw meaning from it. Analyzing the facial validity of documents used in foreclosure reveals a pattern of misrepresenting the facial validity and misdirecting judges into NOT looking closely at the documents from which they are making assumptions and thence to legal conclusions that bind homeowners into proving matters beyond their control.

I proffer here an analysis that I just completed (our TERA report) as an example.

  1. We have already seen documentary proof that BONY Mellon does not receive the proceeds of the sale of property subject to the power of sale in a nonjudicial state or the forced sale in a judicial state. There are many reasons for this.
  2. Analysis of the facial validity of the use of various names and descriptions reveals the absence of an actual party, unless extrinsic “parole) evidence is added. Hence the documents upon which the above language relies does not support facial validity.
  3. BONY Mellon is said to be the “successor to JP Morgan Chase.” It is not and never has been a successor to JPMorgan Chase. There is nothing in the public domain to support that assertion. There is no instrument attached and no description of any transaction in which, as to this subject property and loan, we can ascertain how BONY Mellon became the successor to JPM Morgan Chase. Hence the documents in which BONY Mellon appears are not facially valid and are defective in terms of proof of title. This could be corrected by affidavit or any process that is allowed in the state where the property is located but it hasn’t been done on record, and there is no evidence to suggest that it has been done but is not recorded. The usual and acceptable manner of phrasing such a succession, if it were true, would be “as successor to JP Morgan Chase pursuant to that certain agreement of transfer by and between JPMorgan Chase (and /or other parties) and BONY Mellon dated July 6, 200X.” The absence of such description leaves the reader to pursue extrinsic or parole evidence to determine if the succession is documented and if so whether that documentation is facially valid. This is all absent.
  4. The succession suggests that it is in the role of trustee. There is no instrument attached and no description of any transaction in which, as to this subject property and loan, we can ascertain how BONY Mellon became the successor Trustee to JPM Morgan Chase. Hence the documents in which BONY Mellon appears as trustee are not facially valid and are defective in terms of proof of title. This could be corrected by affidavit or any process that is allowed in the state where the property is located but it hasn’t been done on record, and there is no evidence to suggest that it has been done but is not recorded. The usual and acceptable manner of phrasing such a succession, if it were true, would be “as successor to JP Morgan Chase, trustee pursuant to that certain agreement of transfer by and between JPMorgan Chase (and /or other parties) and BONY Mellon dated July 6, 200X.” The absence of such description leaves the reader to pursue extrinsic or parole evidence to determine if the succession is documented and if so whether the documentation is facially valid. This is all absent. The absence of a description of a specific trust and trust instrument is yet another factor that renders the instrument facially invalid, but theoretically correctible.
  5. This leads to a further question of extrinsic evidence being required. Other than by the use of parole evidence (outside the information contained on the document itself) the reader cannot ascertain the existence or description of a specific trust organized and existing under the laws of any jurisdiction. In addition, the issue of a transfer or change of trustees of a trust, if one can be found, is not supported by language such as “pursuant to the provisions of the trust agreement dated the 3rd day of May, 200Y in which the trust named ‘Structured Asset Mortgage Investment II, Inc. Bear Stearns ALT-A Trust’ was created under the laws of the State of New York”. Without such reference the facial validity of the instruments remains invalid although theoretically correctible. Without the knowledge of the legal existence of the trust being confirmable by public record, there is no support for the implied trust. Without support for the implied trust and the trust agreement creating it, there is no obvious support for how trustees could exist or be changed. Without support on the face of the instruments for how trustees of a trust could be changed, the description of the change of trustees is merely a declaration that is not supported by anything on the face of the document.
  6. JPMorgan is implied to have been the trustee of the potentially nonexistent trust. Once again the implied assertion leaves the reader to determine if the trust was created pursuant to the laws of any jurisdiction, and if JPMorgan was named as trustee for the trust.
  7. In either event both BONY Mellon and JPMorgan are described to be acting in a representative capacity on behalf of “holders… of pass through certificates” and not as “trustees” of any “trust.” The certificates are identified as Mortgage Pass Through Certificates Series 2004-12. The reference to being a “trustee” and the implied representation of the holders of certificates would be acceptable if the “holders” were described as beneficiaries. The extrinsic evidence often shows that such holders are not beneficiaries. This leads to the question of how and why there is representation of the holders, apart from the alleged trust, Is the representation implied from the trust agreement that is not described? Is the representation the result of some other trust or agency agreement? It is not possible to ascertain the answers to these vital questions without resort to extrinsic evidence, thus making the instruments relying upon such language, facially invalid.

Every state has statutory requirements for an instrument to be facially valid. A deed between Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse as Grantor and Grantee respectively would not be facially valid because both the grantor nor the grantee are fictitious names of cartoon characters and unless used as a egla fictitious name for an actual entity doing business under that name the document could not be corrected to become a valid document suitable for recording.

Yet county recorders are allowing the recordation of millions of documents across the country with exactly that defect. By allowing such documents to be recorded they are lending support to the legal presumption that Donald and Mickey are real people with rights to transfer interests in real property and even foreclose on real property. At the end of the chain of written documents someone holds paper that is recorded but based upon a chain of title with two large gaps in it — Donald and Mickey, and by the time the foreclosure occurs probably Minnie Mouse as well (or maybe Fannie or Freddie whose names are being used, just like the “REMIC trustees”, but who have no part in any transaction involving the subject loan).

Back to Real Property 101.

  1. Who is the grantor? If that cannot be readily determined from the face of the instrument the instrument is facially invalid.
  2. Who is the grantee? If that cannot be readily determined from the face of the instrument the instrument is facially invalid.
  3. What is the effective date of transfer? If that cannot be readily determined from the face of the instrument the instrument is facially invalid.
  4. What is being transferred? If that cannot be readily determined from the face of the instrument the instrument is facially invalid — or, in the case of a mortgage or beneficial interest in a deed of trust if the instrument declares a transfer but without the underlying debt, the instrument is facially invalid and unenforceable both because of state statutes regarding facial validity and the UCC Article 9 requiring value to be paid (see above linked article).
  5. What is the legal description of the property affected? If that cannot be readily determined from the face of the instrument the instrument is facially invalid.

An instrument that is not facially valid should be returned by the recording office with notes specifying what needs to be corrected. This vital step is being overlooked on all documents relating to foreclosures. If rules, laws and procedures were followed with regard to such documents there would not be any foreclosure or, if the corrections could actually be made, there would be no defense. It is in the valley between those two notions that all foreclosures based on “successors” are based.

By overlooking the obvious lack of clarity on the face of the documents county recorders keep creating a vacuum that the banks are only too happy to fill with MERS — an IT platform that is the opposite of tamper-proof allowing virtually anyone with a login and password to create the illusion of authority where none existed before. Hence the use of MERS and other systems to give depth to the illusion of facial validity.

The conclusion is that documents containing the language described above should not have been recorded.  The county recorder should have rejected such documents as being facially invalid, requiring additional documents to be attached, if they existed.

Such language is a substantial deviation from custom and practice as well as common sense and logic.  Custom and practice of the same banks that are listed in the language described above requires that they not accept such language without the additional documentation and confirmation of facts that are declared on the face of the instrument.  Common sense dictates that the reason why such custom and practice exists is that most fraudulent schemes involve written instruments in which various declarations are made that are untrue or lack support.  For purposes of recording, any declaration on the face of the instrument that requires the attachment or description of documents that are readily available in the public domain would be unacceptable, much as, for example, a deed without a signature.  The property must be described with precision (or later corrected by affidavit), the grantor must be described with precision (or later corrected) and the grantee must be described with precision (or later corrected).  Without the required corrections, the documents are facially invalid.

For purposes of case analysis, the absence of facially valid documents, even though they were improperly recorded, negates the potential use of legal presumptions arising from the facial validity of documents.  Therefore such documents should be rejected without proper foundation in connection with the use of such documents for any purpose, and the attempt to introduce such documents into evidence in any court or administrative proceeding.

In the case currently under analysis, this means that the proceedings in which the property was allegedly foreclosed, were themselves all improper and based upon invalid terms.  Whether this renders the proceedings void or voidable depends upon case law and interpretations of constitutional due process.

However it is safe to say that based upon the above analysis, it is obvious that all such documents including the deed upon foreclosure are defective in several material respects.  Therefore, our conclusion is that the current title chain in the county records regarding this property is at best clouded.  The procedures for correcting clouded title vary from state to state and are subject to both federal and state laws.  Individual research on each case in each state is required before taking any action.

The view proffered by the banks would require them to accept declarations of fact from potential borrowers without any indicia of truth or reliability. It is opposite to the manner in which they do business. Currently they have it both ways, to wit: for purposes of borrowing you must submit documents that are facially valid without reference to external evidence and which can be easily confirmed but for purposes of foreclosure, none of those conditions apply. 

 

Filed under: burden of persuasion, burden of pleading, BURDEN OF PROOF, CORRUPTION, discovery, Discovery -Subpoena, evidence, Fabrication of documents, foreclosure, foreclosure defenses, foreclosure mill, forensic investigation, forgery, investment banking, Investor, jurisdiction, legal standing, MBS TRUSTEE, MODIFICATION, Mortgage, Pleading, prima facie case, securities fraud, Servicer, sham transactions, standing, STATUTES, TRUST BENEFICIARIES, trustee | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Beware of Thieves and Con Artists

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Neil Garfield

I know that the first line of thieves and con artists are viewed by many as the banks and the “servicers” and the “trustees.” But the second wave are those who prey on the emotional turmoil of homeowners and get them to deed their homes into some sort of convoluted entity that will (1) shred the homeowners credibility in court and (2) essentially allow the new thief to get into your living room before the old thief has a chance to do so. In all events none of these schemes will ever do anything substantive to save a home, although some of the schemes may delay the judgment and sale for a short period of time.

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

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With the single exception of recording a notice of rescission I don’t see any plan by which a homeowner can preserve their rights in a foreclosure that is allowed by a judge to proceed. In nonjudicial states there MIGHT be one more: filing a corrective substitution of trustee returning the original trustee to the deed of trust. Anything in the chain of title on public records that is properly filed may well give homeowners a leg up and preserve rights when the issue of title finally comes front and center. The banks are proceeding under cover of title insurance. But in my opinion that cannot last and the title companies will file for bankruptcy protection in many cases.

It will be interesting to see what happens later when courts are faced with the consequences of their own decisions — creating and augmenting a title nightmare. Ultimately I think the rescission will have the effect that Federal law requires. Until then homeowners must seek to preserve their rights. They might find out years later that they still own the home they thought was long gone. This specific strategy requires very little money and certainly does not require deeding your home to another person leaving them to claim the asset and leaving you with the same apparent “debt” you had before.

People facing foreclosures are generally in severe emotional distress. Their home and their lifestyle are being threatened and the likelihood they will lose is in the statistics. As a result their judgment is impaired. In their desperation they will grasp at straws potentially destroying any hope of saving their home.

Although far more homeowners are winning their cases than a few years ago, it is nonetheless true that the deck is stacked against them. Some people, meaning well, have attempted to reverse the schemes from the banks by doing the same crazy documentation tactics that the banks.

Those schemes have failed because of the assumption by the judges that when the banks do it, which might include fabrication and forgery, they are merely patching up the paperwork on a valid debt. When homeowners do it, as Judges see it, it is to escape a legitimate debt. Both assumptions are wrong. Those judges are wrong but it seems counterintuitive.

This underscores the need for a lawyer: just because you found a statute or case that shows you are right and the bank, servicer or trustee is wrong doesn’t mean you will win. Trial court orders and judgments are final even if they are wrong. If you fail to appeal or preserve your rights in some other way, they stay final. Going to a smooth talking nonlawyer is likely the first step in jumping off of a legal cliff. BUT if the nonlawyer is attached to an actual lawyer, the outcome changes.

The problem with some of the schemes is that they are not per se illegal. But they lead to one result — the homeowner pays money and then loses the house. The moral of the story is don’t go with someone who is offering a nonexistent magic bullet. If it is so crispy clear and it works you would have heard about it already. Use a lawyer. Get references. Choose wisely.

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

 

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: , , , , , | 10 Comments »

Banks Flexing Their Muscle at Clerk’s Offices

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Neil Garfield

Call about our rescission package. 954-495-9867 or 520-405-1688.

This is not a legal opinion. Consult with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.

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I just had a client tell me that the Clerk accepted his notice of interest in real property but not the attachments to his Notice of Interest in Real Property,as specified by F.S. §712.05. .

*The grounds stated by the clerk was that the notice of rescission was an attachment but could not be recorded because the Clerk determined that the notice of rescission was barred by the statute of limitations (which by the way they got wrong); the Clerk said the attachment of the notice of rescission to a facially valid recordable document was wrong and the Clerk would not accept it because the notice of rescission had to be sent within three days of the alleged loan.

*The fact that we are in litigation before a court of competent jurisdiction (which is also contested) in which we are contesting whether consummation ever occurred and if so when, was ignored with the implicit finding by the clerk that notice of rescission was barred by a statute of limitations — explicitly arrogating to the Clerk, the power to decide substantive issues.

*This is so obviously wrong that we can only conclude that the banks are exercising a corrupt influence on the office of the Clerk.

It appears that the Clerk’s office are crossing the line between being a clerk and being a judge. In my opinion the analysis below would be true in Florida and from what I hear from other lawyers, in all 50 states.

*People filing rescissions in the county records should, if the recording is refused by the Clerk, write a letter to the head of the administrative organization that constitutes the recording office in each jurisdiction where this is happening. If necessary it should be escalated to the county attorney. And if that doesn’t work it should be escalated to the level of bringing suit against the Clerk’s office for acting like a judge or jury when they have no such statutory powers.

Every state has laws setting forth the the legal requirement for recording an instrument where deeds and mortgages are recorded in the public records.

*Every state has a system of clerk’s to review each document and determine whether the document facially meets the requirements for recording.

*Every state has a court system to decide issues concerning real property and everything else.

*A facially valid document that complied with statutory requirements for filing in the county records can NOT be refused by the Clerk based upon their opinion of substantive law or the effect that the document will have on title. Only Judges sitting in courts of competent jurisdiction can do that. To say otherwise would be to allow a clerk to decide the permits of an issue without going through due process of lawsuit, answer, verdict and judgment.

In my opinion and in the opinion of many other lawyers and judges, the Clerk’s office has NO authority to make a determination as to whether the notice of rescission was valid, effective, defective or anything else. If the notice of rescission is an attachment to a facially valid instrument affecting title to real property and if that facially valid instrument refers to the notice of rescission as an exhibit, then the Clerk has NO DISCRETION to refuse the recording, as long as the appropriate fees are paid.

Their authority is limited to whether the filing meets the statutory requirements for filing an instrument affecting real property in the county records. They are playing on the bank side, which is not what they are supposed to do.

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: , , , , , | 21 Comments »

Recording the Rescission

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Neil Garfield

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For more information please email us at gtchonors.llblog@gmail.com or call us at 954-495-9867 or 520-405-1688

This is not legal advice on your case. Consult a lawyer who is licensed in the jurisdiction in which the transaction and /or property is located.

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LAWYERS AND JUDGES TAKE NOTE: “Section 1635(a) nowhere suggests a distinction between disputed and undisputed rescissions, much less that a lawsuit would be required for the latter.” Justice Scalia, Jesinoski v Countrywide. [EDITOR’S NOTE: The only possible meaning to this is that the homeowner can use a letter and then, if it is disputed, it must BE BROUGHT to A COURT OF COMPETENT JURISDICTION to vacate the rescission. An order that denies a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction based upon the fact that the rescission was sent does nothing to change the fact that the rescission was effective as of the date it was mailed and still is effective by operation of law. The only way it can be removed is with another operation of law that is properly brought by the real party in interest. An order vacating the rescission without any pleading requesting that relief does absolutely nothing except assure that the judge’s order will be reversed. And if the rescission is recorded before the foreclosure judgment (judicial states) or sale (nonjudicial states) the judgment and sale are void respectively.]
 Every state has its own forms and requirements and fees for filing anything in the public records. It is wise to record any rescission that was sent regardless of the timing, in my opinion, but that would be subject to advice from a lawyer in your jurisdiction. Litigation is expected on numerous issues after the nonjudicial cancellation of the loan contract, note and mortgage. Here are some of the issues that might be presented when the rescission is sent and/or recorded:
  1. Since the rescission is effective upon mailing, the loan contract, note, and mortgage are void (not voidable). This means in states whose recording statutes are either “notice” or “hybrid”, anything that transpired after that in which the note or mortgage were used for collection, enforcement or foreclosure are also void. Title would then stay with the homeowner if the homeowner does not know that he/she still has title. Any deed issued in foreclosure would accordingly be a wild deed.
  2. If the state recording statutes are purely “race” then if the notice of rescission was not recorded before the foreclosure, the foreclosure sale and deed might well be binding even if it was “fraudulent” or otherwise wrong or illegal.
  3. State statutes of limitation might effect (limit) the ability to collect damages for trespass or wrongful foreclosure, breach of contract or other common law or statutory remedies. The FDCPA might help depending upon how long it has been since the notice of rescission was sent.
  4. If the notice of rescission is sent and recorded before the foreclosure judgment in judicial states or before the sale in nonjudicial states, then in all states it would appear that the the loan contract, note and mortgage were rendered void at the moment of mailing, by operation of law, which is the same thing as a judge’s order declaring the note and mortgage void.
  5. There is no provision in the TILA rescission statutes that allows any lender, creditor or servicer to contest the rescission with a letter. That power is only given to the borrower. Their subsequent action in proceeding to foreclosure “judgment” should be subject to being vacated because they were obtaining relief based upon a void instrument — the mortgage (and the note).
  6. In a strictly “notice” state, as long as they knew about the rescission the foreclosure is automatically wrongful and actionable, in my opinion. “Notice” might need to include a third party purchaser, who often does know of the existence of the borrower’s defenses and does know about the rescission. The issue here is that at the time of the rescission it was widely and wrongly believed that a lawsuit was necessary to make the rescission effective (i.e., the borrower had to plead and prove a case for rescission under common law rules). TILA rescission is exactly the opposite. So everyone, including appellate courts (other than the Supreme Court of the United States) was proceeding under the wrong assumption.
  7. The action following rescission should not be to establish the effectiveness of the rescission. That is already complete by operation of law.
  8. The action could be enforcement of the rescission if filed within one year of the date of mailing of the rescission. At the end of that period, the borrower is barred from filing an enforcement action and the “lender” assuming they have done nothing, is barred from claiming the debt.
  9. After the expiration of one year from date of mailing of the notice of rescission, the action would be simply for quiet title and perhaps trespass (see above). This action could be brought during the one year period either in lieu of enforcement or with enforcement. An action for injunction preventing the banks, servicers or trustees from attempting to use the void note and mortgage might also be advisable.
  10. If an action for enforcement is brought during the one year period it is important not to plead as though the rescission might not be effective. it is a fact. See Jesinoski. The relief sought is NOT to have a declaration from the court that the rescission was valid. The pleading must assume that it is already legally binding as per 15 USC 1635 et seq and that the only issues remaining are the duties of the “lender” who should not be described as a lender but only someone who has asserted the rights of a lender, holder, mortgagee, beneficiary or servicer or trustee.
  11. An attack on standing is appropriate at every step when the “servicer” or Lender” seeks to challenge the rescission without filing an actual lawsuit or pleading. The banking side of the equation has NOT been granted the power to contest with anything other than some other recognized “operation of law.” The only such exercise would be a lawsuit seeking to vacate the rescission on the grounds that it was wrongful or deficient in some way.
  12. STANDING: This is where most cases will be won or lost. Since the note and mortgage were rendered VOID as of the date of mailing, the party seeking to vacate the rescission would need to plead that they are injured by the rescission, to wit: they are going to lose the ability to enforce a legally binding debt. And they would need to establish standing WITHOUT the note and mortgage, which are void (see above).
  13. Thus the pleader would need to establish themselves as a party who either funded the loan and is still the creditor, or who has purchased the loan from someone who owned the loan because they funded it. This we believe is going to be impossible for the lenders because their money trail leads straight to investors whose money was used improperly and whose money was never paid to the trust that issued the mortgage backed securities. The investors were left out in the cold without a mortgage backed security issued by any entity that had mortgages, without a note and without a mortgage. That leaves them with empty promises from the “Servicer” and no enforcement mechanism to collect from either the borrower or the investment bank. None of that is the fault of the borrower.

The Florida Statute below shows the intent of recording such notices. Using the form that is already approved by statute makes recording a lot easier:

712.05 Effect of filing notice.—

(1) A person claiming an interest in land or a homeowners’ association desiring to preserve a covenant or restriction may preserve and protect the same from extinguishment by the operation of this act by filing for record, during the 30-year period immediately following the effective date of the root of title, a written notice in accordance with this chapter. Such notice preserves such claim of right or such covenant or restriction or portion of such covenant or restriction for up to 30 years after filing the notice unless the notice is filed again as required in this chapter. A person’s disability or lack of knowledge of any kind may not delay the commencement of or suspend the running of the 30-year period. Such notice may be filed for record by the claimant or by any other person acting on behalf of a claimant who is:

(a) Under a disability;
(b) Unable to assert a claim on his or her behalf; or
(c) One of a class, but whose identity cannot be established or is uncertain at the time of filing such notice of claim for record.

Such notice may be filed by a homeowners’ association only if the preservation of such covenant or restriction or portion of such covenant or restriction is approved by at least two-thirds of the members of the board of directors of an incorporated homeowners’ association at a meeting for which a notice, stating the meeting’s time and place and containing the statement of marketable title action described in s. 712.06(1)(b), was mailed or hand delivered to members of the homeowners’ association at least 7 days before such meeting. The homeowners’ association or clerk of the circuit court is not required to provide additional notice pursuant to s. 712.06(3). The preceding sentence is intended to clarify existing law.

(2) It shall not be necessary for the owner of the marketable record title, as herein defined, to file a notice to protect his or her marketable record title.
History.—s. 5, ch. 63-133; s. 798, ch. 97-102; s. 3, ch. 97-202; s. 1, ch. 2003-79; s. 7, ch. 2014-133.

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: , , | 24 Comments »

Assignment must exist in writing, even if the court says it doesn’t need recording

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Neil Garfield

Dan Hanacek, who will be at the conference in Emeryville tomorrow, and Charles Cox can be reached through our customer service number 520-405-1688. Dan is a lawyer with whom I am engaged in mentoring and resourcing in Northern California cases and Charles helps people all over the country. The tide is turning. The basic principles of title in place for hundreds of years, TILA in place for dozens of years and RESPA in place for dozens of years will yet win the day. Title analysis and attorney advice is crucial to making the write choices and communication with a party purporting to be either a lender or servicer. Don’t assume you know what they are saying is correct. Not even the original note can be admitted because of the thousands of instances in which the “original” is a Photoshopped version that is not the original note and therefore does not contain the original signature of the borrower.

Editor’s Note:

With Banks and servicers playing fast and loose with the rules of procedure, the rules of evidence and black letter law it well to remember BASIC BLACK LETTER LAW. An assignment without delivery is probably a nullity. An assignment that isn’t even in writing is (a) not proper under most existing laws and (b) requires the allegation of an oral “assignment” to be explained as to why it wasn’t in writing before, just like a lost or destroyed note.

The assignment can only be valid and used if the assignee is capable of accepting it, paying for it and either acceptance is for the assignee or as an authorized agent. The Notice Default does not give the Trustee or even the original mortgagee where there has been an assignment, the right to declare default. Then it becomes the representation of the trustee, who is supposed to be objective and disinterested in the result.

For the Trustee to issue a notice of sale and notice of default on behalf of the supposed beneficiary, means that the trustee is no longer accepting the responsibilities of the trustee to act with due diligence and good faith toward both the trustor and the beneficiary.

Hence the substitution of trustee is an offer which has not and cannot be accepted. Any actions taken by the trustee in a notice of default or any other notice or collection letter is out of bounds. The only reason the banks do this is to hide behind yet another layer of people and entities so when the arrest warrants are issued, they can claim plausible deniability that the wrong procedure was being followed. This is poppycock. The beneficiary supposedly knows whether or not he is the creditor entitled to submit a credit bid at auction based upon the the existence of a properly kept loan receivable account reflected on the CREDITOR’s books.

This is just another example where the banks and servicers have borrowed the identity of the creditor, claimed that said identity is private and privileged, and then used it for their own advantage to the detriment of both the lender-investor and the borrower.

Witness this exchange between two of our golden boys — Dan Hanacak and Charles Cox:

Dan wrote:

1624.  (a) The following contracts are invalid, unless they, or some
note or memorandum thereof, are in writing and subscribed by the
party to be charged or by the party's agent:
   (2) A special promise to answer for the debt, default, or
miscarriage of another, except in the cases provided for in Section
2794.
   (3) An agreement for the leasing for a longer period than one
year, or for the sale of real property, or of an interest therein;
such an agreement, if made by an agent of the party sought to be
charged, is invalid, unless the authority of the agent is in writing,
subscribed by the party sought to be charged.
 
Would this section not require the following:
  1. Assignments must be in writing as they are “…for the sale of real property, or of an interest therein.”
  2. Immediately contradict the Gomes holding as it assumes that the authority of the agent has already been subscribed by the party to be charged and pre-empts any challenge by the injured party to the alleged contract.

And Charles Cox wrote back:

I’ve just been drafting argument against TDSC (in opposition to their demurrer)  for the proposition of their authority (as an agent for the beneficiary) in which (as is common) they attempt to use an agent they have assigned, to record a NOD (usually prior to an assignment being recorded) which I refute as follows:

In P&A p.10:26-p.11:27: TDS wrongfully states a “title company representative as agent for T.D.” could validate a Notice of Default which by the terms of the purported Deed of Trust (“NOD”.)  By the terms of the purported Deed of Trust, a NOD is required to be executed or caused to be executed by the “Lender” not the trustee nor the Trustee’s sub-agent as was done here (see Compl. Exh. 1 p.13 ¶ 22 second paragraph.) TDS’s citations are inapposite relating to “authorized agents” (meaning, authorized by the principal, not by another agent.)  Pursuant to CCC § 2304, an agent cannot act for an agent without the express authority of the principal.  CCC § 2322(b) does not allow an agent to define the scope of the agency (which TDS is attempting to do here).  CCC § 2349(4) requires authorization by the principal.  CCC § 2350 states an agent’s sub-agent is the agent of the agent, not of the principal and has NO connection to the principal.

TDS misstates CCC § 2349(1) as it relates to allowing an agent to delegate acts which are purely mechanical.  The statute actually states:

“An agent, unless specially forbidden by his principal to do so, can delegate his powers to another person in any of the following cases, and in no others:
1. When the act to be done is purely mechanical (emphasis added)”
   Note the statute states “another person” not another agent or sub-agent.  The alleged “notice of default” TDS refers to (Plaintiffs are not sure which one, having not been identified in TDS’s P&A but assume as follows:) was signed by “LSI TITLE COMPANY AS AGENT FOR T.D. SERVICE COMPANY,” NOT merely by “a title company representative”  or “person” as statutorily authorized.  This, notwithstanding that authorizing recording a Notice of Default is hardly “purely mechanical.”  This is yet another attempt by TDS to mislead the Court.  
   TDS’s citation of Wilson v. Hyneck cannot be relied on because it is an unpublished opinion and is inapposite anyway. 
    TDS’s further arguments (P&A p.11:5-27) fail for the reasons detailed above.

Plaintiffs Complaint contains sufficient facts constituting Plaintiffs’ cause of action specifically against TDS.  Nothing stated in this section of TDS’s Demurrer provides available grounds sufficient to sustain Defendants’ Demurrer (see p.2:19-25 above.)

Defendant fails to meet the legal standards to sustain its Demurrer.  See Plaintiffs’ Section III below.

Defendant’s Demurrer is without merit and must be overruled.

Amazing how these guys fail to accept responsibility for anything they do!

Charles
Charles Wayne Cox
Email: mailto:Charles@BayLiving.com or Charles@LDApro.com

 

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SELLOUT TO MERS MEMBERS — AMNESTY!?: FANNIE MAE ISSUES NEW GUIDELINES ON RECORDING ASSIGNMENTS

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Neil Garfield

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EDITOR’S NOTE: It appears as though Fannie Mae is trying to give some wiggle room to banks and servicers under the guise of new guidelines. But State law prevails and the guidelines are only effective as a matter of contract between FANNIE and correspondent lenders. One thing is clear, FANNIE is trying to legitimize MERS. It requires the following:

  1. the lender must report the MERS registration when it delivers the mortgage to us (by entering the applicable MIN on the Loan Schedule or Schedule of Mortgages). After we purchase or securitize the mortgage, we will notify MERS to ensure that the MERS records are updated to reflect our ownership interest. [Editor’s Note: This is a quasi government agency that was nationalized. MERS is a private recording system that is essentially unsecured — any person gaining a password and user ID can use it indefinitely to change the records. FANNIE should be eliminating MERS not including it in its operations. This is an attempt to say that MERS is a legitimate operation and that FANNIE will continue using it. It gives the impression that what they are doing it right, when in fact it is contributing to the title mess that is growing into nightmarish proportions throughout the United States]
  2. the lender will need to report our ownership interest to MERS when it registers the mortgage [Editor’s Note: This is a tricky way of leaving it to the correspondent lender to determine if the transfer to FANNIE has made proper and complete. It will be used by Banks to say that the administrative rules create a presumption of validity when in fact the requirements of state law either have not been met or it will be used to block borrower’s attempts to find out if State law has been followed. Once again attention to diverted from the discrepancies between (a) what they did at closing with the borrower (b) what they said they would do for the investor and (c) what they actually did with the money.
  3. After we purchase or securitize the mortgage, we will notify MERS to ensure that the MERS records are updated to reflect our ownership interest [Editor’s Note: This is doubletalk. If they purchase the mortgage, which they virtually never do except in cases of default, then they are the owner if they get a complete chain of title and properly executed documents by properly authorized people. If they securitized the mortgage, which is nearly always the case then they don’t own it. Why would they report to anyone, much less MERS that they own the loan? Once again attention to diverted from the discrepancies between (a) what they did at closing with the borrower (b) what they said they would do for the investor and (c) what they actually did with the money.
  4. For mortgages in existing Fannie Mae servicing portfolios, the lender will need to report our ownership interest to MERS when it registers the mortgage. (Note: If the original assignment of the mortgage to Fannie Mae was recorded in the public records, the servicer will first need to prepare an assignment from Fannie Mae to MERS and send it to us for execution. [Editor’s Note: THEY ARE DOING IT AGAIN! ASSIGNING INTERESTS TO MERS WHEN MERS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY INTEREST IN THE NOTE OR MORTGAGE BY CONTRACT AND BY ADVERTISEMENT.]
  5. MERS will promptly notify us when a lender reports that we have an ownership interest in mortgages that it is registering with MERS. [THEY ARE DOING IT AGAIN. Leaving it to banks, servicers and MERS to sort out ownership of the loan without regard to the financial realities of the loan — whether payments have been made by obligors other than the borrower on the promissory note, whether the loan has been paid off in whole or in part by the servicer, insurer, credit enhancement or Federal bailout.]
  6. The lender will not need to include in the delivery package for a MERS-registered mortgage a copy of the assignment of the mortgage to MERS, nor will the lender be required to prepare and submit an unrecorded assignment of the mortgage to Fannie Mae, unless we specify otherwise for a particular transaction or transactions. [This is a blatant sellout to the Banks and servicers. It basically says that FANNIE will regard the package as in proper form and authentically transferred if the mortgage is MERS-registered. That is nuts. It means that they are formalizing the institutionalization of uncertainty in the marketplace. If this is allowed. Nobody will know the true owner of the loan from any public record, and therefore no owner and no lender will ever know if they really have a priority interest in the property. State statutes do not, in any case, allow MERS to pre-empt the county recording system. Yet that is exactly what FANNIE is attempting to do here.
  7. If a loan is registered with MERS and the servicing of the mortgage is subsequently transferred to another lender that is a MERS member, the transferee will not need to prepare an unrecorded assignment of the MERS-registered mortgage as part of the custody documents unless we specify otherwise for a particular transaction or transactions.
  8. if servicing of a MERS-registered mortgage is transferred to a lender that is not a member of MERS, or if the MERS registration for an active mortgage is terminated for any reason, an assignment from the servicer to Fannie Mae in recordable form but unrecorded will be required. [THUS A MERS MEMBER IS ELEVATED TO A POSITION HIGHER THAN THE NORMAL PERSON WHO MUST FOLLOW STATE LAW. MERS MEMBERS, ACCORDING TO FANNIE, DO NOT NEED OT FOLLOW THE LAW.]

Submitted BY NANCY DREWE on 2011/11/11 at 8:03 am

https://www.efanniemae.com/sf/guides/ssg/relatedsellinginfo/mers/pdf/merspolicy.pdf

Federal Home Mortgage dba FANNIE MAE (FORCE UPON ‘COMMERCE’ UTILIZING ‘MIN#’ ASSIGNMENT PRIOR TO SECURITIZATION.

Rules and Instructons to Correspondent Lenders

– For new mortgage deliveries to Fannie Mae, the lender must report the MERS registration when it delivers the mortgage to us (by entering the applicable MIN on the Loan Schedule or Schedule of Mortgages). After we purchase or securitize the mortgage, we will notify MERS to ensure that the MERS records are updated to reflect our ownership interest. (PLEASE NOTE THAT IT IS IMPORTANT TO REGISTER THE MIN ON THE MERS SYSTEM PRIOR TO DELIVERY OF THE LOAN (AND THE ASSOCIATED MIN) TO FANNIE MAE.)

-For mortgages in existing Fannie Mae servicing portfolios, the lender will need to report our ownership interest to MERS when it registers the mortgage. (Note: If the original assignment of the mortgage to Fannie Mae was recorded in the public records, the servicer will first need to prepare an assignment from Fannie Mae to MERS and send it to us for execution.) MERS will promptly notify us when a lender reports that we have an ownership interest in mortgages that it is registering with MERS.

• The lender will not need to include in the delivery package for a MERS-registered mortgage a copy of the assignment of the mortgage to MERS, nor will the lender be required to prepare and submit an unrecorded assignment of the mortgage to Fannie Mae, unless we specify otherwise for a particular transaction or transactions.

• If a loan is registered with MERS and the servicing of the mortgage is subsequently transferred to another lender that is a MERS member, the transferee will not need to prepare an unrecorded assignment of the MERS-registered mortgage as part of the custody documents unless we specify otherwise for a particular transaction or transactions. However, if servicing of a MERS-registered mortgage is transferred to a lender that is not a member of MERS, or if the MERS registration for an active mortgage is terminated for any reason, an assignment from the servicer to Fannie Mae in recordable form but unrecorded will be required.

• The lender will be responsible for the accurate and timely preparation and recordation of security instruments, assignments, lien releases, and other documents relating to MERS-registered mortgages and must take all reasonable steps to ensure that information on MERS is updated and accurate at all times. The lender will also be solely responsible for any failure to comply with the provisions of the MERS Member Agreement, Rules, and procedures and for any liability that it or Fannie Mae incurs as a result of the registration of mortgages with MERS or any specific MERS transaction.

Fannie Mae Guides and with the terms and conditions of the lender’s Master Agreement or any negotiated contract that it has with us, unless we specify otherwise. In addition, MERS’ failure to perform any obligation with respect to a MERS- registered mortgage does not relieve the lender (or the mortgage servicer) from its responsibility for performing any obligation required by the terms of its Fannie Mae contracts or the provisions of the Fannie Mae Guides.

For more information, please visit the AllRegs® website (http://www.allregs.com/efnma/) and perform a search under Fannie Mae Single Family for MERS.
MORNET is a registered trademark of Fannie Mae. MERS is a registered trademark of Mortgage Electronic Registrations Systems, Inc. and AllRegs is a registered trademark of Mortgage Resource Center Corporation.

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JUDGE MARGERET MANN (SO. CA BKR) PLUNGES INTO DETAILS AND COMES UP WITH WELL-REASONED DECISION

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Neil Garfield

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AURORA LOAN SERVICES LLC, SCME MORTGAGE BANKERS INC, ING BANK FSB, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS ALL BITE THE DUST, SUBJECT TO LIABILITY AND NO ABILITY TO FORECLOSE WITHOUT COMPLYING WITH LAW.

Salient points of Judge Mann’s Decision:

  1. TRUTH IN LENDING  was dismissed because they were time-barred. LESSON: Don’t ignore TILA claims or TILA audits. Get a forensic Analysis as early as possible, assert them immediately, assert rescission as soon as possible. TILA has teeth, but if you assert it late in the game.
  2. YOU CAN’T FORECLOSE ON UNRECORDED INSTRUMENTS: Judge Mann came right out and said the California Supreme Court would not and could not decide otherwise. Any other holding would defeat the purpose of recording and create uncertainty in the marketplace. This will cause a lot of grief to pretenders. It is getting harder for them to come up with people who are willing to lie, forge or fabricate documents. Getting a notary to affix their signature and seal will soon be a thing of the past unless the signature, the person and the document is real.
  3. THE ASSUMPTION THAT THE LOAN IS IN DEFAULT IS STILL A PROBLEM: As long as lawyers and pro se litigants are willing to concede that the obligation was in default, they are giving up their largest chip — i.e., that the loan was not in default and the loan was not subject to a perfected lien for the same reason that the court cites in its opinion. Our loan level analysis shows repeatedly that in most cases the servicer is continuing to make payments and reporting to investors that the loan is performing even as they send delinquency letter’s notices of default and notices of sales. The Court missed this point because nobody brought it up. Don’t expect the Court to do your work for you. If you have reason to believe that the servicer is still paying on your loan you should be stating that the loan is not in de fault, denying any delinquency to the creditor and objecting to any action that is based upon the premise of “default.” Note that if the servicer is paying your bills, the servicer MIGHT have a right of action against you, but it certainly isn’t under the terms of the note or mortgage.
  4. THE ASSUMPTION THAT A VALID PERFECTED MORTGAGE LIEN EXISTS IS STILL A PROBLEM: Again, the problem is not with the Courts but with the lawyers and pro se litigants who simply assume that this is not an issue. Put yourself in the banks’ shoes. If all you had were nominees for undisclosed principals on the note and mortgage would you be OK with that? No? Then the lien was never perfected, which means for legal purposes it doesn’t exist. Just because it shows in black and white doesn’t make it true. LESSON: Deny the lien exists, deny it was perfected and make them prove how it was perfected. They can’t. In most cases neither the mortgage originator nor the nominee beneficiary (MERS) had a disclosed lender or beneficiary, nor did they incorporate the real terms of  the payment to the investor/lenders. If this was a law school exam and the student wrote that the loan was perfected, the grade would be “F”.
  5. THE ISSUE OF FEDERAL PREEMPTION AND THEREFORE JURISDICTION AND VENUE ARE STILL IN FLUX: This Judge found that federal preemption prevents the homeowner from alleging TILA as state claims. The courts are not decided on this and the issue of res judicata and Rooker -Feldman will come into play once the issue is really resolved with finality. Beware then how you assert a claim and that you don’t let the statute of limitations run out by failing to assert the right claim under TILA in the right court. better to get dismissed than to find out that you are time-barred.
  6. WRONGFUL FORECLOSURE IS A TITLE ISSUE NOT A FAIRNESS OR TECHNICAL ISSUE: Judge Mann, correctly in my opinion, states that an assignment from MERS must be allowed in order to clear up title. But, she states that without recording an interest within the chain of title, you have no right to foreclose under the states recording laws. I think this is right, and I think it applies in all 50 states. LESSON: Plead your wrongful foreclosure, slander of title and quiet title cases as title cases and stop adding extra things that you think may them juicier. Either the title is right or it is wrong. There is no middle ground.
  7. MERS ISSUE IS STILL OBSCURE: While the assignment from MERS, if recorded clears up one part it leaves another part undecided again because it wasn’t raised properly. There is a difference between “bare record title” and an “interest in the land.” The MERS assignment is like a quit-claim deed from someone without any interest in the land and used to clear up the chain of title on paper, but it does not convey any interest. MERS on its website and in the public domain specifically disclaims any interest in the obligation, note or mortgage. That is its selling point to members who use its “Service.” And that is why it can’t foreclose and it is subject to cease and desist orders from regulators. As with other affidavits or quit-claims to clear up apparent clouds on title, the recorded assignment or quitclaim does nothing to convey a larger interest than that possessed by the grantor. LESSON: If the pretenders want to foreclose they can’t rely on the MERS assignment. They must file a credible affidavit that states that the affiant was the undisclosed principal in the original transaction with the borrower and that it joins in or separately assigns the actual interest in the obligation, note or mortgage. In my opinion, this is the only way to perfect the original “lien.” Whether it will relate back to the original transaction is an issue the courts must decide.
  8. NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A DEED OF TRUST AND A MORTGAGE: Pretenders who try to elevate a deed of trust above a mortgage are headed for a brick wall. Courts never liked non-judicial foreclosure in the first place. They are not about to to reverse centuries of law and provide higher status to a non-judicial foreclosure or the instruments that allow it. ONLY the statutes that provide for extra care on the part of the trustee are constitutional, since due process is the only way anyone in this country can be deprived of life, liberty or property. LESSON: Pound on the issue that the pretender cannot prevail in a judicial foreclosure so they are trying to get away with it in a non-judicial foreclosure. If you want to see how this will eventually unfold, look at Florida and other states that had similar issues in their “Contracts for deed.” Despite clear contractual language the courts have universally held they are mortgages and that they must be foreclosed as mortgages.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 52 Comments »

REGISTER OF DEEDS JEFF THIGPEN (NC) AND JOHN O’BRIEN (MA): REQUIRE ALL PAST AND PRESENT MERS ASSIGNMENTS TO BE FILED

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Neil Garfield

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GETTING CLOSER TO THE TRUTH

EDITORIAL COMMENT: Every day we take a little more lipstick off the pig and discover, of all things, A PIG! This is a basic challenge to Wall Street that is so simple and so right that there is nothing to do but obey — but they won’t. If all the MERS transactions are recorded, it would not only recover billions in unpaid recording and registration fees, but trigger other tax liabilities on Federal, State and Local levels. The whole REMIC exemption is based upon the REMIC vehicle being closed within 90 days.

Oops! Nearly all REMIC (SPV, TRUST) vehicles are still open (i.e., empty) after many years. And Wall Street’s fees taken under the cover of the REMIC transactions and hidden from all, would be painfully obvious resulting not only in monumental income tax liability but liability for fraudulent sale of securities, appraisal fraud on the property, RICO and many other causes of action too numerous to mention (see Causes of Action on left side of this Blog).

But that is just a dream. There is no way they can record all 80 million MERS transactions because many of them don’t actually exist. In the end, the issue is simple — are we going to sacrifice a system of title recordation in place for centuries with an exemption (get out of  jail free) card for Wall Street and thus create commercial chaos for decades or centuries to come? Or are we going to let the chips fall where they will? If the chips fall naturally, some people will make money and some people will lose money. Some people will be satisfied and some people will be mad as hell. That’s what happens in a free market, isn’t it?

All we are offered is POLICY argument that says POLICY is more important than the law. That has never been true in theory. But now the only way out for Wall Street is to make it true in theory as well as in practice. Abandoning the separate but equal powers of the judiciary and thus removing one leg of the three legged stool the founders created when they launched the USA would be the single most important element in the destruction of the country as it is presently constituted — causing a secession battle and the same problems that Russia had when stopped being the Soviet Union.

Basically Wall Street is saying “we went to all this trouble and expense to cheat and deceive you and we ought to be able to keep it. Screw you if you think you are getting any of it back.” The government is nodding its head like a head on a spring in the back seat of the car. The people are saying we want governance not pie-splitting. How this will all end up is going to be interesting and profound. Unless we apply the rule of law suggested simply by applying the requirement of recording transactions in a public registry, we will have about as much confidence in the stability of U.S. commerce as there is in any of the third world countries.

Every PONZI scheme fails. All efforts by Wall Street and the government controlled by Wall Street have failed to find an alternative way around the rule of law that doesn’t strike at the heart of our constitutional system. All the people who lose money in a PONZI scheme wish the scheme had gone on just long enough for THEM to get their money back and someone else to lose THEIR money. That’s where we are, folks, and the time to end every PONZI scheme is immediately before another person gets hurt.

These foreclosures are virtually all based on factually false and fraudulent representations, documentation, and premises. Practically none of the “mortgages” are legal and if any one of them was singularly the subject of a quiet title action, the homeowner would win on the merits, based upon the facts. It is only because of the volume of transactions that legislators and bureaucrats are scurrying around looking for a novel way out of this scam, because they are getting “benefits” from Wall Street. The requirement of recording, will expose the truth: (1) that the only real parties to the transaction are not present in any existing documents and (2) that the existing documents describe transactions that never actually took place. They can’t record these documents because most states make it a criminal offense to record, execute, witness or notarize fraudulent documents.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Greensboro, NC

April 7, 2011

Contact:

Jeff Thigpen, Guilford County Register of Deeds

Ph. 336-451-5300

Ph. 336-641-3239

jthigpe@co.guilford.nc.us

REGISTER OF DEEDS JEFF THIGPEN (NC) AND JOHN O’BRIEN (MA) ASK 50 STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL FORECLOSURE WORK GROUP TO REQUIRE ALL PAST AND PRESENT MERS ASSIGNMENTS TO BE FILED!

JOHN L. O’BRIEN, JR.                                                                                                          JEFF L. THIGPEN
Register of Deeds                                                                                                                    Register of Deeds

Commonwealth of Massachucetts                                                                            Guilford County, North Carolina
Phone: 978-542-1704                                                                                                           Phone: 336-451-5300
Fax: 978-542-1706                                                                                                                  Fax: 336-641-5778
website: www.salemdeeds.com website: www.guilforddeeds.com

April 6, 2011

The Honorable Tom Miller
Iowa Attorney General
1305 E. Walnut Street
Des Moines IA 50319

Dear Attorney General Miller,

We appreciate your leadership in the mortgage foreclosure working group, as part of a coordinated national effort by states, to review the practice of “robo-signing” within the mortgage servicing industry.   We understand this investigation is nearing conclusion, but we want to implore you to act on a very important issue to homeowners across the country.

As County Land Record Recorders in Massachusetts and North Carolina, we have been gravely concerned about the role of the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) in not only foreclosure proceedings, but as it undermines the legislative intent of our offices as stewards of land records.   MERS tracks more than 60 million mortgages across the United States and we believe it has assumed a role that has put constructive notice and the property rights system at risk.    We believe MERS undermines the historic purpose of land record recording offices and the “chain of title” that assures ownership rights in land records.

As a result, we are asking as part of your probe, that this task force and the National Association of Attorney Generals require that all past and present MERS assignments of deeds of trust/mortgages be filed in local recording offices throughout the United States immediately.  Assignments are required by statute to be filed in Massachusetts, however they are not currently required to be recorded in North Carolina.   We feel, that it is important that the Registers of Deeds should have representatives at the table before any settlement is discussed or agreed to as it relates to MERS failure to record assignments and pay the proper fees.

This action would serve three specific purposes.   First, the filing of all assignments would help recover the chain of title that determines property ownership rights that has been lost and clouded over during the past 13 years because of the scheme that MERS has set in place.  Second, transparency and confidence in ownership rights would be restored and this would prevent the infringement upon those rights by others.   Third, this action would support a return to sound fundamentals in our economy between the financial services industry and public recording offices.

MERS has defended their practices by saying that they were helping the registries of deeds by reducing the amount of paperwork that needed to be recorded. This claim is outrageous.  This is help we did not ask for, nor was it help that we needed.  It is very clear that the only ones that they were helping were themselves. Over the past 10-12 years, recording offices across the United States have upgraded their internal and external technology to meet the demands of lenders, title underwriters, title searchers and citizens.  In fact, in 1998 the Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds in Massachusetts became the first registry of deeds to provide both document images and indices available to the public, 24 hours a day, free of charge on the world-wide-web. In doing so, the Registry received a Computerworld Smithsonian Award which recognized the innovative use of technology to benefit society. In 2009, the Guilford County Register of Deeds was given a Local Government Federal Credit Union Productivity Award by the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners for their technological innovations.  Nationally, over 93% of the public land records are up to date and current, according to Ernest Publishing.

As of today, there are over 600 recording jurisdictions, covering 43% of the US population that have incorporated an eRecording model into their document recording operations.   We believe these jurisdictions cover nearly 80% of the volume of assignments that should be recorded.  The remaining areas could be covered quickly, with legislation requiring such action by state legislatures.

Quite frankly, we believe this can and should be done.  It’s the right thing to do.

In the coming weeks, we will be working with our national organizations, the National Association of County Recorders, Election Officials and Clerks (NACRC) and the International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials, and Treasurers (IACREOT) to take the same position.   We are also sending a copy of this letter to the National Conference on State Legislatures (NCSL) and the National Association of Counties (NACO).

Thank you for your immediate attention.

Sincerely,

Jeff L.Thigpen
Guilford County Register of Deeds, NC

John O’Brien
Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds, MA

###

SOURCE: Jeff Thigpen

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 34 Comments »

BANKS HITTING THE WALL

Posted on October 9, 2010 by Neil Garfield

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is not just a paper crash, which old-timers like myself will remember from the Wall Street paper-crash of the late 1960’s. Simple logic leads to the inevitable conclusion that property rights and contracts, mortgages, notes and obligation are all about paperwork and recording. The trail is defective because it reflected the desire of the “securitization” intermediaries to have full control over every aspect of the MONEY. It reflected their total lack of concern with the actual documents. And in the end, the hedge transactions and exotic instruments they created were proof of fraud and negligence.

It was the money they were moving, not the paper. They avoided those pesky recording fees, and didn’t bother to report or pay taxes, fees or file returns on transactions in which trillions of dollars changed hands. Those deficits we are all worried about on the Federal and state level? They are all curable by simple enforcement of and collection of taxes that are due from these hidden transactions that can now be traced easily. Collection is easy and can be tied to settling the foreclosure mess and the title mess. It’s easier than you think.

Those insurance, credit default swap, and other credit enhancement techniques that were used destroyed the the nexus between the lending by the investor and the borrowing by the homeowner. They continue to try to stay in the middle keeping the investors away from direct collaboration with homeowners — because when the two sides of these transactions meet up, the numbers won’t add up and some very arrogant people whose names are well-known are going to face charges that were inconceivable as late as a month ago.

But don’t go celebrating just yet. You still need a lawyer and you still must plead and prove your claim. One thing is certain regardless of what they do, the pace of foreclosures is going to either cease or slow to a crawl.

October 8, 2010

Largest U.S. Bank Halts Foreclosures in All States

By DAVID STREITFELD and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ

Bank of America, the nation’s largest bank, said Friday that it was extending its suspension of foreclosures to all 50 states.

The plan swept states with some of the highest foreclosure levels, including California, Nevada and Arizona, into a swelling crisis over lenders’ flawed paperwork that had been mostly confined to 23 other states that require judicial review of foreclosures.

Bank of America instituted a partial freeze last week in those 23 states, and three other major mortgage lenders have done the same. The bank’s decision on Friday increased pressure on other lenders to extend their moratoriums nationwide as well.

An immediate effect of the action will be a temporary stay of execution for hundreds of thousands of borrowers in default. The bank said it would be brief, a mere pause while it made sure its methods were in order.

But as the furor grows over lenders’ attempts to bypass legal rules in their haste to reclaim houses from delinquent owners, there is a growing expectation that foreclosures will dwindle for months as the foreclosure system is reworked.

Stan Humphries, an economist with the housing site Zillow.com, said what was initially cast as a problem of sloppy record-keeping is rapidly evolving into one that suggests the banks’ procedures for recording loans might not have followed the law.

“The former scenario represents a hiccup for the market, maybe a 30- to 90-day slowdown in foreclosure initiations,” Mr. Humphries said. “The latter scenario is more like hitting a wall.”

The uncertainty is putting the housing market in turmoil and causing vast confusion. Bank of America, for example, said it was not halting sales of foreclosed properties to new owners, but Fannie Mae, the giant mortgage holding company, is doing exactly that with properties it bought from Bank of America.

One real estate agent in Florida said Friday that he had six deals involving former Bank of America properties that had been at least temporarily scuttled. Representatives for Fannie, which was taken over by federal regulators after it failed two years ago, did not return calls.

Real estate agents said the extent of any disruption depended on how long the moratorium lasted, how many lenders ultimately participated — and what people in default decided to do.

“If it’s still January, February, March, and they’re not foreclosing, you’ll see a big effect,” said Jim Klinge, an agent in San Diego. “It’ll be a banker’s holiday, free rent for everybody and a lawyers’ gold mine.”

As soon as Bank of America announced its freeze in a terse press release, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Edolphus Towns, the New York Democrat who leads the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, both pointedly asked other lenders to follow suit.

Increased pressure also came from Christopher J. Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, who announced a Nov. 16 hearing on foreclosures.

The other lenders, however, did not seem to be swayed.

JPMorgan Chase, which has halted foreclosures in the 23 states where they need a judge’s permission, says it is putting hundreds of lawyers and executives to work addressing what it characterizes as a “technical” paperwork problem with 56,000 mortgages with improper documentation. Officials have no plans to halt foreclosures nationwide, and believe they can fix the problems within weeks, they said.

Chase officials acknowledge they had a flawed process, but they say they have not mistakenly foreclosed on any homeowners, because the underlying information is accurate. People close to the bank say that about one-third of the properties tied to mortgages under scrutiny are vacant, in line with their assessment of the overall industry.

The average borrower that Chase has foreclosed on, these people added, has not made a payment on the mortgage for about one and a half years — a figure that they say is also consistent with the industry.

Inside Citigroup, which has not suspended foreclosures, officials said they were breathing a sigh of relief. Sanjiv Das, the head of CitiMortgage, began a review of loan servicing processes about 18 months ago in anticipation of a groundswell of foreclosures.

At that time, Citi stepped up its employee training and tightened its documentation processes, giving officials there confidence that they have sidestepped the document issue. But given the huge number of mortgages it processed and its sprawling operations, Citi — which has faced one embarrassment after another — is not publicly declaring victory.

On Friday, Wells Fargo, another big lender that has not halted foreclosures, continued to maintain that its foreclosure processes were accurate and said it was not planning to initiate a nationwide moratorium.

“As a standard business practice, we continually review and reinforce our policies and procedures,” said Vickee Adams, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman. “If we find an error or if an improvement is needed, we take action.”

Bank of America’s chief executive, Brian T. Moynihan, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, said he did not believe the bank’s action would disrupt the housing market.

“We haven’t found any problems with the foreclosure process and what we’re saying is that we’ll go back and check our work one more time,” he said.

Not only is Bank of America watched more closely as the nation’s largest bank, it also finds itself deeper in the subprime mortgage mess. It holds $102 billion in subprime loans on its balance sheet from the period when lending standards were most lax — 2005 to 2007 — more than JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup or Wells Fargo, according to a report by Christopher Kotowski, an analyst with Oppenheimer.

Bank of America’s troubled mortgage portfolio is a legacy of its July 2009 acquisition of Countrywide, a subprime specialist that was among the financial institutions with the most troubled loans, as well as its January 2009 merger with Merrill Lynch, which was a major player in the business of taking mortgages and transforming them into securities to be sold to investors.

In addition, as the beneficiary of two capital infusions by Washington under the federal bailout, Bank of America was among the banks most dependent on Washington to help survive the financial crisis, receiving $45 billion from taxpayers. Of that, $20 billion came in emergency aid after Merrill’s losses were revealed.

That money has been paid back, but several analysts said the company was eager to maintain good relations with the government, and emphasized that restoring the bank’s public image was a crucial factor in the action on Friday.

“What prompted Bank of America is they see the political writing on the wall, and this has clearly become a political issue,” said Guy D. Cecala, the editor of Inside Mortgage Finance. “Almost every lawmaker is calling for a national mortgage foreclosure moratorium, and given the momentum out there, they wanted to deal with it on their own terms.”

In fact, earlier this year, with a government ban on automatic overdraft fees for debit cards looming, Bank of America actually went further than its rivals and pre-emptively eliminated the overdraft option entirely. Other banks allow customers to now opt in to the program, which can result in huge charges for small overdrafts.

Another reason for Bank of America’s broader action, suggested Richard X. Bove, an analyst with Rochdale Securities, is that the attorney general of the state where it is based, North Carolina, has called on the bank to halt foreclosures there.

“It’s a pre-emptive strike,” he said. “The smartest thing to do is to get ahead of the attorneys general around the country on this.”

Eric Dash and Binyamin Appelbaum contributed reporting.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 23 Comments »

PACER CITED FOR ALLOWING IMPROPER DOCUMENTATION ON LINE

Posted on March 23, 2010 by Neil Garfield

I MERELY REPORT THE FOLLOWING AS A POSSIBLE “HEADS UP”. I HAVE NOT HEARD OF THIS PROBLEM WITH PACER. IF ANY OF YOU KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT IT, PLEASE POST YOUR COMMENTS.

Editor’s Note: Like MERS, garbage in, garbage out. Without a referee the players do whatever suits them. Here PACER enables litigants to submit questionable documents — i.e., where authentication is bypassed and foundation is absent.

In MERS, the participant members have constant access to change anything in those “data” records and then submit MIN reports (milestone) as though they were business records, even though they were probably changed to reflect the oral argument from the previous hearing.

The myth in MERS is that someone is submitting documents where they are reviewed for authenticity, proper execution and accuracy just like in the property appraiser’s office or the county recording office in which the property is located. The truth is the only employees at MERS (numbering under 20) are administrative and IT people to keep the technology platform running. MERS was never intended to be a system equal to the recording office. it was always intended to get around the recording requirements.

From: joseph zernik <jz12345@earthlink.net>
Subject: [law-discuss] Richard Fine: Comprehensive Review of PACER & CM/ECF Practices Sought By Volunteers Across the US
To: “US agencies, law school faculty, NGOs, media, and others” <jz12345@earthlink.net>
Date: Thursday, March 18, 2010, 5:44 PM

Richard Fine: Comprehensive Review of PACER & CM/ECF Practices Sought By Volunteers Across the US
 Los Angeles, March 18 – following his claims fraud in PACER and CM/ECF in the habeas corpus petition of Richard Fine at the US District Court, Los Angeles and at the US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, Dr Joseph Zernik, Los Angeles, California, resident, published in various online outlets letters [1] seeking volunteers throughout the US to help in producing a comprehensive review of the practices and procedures of the United States courts and courts of appeals relative to their computerized systems:  PACER – the public access system, and CM/ECF – the case management/electron ic filing system.

Specific help was requested in a two-fold manner:

First – comprehensive examination of the local rules, general orders, and CM/ECF manuals of the district and appellate courts, to identify mention, if any of the practice of NEFs (Notices of Electronic Filings) bearing RSA- encrypted digital signatures as the replacement for the stamps and hand-signatures of the clerks of the courts in the former paper-based certification/ authentication;

Second – examples of alleged fraud by US District courts and US courts of appeals through the issuance of court orders and judgments with invalid NEFs – bearing no RSA-encrypted digital signatures, or no NEFs at all.

In his letters, Dr Zernik compared the practice to the signing of an instrument by an individual, and acknowledgment of such individual’s signature on the instrument by a notary public, based on the notary’s hand endorsement and stamp, which the notary was required to keep possession of at all times.  Furthermore, Dr Zernik stated: “In other words, the public access system (PACER) permitted the inspection and the copying of the instruments alone (and even then – not always the signatures on the instruments) , but the NEFs – the equivalent of notary public acknowledgements – were uniformly eliminated from the PACER records.  Therefore, there was no way that the public could distinguish through PACER between court records that were honest, valid, and effectual, and the multitude of false and deliberately misleading records that populated PACER through misconduct of the courts.”

Such requests were issued as part of an effort to solicit experts’ opinions from outside the US regarding integrity of operations of the US courts relative to the practice and procedures of PACER and CM/ECF.  Dr Zernik was confident that experts would confirm his claims that PACER and CM/ECF, as implemented by the Administrative Office of the US Courts,  were a large-scale Shell Game fraud.

LINKS/NOTES:
[1] March 18, 2010 Letter by Dr Joseph Zernik, Los Angeles resident, soliciting volunteer reviews of Local Rules, General Orders, and local CM/ECF User’s manuals across the US.  The links at the end of the letter provided examples of both valid, and invalid NEFs.
———— ——

Hi [ ],

Thanks, since it appears that you know all the right people. Maybe you could help me in the most urgent task, relative to PACER in the US courts and US courts of appeals:

THE CLAIMS:
My basic claims relative to the recent implementation of the public access (PACER) and case management/ electronic filing (CM/ECF) systems at the United States courts is that it was the largest Shell Game fraud in the history of mankind, and that it was executed with no legal authority at all, since there was no way that the public could tell through PACER, which records were honest, valid, and effectual court records, and which were false and deliberately misleading court records.

Through many generations of paper-based administration of the courts, fundamental safeguards were established, which required that court orders and judgments be verified by the hand signature of the judge, and certified/authentic ated by the stamp/seal of the court and hand endorsement by the clerk of the court. Moreover, the clerk of the court was the only one authorized to hold the seals/stamps of the court.

Such basic procedures could be compared to the signing of an instrument by an individual, and acknowledgment of such individual’s signature on the instrument by a notary public, based on the notary’s hand endorsement and stamp, which the notary was required to keep possession of at all times.

The claim is that with the introduction of computer-based administration of the US courts, the certification/ authentication by the clerk was implemented as NEFs (Notices of Electronic Filings). The hand endorsement of the clerk was replaced by an RSA-encrypted digital signature, which appeared at the bottom of the NEFs as a 3-5 line nonsensical alphanumeric string.

However, in coordinated fashion, such newly practiced court procedures were NEVER lawfully established through local rules of courts in any US court or court of appeals that I examined.

Furthermore, in devising its dual computerized case management (CM/ECF) and public access (PACER) systems, the US courts deliberately eliminated from public access, and were actively denying public access to the NEFs. The NEFs were simply excluded from PACER.

In other words, the public access system (PACER) permitted the inspection and the copying of the instruments alone (and even then – not always the signatures on the instruments) , but the NEFs – the equivalent of notary public acknowledgements – were uniformly eliminated from the PACER records.

Therefore, there was no way that the public could distinguish through PACER between court records that were honest, valid, and effectual, and the multitude of false and deliberately misleading records that populated PACER through misconduct of the courts.

Moreover, the claim is that there was no reasonable explanation for the design of such dual systems that was consistent with the furtherance of justice and honest administration of the courts.

CURRENT EVIDENCE/DOCUMENTAT ION:
Ample documentation of the claims above was accumulated from the US District Court in LA and the US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit (in re: case of Richard Fine), and from the US District Court in Brattleboro, Vermont, and the US Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit (case of Scott Huminski).

The alleged fraud in such cases was in the issuance by the US District Court of court orders and judgments with NEFs with no digital signatures, and the service of court orders by the US courts of appeals with no signatures by the judges, and no NEFs at all.

WHERE IT STANDS TODAY:
I am in the process of seeking prominent expert opinions on the matter from outside the US (no US expert that is prominent, whom I have approached, was willing to issue a written opinion on the matter). I do have non-formal opinion from a prominent US expert, and preliminary formal opinion from a prominent expert from outside he US.

REQUEST FOR HELP:
I am seeking:

A) COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF LOCAL RULES OF COURTS/ GENERAL ORDERS/ USER MANUALS ACROSS THE US:
Review of as many US District Courts and Courts of Appeals, to establish whether they documented in their Local Rules of Courts the basis for operation of PACER and CM/ECF, the nature of certification/ authentication of records through RSA-encrypted digital signatures in NEFs. The only good reference that I found was often in informal “CM/ECF USER MANUALS”, which were not adequate court records at all.

What I would expect from those who were willing to help was a short declaration under penalty of perjury such as:

1) On this and that date I inspected the Local Rules of Court of this and that US District Court – as posted by the court at this and that URL, the Standing Orders – as posted by the court at this and that URL, and the local “CM/ECF User’s Manual” -as posted by the court at this and that URL. (I would appreciate also a time-date stamped PDF copies of the complete Local Rules of Court, General Orders, and CM/ECF Manuals of each court that was examined)

2) The only mention of PACER and CM/ECF was such and such.

3) The practice and procedure of NEFs and RSA-encrypted digital signatures in the NEFs, as the valid certification/ authentication of court records was/was not mentioned in such Local Rules of Court – Rule #xx; Was/was not mentioned in the local General Orders – General Order #xx-xx; Was/was not mentioned in informal “CM/ECF User’s Manual” of the court, pp xx-xx.

2) ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES OF FRAUD ON INDIVIDUALS AT THE US DISTRICT COURTS AND US COURTS OF APPEALS, PARTICULARLY IN MATTERS PERTAINING TO HABEAS CORPUS, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS.
I am seeking:
a) US District Court orders and judgments that were served with NEFs bearing no RSA-encrypted digital signatures, and/or
b) US Courts of Appeals orders that were served with no signatures of the judges and no NEFs at all.

Such fraud is typically perpetrated on litigants who are:
a) Prisoners filing habeas corpus petitions.
b) Individuals filing complaints pertaining to civil rights abuses.
c) Individuals filing complaints pertaining to complaints against members of the judiciary.
d) Individuals filing complaints pertaining to financial institutions – truth in lending, disability insurance, ERISA, benefits plans, etc.

My email for direct communications is:
jz12345@earthlink. net.

Truly,
[]
Joseph Zernik, PhD
http://inproperinla .blogspot. com/
http://www.scribd. com/Free_ the_Rampart_ FIPs
http://www.liveleak .com/user/ jz12345
http://www.examiner .com/x-38742- LA-Business- Headlines- Examiner
Please sign our petition – Free Richard Fine: http://www.thepetit ionsite.com/ 1/free-fine
Patriotic pics of Beyonce’ Knowles, Sharon Stone, and Charlize Theron,
Coming soon- deep house music!

LINKS:
[1] NEFs – a review with examples of honest and fraudulent NEFs:
http://www.scribd. com/doc/24732941 /10-01-03- Notice-of- Electronic- Filing-NEF- First-Amendment- CMSs-Review

[2] Large Scale Fraud Alleged in PACER
http://inproperinla .blogspot. com/2010/ 03/10-03- 17-large- scale-fraud- alleged-in. html

Filed under: foreclosure | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

BOA Suits Claims Credit Reports Used Instead of Title Searches

Posted on March 20, 2010 by Neil Garfield
BofA Title claims
BofA Wants $535M From Title Insurers
By DAN MCCUE

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (CN) – Bank of America claims mortgage insurers owe it more than $535 million for losses it suffered when the housing bubble burst. BofA, which bought the poster boy of the subprime lending fiasco, Countrywide Financial, 2 years ago, says title insurers unfairly refuse to cover busted mortgage loans that originated before the financial meltdown.
Bank of America, one of America’s largest mortgage lenders and the recipient of more than $45 billion in TARP funds from the federal government, claims that United General Title Insurance and First American Title Insurance, now corporate affiliates, insured mortgages for title defects, undisclosed intervening liens and other problems, and to cover equity loans and lines of credit up to $500,000.
Now the insurers are balking at paying the claims, blaming Bank of America and the firms it acquired prior to the global economic crisis for creating their own problems, BofA says in Mecklenburg County Court.
As of February the two insurers have denied at least 2,200 of Bank of America’s claims, representing more than $235 million in losses, and failed to respond to another 2,300 claims, representing more than $300 million in losses, BofA says.
All of the claims arise from a home equity loan or line of credit that is in default, the bank says.
BofA demands coverage of its losses, plus compensatory and punitive damages for breach of contract and bad faith.
BofA is also a plaintiff in a suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by Countrywide Home Loans, demanding $111 million from Triad Guaranty Insurance.
In that complaint, Countrywide and BofA claim Triad is wrongly trying to rescind coverage for high-risk practices that it encouraged.
BofA is represented by Davis Halvreich with Reed Smith in the North Carolina case. 

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Financial Double Jeopardy and Illegality of Securitization

Posted on March 16, 2010 by Neil Garfield

Editor’s Note: to most Judges and most lawyers the thought that a home could be foreclosed by the wrong party, or that there could be a declaration of default on a satisfied mortgage, and that these things could lead to sale of a home by a bank or other party that doesn’t own it to someone who also doesn’t own it — all these things are counter-intuitive. If certainty is a measure of confidence in the marketplace everyone has been certain about real property transactions which must be recorded in the property recording office of each county  in which the property is located.

So when you go into court or challenge the pretender lender out of court, they have the advantage of knowing that any Judge who hears your pleas is first going to assume that your defenses are technical, not real, and designed to delay the inevitable. It is stories like the one below you must keep in mind along with the quote from Beth Findsen who always reminds us that “you can be right as rain on the law, but if the Judge refuses to apply it, you lose anyway.”

That is why it is so important to get your act together (use the free intake form on this blog), get a forensic analysis done that includes securitization, and get an expert declaration that you or your lawyer can use in court. In the first round of motions you won’t convince the judge you’re right and the other side is wrong. But you CAN convince him that your case possibly has merit, that you are entitled to discovery, that you are entitled to a temporary injunction or temporary retraining order, and that you have a right to a hearing on the merits.

Having third party reports and declarations in your hand that you can lay down in front of the judge goes a long way to convince the judge that you at least have the right to be heard on the merits even if, at the moment, he or she doesn’t think it likely you will prevail. If you properly plead and show the Judge something he or she can hold in their hand that, if proven, means you would win the case, then the judge is more likely to follow the law and allow you to proceed.

NAPLES — It was retirement incarnate. Then, the foreclosure lawsuit came.

Warren Nyerges, 45, left his law enforcement career and moved to Golden Gate Estates late last year with his wife. He was spending his days preparing his backyard for grass, painting the interior of his home and joking about the snow he abandoned in Cleveland.

“I’ve had nothing but a ball. To come down here, it’s a life dream,” Nyerges said.

To top it all off, the couple’s single-story, 2,700-square-foot home was paid off. Nyerges said he even offered $5,000 more than Bank of America was asking, quickly sealing the deal with title insurance.

But on Feb. 18, a man came to the couple’s home with a lawsuit. Bank of America had begun foreclosing on the property, and Nyerges’ dream was temporarily put on hold.

“I wish I could have taken my blood pressure the day I got served that thing, because I was livid,” Nyerges said. “I told my wife it shortened my life by 10 years.”

Nyerges said he called the process server, who told him to call the courthouse, where officials told him to call the lawyer, who then told him the issue was between him and Bank of America. Nyerges said he felt like many of the officials thought he was trying to get out of paying a mortgage.

After he was served, Nyerges said in a March 1 interview, “each and every day thereafter, excluding Saturdays and Sundays, I’ve been in contact with someone from the bank or the law firm.”

After unsuccessful calls to Bank of America’s main number, Nyerges said he went to one of the bank’s branches, found a manager, and “plopped this mess down on his desk.”

“I work for Bank of America. I am with these people. This lawsuit has no merit. It needs to stop,” Nyerges said the bank manager told others at the company after reviewing Nyerges’ documents. Nyerges said the bank didn’t believe their own employee.

On Feb. 22, he went back to the bank branch and had the documents faxed to the company. By March, an employee at the bank said they were researching the case, Nyerges said.

“They’re researching it,” Nyerges said the bank employee told him. “Calm down.”

“She just couldn’t understand why I was so upset about this,” Nyerges said, adding that he was nice at first, but later became more frustrated.

With multiple trips to the bank branch and the courthouse and about 25 hours dealing with the suit, which he had 20 days to respond to in order to avoid acknowledging the facts as accurate, Nyerges said he had no choice but to file a motion.

Acting as his own attorney, Nyerges’ first motion demanded the suit be dismissed with damages and he later filed a second motion seeking $2,500 for his time and expenses.

In a statement, Bank of America said officials are still trying to determine what happened.

“Bank of America sincerely apologizes to Mr. Nyerges for this inconvenience. We are currently researching the matter and are stopping the foreclosure,” the statement said. “We are still in the process of identifying the root cause that created this issue.”

Public records filed for Nyerges’ property add only more confusion to the situation. According to the records, the previous owners are Henry and Nelly M. Imbachi, who bought the home in July 2005. The lawsuit is related to the first of two mortgages they took on the property by August 2005.

When her husband lost his job, Nelly Imbachi said Bank of America foreclosed on the second mortgage. That foreclosure began in September 2008, Bank of America obtained title to the home in April 2009 and the second mortgage — not the first mortgage — was satisfied in August 2009, according to official records filed with the Collier Clerk of Court.

Nelly Imbachi said the unemployment insurance she had with Bank of America didn’t help. She said the company told her she didn’t file the necessary papers. She said the family never got a lawyer, later filed for bankruptcy and have not been notified of the current lawsuit.

“When they told us we lost the house, that is when we stopped paying,” Nelly Imbachi said of the first mortgage.

Tuan Van Ho, a Macro Island man who did not return a request for comment, then purchased the home for $155,000 on July 17, 2009, according to official records.

A month later, Nyerges purchased the home for $165,000, just three days after the Imbachi’s second mortgage was satisfied, the records indicate. In November, Nyerges said he looked up the property on the Collier County Property Appraiser’s Web site, discovered Ho was still listed as the owner, and asked for the situation to be corrected.

Indeed, on Nov. 13, 2009, Ho transferred the property back to Bank of America for no cost, two-and-a-half months after Nyerges had bought the home from Bank of America and while the Imbachi’s first mortgage still wasn’t satisfied.

So, what led to Nyerges being named in the suit remains a mystery. For the most part, Nyerges is more concerned, he said, with having his family’s name cleared, damages for the time he has spent and expenses paid fighting the suit, and a return to the relative serenity he once had.

“As I explained in my pleading today, they cost me long distance phone calls, gas, time and do you know how far my house is from the court house?” Nyerges said. “A lawyer would charge you $200 or $250. I’m charging $100. Just cut me a check for $2500 and we’ll act like the whole thing never happened.”

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

MERS ARTICLE REVEALS INHERENT FLAWS

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Neil Garfield

see FORECLOSURE_SUBPRIME_MORTGAGE_LENDING_AND_MERS1

Editor’s Note: This appears to be public domain. The article is excellent in its analysis of MERS. Here is the Table of Contents:

FORECLOSURE, SUBPRIME MORTGAGE LENDING, AND THE MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEM
Christopher L. Peterson*
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I.
THE AMERICAN REAL PROPERTY RECORDING SYSTEM
II.
THE ORIGIN AND OPERATION OF MERS
III.
THE QUESTIONABLE LEGAL FOUNDATION OF MERS
A.
MERS Does Not Own Legal Title to Mortgages Registered On Its Database
B.
MERS Lacks Standing to Bring Mortgage Foreclosures
C.
MERS’ Foreclosure Efforts Implicate the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
i.
MERS is a Third Party Debt Collector
ii.
Mortgage Servicers that Cloak Themselves in MERS’ Name Should be Construed as Debt Collectors
D.
Loans Recorded in MERS’ Name May Lack Priority Against Subsequent Purchasers for Value and Bankruptcy Trustees
IV.
ANALYZING MERS’ ROLE IN THE RESIDENTIAL MORTGAGE MARKET
A.
MERS and the Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis
B.
MERS and Atrophy of the Land Title Information Infrastructure
C.
Title Recording Law and Democratic Governance

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Ohio Appeals Court Bangs BONY For Not Owning the Loan

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Neil Garfield

see 2010-ohio-542 After-acquired interest not good BONY v Gendele

Significant Excerpts: By the way this is why we need title and escrow agents to act as experts or forensic analysts. A simple title chain analysis reveals the defect and now  Trial Judges in Ohio have a rule to follow. Will the real party in interest please stand up? See Fordham Law Review Article written more than two years ago on this very issue (under our links to the right of this page).

Gindeles argue that Bank of New York did not acquire its interest until after the foreclosure complaint had been filed, and that under our holding in Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Byrd,1 Bank of New York’s complaint should have been dismissed without prejudice. We agree.

In Byrd, we held that “in a foreclosure action, a bank that was not the
mortgagee when suit was filed cannot cure its lack of standing by subsequently obtaining an interest in the mortgage.”2

the record does not reflect any understandable mistake by Bank of New York; there is no indication that the identity of the proper party was difficult to ascertain; and there is no documentary proof that Bank of New York owned an enforceable interest when it filed its foreclosure complaint.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , | 22 Comments »

Walking Away and Keeping Your House: Strategic Default Strategy

Posted on January 24, 2010 by Neil Garfield

A provocative paper by Brent White, a law professor at the University of Arizona, makes the case that borrowers are actually suffering from a “norm asymmetry.” In other words, they think they are obligated to repay their loans even if it is not in their financial interest to do so, while their lenders are free to do whatever maximizes profits. It’s as if borrowers are playing in a poker game in which they are the only ones who think bluffing is unethical.

borrowers in nonrecourse states pay extra for the right to default without recourse. In a report prepared for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Susan Woodward, an economist, estimated that home buyers in such states paid an extra $800 in closing costs for each $100,000 they borrowed. These fees are not made explicit to the borrower, but if they were, more people might be willing to default, figuring that they had paid for the right to do so.

Editor’s Note: Here is a strategy straight out of the tax shelter playbook that could result in widespread relief for homeowners underwater. It comes from a high-finance tax shelter expert who shall remain unnamed. He and a group of other people with real money are thinking of establishing a clearinghouse for these transactions.The author of this strategy ranks very high in finance and law but he cautions, as do I, that you should utilize the services of only the most sophisticated property lawyers licensed to do business in appropriate jurisdictions before initiating any action under this delightful reversal of fortune, restoring equity, possession and clearing title to the millions of properties that could fall under the rubric of his plan. He even invites others to compete with his group, starting their own clearing houses (like a dating service) since he obviously could not handle all the volume.

The bottom line is that it leaves you in your home paying low rent on a long-term lease, forces the pretender lender (non-creditor) to file a judicial foreclosure, and throws a monkey wrench into the current  foreclosure scheme. I am not endorsing it, just reporting it. This is not legal advice. It is for information and entertainment purposes.

  1. John Smith and Mary Jones each own homes that are underwater. Maybe they live near each other, maybe they don’t. To make it simple let’s assume they are in the same subdivision in the same model house and each owes $500,000 on a house that is now worth $250,000. Their payments for amortization and interest are currently $3500 per month. The likelihood that their homes will ever be worth more than the principal due on the mortgage is zero.
  2. John and Mary are both up to date on their payments but considering just walking away because they have no stake in the outcome. Rents for comparable homes in their neighborhoods are a fraction of what they are paying monthly now on a mortgage based upon a false appraisal value.
  3. In those states where mortgages are officially or unofficially “non-recourse” they can’t be sued for the loss that the bank takes on repossession, sale or foreclosure.
  4. John and Mary find out about each other and enter into the following deal:
  5. First, John and Mary enter into 15 year lease wherein Mary takes possession of John’s house and pays $1,000 per month in a net-net lease (Tenant pays all expenses — taxes, insurance, maintenance and utilities). There are some laws around (Federal and State) that state that even if the house is foreclosed, the “Buyer” must honor the terms of the lease. But even in those jurisdictions where the lease itself is subject to being foreclosed, John and Mary agree to RECORD the lease along with an option to purchase the house for $250,000 (fair market value) wherein the seller takes a note for the balance at a 3% interest rate amortized over 30 years.
  6. So now Mary can have possession of the John house under a lease like any tenant. And she has an option to purchase the house for $250,000. And it’s all recorded just like the state’s recording statutes say you should.
  7. Second, John and Mary enter into a 15 year lease wherein John takes possession of Mary’s house and pays $1,000 per month in a net-net lease (Tenant pays all expenses — taxes, insurance, maintenance and utilities). There are some laws around (Federal and State) that state that even if the house is foreclosed, the “Buyer” must honor the terms of the lease. But even in those jurisdictions where the lease itself is subject to being foreclosed, John and Mary agree to RECORD the lease along with an option to purchase the house for $250,000 (fair market value) wherein the seller takes a note for the balance at a 3% interest rate amortized over 30 years.
  8. So now John can have possession of the Mary house under a lease like any tenant. And he has an option to purchase the house for $250,000. And it’s all recorded just like the state’s recording statutes say you should.
  9. Third, John and Mary enter into a sublease (expressly permitted under the terms of the original lease) where in John (or his wife or other relative) sublet the John house from Mary for $1100 per month.
  10. So John now has rights to possession of the John house under a sublease. In other words, he doesn’t move.
  11. Fourth John and Mary enter into a sublease (expressly permitted under the terms of the original lease) where in Mary (or her husband or other relative) sublet the Mary house from John for$1100 per month.
  12. So Mary now has rights to possession of the Mary house under a sublease. In other words, she doesn’t move.
  13. Fifth, under terms expressly allowed in the lease and sublease, John and Mary SWAP options to purchase and record that instrument as well as an assignment.
  14. So now John has an option to purchase the home he started with for $250,000 and Mary has an option to purchase the home she started with for $250,000 and both of them are now tenants in their own homes.
  15. Presumably under this plan eviction or unlawful detainer is not an option for anyone claiming to be a creditor, wanting to foreclose. Obviously you would want to consult with a very knowledgeable property lawyer licensed in the appropriate jurisdiction before launching this strategy.
  16. In the event of foreclosure, even in a non-judicial state, would be subject to rules requiring a judicial foreclosure which means the pretender lender would be required to plead and prove their status as creditor and their right to collect on the note and foreclose on the mortgage.
  17. Meanwhile, after all their documents are duly recorded, John and Mary start paying rent pursuant to their sublease and stop paying anyone on the mortgages.
  18. Any would-be forecloser would probably have a claim to collect that rent, but other than that they are stuck with a house where they got title (under dubious color of authority) without any right to possession (unless they prove a case to the contrary — the burden is on them).
  19. If you want to slip in a poison pill, you could put a provision in the lease that in the event of foreclosure or any proceedings that threaten dispossession or derogation of the lease rights, the lease converts from a net-net lease to a gross lease so the party getting title still gets the rent payment but now is required to pay the taxes, insurance and maintenance. Hence the commencement of foreclosure proceedings would trigger a negative cash flow for the would-be forecloser.
  20. To further poison the well, you could provide expressly in the lease that the failure of the landlord or successor to the Landlord to properly maintain tax, insurance and maintenance payments on the property is a material breach, triggering the right of the Tenant to withhold rent payments, and triggering a reduction of the option price from $250,000 to $125,000 with the same terms — tender of a  note, unsecured, for the full purchase price payable in equal monthly installments of interest and principal.

Not much difference than the chain of securitization is it?

January 24, 2010
Economic View New York Times

Underwater, but Will They Leave the Pool?

By RICHARD H. THALER

MUCH has been said about the high rate of home foreclosures, but the most interesting question may be this: Why is the mortgage default rate so low?

After all, millions of American homeowners are “underwater,” meaning that they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. In Nevada, nearly two-thirds of homeowners are in this category. Yet most of them are dutifully continuing to pay their mortgages, despite substantial financial incentives for walking away from them.

A family that financed the entire purchase of a $600,000 home in 2006 could now find itself still owing most of that mortgage, even though the home is now worth only $300,000. The family could rent a similar home for much less than its monthly mortgage payment, saving thousands of dollars a year and hundreds of thousands over a decade.

Some homeowners may keep paying because they think it’s immoral to default. This view has been reinforced by government officials like former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., who while in office said that anyone who walked away from a mortgage would be “simply a speculator — and one who is not honoring his obligation.” (The irony of a former investment banker denouncing speculation seems to have been lost on him.)

But does this really come down to a question of morality?

A provocative paper by Brent White, a law professor at the University of Arizona, makes the case that borrowers are actually suffering from a “norm asymmetry.” In other words, they think they are obligated to repay their loans even if it is not in their financial interest to do so, while their lenders are free to do whatever maximizes profits. It’s as if borrowers are playing in a poker game in which they are the only ones who think bluffing is unethical.

That norm might have been appropriate when the lender was the local banker. More commonly these days, however, the loan was initiated by an aggressive mortgage broker who maximized his fees at the expense of the borrower’s costs, while the debt was packaged and sold to investors who bought mortgage-backed securities in the hope of earning high returns, using models that predicted possible default rates.

The morality argument is especially weak in a state like California or Arizona, where mortgages are so-called nonrecourse loans. That means the mortgage is secured by the home itself; in a default, the lender has no claim on a borrower’s other possessions. Nonrecourse mortgages may be viewed as financial transactions in which the borrower has the explicit option of giving the lender the keys to the house and walking away. Under these circumstances, deciding whether to default might be no more controversial than deciding whether to claim insurance after your house burns down.

In fact, borrowers in nonrecourse states pay extra for the right to default without recourse. In a report prepared for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Susan Woodward, an economist, estimated that home buyers in such states paid an extra $800 in closing costs for each $100,000 they borrowed. These fees are not made explicit to the borrower, but if they were, more people might be willing to default, figuring that they had paid for the right to do so.

Morality aside, there are other factors deterring “strategic defaults,” whether in recourse or nonrecourse states. These include the economic and emotional costs of giving up one’s home and moving, the perceived social stigma of defaulting, and a serious hit to a borrower’s credit rating. Still, if they added up these costs, many households might find them to be far less than the cost of paying off an underwater mortgage.

An important implication is that we could be facing another wave of foreclosures, spurred less by spells of unemployment and more by strategic thinking. Research shows that bankruptcies and foreclosures are “contagious.” People are less likely to think it’s immoral to walk away from their home if they know others who have done so. And if enough people do it, the stigma begins to erode.

A spurt of strategic defaults in a neighborhood might also reduce some other psychic costs. For example, defaulting is more attractive if I can rent a nearby house that is much like mine (whose owner has also defaulted) without taking my children away from their friends and their school.

So far, lenders have been reluctant to renegotiate mortgages, and government programs to stimulate renegotiation have not gained much traction.

Eric Posner, a law professor, and Luigi Zingales, an economist, both from the University of Chicago, have made an interesting suggestion: Any homeowner whose mortgage is underwater and who lives in a ZIP code where home prices have fallen at least 20 percent should be eligible for a loan modification. The bank would be required to reduce the mortgage by the average price reduction of homes in the neighborhood. In return, it would get 50 percent of the average gain in neighborhood prices — if there is one — when the house is eventually sold.

Because their homes would no longer be underwater, many people would no longer have a reason to default. And they would be motivated to maintain their homes because, if they later sold for more than the average price increase, they would keep all the extra profit.

Banks are unlikely to endorse this if they think people will keep paying off their mortgages. But if a new wave of foreclosures begins, the banks, too, would be better off under this plan. Rather than getting only the house’s foreclosure value, they would also get part of the eventual upside when the owner voluntarily sold the house.

This plan, which would require Congressional action, would not cost the government anything. It may not be perfect, but something like it may be necessary to head off a tsunami of strategic defaults.

Richard H. Thaler is a professor of economics and behavioral science at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.

Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments »

Foreclosure Defense: UCC on Delivery of Note

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Neil Garfield

From: Whitman, Dale
…. UCC amendments that require a secondary market purchaser of a note to give credit for any payments made to the original payee of the note, if they were made before the maker of the note was notified that the note had been transferred. [Editor’s Note: This is exactly what happened in a majority of the securitization loan transactions]
There are two sources of law that bear on a secondary market purchaser’s (or its servicer’s) right to foreclose. The first is the UCC, if the note is negotiable. Under Art. 3 of the UCC, the right to collect or enforce a negotiable note can be transferred only by physical transfer and delivery of the original note itself. And a person who doesn’t have the right to enforce the note obviously can’t foreclose the mortgage that secures the note. In many cases these days involving residential loans, the note has been lost or mislaid, or simply was never delivered to the secondary market investor. Maybe someone can find it now, and maybe not. If not, it can’t properly be foreclosed.
Bear in mind that this applies only to negotiable notes. It isn’t easy to determine whether a note is negotiable, and that is often an issue that could be litigated. If the note was nonnegotiable, UCC Art. 3 is completely inapplicable; the right to enforce it can be transferred merely by a document of assignment — including a document that lists and purports to assign hundreds or thousands of notes. No delivery of the original note is necessary or even relevant, although delivery is one way to accomplish a transfer of the right of enforcement. Of course, a foreclosing court is still entitled to insist on evidence that the note was in fact assigned, even if the assignment was part of a bulk transaction.
Bottom line: whether the UCC’s delivery requirement applies is often difficult to determine, and would require a factual and legal inquiry into the wording of the note and circumstances of the purported transfer.
The second relevant body of law is state foreclosure law. In a fairly large number of states (but not all), a mortgage can’t be foreclosed unless and until the foreclosing party has a record chain of title of assignments of the original recorded mortgage. Since in many (non-MERS) cases there is no recorded assignment, the secondary market investor (or its servicer) would have to obtain and record one before foreclosing. Fannie Mae, at least at one time, used to take care of this problem by obtaining an assignment for every loan they purchased, but not recording them. If the loan needed to be foreclosed, they would record the assignment before filing the foreclosure. [Editor’s Note: to record any document, one would need to comply with all statutory requirements which includes personal knowledge of the signatory if an affidavit is filed]
Of course, in the current context some loans have been assigned multiple times, and some of the intervening assignees are probably out of business or dissolved, so that obtaining written assignments from them would be problematic or impossible.
A third issue, though perhaps not as difficult as the first two outlined above, is whether the foreclosing servicer is properly authorized by the secondary market holder (or the custodian or trustee, in the case of securitized loans) to act as an agent in the holder’s behalf. In a judicial foreclosure, the servicer will have to prove its authority.
There is no doubt that in the tremendous flurry of secondary market transactions that occurred incident to the securitization of subprime mortgages in the 2002-2006 period, many transactions were done in complete disregard of the principles outlined above. Those chickens are now coming home to roost.
Dale
___________________________________________
Dale A. Whitman
Professor of Law Emeritus
University of Missouri-Columbia
Telephone 573-884-0946

Filed under: CDO, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Mortgage | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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