How “servicer advances” advance the false premise of securitization of loans.

Since the times of ancient Greece and even before that, it has been a commonly used statement that before discussion of an issue each party should precisely define their terms. The obvious conclusion has been that without agreed definitions, it is highly probable that each side is talking about something different and making no point in the debate. Every generation since then has agreed with that premise.

This is exactly what is happening in the world of finance. Wall Street has its own definitions that are never disclosed to the marketplace, consumers, investors, the courts or government regulators.

Each of those entities or people have their own definitions  based upon partial information and mostly blind faith in certain facts that appear to be axiomatically true. even the Federal reserve under the venerated Alan Greenspan made that error.

Wall Street capitalizes on that assymetric information to create a completely illegal place for itself in the economy — that of disguised principal while everyone else thinks they are merely acting in their assigned and proper role as broker.

What I find fascinating is the meaning of securitization of servicing advances. Remember that securitization means, by definition and by law, that an asset or group of assets has been sold for value to multiple investors in exchange for pro rata ownership of those assets. That is the essence of all securitization, including IPOs and existing common stock traded on national or international security exchange services or platforms.

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Analyzing the data published by the firms promoting “securitization,” we see that no “loan” or debt has ever been purchased and sold by a grantor who owned the underlying obligation or a grantee who paid any value. “Securitization” exists — but not for the paper or the money trail (payments and collections). The securities issued are based upon a discretionary unsecured promise to make indefinite payments to buyers of certificates issued by the promisor (securities brokerage firm).
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The terms of payments from securities brokerage firms to investors who purchased certificates have no direct relationship to the terms of payments scheduled from homeowners, who are unaware that the sale of the securities resulting from their signatures greatly exceeds the amount of their transaction, leaving a zero balance due and quite possibly opening the door for a claim for greater compensation as the essential party making the securitization scheme possible. This is discussed at length on my blog.
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The securitization scheme has many subplots. One of them is “servicer advances.” A real servicer advance is one in which the company designated as the servicer receives, processes, accounts, and distributes money to the investors.
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To my knowledge and my proprietary database, there is not one existing scenario that conforms to that description. In plain terms, servicers do not make advances mainly because they do not pay investors — ever. And as I have previously discussed on this blog, they don’t receive payments either.
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So these falsely labeled “servicers” can’t and don’t create data entries reflecting the receipt of payments — but law firms seeking foreclosure argue or imply that they do receive such payments and that their “records” are business records — i.e., records of business conducted by the designated “servicer” who in fact performs no servicing duties.
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The true meaning of a servicer advance under the current schemes of securitization claims is that some of the money paid to investors is labeled as a servicer advance even though the servicer paid nothing and had no duty to pay the investors anything (just like the homeowner had no duty to pay anything because securitization sales had eliminated the debt).
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That duty (to pay investors) was reserved for the promisor, who we will remember is a securities brokerage company that is not a “servicer.” The label “servicer advance” comes from the reports issued (fabricated) by the company designated as “Master Servicer,” showing that some scheduled homeowner payments have not been paid or received. This disregards the obvious premise that there is no payment due.
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The reader should understand that the sole reason investors would be paid regardless of the number or amount of incoming scheduled payments from homeowners is that the securities firm wants to keep selling unregulated securities (certificates). That is the point of the securitization scheme —- to sell securities.
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While incoming payments from homeowners are a partial basis for payments to investors, the promise requires that new securities from new securitization schemes are being sold, producing revenues and the ability to say that certain “tranches” (that contain nothing) are “over-collateralized.”
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The reader should also understand that the fact that homeowners are making payments is the sole factual support — in law and, in fact — that payments are due. In a twisted way, homeowners, through their ignorance of the actual events in which they are key players, are playing an active role in deceiving each other, the government, investors, and the courts.
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The promissory note and mortgage role in this scenario are strictly symbolic. But they do raise the legal presumption that they are valid documents if they are facially valid according to the state statute. Nonetheless, the real reason anyone believes that payments are due when they’re not due is that homeowners make the scheduled payments to anyone who commands them to do so.
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So the fact that the investors received their promised payment from the securities firm that controls the scheme (but does not own anything) is why they call it an “advance. The idea that it came from a “Servicer” is just a fabrication to imply that a third party was involved. But that is enough to raise the facial presumption from the self-serving documentation and claims prepared by the securities firm or on its behalf.
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The prospectus for each securitization plan reveals the plot to claim “servicer advances” by labeling money not paid by homeowners (whether due or not) as a “servicer advance.” The prospectus shows that a fictional reserve account is created by selling certificates containing the investors’ money.
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The prospectus discloses that investors would receive payments from a reserve pool, which is disclosed as a return of the money the investor paid. But that is exactly the money amount used to claim “servicer advances.” The reserve account may actually exist in some securitization schemes. Still, the “reserve account” is completely controlled by the securities brokerage firm that served as the bookrunner underwriter of the securities (certificates offered for sale).
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And the money proceeds of the sale of derivatives (more unregulated securities traded in the shadow banking marketplace) based on the “servicer advances” go to the investment bank, not the servicer. This is yet another way to reduce any hypothetical (fictional) loan account below a zero balance.
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Since the investors have contractually agreed to that arrangement, the fact that it is not an advance and only a return of capital make no legal difference. So they are converting false declarations of homeowner “defaults” into saleable assets, thus creating the foundation for securitization of false claims of “servicer advances.”
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As you can see from the above explanation, the answers to almost every question dealing with securitization of debt are extremely convoluted. In fact, the vice president of asset management for Deutsche Bank described it as “counterintuitive.” The reason that it is counterintuitive is that it doesn’t make any sense, once you break it down into its component pieces.
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The big stumbling block for everyone is the fact that money appears to have been paid to or paid on behalf of the homeowner. It is therefore assumed as axiomatically true that the money reported to have been paid to the homeowner or paid on behalf of the homeowner must have been alone, if for no other reason than the fact that the homeowner executed a note and mortgage and then started paying.
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 But even that apparent reality is not true in most cases. Nearly all existing transactions that have been labeled as mortgage loan transactions are directly or indirectly the product of supplemental securitization schemes.
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That is to say that most of such transactions consist entirely of reports of payments that never occurred. To the extent that such transactions were presented as paying off a previously classified mortgage loan transaction, such reports were entirely untrue in most cases.
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As long as both transactions resulted from a controlled securitization scheme by a common securities brokerage firm acting as the book runner underwriter of certificates offered for sale to investors, there was no need to transfer any money. Our investigation has revealed the absence of any evidence ingesting that any such money was transferred.  This raises a basic defense for homeowners: lack of consideration and breach of the alleged contract.
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 If the homeowner received, for example, $30,000 from the “refinancing” of the property, but signed a note for $500,000, based upon the false premises of a payoff of the previous “mortgage loan,” the consideration for the note and the mortgage is either completely absent or at least mostly absent.
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 What most people do not understand is that the “refinancing” was just an opportunity to start another controlled securitization scheme with the new set of securities being sold without the retirement of the old securitization scheme or those securities.
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PRACTICE NOTE: The presence of servicer advances described in the prospectus and pooling and servicing agreement provides a foundation for the homeowner’s defense based on standing. Since servicer advances have priority in the liquidation of property, the outcome of foreclosure results in payment to the investment bank rather than the designated creditor. Proper discovery and objections at trial are likely to successfully undermine the most basic element of the claim: legal standing.
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There is a false premise implied in “servicer advances” that leads to false conclusions. The false premise is that the money is owed to the “Master Servicer,” and the debt is that of the investors on whose behalf the advances were presumably made. The fact that there were no such advances remains concealed, and the fact that the investors have absolutely no liability to the recipient of the “servicer advances” is also concealed. But this false premise that is always implied if the subject comes up, is usually sufficient to convince a judge that servicer advances are irrelevant. Upon proper scrutiny and analysis, the subject of servicer advances are highly relevant and even dispositive of the entire claim.

Servicer Advances Are an Illusion Too

Like everything else, “servicer advances” is a false label. There is no money being advanced. But there is money received by institutional investors who bought certificates under the mistaken belief that they were mortgage-backed securities. They receive that money regardless of whether or not payments are made by homeowners. The test for whether or not they will actually receive the money is whether or not the investment bank is continuing to sell new securities. Like any Ponzi scheme, a basic component is the continual payment of prior investors.

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So you might ask, where does the money come from? And the answer is it comes from the investors. A portion of the proceeds of the sales of certificates is set aside in a reserve fund that is disclosed in the prospectus. It is also disclosed that they may be receiving their scheduled payments from that reserve fund.
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The ability to create the reserve fund comes from the yield spread premium between the sales of certificates to institutional investors and the sales of Financial products to homeowners. I have previously written about how this works. But in summary, here it is.
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Investors pay money to the investment bank for certificates lead promise scheduled payments, without a maturity date. This is based on a formula designed to produce a specific percentage return on investment. Since most of the institutional investors are stable managed funds, they were only seeking an increase in the current rate of return of 10 to 15%. That meant that if they were earning 4%, they only wanted 4 1/2% from the investment bank. The illusion is created by converting the percentages to dollars. That’s where the yield spread premium emerges.
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An institutional investor who pays $1 million for a 4 1/2% return is seeking scheduled payments of $45,000 per year. The investment bank, through intermediaries, is closing deals with homeowners at rates varying from 5% to as much as 10%.
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The yield spread premium results from a question: how much money does the investment bank need to “loan” in order to produce $45,000 per year. The answer, if they are creating the illusion of a loan at 10%, is that they only need to “lend” $450,000. The rest of the money — $550,000 — is a yield spread premium that goes into the pocket of the investment bank.
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Yes, that means they made more money on the transaction than the entire amount received by the homeowner. It also gives them money to establish the reserve account from which to pay the institutional investors from their own funds.
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Neil F Garfield, MBA, JD, 74, is a Florida licensed trial and appellate attorney since 1977. He has received multiple academic and achievement awards in business, accounting and law. He is a former investment banker, securities broker, securities analyst, and financial analyst.
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FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
  • But challenging the “servicers” and other claimants before they seek enforcement can delay action by them for as much as 12 years or more.
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WHAT IS A SERVICER ADVANCE? According to Ocwen it has zero credit risk and is not really an advance

One place where securitization players and foreclosure players don’t lie is in reports that are formally filed with the SEC. So in my research, I found a document in which Ocwen describes itself and which is subject to judicial notice because it is a government document downloaded from the Sec.gov website. The filing of 8k and other reports required by securities laws and regulations is an official act. It is a sworn representation by the issuer (Ocwen here) that the facts being presented are accurate and true on penalty of going to jail. Here we see a filing that identifies the people who would go to jail if the facts were not at least arguably accurate.

THIS IS ALSO A MENU OF INDIVIDUALS WHO COULD BE SUED INDIVIDUALLY FOR PARTICIPATING IN FRAUDULENT, NEGLIGENT ENTERPRISES AND WRONGFUL FORECLOSURES. 

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NOTE ON JUDICIAL NOTICE AND SEC.GOV

Note my words here. In most court cases, the documents used by foreclosure mills are merely self-serving documents laundered through the SEC website. If you have the credentials you can upload anything including but not limited to porn.

So for court purposes only they upload as much as they can to the SEC.gov website — and then download it with “sec.gov” in the heading. Then they produce it as a governent document (which it isn’t) and ask for judicial notice. Without opposition, the judge grants the motion for judicial notice and that practically means the case is over.

Most pro se litigants don’t know what judiclal notice is and most lawyers and homeowners take it for granted that they can’t oppose judical notice for a government document. they forget to inquire whether that IS a government document and in virtually ALL cases, it is not a govenrment document — and therefore (1) it is not subject to judicial notice and (2) the attempt to use it as such is subject to a motion for contempt and sanctions — if you file the motion. This is another example of how the banks are using pure fabrications and weaponizing civil procedure to support their thieving scheme.

see https://shareholders.ocwen.com/static-files/24390846-8787-4a36-9c30-53b5b5f0a0e5

OCWEN 8K 0001193125-13-015500

Note that this is a “Lender’s Presentation.” That means it is a presentation to prospective lenders. Any lies would be subject to criminal prosecution not only for violations of securities laws but also for bank fraud.

Take a look at this from Ocwen’s 8k report to the SEC in 2013: Note how the filing is devoid of any representation that Ocwen is a lender, successor lender, or attorney in fact for anyone.

Note how Ocwen is basically always teetering close to bankruptcy because it has very few assets and maintains a business plan that is always based entirely on income from “servicing.”

Note how on page 20 they represent Ocwen, BOA servicing, Chase servicing, Saxon Servicing, Litton Servicing, and HomeEq Servicing to all be the same thing. Since 2013 you can add PHH, REZ, and other entities or names that were used ficitiously.

THEN ON PAGE 36 THEY ANSWER THE QUESTION: WHAT IS A SERVICER ADVANCE?

  1. Note that they use the word “advance” in quotes, just like I did here. That is because if they said it was an advance they would be lying. There is no advance. This is a cover-up for the fact that there is no loss to anyone when scheduled payments are not paid by homeowners. So there is no need for any advance, much less by a “servicer”. No company would accept responsibility for making such advances. Imagine if your bookkeeper said “That’s ok, if they don’t pay you, I will.” Imagine the fees that would need to be paid for any company to incur such liability. Imagine insurance and reserve deposits required. None of those things exist.
  2. So the advance does not come from Ocwen’s balance sheet and it actually does not exist. This is cover for the Master servicer putting in a claim for nonexistent advances. All payments to creditors of the securities brokerage firm (i.e., investors who purchased uncertificated certificates) are made from a huge such fund that is referred to in other documents as a reserve pool which consists of (1) proceeds from the sale of the certificates (2) money deposited with permission of the stockbroker who started this scheme including money received from homeowners and (c) proceeds of sales from other similar schemes. It is all commingled and obviously, this has nothing to do with any homeowner (aka “borrower”).
  3. Next, they say that “servicers incur funding costs on these non-interest bearing advances but do not bear credit risk.” Translation: there is no advance.  But we claim funding costs in order to get paid for pretending that servicer advances are real thus justifying fees for nonexistent services.
  4. Next, they say that “Advances are recoverable at the ‘top of the waterfall’ first from proceeds at a loan level, and then if those funds are insufficient, from cash collected from other loans in an RMBS trust.” Translation: Advances are recoverable but not by Ocwen. It never sees that “recovery.” The money is taken first from “a loan level.” which means it could be any loan. That is reinforced by the remaining words which refer to other loans in any RMBS trust. And that is why I say that there is no loss to anyone in any individual loan. It’s impossible. As long as there is money anywhere from investors, homeowners, or insurance for the certificates, everyone gets paid. So far there has always been money available not only to make all payments to everyone but also to for exceedingly high profits like what we saw with Goldman Sachs in 2009 when they forced the AIG bailout not to cover losses, but rather to cover additional profits.
  5. And lastly, they make the silly statement that “A servicer” can ‘stop advance’ if it believes that an advance will not be recoverable from the borrower.” This is silly because first of all there are no advances except from other people’s money with which Ocwen has no control. Second, because recovery from a borrower is irrelevant as described above. This statement is made solely as part of the coordinated illusion created by the stockbroker (aka investment bank) that started the scheme. It is made to reinforce the false representation that there are any loans, that there is any loan receivable account on the ledgers of anyone, and that therefore those accounts need servicing.
P.S. Note the very beginning where is says: “On January 17, 2013, Ocwen Financial Corporation (“Ocwen”) is making a presentation at a meeting among potential lenders for the proposed Senior Secured Term Loan facility. Barclays, Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC are acting as Joint Lead Arrangers and Joint Bookrunning Managers for the facility. Barclays Bank PLC is acting as Sole Syndication Agent and Administrative Agent for the facility. A copy of Ocwen’s slide presentation for such conference is attached as Exhibit 99.1 hereto. Such slide presentation shall not be deemed to be “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, nor shall it be deemed incorporated by reference in any filing under the Securities Act of 1933, except as shall be expressly set forth by specific reference in such filing.” This means they are trying to say, unsuccessfully that even though they’re filing it with the SEC it shouldn’t count against them if they’re lying. 
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Neil F Garfield, MBA, JD, 73, is a Florida licensed trial and appellate attorney since 1977. He has received multiple academic and achievement awards in business and law. He is a former investment banker, securities broker, securities analyst, and financial analyst.
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FORECLOSURE DEFENSE IS NOT SIMPLE. THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF A FAVORABLE RESULT. THE FORECLOSURE MILLS WILL DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO WEAR YOU DOWN AND UNDERMINE YOUR CONFIDENCE. ALL EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT NO MEANINGFUL SETTLEMENT OCCURS UNTIL THE 11TH HOUR OF LITIGATION.
  • But challenging the “servicers” and other claimants before they seek enforcement can delay action by them for as much as 12 years or more.
  • Yes you DO need a lawyer.
  • If you wish to retain me as a legal consultant please write to me at neilfgarfield@hotmail.com.
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Please visit www.lendinglies.com for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

PTSD: A Breakdown of Securitization in the Real World

By using the methods of magicians who distract the viewer from what is really happening the banks have managed to hoodwink even the victims and their lawyers into thinking that collection and foreclosure on “securitized” loans are real and proper. Nobody actually stops to ask whether the named claimant is actually going to receive the benefit of the remedy (foreclosure) they are seeking.

When you break it down you can see that in many cases the investment banks, posing as Master Servicers are the parties getting the monetary proceeds of sale of foreclosed property. None of the parties in the chain have lost any money but each of them is participating in a scheme to foreclose on the property for fun and profit.

Let us help you plan for trial and draft your foreclosure defense strategy, discovery requests and defense narrative: 202-838-6345. Ask for a Consult or check us out on www.lendinglies.com. Order a PDR BASIC to have us review and comment on your notice of TILA Rescission or similar document.
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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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It is worth distinguishing between four sets of investors which I will call P, T, S and D.

The P group of investors were Pension funds and other stable managed funds. They purchased the first round of derivative contracts sometimes known as asset backed securities or mortgage backed securities. Managers of hedge funds that performed due diligence quickly saw that that the investment was backed only by the good faith and credit of the issuing investment bank and not by collateral, debts or mortgages or even notes from borrowers. Other fund managers, for reasons of their own, chose to overlook the process of due diligence and relied upon the appearance of high ratings from Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch combined with the appearance of insurance on the investment. The P group were part of the reason that the Federal reserve and the US Treasury department decided to prop up what was obviously a wrongful and fraudulent scheme. Pulling the plug, in the view of the top regulators, would have destroyed the investment portfolio of many if not most stable managed funds.

The T group of investors were traders. Traders provide market liquidity which is so highly prized and necessary for a capitalist economy to maintain prosperity. The T group, consisting of hedge funds and others with an appetitive for risk purchased derivatives on derivatives, including credit default swaps that were disguised sales of loan portfolios that once sold, no longer existed. Yet the same portfolio was sold multiple time turning a hefty profit but resulted in a huge liability when the loans soured during the process of securitization of the paper (not the debt). The market froze when the loans soured; nobody would buy more certificates. The Ponzi scheme was over. Another example that Lehman pioneered was “minibonds” which were not bonds and they were not small. These were resales of the credit default swaps aggregated into a false portfolio. The traders in this group included the major investment banks. As an example, Goldman Sachs purchased insurance on portfolios of certificates (MBS) that it did not own but under contract law the contract was perfectly legal, even if it was simply a bet. When the market froze and AIG could not pay off the bet, Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs literally begged George W Bush to bail out AIG and “save the banks.” What was saved was Goldman’s profit on the insurance contract in which it reaped tens of billions of dollars in payments for nonexistent losses that could have been attributed to people who actually had money at risk in loans to borrowers, except that no such person existed.

The S group of investors were scavengers who were well connected with the world of finance or part of the world of finance. It was the S group that created OneWest over a weekend, and later members of the S group would be fictitious buyers of “re-securitized” interests in prior loans that were subject to false claims of securitization of the paper. This was an effort to correct obvious irregularities that were thought to expose a vulnerability of the investment banks.

The D group of investors are dummies who purchased securitization certificates entitling them to income indexed on recovery of servicer advances and other dubious claims. The interesting thing about this is that the Master Servicer does appear to have a claim for money that is labeled as a “servicer advance,” even if there was no advance or the servicer did not advance any funds. The claim is contingent upon there being a foreclosure and eventual sale of the property to a third party. Money paid to investors from a fund of investor money to satisfy the promise to pay contained in the “certificate” or “MBS” or “Mortgage Bond,” is labeled, at the discretion of the Master Servicer as a Servicer Advance even though the servicer did not advance any money.

This is important because the timing of foreclosures is often based entirely on when the “Servicer Advances” are equal to or exceed the equity in the property. Hence the only actual recipient of money from the foreclosure is not the P investors, not any investors and not the trust or purported trustee but rather the Master Servicer. In short, the Master servicer is leveraging an unsecured claim and riding on the back of an apparently secured claim in which the named claimant will receive no benefits from the remedy demanded in court or in a non-judicial foreclosure.

NOTE that securitization took place in four parts and in three different directions:

  1. The debt to the T group of investors.
  2. The notes to the T and S group of traders
  3. The mortgage (without the debt) to a nominee — usually a fictitious trust serving as the fictitious name of the investment bank (Lehman in this case).
  4. Securitization of spillover money that guaranteed receipt of money that was probably never due or payable.

Note that the P group of investors is not included because they do not ever collect money from borrowers and their certificates grant no right, title or interest in the debt, note or mortgage. When you read references to “securitization fail” (see Adam Levitin) this is part of what the writers are talking about. The securitization that everyone is talking about never happened. The P investors are not owners or beneficiaries entitled to income, interest or principal from loans to borrowers. They are entitled to an income stream as loans the investment bank chooses to pay it. Bailouts or even borrower payoffs are not credited to the the P group nor any trust. Their income remains the same regardless of whether the borrower is paying or not.

BLOOMBERG: Mortgage Crisis Still Unresolved, New Crisis Looming

No two financial crises are ever quite the same. The next one won’t be like the last. But history teaches lessons, and there’s no excuse for ignoring them.

Regulators have done a lot to reform the financial system since the 2008 crisis, but they still haven’t fixed the market where the trouble started: U.S. mortgages. It’s an omission they need to put right before the next crisis hits.

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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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see https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-30/america-s-mortgage-market-is-still-broken

David Shipley, Senior Editor for Bloomberg Views has hit the nail on the head. While there are some errors in his article, they are understandable.

He’s right when he says that the servicers lacked the necessary incentives and resources and still lack those incentives and resources. But when he talks about “delinquencies” he fails to grasp the fact that those “delinquencies” are based upon a debt that neither the servicer nor its client is authorized to administer.

This failure of perception is understandable. It is difficult to to accept the fact that the debt went up in smoke and therefore no creditor has authorized the administration or collection of the debt. It is challenging to accept the notion that the banks engineered this scheme so they could step in as if they were creditors without actually saying so.

But he gets very close when he says

Private-label mortgages (which aren’t guaranteed by the government) were packaged into securities with extremely poor mechanisms for deciding who — investors, packagers or lenders — would take responsibility for bad or fraudulent loans.

The whole idea was to make it unclear who would be injured by nonpayment of a debt. That was how the banks, as intermediaries, transformed themselves into apparent principals and how entities created the illusion of self proclaimed servicers. Or as Shipley puts it

The parties involved in securitizations became embroiled in legal battles about who owed what to whom — litigation that goes on to this day.

So even amongst the principals of the scheme coined as “securitization fail” (Adam Levitin) there is no agreement and in fact fierce court battles as to the identity of the injured party. In other words their pleadings in court constitute admissions that are inconsistent with the pleadings in foreclosure cases. If there is no identified party with injury then there is no legal standing.

What is clear now is that the money taken from investors was not used to fund REMIC trusts, that the REMIC Trusts never bought any debts and in fact never bought any of the dubious paper that was issued in connection with origination or transfer of the “loans.” Those investors were largely not becoming beneficiaries of the trust; instead they were becoming creditors of the trust.

Knowing that, investors are stuck — if they blow the whistle on the diversion of their money into a completely different “investment” than the one they thought they were buying, they are undermining their potential claim based upon the “security” offered by the mortgages. And they are undercutting the value of the certificates they bought. That is what threatens a large segment of the shadow banking market.

The fix that Shipley thinks should happen will never come to fruition because the government has been convinced that a fix would eviscerate the shadow banking market where derivatives are traded. Nobody knows what the outcome will be if that market fails.

But in the meanwhile current policy reflects a decision to let investors and borrowers take the entire brunt of the scheme that ultimately left the banks in solid control and rising profits despite small settlements compared to the amount of money siphoned out of the US economy. So the Federal reserve and American taxpayers continue the bailout by lending support to the false presumption that the RMBS derivatives are based upon mortgage loans owned by a trust.

Shipley narrowly misses the point when he says

Advancing payments to investors when loans go delinquent — a core responsibility of servicers — demands a lot of cash. It also requires ample capital to absorb possible losses on servicing rights, an asset whose value can quickly evaporate if defaults and prepayments eat into expected fees.

Think about it. Why would a company guarantee payments from a third party? Who would take that risk on loans known to be at best fragile? Where is the money coming from to make those payments? Is it really the “servicer.” And if the money is “recovered” as “servicer advances” when the property is liquidated, is the foreclosure really a disguised suit to force the recovery of servicer advances rather than a true foreclosure — contrary to the interests of the certificate holders?

And if Ocwen was actually entitled to receive and expected to receive recovery of servicer advances why would it be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy? The more likely scenario is that subservicers like Ocwen have nothing at all to do with servicer advances. They don’t make them, they don’t initiate them and they don’t collect them. The Wall Street playbook has the real puppet masters hidden behind several layers of curtains. Ocwen, like so many others, is just there to get tossed under the bus to make people happy that they extracted a pound of flesh — except there was no skin in the game.

US Bank Business: Rent-A-Name, Trustee

IF THE SERVICER IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH US BANK “IN ANY WAY” THEN EITHER US BANK HAS NO TRUST DUTIES OR THE SERVICER HAS NO SERVICING AUTHORITY

BOTTOM LINE: A trust without a trustee holding fiduciary duties and actual powers over trust assets is no trust at all. This signals corroboration for what is now well known in the public domain: the REMIC trustee has no powers or duties because there is no trust and there are no trust assets.

See below for why I am re-publishing this article.

Get a consult! 202-838-6345

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

Until now I knew about a letter sent out by US Bank until the TBTF banks in control of the mortgage mess realized that this was a dangerous letter. It provides proof and corroboration and opportunities for further corroboration that US Bank is a fictitious trustee even when named in a PSA/Trust.

I can’t give you a copy of the actual letter as that contains private information. But I now physically have in my possession of the wild card letter sent out by US Bank filled with factual misstatement, legal absurdities, fraud, and admissions against interest that show clearly that the  entire “securitization” game is but a rotating cloud of existing and non-existing entities blinking in and out such that finding the those in charge becomes impossible to detect.

The text in blue are direct unedited quotes from the letter answering a homeowner, in 2013, who was trying to figure out who is in charge. This is a short letter and the quotes essentially make up virtually the entire letter. They are not taken out of context. The rest are my comment and opinions.

NOTE: [FORECLOSURE BY PARTY CLAIMING TO BE THE CREDITOR OR HOLDER OR OWNER WITHOUT MENTION OF TRUST;]Where the Master Servicer or a subsidiary or affiliate of the Master Servicer names itself as Plaintiff (i.e., the foreclosing party) you may not realize that you are dealing with a securitization plan that went bad or was reconstituted, but either way the Master Servicer never funded (i. e., was the source) any loans within this class of loans that were falsely represented to be subject to claims of securitization. The goal is the same because internally the Master Servicer is attempting to seal the illegal record with a legal act or judgment and is attempting to get its hands on mislabeled “servicer advances.”

Here are the quotes (in blue0 from the letter with commentary (in black):

  • I have researched your mortgage and have determined that
    • Since he disclaims any authority or responsibility for the trust assets, what “research” did he perform?
    • Where did he get his information from when the authority and responsibility for the loans rests with a third party?
    • US Bank clearly could not have business records unless the Master Servicer was reporting to the NAMED Trustee. But we know that isn’t happening because the PSA expressly prevents the beneficiaries or the trustee from getting any information about the trust assets or in even seeking such information. 
    • This letter is clearly a carefully worded document to give false impressions.
    • Upon reading the PSAs it is obvious that neither the Trustee nor the beneficiaries have any permitted access to know how the money or assets is being managed
    • This opens the door to moral hazard: i.e., that the sole source of information is coming from third parties and thus neither the beneficiaries nor the putative “borrowers” have any information disclosed about who is actually performing which task. 
    • This could be concealment fraud in which the direct victims are the investors and the indirect victims are the homeowners.
  • US Bank is merely the Trustee for the pool of mortgages in which your loans sits.
    • “Merely the Trustee” is non descriptive language that essentially disclaims any actual authority or duties. It is apparently conceding that it is “merely” named as Trustee but the actual duties and authority rests elsewhere.
  • The Trustee does not have the authority to make any decisions regarding your mortgage loans.
    • So we have a Trustee with no powers over mortgage loans even if the “loans” were in a pool in which ownership was ascribed to the Trust. Again the statement does not specifically disclaim any DUTIES. 
  • The servicer is the party to the trust that has the authority and responsibility to make decisions regarding individual mortgage loans in the trust. It is the Servicer who has taken all action regarding your property.
    • “all action” would include the origination of the loan if the investors’ money was being used to originate loans rather than buying existing loans.
    • This statement concedes that it is the servicer (actually the Master servicer) that has all power and all responsibility for administration of the trust assets. 
    • In short he is probably conceding that while US Bank is NAMED as Trustee, the ROLE of Trustee is being performed by the Master Servicer, without any information or feedback to the named Trustee as a check on whether a fiduciary duty has been created between the Master Servicer and the trust or the Master Servicer and the trust beneficiaries. 
    • Hence the actual authority and duties with respect to the trust assets lies with the Master Servicer who hires subservicers to do whatever work is required, mainly enforcement of the note and mortgage, regardless of whether the loan ever made it into the Trust. 
    • It follows that the sole discretion of the Master Servicer creates an opportunity for the Master Servicer to gain illicit profits by handling or mishandling originations, foreclosures and liquidations of property. Taking fictitious servicer advances into account it is readily apparent that the sole basis for foreclosure instead of workouts is to “recover” money for which the Master Servicer never had a claim for recovery. 
      • Reporting in actuality is nonexistent except for the reports of “borrower payments” which are massaged through multiple subservicers each performing a “boarding process” in which in actuality they merely input new data into the subservicer system and claim it came from the old subservicer.
      • This “boarding process” is a charade as we have seen in the majority of cases where the knowledge and history of the payments and alleged delinquency or default has been challenged. In nearly all cases despite the initial representation from the robo-witness, it becomes increasingly apparent that neither the witness nor his company, the subservicer, have any original data nor have they performed any reviews to determine if the data is accurate.
      • In fact, upon inquiry it is readily apparent now that the “records” are created, kept and maintained by LPS/BlackKnight who merely assigns “ownership” of the records from one assigned subservicer to the next. LPS fabricates whatever data is necessary to allow an appointed “Plaintiff” to foreclose, including the fabrication adnfoqgery of documents.
        • This is why the parties to the 50 state settlement do not perform the reviews required under the settlement and under the Dodd-Frank law: they have no records to review. 
    • in this case the current subservicer is SLS — Specialized Loan Servicing LLC
  • While US Bank understands and wishes to assist you with this matter, the servicer is the only party with the authority and responsibility to make decisions regarding your mortgage and they are not affiliated with US Bank in any way.
    • Hence he concedes that the duties of a trustee (who by definition is accepting fiduciary responsibilities to the trust entity and the trust beneficiaries) is being performed by a third party, with absolute power and sole discretion, who has no affiliation with US Bank.
      • This concedes that US Bank is not a trustee even though it is named as Trustee in some trusts and otherwise “acquired the trust business” from Bank of America and others. 
        • A Trustee without powers or duties is no trustee. Disclaimer of fiduciary duties denotes non acceptance of being the Trustee of the Trust.
        • Acquiring the trust business is a euphemism for the continuation of the musical chair business that is well known in subservicers. 
        • Being the trustee is NOT a marketable commodity without amendment to the Trust document. Hence if a Trustee is named and has no power or duties, and which then “sells” its “trust business” to US Bank the “transfer” trust responsibility is void but damnum absque injuria. 
        • No action for breach of fiduciary exists because nobody assumed the fiduciary duty that must be the basis of any position of “trustee” of any trust.
  • BOTTOM LINE: A trust without a trustee holding fiduciary duties and actual powers over trust assets is no trust at all. This signals corroboration for what is now well known in the public domain: the REMIC trustee has no powers or duties because there is no trust and there are no trust assets. 

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

Update: An identical letter (see below) has been sent to me from various sources all ostensibly from US Bank. My opinion is that

  • The letter is not from US Bank
  • US Bank Corporate Trust Services has nothing on the alleged loans
  • No business records are kept by US Bank in connection with alleged loans subject to alleged claims of securitization
  • The letter was not sent out by Bank of America either although one might surmise that. It was sent by LPS/Black Night
  • The letter is pure fabrication and forgery.
  • The cutting and pasting was done by persons who have no relationship with even the false claims of the banks
  • Goldade has no trust duties in connection with the alleged loan
  • And of course the alleged loan is not in the trust, making claims by or behalf of the “trustee” or the “Servicer” completely without merit or foundation.

Here is an example of one of the letters that I used for analysis : Note that the “:,F4” indicates that the signature was pasted not executed by a real person with a pen. You can examine your own letters like this by highlighting the letter contents and then pasting to text edit rather than Word or any other program that corrects and substitutes the command rather than just printing it. The “errors” in grammar and formatting occur in text edit.

The meta data from the letter shows the following, and I have the rest of it as well.

/Type /Metadata
/Subtype /XML
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>>
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Note the reference to Nitro Pro 9.5 --- 
which is a program that allows one to edit pdf files
 and then print them out 
as though the new pdf was simply a printout 
of a pre-existing document.  
Here is how the letter appears in text edit:
I am writing in response to your Debt Elimination Scheme and complaint on the subject property sent to U.S. Bank National Association (“U.S. Bank”). On behalf of U.S. Bank, I am happy to assist you with this matter to the extent I am able to provide information.
I have researched your mortgage and have determined that U.S. Bank is merely the trustee for the Trust that owns yourmortgageandnote. PleasenotetheTrustistheownerofyourmortgageandnote,notthetrustee. Theservicer is the party to the Trust that has the authority and responsibility to make decisions and take action regarding individual mortgage loans in the Trust. The trustee has no authority or responsibility to review and or approve or disapprove of these decisions and actions. It is the servicer who has taken all action regarding your property, and has the information you have requested.
As we stated in our response of July 27, 2016 you must work with Bank of America as the servicer of your loan, to have your request addressed. I have forwarded your correspondence to Bank of America and they have responded and stated you may utilize the following email – litigation.intake@bankofamerica.com.
While U.S. Bank understands and wishes to assist you with this matter, the servicer is the only party with the authority and responsibility to make decisions regarding this mortgage and they are not affiliated with U.S. Bank in anyw ay.
Please work with Bank of America to address your concerns using the information provided to you in this letter, so they may assist you in a more timely and efficient manner.

Sincerely  :,f4

Kevin Goldade Corporate Trust Services 60 Livingston Ave
St Paul, MN 55107
cc Bank of America
  •  IF THE SERVICER IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH US BANK “IN ANY WAY” THEN EITHER US BANK HAS NO TRUST DUTIES OR THE SERVICER HAS NO SERVICING AUTHORITY

 

About Those 1099 and Other Tax Filings from Servicers and Banks …

The problem for everyone involved is that in reality the investors made nothing and merely received a portion of their own money as though it had come from the trust. But it didn’t come from the trust because the trust didn’t even have a bank account. If the banks had disclosed the truth of the matter the investors would have known this is a Ponzi scheme. Imagine what would happen if someone claimed sub S treatment when the corporation they had formed did no business, had no bank account and never had any business activity, never had any assets or liabilities and never had any income or expenses.

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER. HIRE AN ACCOUNTANT OR OTHER QUALIFIED TAX ANALYST

—————-
Few people can say they understand the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), and far fewer understand the statute that gave birth to the idea of a REMIC pass through entity (REAL ESTATE MORTGAGE INVESTMENT CONDUIT). The banks lobbied heavily for this section because it left open doors that could be exploited for the benefit of banks selling the “investment products” to the huge detriment of (1) the investors who advanced money into what turned out to be a nonexistent trust, (2) borrowers who were coaxed into signing “closing” documents as though the party named on the documents was lending them money, and (3) the US Government and the taxpayers who ultimately picked up the tab for a “bailout” of banks who had lost nothing from the actual “loans” nor the “mortgage bonds” because the banks were selling them not buying them. The bailouts from the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve in reality only added to the pornographic profits made by the banks by rewarding them with payments on losses incurred by others.

*

Follow the money. Because of tacit agreements with Bush and Obama administrations the IRS has been granting repeated safe harbor extensions to the banks and servicers who have filed documents that  say that a REMIC was formed. Such filings were mostly false.  The problem is that the money and the acquisitions of “loans” MUST be through the trusts in order to get pass-through treatment. Without pass-through treatment, (like a sub S corporation) the cash received by investors is taxable income — even the portion, if any, that is attributable to principal. But the banks have been telling investors that they are getting the interest payment that they signed up for — according to the Prospectus and Pooling and Servicing Agreement. What they are actually getting is their own money back from the investment they  thought they made.

[NOTE: The part attributable to principal would be taxable because the notes themselves, even if they were valid, are not the source of income to investors as far as the investors know. The source is supposedly the REMIC Trust — an entity that was created on paper but never used. In reality the source was a pool of dark money consisting entirely of investor money. But the banks and servicers are reporting to the investors that the money they are receiving is “income”from interest due from the REMIC Trust that never operated. The banks and services are obviously not reporting the cash as part of a Ponzi scheme. So the investors are paying taxes on the return of their own money. Hence the part of the payment from the “borrower” that has been designated as “principal” is reported as “interest” in reports to the investors. In reality the money from “borrowers” merely dumped into a dark pool along with all the other money received from investors.  The entire “loan closing” and subsequent foreclosures are a charade adding the judgment from a court of law that is treated as giving a stamp of approval for everything that preceded the judgment.]

The problem for everyone involved is that in reality the investors made nothing and merely received a portion of their own money as though it had come from the trust. But it didn’t come from the trust because the trust didn’t even have a bank account. If the banks had disclosed the truth of the matter the investors would have known this is a Ponzi scheme. Imagine what would happen if someone claimed sub S treatment when the corporation they had formed did no business, had no bank account and never had any business activity, never had any assets or liabilities and never had any income or expenses.

*

The forms filed with the IRS are fraudulent. The 1099 issued to borrowers who avoided deficiency judgments are fraudulent because they come from entities that had no loss and never had the authority to collect or enforce. In reality if the true facts were followed there would be no taxable event for getting their own money back from their “investment.” But the way it is reported, the investors are getting “income” on which they owe taxes. The real taxes on real income should come from the banks that stole a large part of the money advanced by investors. It’s like Al Capone — in the end it was income tax that brought him down.

*

Instead the investors are being taxed for interest received and are exposed to more taxes when they get money reported as “principal.” Neither the investors nor the borrowers should be paying taxes on any money or “benefit” they reportedly received (because there was no benefit). So the end result is that the banks made all the money, paid no taxes, and are taking a deduction for payments made to investors and for waivers of deficiency on loans they never owned.

*

I have been telling borrowers for years to send the IRS a latter or notice in which they flatly state that the  form filed with the IRS was wrong, fraudulent and inoperative. The borrower received no benefit from the bank or servicer that filed it. Hence no tax is due. Thus far I have seen no evidence that the IRS is attempting to enforce the payment of income taxes from people who have challenged the the authenticity of the report. The IRS apparently does NOT want to be in the shoes of the banks trying to prove that the bank who filed the form owned the loan when they already know that the transaction was not actually a loan and that the “loan closing” transaction was the the result of the unauthorized and fraudulent use of investor money.

*

Eventually the truth comes out. The problem for the banks is that they stole money and didn’t pay tax on their ill-gotten gains. Every time a “servicer” “recovers” “servicer advances” they are taking more money from investors because every “advance” was taken from a pool of money that consisted solely of investor cash. When they “recover” it they book it as return of capital rather than pure income which is what it really is, even if it is illegally obtained.

*

If they admitted what it was then the banks would be required to pay huge sums in taxes. But they would also be facing angry investors who, upon realizing that every cent they received was their own money and not return on capital “invested” into a trust, would press claims and in many cases DID press claims and settled with the bank that defrauded them. So the banks and servicers are attempting to avoid both jail and huge sums in back taxes that would put a significant dent in the “deficit” of the U.S. government caused by the illegal and fraudulent activity of the banks.

Schedule A Consult Now!

Modification Abuse: Ocwen, Homeward Dishonest in Handling Modifications

The incentive payments from the Federal government for HAMP modifications were merely used for profit, bonuses and the like. No attention was paid to HAMP modifications except in rare instances where the banks thought it prudent to at least make it appear as though they were following HAMP guidelines when they clearly had no interest in doing so.

Most Judges are still basing their mindset that the loans are valid and that the interests of the servicer are just like any other “bank.” Not so much.

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

—————-

see http://4closurefraud.org/2016/06/10/united-states-of-america-et-al-v-ocwen-judge-rules-docs-admissible-in-hamp-false-claims-act-case/

I have written about this before. But now there are 2 qui tam actions in Texas against Ocwen and Homeward. Both are governed by the rules of HAMP modifications, neither complied, and they both did so intentionally. The same holds true for most other servicers. Ocwen tried to escape the civil action by saying that the information used by the whistle-blowers was “inadvertently” disclosed and should not be allowed as evidence nor as a basis for the qui tam lawsuit. The Texas Judge rued against Ocwen citing a statute that explicitly stated that such material can be disclosed and released.

The real question, as I have repeatedly suggested, is why would the nation’s largest servicers accept billions in incentive fees from the US Government while at the same time abusing the modification process? In the real world of real banking, workouts were always the rule rather than foreclosures. All seminars I have ever attended for bank lawyers (yes, I was one of those for a while) involving bankruptcy, deficiency and defaults, start out and maintain one basic theme: workouts wherever possible. The reason? The bank does far better in workouts than in foreclosure. Most Judges are still basing their mindset that the loans are valid and that the interests of the servicer are just like any other “bank.” Not so much.

So why all the obfuscation about modifications? If you just think about it logically there are several things that come to mind. First, the servicers are only incentivized to bring cases to a “successful” conclusion which is a forced sale of the property backed up by a Final Judgment in judicial states. The basic assumption today is that the servicers are representing the investors through the pass through entity described as a REMIC Trust. Setting aside the issue of whether that assertion is even true as to form or substance, it is obvious that the push to foreclosure was adverse to the interests of the investors and adverse to other entities that had bought or sold derivative products whose value derived from the value of the performing loans in a specified pool (which probably didn’t ever exist).

If the services are acting adverse to the interests of investors, then who are they working for? The Trust exists only on paper, was never funded, never had a bank account or any active business even for the window described in the “Trust” documents or the IRC provisions allowing for REMIC Trusts. That eliminates the Trust as the party for whom the servicers are working. And the assertion that the Trust is only a holder and NOT a holder in due course corroborates the fact that there was no purchase by the Trust.

So the servicers are NOT working for the people whose money was used to fund the illusion of a securitization scheme and they were NOT working for the special purpose vehicle (REMIC Trust). If you drill down into the prospectuses and the trust document (the PSA) you will see that the designated servicer is often the Master Servicer or the Master Servicer is described deep inside the document. The Master Servicer is the one who supposedly is making servicer advance payments to investors, except they are not advancing those payments; instead they are using investor money from a reserve described in the documents, from which, the investors agree, the servicer can advance payments in order to keep the mortgage bond “performing.” Hence servicer advances are neither advances (they are return of capital to investors) nor are they payments by the servicer (who makes “payments” from the reserve of investors funds).

So you can see the incentive. If the case goes all the way through foreclosure, the “Master Servicer” can claim recovery of servicer advances at the time of liquidation of the property, but if the loan is modified, the servicer can not claim recovery of servicer advances. Most cases in which the banks have let the case go 6-8-10 years is that they were piling up their claim for servicer advances.

And the other incentive that is major is that by refusing HAMP modification and offering “in-house” modifications, they are essentially make the “loan” an asset of the bank rather than the investors. The incentive payments from the Federal government for HAMP modifications were merely used for profit, bonuses and the like. No attention was paid to HAMP modifications except in rare instances where the banks thought it prudent to at least make it appear as though they were following HAMP guidelines when they clearly had no interest in doing so.

None of this would be possible were it not for the ignorance of investors. Both investors and Trustees are contractually barred from even making inquiry “for their own good and protection.” This provision, in virtually all securitization documentation, was one of the large red flags for fund managers who peeked under the hood at this scheme. The idea that they could get no information on the loan portfolio when that was supposed to be the only asset or business of the Trust, was ludicrous and they didn’t invest.

But most fund managers go with the crowd and are lazy. Having the incentive of bonuses if they achieve certain performance levels, and having their asses covered by what appeared to be insurance that was backed up by American tax payers, and the mortgage backed securities being rated AAA by the rating agencies PLUS the representations of the underwriting bank and the seller of those mortgage “bonds,”  these find managers of stable managed funds (the investors) gave money to the underwriter in exchange for worthless securities issued by a completely inactive entity. They got nothing and they were contractually barred from learning they got nothing. It was the perfect cover for the perfect crime and the banks, so far, got away with it.

Schedule A Consult Now!

 

 

Renewing the Statute of Limitations Accidentally: Modifications and Payments

It seems apparent to me that the banks are sidestepping the statute of limitations issue by getting homeowners to renew payments after the statute has run. Given the confusion in Florida courts it is difficult to determine with certainty how the statute will be applied. But the execution of a modification agreement would, in my opinion, almost certainly waive the statute of limitations, particularly since it refers to the part of the alleged debt that was previously barred by the statute. It would also, in my opinion, reaffirm a discharged debt in bankruptcy.

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

—————-

There are several reasons why servicers are offering modifications and several other reasons why they don’t.

My perception is that the main reason for offering the modification is that the servicer is converting the ownership of the debt from the investors to the servicer and by reference to an empty trust with no assets. HAMP modifications are virtually nonexistent statistically. “In house” modifications are what they are offering; that is code for “it’s our loan now.” That scenario leaves the servicer with rights to the debt that didn’t legally exist before — but subject to separate, private agreements with the Master Servicer who is willing to pay the servicer for their apparent “services” but not willing to share in the windfall profits made by a party who now owns a loan in which they had no financial interest before the execution of the modification.

This is a good alternative to stealing from the investors by way of false claims for “Servicer advances” where the money, like all other deals in the false securitization chain, comes from “investments” that the investors thought they were making into individual trusts. And by the way this part explains why they don’t offer modifications — the Master Servicer can only apply is false claim for “recovery” of servicer advances when the property is liquidated.

A second reason for applying pressure to a homeowner to sign more papers they don’t understand is to get the homeowner to (1) agree or reaffirm the debt, thus restarting the statute of limitations from where it had originally left off and (2) to get the homeowner to make at least some payments, thus reaffirming the debt for purposes of both bankruptcy and the statute of limitations. This explains why they take three “trial” payments and then deny the “permanent” modification after they already announced the homeowner was “approved.”

In this sense there is no underwriting done. There is only an evaluation of how the Master Servicer can make the most money. This also is an example of why I say that the interests of servicers are adverse to the investors who have already been screwed. Forced sale doesn’t just artificially limit the recovery, it virtually eliminates recovery for the investor while the servicers take the money and run.

And a third reason for coercing the homeowner into a modification agreement that is guaranteed to fail is that the homeowner has either waived defenses and claims or has created the conditions where waiver could be asserted.

Schedule A Consult Now!

“Get three months behind and you’ll get a modification”: The Big Lie That Servicers and Banks are Still Using

The bottom line is that millions of people have been told that line and most of them stopped paying for three months because of it. It was perfectly reasonable for them to believe that they had just been told by the creditor that they must stop paying if they want relief. Judges have heard this repeatedly from homeowners. So what is the real reason such obvious bank behavior is overlooked?

More to the point — what choice does the homeowner have other than believing what they just heard from an apparently authorized service representative?

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

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

—————-

In the course of the last ten years I have personally interviewed homeowners, reviewed the documents and or received reports from homeowners that were duped into going to default by that famous line: “You must be three months behind.” It is patently true that every homeowner who had that conversation believed that they were being told to stop making payments. No, it didn’t make any sense; but it also was beyond comprehension that the servicers were in fact aiming at foreclosure instead of workouts that would have preserved the value of the alleged loan, and mitigated the rush into the worst recession seen in modern times.

On cross examination the point is always made that the “representative” did not use the words “Stop paying.” And thus the point is made that the announcement that a three month delinquency was necessary for a modification was simply that: just information. Yet the behavior of millions of homeowners shows that virtually every one of them believed they were told to stop paying in “code” language. If that is not reasonable reliance, I don’t know what is.

However there is much bigger point. The three month announcement was (a) false and (b) an intentional policy to lure people into default and foreclosure. It has been previously reported here and elsewhere that an officer at Bank of America said point blank to his employees “We are in the foreclosure business, not the modification business.”

The legal point here is (a) unclean hands and (b) estoppel. In most cases homeowners ended up withholding three months worth of payments, as they reasonably believed they had been instructed to do, many times faithfully paying on a three month trial or “forbearance” plan, and sometimes even paying for many months beyond the “trial” period, or even years. Then suddenly the servicer/bank stops accepting payments and won’t respond to calls and letters from the homeowners asking what is going on.

Then they get a notice of default, a notice of their right to reinstate if they pay a certain sum (which is most often miscalculated) and then they get served with a foreclosure notice. The entire plan was aimed at foreclosure. And now, thanks to recent court doctrine, homeowners are stuck with intensely complicated instruments and behavior, only to find out that despite all law to the contrary, “caveat emptor” (Let the buyer beware).

The trick has always been to make the non-payment period as long as possible so that (1) reinstatement is impossible for the homeowner and (2) to increase the value of servicer advances. Each month the homeowner does not make a payment the value of fraudulent claims for “servicer advances” goes up. And THAT is the reason why you see cases going on for 10 years and more. every month you miss a payment, the Master Servicer increases its claims on the final proceeds of liquidation of the home.

In the banking world it is axiomatic that a loan “in distress” should be worked out with the borrower because that will be the most likely way to preserve the value of the loan. In every professional seminar I ever attended relating to residential and commercial loans the main part of the seminar was devoted to workouts, modification or settlement. We have had literally millions of such opportunities in which people were instead either lured into default or unjustly and fraudulently induced to drop their request for modification or to go into a “default” period that they thought was merely a waiting period before the modification was complete.

The result: asset values tanked: the alleged loan, the alleged MBS, and the value of the subject property was crushed by servicers looking out for their real boss — the Master Servicer and operating completely against the interests of the investors who are completely ignorant of what is really going on. Don’t kid yourself — US Bank and other alleged Trustees of REMIC Trusts have not taken a single action as Trustee ever and the REMIC Trust never existed, never was an active business (even during the 90 day period allowed), and the “Trust” was never administered by any Trust department of any of the banks who are claimed to be Trustees of the “REMIC Trust”. Both the Trust and the Trustee are window dressing as part of a larger illusion.

My opinion as a former investment banker, is that this is all about money. The “three month” announcement was meant to steer the homeowner from a HAMP modification, which was routinely “rejected by investor” (when no contact was ever made with the investor). This enabled the banks to “capture” (i.e., steal) the alleged loan using one of two means: (1) an “in-house” modification that in reality made the servicer the creditor instead of the investor whose money was actually in the deal and/or (2) a foreclosure and sale in which the servicer picked up all or nearly all of the proceeds by “recovery” of nonexistent servicer advances.

It isn’t that the investors did not receive money under the label of “servicer advances.” It is that the money investors received were neither advances nor were they paid by the servicer (same as the origination or acquisition of the loan which is “presumed” based upon fabricated, forged, robo-signed documents). There is no speculation required as to where the money came from or who had access to it. The prospectus and PSA combined make it quite clear that the investors can receive their own money back in satisfaction of the nonexistent obligation from a nonexistent REMIC Trust that issued worthless and fraudulent MBS but never was in business, nor was it ever intended to be in business.

Servicer advances can only be “recovered” when the property is liquidated. There is no right of recovery against the investors. But the nasty truth is that there is no right of “recovery” of servicer advances anyway because there is nothing to recover. By labeling money paid from a pool of investor money as “servicer advances” we again have the creation of an illusion. They make it look like the Master Servicer is advancing money when all they are doing is exercising control over the investors’ money.

Thus the three month announcement is a win win for the Master Servicer — either they convert the loan from being subject to claims by investors to an “in-house” loan, or they take the full value of the alleged loan and reduce it to zero by making false claims for recovery — but only if there is a foreclosure sale. Either way the investor gets screwed and so does the homeowner both of whom were pawns and victims in an epic fraud.

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Menendez and Booker Take on Zombie Foreclosures

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

This is for general information only. Get a lawyer.

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see http://dsnews.com/news/10-30-2015/senators-call-federal-regulators-to-action-on-zombie-foreclosures

It seems ridiculous. Why would a lender reject a workout, reject modification, reject a short sale and insist on a foreclosure — and then walk away from the property? Why has this not been a center of attention as hundreds of communities, cities and states have been decimated by this phenomenon?

The answer turns on the themes of this blog and several other media outlets but nobody in a position to change the conversation wants to face up to the single true statement about this: somehow the banks are making more money going to foreclosure (and walking away from the property) than doing a workout to save the loan as a valuable asset. The foreclosure sale is worth more to them than the property.

The banks are not stupid. They know that destroying neighborhoods and cities results in a precipitous drop in home values (going to zero in many places). They know that this results in a disastrous deterioration of the value of the security for the alleged loans.

So we are faced with a second undeniable truth: the banks are not losing money on foreclosures, they are making money.

So when Senators like Menendez and Booker from New Jersey write a letter to federal regulators asking them to look into the wild phenomenon of Zombie foreclosures, we can only hope that such Senators and the federal regulators will ask themselves some very simple questions. That is the only way this crisis will be averted and it is a vehicle for bringing down the largest banks who are performing illegal acts every day in foreclosures across the country.

If we go beyond the basic questions, then we start to drill down to the real facts — not the ones that practically everyone assumes to be true.

How could the banks not be losing money on Zombie foreclosures? The loss of the loan and the loss of the property securing the loan obviously reduces the value of the alleged loan to zero. In fact, it creates a liability to the bank for walking away after they kicked out the people who own the house. The City can go after them for taxes and the prospect of liability for attractive nuisance and other torts requires them to pay for insurance or brace for impact when the lawsuit happens. Any normal banker will tell you that this is not an acceptable scenario nor is it industry practice amongst banks who make loans.

Hence the conclusion that the parties who invoking the foreclosure procedures did not make loans — nor did anyone else in their alleged chain. The part of the deal where the lender hands over the cash to the closing agent never happened in those loans. If it had happened then the loan and the property would have value to these banks and other entities. Since it was “other people’s money” involved in that “loan” transaction, the banks simply don’t care what happens to the loan or the property except that THEY want the foreclosures to the detriment of the owners of the property, the detriment to the Pension funds whose money was somehow used to make the alleged loans, the detriment of our communities, and the detriment of government which ramped up to handle all the new housing only to find that their tax base vanished.

So if the banks are not losing money on the alleged default of the borrower, it opens the door to understanding that practically anything else they do would result in profits to the banks who are illegally and fraudulently controlling the foreclosure process. When they bring a foreclosure action they use self proclaimed authority that is presumed to be true even though truth is not involved. They have credibility even though they lack the truth.

It’s a perfect world to Wall Street. They use nonexistent entities as claimants in the foreclosure process thus insulating themselves from liability for wrongful foreclosure when those few cases actually get decided on the merits. The money from the pension funds goes into the pocket of the Wall Street banks instead of those empty Trusts.

The pension funds gets a certificate of ownership and debt from the empty trust and they are contractually bound not to ask questions about any specific loan. Ever wonder why that provision is in every Pooling and Service Agreement. So while intermediary parties have a party with pension money, the pension money was used to fund loans that were underwritten for the purpose of loss instead of the usual profit motive. And by knowing that the loans would fail the banks were able to get even more money by betting on loans that they knew would fail. And then they got even more money by betting on the loss of value of the certificates. And they got even more money when they engaged in the Re-REMIC practice of closing out the old trust and starting a new one. And to add insult to injury, the pension fund keeps getting paid by the wrongdoers from a “reserve fund” consisting entirely of pension money. Pouring salt on that wound is the bank’s hubris in claiming the right to recover “servicer advances” made from the reserve pool — only upon foreclosure sale. And the cherry on top is that the “servicers” who are not servicers sell the right to recover servicer advances in additional securitization schemes.

Homeowners take it personally when the servicer tells them  they were rejected by the investor for a modification (false claim). They think it must be personal because no other explanation makes sense to them. But that is because they don’t have the information on “securitization fail.”

The BIG LIE is that lenders are foreclosing. They are not. In fact, there are no lenders in the legal and conventional use of the word. There are only victims of fraud.

Focus for Political Candidates: SHOW ME YOUR KNOWLEDGE About the Mortgage Crisis and the Economic collapse!

see West Coast Workshop Northern California

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

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I’ve been receiving emails from many candidates for public office, including one recent email calling for the break-up of the big banks — a theme picked up from Elizabeth Warren. They are right. But Bernie isn’t telling the people why that should happen and he isn’t taking the opportunity to resonate with what tens of millions of people already know about our economy, about Wall Street and about government. The system is rigged and people who run against the banks will win if they get specific and demonstrate their knowledge such that the people who are voting have actual confidence that the candidate knows what he or she is talking about and will actually do something to bring this nightmare to an end, restore the American middle class that is the engine of the US economy, and restore social order.

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Dear Bernie,

This message is too vague. You are underestimating the knowledge and intelligence of the American Public. More than 17,000,000 people have been displaced by the process of foreclosure. And there are another 17,000,000 people who will be displaced over the next 5-8 years. In order for that to happen the banks hide the real transactions and have been submitting documents that are fabricated, forged, robo-signed and supported by robo-testimony from people whose only job is to testify — thus insulating the the real players from committing perjury.

Talk about how and why millions of black, Hispanic and under-educated, unsophisticated borrowers were targeted for absurd loan products that ‘reset” to payment levels higher than their household income has ever been. You will cut across all demographic lines from far left to far right and everything in between.

Tens of Millions of people know this. You don’t need to do much teaching. If you want to touch a nerve, talk about how the mortgage process jumped from 4-5 loan products in in the 1970’s to around 450 loan products in the mortgage meltdown period. Talk about how disadvantaged people were targeted for loans because the failure of those loans made the most money for the banks.

Talk about the Miami suit where the city was stuck with brunt of the cost of ZOMBIE HOUSES — phenomenon throughout American cities where hundreds of thousands of homes have bull dozed because the same banks that interfered with a modification, forced the foreclosure then abandoned the property.

Talk about how no prospective borrower could understand the intricate lending process that emerged and that the Federal disclosure laws were inadequate to alert borrowers that they were being lured into loans they could never repay. Talk about how borrowers were lured into “default” with the hope of modifications by the famous “You must be 90 days behind to be considered for modification”, and lured into bankrupting their lives and households by spending every penny they could get their hands on to save their home — all to pay banks who had no interest in their loan and who had no actual authority.

Talk about the great shift (theft) of wealth from the American middle class to the banks who now have the money parked off-shore. Question why the banks supposedly suffered huge losses but are now bigger than ever with reporting earnings that are out-sized compared to any other activity in the our economy —a sure signal that they are cooking the books. Wall Street’s job is to make capital available for business activity. We have had our great recession where GDP for actual goods and services was reduced from 84% of GDP to only 52% of GDP — with the entire balance going to financial services. How could there be a need for more paper (securities) for business activity that declining? Talk about the nearly $1 Quadrillion in the shadow banking market where the illusion of economic activity is kept alive.

And why are the banks going to court relying on paper instruments that talk about transactions that never existed? If the transactions were real, then why don’t they show it? Why do they stonewall easy questions like “who is my creditor?” Why are they winning? Why are judges saying that they don’t care whether the borrower owes money to the party suing him; all that matters, say the judges, is that the borrower stopped paying. Really? If I mistakenly pay you $100 per month for a debt that doesn’t exist TO YOU, under what theory of law, morality or ethics can I be sued for withholding payment when I realize my mistake?

The all inclusive message should be that all the players should be forced to the table and all of them must share in the losses and risks that arose with the tactics employed by banks. Nearly all requests for workouts and modifications are being rejected by banks who have no authority to reject them. But the banks stand to gain billions, perhaps trillions of dollars by forcing homeowners into foreclosure because THEY, not the investors, get the proceeds of the sale through “recovery” of “servicer advances” that (a) completely eviscerate the false claim of default on the loan (the creditor was paid) (b) were never “advanced” by any authorized “servicer” (The money for servicer advances came from the investors’ money in a slush fund accessed by the servicer).

Talk about how virtually all borrowers who have applied for modifications have had their paperwork “lost” or “never received” or “incomplete” and how when the paperwork is sent again, it is now too stale and the process must be started over again — all the while the bank is forcing the homeowner deeper and deeper into a default that does not and never did exist. Talk about the tens of thousands of modifications that were approved and then ignored in order to force the foreclosure of a home that the bank would then abandon..

SHOW YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THESE THINGS AND PEOPLE WILL COME!

Mystery Solved! It’s the Servicers Who want the Foreclosure NOT the Certificate Holders or the “Trust”

See http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/news/servicing/mortgage-servicers-resume-securitizing-repayment-rights-1060096-1.html

So here is absolute proof that the real party in interest in the foreclosures are the unsecured servicers and also proof that the “default” never occurred. Notice how Freddie Mac figures in. Despite all denials and lies in court it is obvious that the servicers are, through one means or another, advancing payments to the certificate holders regardless of the payment status of the borrowers. And there are other people paying the creditors (certificate holders) as well. That means the secured creditors of the homeowner got paid, which means there is no default and they never declared one.

And THAT is why you rarely see US Bank as Trustee for the blah blah Pass through Certificates Trust hereby declares a default in your obligation; they don’t say that because neither the Trust nor the certificate holders have been short-changed, even as the servicer declares a default and moves toward foreclosure. This also explains why they don;t modify nearly as much as they should — they don’t collect their servicer advances that way. They only collect when there is a foreclosure and the property is sold. Why do they make those payments? Simple: They pay the certificate holders (1) so the certificate holders (investors) are kept in the dark about the real quality of the loan pool and (2) to lull the investors into a false sense of security such that they buy more of these worthless mortgage bonds.

The new “creditor” is the servicer who made the advances BUT they are unsecured. The only reason for the push for foreclosure is to make money selling new certificates of new securitization vehicles based upon the repayment rights of the servicer NOT the payments of the borrower. That means that the only party interested in the foreclosure is the servicer who (a) wants to stop making payments and (b) wants to collect on the unsecured volunteer payments the servicer made to creditors of the homeowner.

The story is that the servicers need to borrow the money in order to pay the certificate holders, but that isn’t true. They would never take that risk when the whole model is based upon the absence of risk. A close look at any REMIC prospectus, reveals a provision that says that some of the money of investors will be deposited into a pool that can be used to pay the investors their expected return on investment — i.e., their own money. Yes it’s a Ponzi scheme, but it is disclosed (not that anyone read it). AND the truth is that ALL of the invested money was pooled into accounts that had nothing to do with the REMIC trust.

And THAT is why the banks cannot connect the dots between the alleged loan closing, at which investor money was being used, and the paperwork which shows payees on the note and mortgagees on the mortgage as parties who have no relationship with the investors whose money was used to fund the loan. Bottom Line: The Banks are stealing from both ends.

Excerpts from the article:

There are some new features that issuers have to build into servicer advance trusts under the new rating criteria but “it’s been workable and issuers are finding ways to get deals done that work,” said Tom Hiner, a partner at law firm Hunton & Williams who has advised on a number of such transactions.

New Residential Investment Corp. is currently in the market with a $1.5 billion deal dubbed NRZ Advance Receivables Trust 2015-ON1. The real estate investment trust recently acquired the assets of Home Loan Servicing Solutions from Ocwen Financial; this deal refinances two existing securitizations, HLSS Servicer Advance Receivables Trust and HLSS Servicer Advance Receivables Trust.

The advance facility is backed by reimbursement rights to private-label mortgage-backed securities.

In June, Ocwen completed $450 million servicer advance refinancing of its Freddie Mac financing facility (formerly OFSART). The transaction securitizes the reimbursement rights to funds advanced on mortgages insured by the government-sponsored enterprise. S&P’s ratings on the notes issued by the deal, Ocwen Freddie Advance Funding LLC’s series 2015-T1, 2015-T2 and 2015-VF1, ranged from AAA to BBB and pay a weighted average interest rate of 2.225%.

In a July conference call discussing second-quarter earnings, Ocwen executives said the deal was positively received; it was upsized by $50 million and the advance rate on the notes was 8 percentage points higher than the facility it refinanced.

Hiner expects much of the market activity in the next two quarters to come from refinancing portions of the often unrated variable funding note commitments extended by bank lenders during the S&P moratorium on rating deals with term ABS.

This trend could result in a total of 10 to 12 term ABS deals by the end of the third quarter, according to Hiner.

The new deals have new features to address S&P’s recalibrated rating methodology, which takes into account the potential for extended timelines for reimbursements, the liquidity risk of the notes under stressed conditions, and the servicer’s ability to continue advancing based on its credit quality.

Timelines are further adjusted based on the actual recent experience of the servicer in recouping advances. The criteria establish “standard” reimbursement curves along with “above standard” and “below standard” ones for different advance types and rating scenarios.

The new methodology also includes a more stringent liquidity reserve fund requirements; this requirement varies according to the geographic diversification of receivables in the master trust.

“In a high-stress scenario, you could have potential issues where you didn’t receive cash from the receivables because you may not be liquidating properties as quickly,” said Jeremy Schneider, the agency’s director of RMBS ratings.

Hiner also expects to see more additional deals backed by repayments rights to advances on agency mortgages, similar to Ocwen’s. While servicing mortgages guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie is not as capital intensive as servicing nonagency mortgage securitizations, Hiner thinks that more participants with agency servicing portfolios will look to the ABS market for funding.

S&P’s older criteria for rating servicer advance receivables securitizations was not tailored for agency RMBS, simply because it had not seen many deals backed by IOUs from Fannie and Freddie. “But now there is more of an appetite,” said Waqas Shaikh, S&P’s managing director for RMBS ratings. The new criteria takes this into account.

Nationstar is the only other issuer to previously place agency notes under its Nationstar Agency Advance Funding Trust in January 2013.

There might not be any more deals from New Residential, however. The REIT said during its second-quarter earnings call that it has $3.5 billion of additional financing to fund increased balances of servicer advance receivables and upcoming maturities. The company acquired $5.1 billion of reimbursement rights through its purchase of HLSS; its portfolio now totals $8.5 billion.

And Ocwen, which has so far sold $66 billion of agency MSRs, is in the process of selling another $25 billion, according to its second-quarter earnings report. However, the issuer intends to remain in the agency space. On the company’s April 30 conference call to discuss operating results for the first quarter, CEO Ron Faris said Ocwen did not intend to sell any of its Ginnie Mae MSRs and would not completely exit GSEs or servicing or lending. The issuer still has $34 billion in GSE servicing rights and approximately $8 billion of GSE subservicing, and plans to continue to originate and service new Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA loans.

However, Ocwen executives said that they remain “optimistic” that the company will eventually be able to resume purchasing mortgage servicing rights based on discussions with the New York Department of Financial Services and the California Department of Business Oversight. The servicer’s ability to acquire new MSRs is currently restricted as part of last year’s settlements with the two regulators over its practices.”

Dan Edstrom senior forensic analyst for livinglies, says –This article lists many of the major servicers – some of whom have outright denied making payment advances in response to discovery from homeowners …
  • So homeowner is obligated to make payments
  • The note references others obligated also (guaranty / surety)
  • The PSA references the obligation and requirement to make advances of principal and interest
  • The PSA references the ability to make use of an “advance facility” to fund advances
  • Investors purchase securities (providing funding through the advance facility)
  • The funds from the advance facility investors are funneled through the trust to certificateholder investors to cover all payments that were required but were not made on the pool of loans in the trust
  • The servicer skims off their fees from the funds, which means they were paid their servicing fee even though the homeowner may not have made any payment
And of course the advance facility is a securitization, so there are other fees that are now spread across each of the “loans” that have missed payments, adding to the costs and fees charged to the homeowner and most likely ultimately paid by the original trust investors (it costs them money for the process where by they are paid even though the loan payments are not performing, and then the payments are pulled back from them later when the property is “liquidated” by foreclosure, shortsale or whatever).
The entire process is a scam. The investors would make more money of loan workouts were done instead of forcing homeowners into foreclosure.
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Office: 916.207.6706

Compelling Discovery and Explaining Why You want Answers

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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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I have always said that these cases will be won in discovery. Discovery must of course be preceded by proper pleading. Typically borrowers ask all the right questions and get no answers. They are met with objections that are, to say the least, disingenuous. The motion to compel better answers or to overrule the objections of the party seeking foreclosure is the real battle ground, not the trial. And speaking from experience, just noticing the objections for hearing or using a brief template and then  relying on oral argument will not, in most cases, cut to the quick.  The motions and hearings aimed at forcing the opposition to answer fairly simple questions (yes or no responses are best) should be accompanied with a brief that states just why the question was relevant, and why you need the answers from the opposition and why you can’t get it any other way. This involves educating the judge as to the fundamentals of your position, your defenses and your claims as the backdrop for why the discovery requests you filed should be compelled.

Practically every case in which there was a major settlement under seal of confidentiality involves an order from a judge wherein the servicer or bank was required to answer the real questions about the actual money trail and the accounting and management of the money from soup to nuts. So if a judge says that the borrower gets all the information about the loan starting with the source of funding at the alleged time of origination and the judge says that the borrower is entitled to know where the borrower’s money was sent after being received by a servicer, and the judge says the borrower can know what other payments were made on account of the subject loan, the case is ordinarily settled in a matter of hours.

The only money trail is the one starting with investors who thought they were buying mortgage backed securities, the proceeds of which sale would go to a REMIC trust, but were instead diverted to the coffers of the investment bank who created and sold those mortgage backed securities. And it ends with a “remote” vehicle sending money to a clueless closing agent who assumes that the money came from the originator. BECAUSE THE MONEY DIDN’T COME FROM THE ORIGINATOR, THERE IS NO MONEY TRAIL AFTER THE ALLEGED “CLOSING.” Who would pay an originator for a loan they know the originator never funded? Who would pay an assignor when they know the assignor never paid any money to acquire the loan, debt, note or mortgage? Answer nobody. And that is why the servicers and banks cannot open their books up — the entire scheme is an illusion.

What follows is an abstract from my notes on one such case: (The trial was bifurcated in time)

What we are seeing here is a master at obfuscation. In one case I have in litigation, Wells Fargo wants to assert that it can foreclose on the mortgage in its own name. It has alleged in the complaint that it is the owner of the loan and then testified that it is not the owner but rather the servicer. It has testified that Freddie Mac was the investor from the start but it has produced an assignment from a nonexistent entity in which Wells Fargo was the assignee.

Nobody testified that they were in court on behalf of any investor and the only thing we have is the bare assertion from the witness stand that Freddie Mac is the investor from the start. And yet during this whole affair, Wells posed as the lender, owner and then servicer of the loan without any authority to do so. And they posed as a party who could foreclose on the borrower without any evidence and probably without any knowledge as to what was showing on the books and records of whoever actually did the funding of this loan (or if the funding was in the amount claimed at closing) or whoever is claimed to be the owner of the loan.

A Motion to Compel should be filed citing their response to Yes or No questions — objection vague and ambiguous etc.

The point should be made that the defendants are the sole source of records, data and witnesses by which the Plaintiff’s case can be proven as to liability, damages and punitive damages. We have limited discovery to asking about their procedures as they relate to this particular alleged loan.

The issue at hand is that our position is that they knew that the alleged originator could not have been the lender because they did not exist, did not have bank account etc. And they have admitted that the named successor was not the lender either and  admit that the foreclosing party did not buy the loan, the debt, the note or the mortgage.. Not until the first part of trial did the representative from Wells state that contrary to the pleading they were acting as servicer not the creditor or owner of the loan. And they stated that the real lender was Freddie mac “from the start.”

So we are asking how it happened that Wells entered the picture at all as servicer or representative for any actual creditor — the only indication we have that some creditor exists is the surprise testimony from the designated representative of Wells in which he admitted that the named originator was not the lender, could not explain how such an “originator” was put on the note and mortgage and that Wells Fargo was not the lender or owner of the loan either. But we have no documentary evidence or data or witness from them explaining why they proceeded to assert any right to collect any money much less enforce a loan of money that came from somewhere but we don’t know from where.

The corporate representative of Wells says Freddie Mac was the “investor from the start.” But we have the direct refusal of Wells Fargo to produce a servicing, agency or representative agreement that applies to this loan.

We know that Freddie Mac was never a lender in the sense that they never originated any loans. So now we are asking for how they did get involved. The charter of Freddie Mac allows them to be two things: (1) guarantor and (2) Master trustee for REMIC Trusts. Freddie can buy loans with either cash or mortgage backed bonds issued by the REMIC Trust if such bonds were issued by one or more Trusts to Freddie Mac.

But all of that still leaves the question of where did the money come from — the money that was used to give to the borrower? It appears that the money came from investors who bought mortgage backed securities from REMIC Trust if Freddie Mac was really involved (A fact that is unknown at this time) or that the money came from investors who bought mortgage backed securities from a private label REMIC trust that is not registered with the SEC. But the money came from somewhere and we want to know the identity of the source because it will tell us who was really involved. And it is only in the context of knowing who was really involved that we assess the behavior of Wells Fargo and why they did what they did.

We ask them about their risk of loss and they respond by saying that they deny that they would not incur damages if the borrower defaults on the loan. Since they have said they didn’t provide funding and that they were not the investor (they say Freddie Mac was the investor (from the start), and they have no servicing agreement or at least not one they are willing to produce, then exactly how would they suffer damages on “default” on the loan?

They should be compelled to answer our discovery requests in a more forthright manner. If they are answering truthfully, which we must assume they are, for the moment, then that could only mean that there is a deal somewhere in which they have some potential exposure and which has never been disclosed. That exposure has nothing to do with the debt, note or mortgage that was originated in the name of the alleged originator. And THAT goes to the essence of their motivation to lie to the borrower and to interfere with her ability to sell the property and pay off the loan.

The exposure relates to the fact that without a foreclosure judgment and subsequent sale of the property, they lose their ability to recover servicer advances. Servicer advances are the exact opposite of the basis for a foreclosure action. In a foreclosure action it is based upon the fact that the creditor experienced a default — i.e., the creditor did not receive payments. With servicer advances, the investor gets the money regardless of whether or not the borrower pays. They are volunteer payments because the borrower is not in privity with the advancer of payments to the creditor and in fact is completely unaware of the fact that such payments are being made.

It also hints at another proposition: that some third party would hold them responsible unless they got a foreclosure judgment. We are left with equivocating answers that continue the pattern of obscurity as to the nature of the origination of the loan and the ownership or authority to represent anything. So it might just be that they they could not give a payoff figure and that their motivation was obtain the foreclosure judgment at all costs, even if they had to lie and dodge to get it. It would also explain why they lured her into the default. Certainly their turnover of SOME of the audio files which did not include the call in which she was told she needed to be 90 days behind (contrary to HAMP) in order to get some sort of relief.

And there is another issue that comes up when you consider borrower’s testimony that she did receive a forbearance 2 years earlier. Did they have authority to do that? What changed, if anything? Did some other party intervene? Was there a change in internal Wells Fargo policy?

All these things could be answered if they would be more forthright in their answers and if they reconciled the obvious discrepancy between not being the owner of the loan, but alleging that they were, not being the servicer or unwilling to state the source of their authority to represent another party, and testifying that they were the servicer, and testifying about Freddie Mac involvement without any records showing that involvement (indicating that the witness did NOT have access to the entire file). This also goes to the issue of whether there was any default at all if there is a PSA for a trust that claims ownership and if that PSA shows that through servicer advances or other payments means the real creditors — the investors — were NOT showing any default at all.

The point of this diatribe is that this case highlights the fact that in virtually all Wells Fargo cases (and with other banks), the real party seeking a foreclosure judgment is the servicer (since they are the only ones showing up at trial anyway), but that whatever the servicer’s interest is or whatever their risk of loss is, it relates to a claim either not against the borrower or not based upon the mortgage which is either void or owned by someone else.

If the self-proclaimed servicer is saying they will suffer damages upon default and they admit they have no ownership of the loan nor did they fund the original loan transaction, then any recovery would be based upon a cause of action other than a foreclosure of a mortgage where they are neither the mortgagee, successor or creditor. Their claim if caused by volunteer payments (servicer advances) to the creditors, it is based upon unjust enrichment not breach of the contractual duty to pay the loan.

Remember that the witness testified to being the corporate representative of Wells Fargo as servicer and not to being a corporate representative of the “investor.” And the witness testified that the records of the investor were never available to him, so how can he testify that the creditor has experienced a default? Since the borrower never had any privity with Wells Fargo as servicer or lender how else could they be exposed to a loss? And more importantly, why are they suing the borrower for collection on the note and enforcement of the mortgage when the actual creditor has not experienced any default?

THAT is the draft of the memo or brief that should accompany the Motion to Compel answers to simple questions. It is almost comical that their answer to a yes or no question was an objection that it was too broad, ambiguous etc. What IT platform are you using? Answer: None of your business. But it is written as an objection to the form or content to the question. That is how the servicers stonewall borrowers and that is how borrowers are prevented from ever knowing the truth about the origination or management of their loan.

Ocwen: Investors and Borrowers Move toward Unity of Purpose!

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

Please consult an attorney who is licensed in your jurisdiction before acting upon anything you read on this blog.

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Anyone following this blog knows that I have been saying that unity of investors and borrowers is the ultimate solution to the falsely dubbed “Foreclosure crisis” (a term that avoids Wall Street corruption). Many have asked what i have based that on and the answer was my own analysis and interviews with Wall Street insiders who have insisted on remaining anonymous. But it was only a matter of time where the creditors (investors who bought mortgage backed securities) came to realize that nobody acting in the capacity of underwriter, servicer or Master Servicer was acting in the best interests of the investors or the borrowers.

The only thing they have tentatively held back on is an outright allegation that their money was NOT used by the Trustee for the Trust and their money never made it into the Trust and that the loans never made it into the Trust. That too will come because when investors realize that homeowners are not going to walk away, investors as creditors will come to agreements to salvage far more of the debts created during the mortgage meltdown than the money salvaged by pushing cases to foreclosure instead of the centuries’ proven method of resolving troubled loans — workouts. Nearly all homeowners would execute a new clean mortgage and note in a heartbeat to give investors the benefits of a workout that reflects economic reality.

Practice hint: If you are dealing with Ocwen Discovery should include information about Altisource and Home Loan Servicing Solutions, investors, and borrowers as it relates to the subject loan.

Investors announced complaints against Ocwen for mishandling the initial money, the paperwork and the subsequent money and servicing on loans created and a acquired with their money. The investors, who are the actual creditors (albeit unsecured) are getting close to the point where they state outright what everyone already knows: there is no collateral for these loans and every disclosure statement involving nearly all the loans violated disclosure requirements under TILA, RESPA, and Federal and state regulations.
The fact that (1) the loan was not funded by the payee on the note and mortgagee on the mortgage and (2) that the money from creditors were never properly channeled through the REMIC trusts because the trusts never received the proceeds of sale of mortgage backed securities is getting closer and closer to the surface.
What was unthinkable and the subject of ridicule 8 years ago has become the REAL reality. The plain truth is that the Trust never owned the loans even as a pass through because they never had had the money to originate or acquire loans. That leaves an uncalculated unsecured debt that is being diminished every day that servicers continue to push foreclosure for the protection of the broker dealers who created worthless mortgage bonds which have been purchased by the Federal reserve under the guise of propping up the banks’ balance sheets.

“HOUSTON, January 23, 2015 – Today, the Holders of 25% Voting Rights in 119 Residential Mortgage Backed Securities Trusts (RMBS) with an original balance of more than $82 billion issued a Notice of Non-Performance (Notice) to BNY Mellon, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, US Bank, and Wells Fargo, as Trustees, Securities Administrators, and/or Master Servicers, regarding the material failures of Ocwen Financial Corporation (Ocwen) as Servicer and/or Master Servicer, to comply with its covenants and agreements under governing Pooling and Servicing Agreements (PSAs).”
  • Use of Trust funds to “pay” Ocwen’s required “borrower relief” obligations under a regulatory settlement, through implementation of modifications on Trust- owned mortgages that have shifted the costs of the settlement to the Trusts and enriched Ocwen unjustly;
  • Employing conflicted servicing practices that enriched Ocwen’s corporate affiliates, including Altisource and Home Loan Servicing Solutions, to the detriment of the Trusts, investors, and borrowers;
  • Engaging in imprudent and wholly improper loan modification, advancing, and advance recovery practices;
  • Failure to maintain adequate records,  communicate effectively with borrowers, or comply with applicable laws, including consumer protection and foreclosure laws; and,

 

  • Failure to account for and remit accurately to the Trusts cash flows from, and amounts realized on, Trust-owned mortgages.

As a result of the imprudent and improper servicing practices alleged in the Notice, the Holders further allege that their experts’ analyses demonstrate that Trusts serviced by Ocwen have performed materially worse than Trusts serviced by other servicers.  The Holders further allege that these claimed defaults and deficiencies in Ocwen’s performance have materially affected the rights of the Holders and constitute an ongoing Event of Default under the applicable PSAs.  The Holders intend to take further action to recover these losses and protect the Trusts’ assets and mortgages.

The Notice was issued on behalf of Holders in the following Ocwen-serviced RMBS: see link The fact that the investors — who by all accounts are the real parties in interest disavow the actions of Ocwen gives rise to an issue of fact as to whether Ocwen was or is operating under the scope of services supposedly to be performed by the servicer or Master Servicer.
I would argue that the fact that the apparent real creditors are stating that Ocwen is misbehaving with respect to adequate records means that they are not entitled to the presumption of a business records exception under the hearsay rule.
The fact that the creditors are saying that servicing practices damaged not only the investors but also borrowers gives rise to a factual issue which denies Ocwen the presumption of validity on any record including the original loan documents that have been shown in many cases to have been mechanically reproduced.
The fact that the creditors are alleging imprudent and wholly improper loan modification practices, servicer advances (which are not properly credited to the account of either the creditor or the borrower), and the recovery of advances means that the creditors are saying that Ocwen was acting on its own behalf instead of the creditors. This puts Ocwen in the position of being either outside the scope of its authority or more likely simply an interloper claiming to be a servicer for trusts that were never actually used to acquire or originate loans, this negating the effect of the Pooling and Servicing Agreement.  Hence the “servicer” for the trust is NOT the servicer for the subject loan because the loan never arrived in the trust portfolio.
The fact that the creditors admit against interest that Ocwen was pursuing practices and goals that violate laws and proper procedure means that no foreclosure can be supported by “clean hands.” The underlying theme here being that contrary to centuries of practice, instead of producing workouts in which the loan is saved and thus the investment of the creditors, Ocwen pursued foreclosure which was in its interest and not the creditors. The creditors are saying they don’t want the foreclosures but Ocwen did them anyway.
The fact that the creditors are saying they didn’t get the money that was supposed to go to them means that the money received from lost sharing with FDIC, guarantees, insurance, credit default swaps that should have paid off the creditors were not paid to them and would have reduced the damage to the creditors. By reducing the amount of damages to the creditors the borrower would have owed less, making the principal amounts claimed in foreclosures all wrong. The parties who paid such amounts either have or do not have separate unsecured actions against the borrower. In most cases they have no such claim because they explicitly waived it.
This is the first time investors have even partially aligned themselves with Borrowers. I hope it will lead to a stampede, because the salvation of investors and borrowers alike requires a pincer like attack on the intermediaries who have been pretending to be the principal parties in interest but who lacked the authority from the start and violated every fiduciary duty and contractual duty in dealing with creditors and borrowers. Peal the onion: the reason that their initial money is at stake is that these servicers are either acting as Master Servicers who are actually the underwriters and sellers of the mortgage backed securities,
I would argue that the fact that the apparent real creditors are stating the Ocwen is misbehaving with respect to adequate records means that they are not entitled to the presumption of a business records exception under the hearsay rule.
The fact that the creditors are saying that servicing practices damaged not only the investors but also borrowers gives rise to a factual issue which denies Ocwen the presumption of validity on any record including the original loan documents that have been shown in many cases to have been mechanically reproduced.
The fact that the creditors are alleging imprudent and wholly improper loan modification practices, servicer advances (which are not properly credited to the account of either the creditor or the borrower), and the recovery of advances means that the creditors are saying that Ocwen was acting on tis own behalf instead of the creditors. This puts Ocwen in the position of being either outside the scope of its authority or more likely simply an interloper claiming to be a servicer for trusts that were never actually used to acquire or originate loans, this negating the effect of the Pooling and Servicing Agreement.
The fact that the creditors admit against interest that Ocwen was pursuing practices and goals that violate laws and proper procedure means that no foreclosure can be supported by “clean hands.” The underlying theme here being that contrary to centuries of practice, instead of producing workouts in which the loan is saved and thus the investment of the creditors, Ocwen pursued foreclosure which was in its interest and not the creditors. The creditors are saying they don’t want the foreclosures but Ocwen did them anyway.
The fact that the creditors are saying they didn’t get the money that was supposed to go to them means that the money received from lost sharing with FDIC, guarantees, insurance, credit default swaps that should have paid off the creditors were not paid to them and would have reduced the damage to the creditors. By reducing the amount of damages to the creditors the borrower would have owed less, making the principals claimed in foreclosures all wrong. The parties who paid such amounts either have or do not have separate unsecured actions against eh borrower. In most cases they have no such claim because they explicitly waived it.
This is the first time investors have even partially aligned themselves with Borrowers. I hope it will lead to a stampede, because the salvation of investors and borrowers alike requires a pincer like attack on the intermediaries who have been pretending to be the principal parties in interest but who lacked the authority from the start and violated every fiduciary duty and contractual duty in dealing with creditors and borrowers.

Business Records Exception — The Loophole That Needs Closing

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

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see AppellateOpinion Holt v Calchas 4th DCA decision

The clear assumption in this case is that Wells Fargo had stepped into the shoes of the lender and that if Wells Fargo did not win or if its surrogate did not win, it was assumed that the homeowner would be getting a free house, a free ride and a windfall at the expense of Wells Fargo Bank. Despite years of articles and treatises written on the subject, the courts have still not caught up with the basic fact that both the lenders and borrowers were victims of an illegal and fraudulent scheme. At the very least, the court owes it to our society and to all parties involved in foreclosure litigation, to enforce the laws that already exist —  especially the rules concerning the burden of proof in a foreclosure action.

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The Holt decision is a curious case. There are a number of unique factors that occurred in the trial court and again in the appellate court. The first judge recused herself shortly into the trial and was replaced by a senior judge. There is no transcript of the proceedings prior to the point where the senior judge took over. At the same time the homeowners attorney was also replaced. So my first question is how anyone could have reached any decision. In the absence of the transcript of the proceedings leading up to the recusal of the original judge I find it troublesome that either the judge or the attorney for the homeowner could come to a decision or develop any trial strategy or theory of the case for the defense of this foreclosure case.

The second thing that I have trouble with is that the homeowner filed the appeal based on three different theories, to wit:

(1) the proffered promissory note, mortgage, and assignment of mortgage should not have been admitted into evidence—  an argument that the appellate court rejects;

(2)  the homeowner’s motion to dismiss should have been granted for failure to prove compliance with paragraph 22 [default, reinstatement and acceleration] of the mortgage —  with which the appellate court agreed. Since the appellate court agreed with this point and reversed the trial court it would seem that the case should have been dismissed, but instead the 4th District Court of Appeal chose to remand the case for further proceedings thus giving a second bite of the apple to the party who was claiming the right to foreclose —  despite the finding that the trial was over and on appeal and the foreclosing party had failed to make its case. If the homeowner had failed to prove its defenses, would the appellate court have issued legal advice to the homeowner and remanded for another bite at the apple?

(3)  the payment history should not have been admitted into evidence over the hearsay objection raised by the homeowner. The court goes into great lengths essentially tying itself into knots over this one, but eventually sides with the homeowner. Instead of ordering the entry of judgment for the homeowner, the court remanded the action for further proceedings in which the foreclosing party, having received legal advice from the District Court of Appeal, is now permitted to retry the case to fill in the blanks that the appellate court had pointed out with great specificity and particularity.

While I agree with much of the reasoning that is stated in this appellate decision, I still find it very troublesome that there remains an assumption and perhaps even a bias in favor of the foreclosing party. This is directly contrary to the rules of court, common law, and statutory law. The party bringing a claim for affirmative relief (like foreclosure) must bear the burden of proving every element required in their cause of action. This is not a motion to dismiss where every allegation is taken as true. At trial, it is the opposite — there is no case for the homeowner to defend unless the foreclosing party establishes all elements of its right to foreclose. If they fail to do so, the other side wins. In the interest of justice as well as finality courts do not easily allow either side to have another trial unless there are exceptional circumstances.

(In non-judicial states, this is particularly perplexing — the homeowner is required to sue for a TRO (temporary restraining order). In actuality the homeowner probably should have sued immediately upon the notice of the purported “substitution of trustee.” But the point is that the homeowner is required to prove a negative as the non-judicial statutes are construed. What SHOULD happen is that if the homeowner sues for the TRO and objects to the notices filed, challenges the standing of the “new” beneficiary on the deed of trust, and otherwise denies the elements of a foreclosure action, then the parties should be realigned with the new beneficiary required to plead and prove its standing, ownership and ability to prove the default and the balance owed.)

The next thing I find potentially troublesome is that the tactic of inserting a new entity as plaintiff or as servicer in order to shield the actual perpetrator was clearly employed in this case, although it seems not to have been mentioned in the trial court or on appeal. In this case an entity called Consumer Solutions 3 LLC was substituted for Wells Fargo. Then Wells Fargo was substituted for Consumer Solutions. This is a game of three card monte in which everyone loses except for the dealer — Wells Fargo.

As long as they are going back to trial, it would seem that the homeowner would be well served to do some investigations into the parties, and to determine what transactions if any had actually occurred. If there were no transactions, which I think is the case, then any paperwork generated from those fictitious transactions would be completely worthless, lacking in any foundation and could never be enforced against anybody —  with the possible exception of a holder in due course.

 BUSINESS  RECORDS EXCEPTION:

I am continually frustrated by the fact that most people simply do not consider the elements of the business records exception to the hearsay rule within the context of why the hearsay rule exists. By its very nature hearsay tends to be untrustworthy, untested and usually self-serving. That is why the rule exists. It bars any document or testimony offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted unless the person who spoke or wrote the words is present in court to be cross examined as to their personal knowledge, whether they had an interest in creating one appearance or another,  or whether the entire statement could be impeached.

Instead most people on all sides of foreclosure litigation seem to think that the business record should be admitted into evidence unless there is a compelling reason to the contrary. This is incorrect. And if you just scratched the surface of any of these claims you will find that the party who is seeking to introduce these hearsay statements into evidence has a vested interest in the outcome of the case and absolutely no direct knowledge of any of the facts of the case.

Like Chase Bank does with SPS, Wells Fargo has inserted this entity that is essentially run by a hedge fund (Cargill) to prevent any employee or contract party from testifying on behalf of Wells Fargo, because Wells Fargo knows that it has already been sanctioned millions of dollars for telling lies in court.

So instead they have somebody else come in to tell the lies, and that witness is trying to say that they are familiar with the record-keeping of their own company which includes the record-keeping of the previous company, Wells Fargo. Consumer Solutions is a shame shell that never did anything but rent its name for foreclosures while its parent, Cargill, received compensation  (a piece of the pie) for doing nothing.

This obvious ploy has worked for nearly a decade but is coming under increasing scrutiny — with Judges musing out loud about the shuffling of “servicers” and “lenders” and creditors. In an effort to stifle any real challenge to foreclosures courts have often held that the securitization documents are “irrelevant.”

So the courts take jurisdiction over the action and the parties by virtue of claims of securitization, authority allegedly granted by a pooling and servicing agreement, and ownership “proven” merely by claiming it on the basis of self-serving fabricated documents not subject to scrutiny, and a default and balance that excludes the payments received by the creditors from servicer advances and other third party payments paid without right of subrogation.

Then the courts limit discovery, overrule objections and allow the party initiating foreclosure to “prove” its case by using dubious legal “presumptions” instead of facts, most of which were denied by the homeowner.

And now that the Wall Street banks perceive a risk in having real people with real knowledge testify, because they might admit or testify to things that might hurt them, they insert a complete stranger to the process and double down on “business record exception” to get paperwork into evidence, much of which is completely fabricated and nearly all of which contains errors in computation by exclusion of (a) the fact that the creditors were paid every payment despite the declaration of default by the “servicer” and (b) deducting those payments from the original debt owed to those investors who advanced funds for the origination or acquisition of “loans.”

In the Holt decision the 4th DCA declares that the assignment was properly allowed into evidence because it was a “verbal act” and not offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Once in evidence however, the contents were taken as true shifting the burden of proof to the homeowner who was stone walled in discovery. The homeowner in many cases is not allowed to compel the production of evidence of payment or consideration for the assignment — without which the assignment is merely an empty document conferring no rights greater than the assignor had at the time of the alleged “assignment”. Most often the assignor did not require payment for the simple reason that they too had no money in the deal.

PAYMENT  HISTORY HEARSAY OBJECTION

The court inserts Florida Statute 90.803(6)(a), which is part of the evidence code, providing for exceptions to the hearsay rule for business records. In that statute is the general wording for the types of records that might qualify for the exception. But the court completely ignores the last words of that statute — “unless the sources of information or other circumstances show lack of trustworthiness.” (e.s.)

The question is why should we trust a servicer or its “professional witness”? The witness is there and was often hired for the sole purpose of testifying in foreclosure trials. If they lose, they risk their jobs. The “servicer” whether they are designated in the PSA or have been slipped in as another layer of obfuscation, has an interest that is in conflict with the the actual creditors — recovery of “servicer advances” (which were paid from funds provided by the Master Servicer — often the underwriter and seller of mortgage bonds to investors) and to make more money because they are allowed to collect a vast amount of “fees” for enforcement of a “non-performing” loan.

The fact is that the servicer advances negates the default and might give rise to a new cause of action for unjust enrichment against the homeowner but that claim would not be secured. This in turn leads to the unnatural conclusion of aggravating the the alleged damages by forced sale of the property as opposed to modification and reformation of the loan documents to (a) name the true creditor and (b) use the true balance owed to the creditors.

Thus both the specific witness and the company he or she represents have a vested interest in seeing to it that the foreclosure results in a forced sale for their own benefit and contrary to creditors who have no notice of the pending action. At the very least, this certainly raises the question of trustworthiness. Add to that the fraudulent servicing practices, the lies told during the “modification” process, and I would argue that the source and circumstances raise a presumption that the testimony and business records not trustworthy.

Quoting Florida Statute 90.803(6)(a) the court goes not to set forth the elements of the business records exception — the issue being that ALL elements must be met, not just some or even most of them:

  1. The record was made at or near the time of the event [so in many cases where SPS was inserted as the “servicer” when in fact it was merely an enforcer without knowledge of prior events, it is impossible for the records of SPS  to contain entries that were made at or near the time of any relevant event].
  2.  the record was made by or from information transmitted by a person with knowledge [ if the court permitted proper discovery, voir dire, and cross examination is doubtful that any witness would be able to testify that the record was made by a particular person who had actual knowledge]
  3.  the record was kept in the ordinary course of a regularly conducted business activity [ while it might be true that the actual servicer could claim that it’s records were in the ordinary course of a regularly conducted business activity, it is not true where the witness is a representative of a “new” servicer for plaintiff —  neither of whom were processing any data concerning the loan from the moment of origination through the date that the foreclosure was filed]
  4.  that the record was a regular practice of that business to make such a record [ here is where the courts are in my opinion making a singular error —  by accepting proof of only the fourth element required for the business records exception, trial court and appellate courts are ignoring the other elements and therefore allowing untrustworthy documents into evidence.  “While it is not necessary to call the individual who prepared a document, the witness to open a document is being offered must be able to show each of the requirements for establishing a proper foundation.” Hunter v  or Aurora loan services LLC, 137 S 3d 570 (Fla 1st DCA 2014).

The Holt Court then goes on to analyze several cases:

  1. Yisrael v State 993 So 2d 952, 956 (FLA 2008) — a Florida Supreme Court decision quoting the elements of the business records exception. see sc07-1030
  2. Glarum v LaSalle Bank, N.A. 83 So 3d (Fla 4th DCA 2011) — where the witness was unable to lay the proper foundation for the business records exception  because the witness testified that he “did not know who, how, or when the data entries were made into [ the previous mortgage holders’] system and he could not stated the records were made in the regular course of business.” ( My only objection to this is the wording that was used. The predecessors in the document chain are referred to as “mortgage holders” —  indicating an assumption which is probably not true). see Glarum v. LaSalle
  3. Weisenberg v Deutsch Bank N.A. 89 So 3d 1111 (FLA 4th DCA 2012) — Where the court held that “the deposition excerpts show that [the witness] knew how the data was produced and her testimony demonstrated that she was familiar with the bank’s record-keeping system and had knowledge about data is uploaded into the system.” (My problem with the Weisenberg decision is that the word “familiar” is used generically so that the witness is allowed to testify about the business records — without any personal knowledge about the trustworthiness of the data in those records — again with the apparent assumption that the foreclosing party SHOULD win and the second assumption being that the homeowner should not be allowed to take advantage of hairsplitting technicalities to get a free house.  In fact it is the servicer that is taking advantage of such technicalities by getting business records into evidence without verification that those are all the business records. For example, the question I often ask is who did the servicer pay after receiving payment from the borrower or anyone else? The records don’t show that — thus how can the court determine the balance on the creditor’s books and records? The underlying false assumption here is that the servicer records ARE the creditor’s records even though the creditors have not even been identified.)
  4. WAMCO v Integrated Electronic Environments 903 So 2d 230 (Fla 2d DCA 2005) —  Where another appellate court held that “a document which contains the amount of money owed on the loan was admissible under the business records exception even where the testimony as to the amount owed was based on information from a bank that previously held the loan.” (I think this decision was at least partially wrong. The witness testified that it was part of his duties to oversee the collection of loans that the bank urges and the initial members he used his calculations were provided by the previous bank.  In my opinion the court properly concluded that the witness to testify —  that he should have been limited to the business records of the company that employed him. Witness knew nothing about the previous bank practices and did not employ any verification processes. see 2D04-2717
  5. Hunter v Aurora Loan Services 137 So 3d 570 (Fla 1st DCA 2014) — where the witness was incompetent to testify and could not lay a proper foundation for the business records exception and in which the HOLT Court quotes from the Hunter decision with obvious approval:  “At trial, a witness who works for the current note holder, but never worked for the initial note holder, attempted to lay the foundation for the introduction of records pertaining to prior ownership and transfer of the note and mortgage as business records. The witness testified that based on his dealings with the original note holder, the original note holders business practice regarding the transfer of ownership of loans was standard across the industry. He could not testify, based on personal knowledge, who generated the information. He also testified, in general fashion and without any specifics, that some of the documents sought to be introduced were generated by a computer program used across the industry  and that records custodian for the loan servicer was the person who usually it puts the information obtained in the documents. The trial court admitted the documents into evidence.” see hunter-v-aurora-loan-servs-llc

The most interesting quote from the Hunter decision is “absent such personal knowledge, the witness was unable to substantiate when the records were made, whether the information they contain derived from a person with knowledge, whether the original note holder regularly make such records, or indeed, whether the records belong to the original note holder in the first place. The testimony about standard mortgage industry practice only arguably established that such records are generated and kept in the ordinary course of mortgage loan servicing.” 

Who Are the Creditors?

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Since the distributions are made to the alleged trust beneficiaries by the alleged servicers, it is clear that both the conduct and the documents establish the investors as the creditors. The payments are not made into a trust account and the Trustee is neither the payor of the distributions nor is the Trustee in any way authorized or accountable for the distributions. The trust is merely a temporary conduit with no business purpose other than the purchase or origination of loans. In order to prevent the distributions of principal from being treated as ordinary income to the Trust, the REMIC statute allows the Trust to do its business for a period of 90 days after which business operations are effectively closed.

The business is supposed to be financed through the “IPO” sale of mortgage bonds that also convey an undivided interest in the “business” which is the trust. The business consists of purchasing or originating loans within the 90 day window. 90 days is not a lot of time to acquire $2 billion in loans. So it needs to be set up before the start date which is the filing of the required papers with the IRS and SEC and regulatory authorities. This business is not a licensed bank or lender. It has no source of funds other than the IPO issuance of the bonds. Thus the business consists simply of using the proceeds of the IPO for buying or originating loans. Since the Trust and the investors are protected from poor or illegal lending practices, the Trust never directly originates loans. Otherwise the Trust would appear on the original note and mortgage and disclosure documents.

Yet as I have discussed in recent weeks, the money from the “trust beneficiaries” (actually just investors) WAS used to originate loans despite documents and agreements to the contrary. In those documents the investor money was contractually intended to be used to buy mortgage bonds issued by the REMIC Trust. Since the Trusts are NOT claiming to be holders in due course or the owners of the debt, it may be presumed that the Trusts did NOT purchase the loans. And the only reason for them doing that would be that the Trusts did not have the money to buy loans which in turn means that the broker dealers who “sold” mortgage bonds misdirected the money from investors from the Trust to origination and acquisition of loans that ultimately ended up under the control of the broker dealer (investment bank) instead of the Trust.

The problem is that the banks that were originating or buying loans for the Trust didn’t want the risk of the loans and frankly didn’t have the money to fund the purchase or origination of what turned out to be more than 80 million loans. So they used the investor money directly instead of waiting for it to be processed through the trust.

The distribution payments came from the Servicer directly to the investors and not through the Trust, which is not allowed to conduct business after the 90 day cutoff. It was only a small leap to ignore the trust at the beginning — I.e. During the business period (90 days). On paper they pretended that the Trust was involved in the origination and acquisition of loans. But in fact the Trust entities were completely ignored. This is what Adam Levitin called “securitization fail.” Others call it fraud, pure and simple, and that any further action enforcing the documents that refer to fictitious transactions is an attempt at making the courts an instrument for furthering the fraud and protecting the perpetrator from liability, civil and criminal.

And that brings us to the subject of servicer advances. Several people  have commented that the “servicer” who advanced the funds has a right to recover the amounts advanced. If that is true, they ask, then isn’t the “recovery” of those advances a debit to the creditors (investors)? And doesn’t that mean that the claimed default exists? Why should the borrower get the benefit of those advances when the borrower stops paying?

These are great questions. Here is my explanation for why I keep insisting that the default does not exist.

First let’s look at the actual facts and logistics. The servicer is making distribution payments to the investors despite the fact that the borrower has stopped paying on the alleged loan. So on its face, the investors are not experiencing a default and they are not agreeing to pay back the servicer.

The servicer is empowered by vague wording in the Pooling and Servicing Agreement to stop paying the advances when in its sole discretion it determines that the amounts are not recoverable. But it doesn’t say recoverable from whom. It is clear they have no right of action against the creditor/investors. And they have no right to foreclosure proceeds unless there is a foreclosure sale and liquidation of the property to a third party purchaser for value. This means that in the absence of a foreclosure the creditors are happy because they have been paid and the borrower is happy because he isn’t making payments, but the servicer is “loaning” the payments to the borrower without any contracts, agreements or any documents bearing the signature of the borrower. The upshot is that the foreclosure is then in substance an action by the servicer against the borrower claiming to be secured by a mortgage but which in fact is SUPPOSEDLY owned by the Trust or Trust beneficiaries (depending upon which appellate decision or trial court decision you look at).

But these questions are academic because the investors are not the owners of the loan documents. They are the owners of the debt because their money was used directly, not through the Trust, to acquire the debt, without benefit of acquiring the note and mortgage. This can be seen in the stone wall we all hit when we ask for the documents in discovery that would show that the transaction occurred as stated on the note and mortgage or assignment or endorsement.

Thus the amount received by the investors from the “servicers” was in fact not received under contract, because the parties all ignored the existence of the trust entity. It was a voluntary payment received from an inter-meddler who lacked any power or authorization to service or process the loan, the loan payments, or the distributions to investors except by conduct. Ignoring the Trust entity has its consequences. You cannot pick up one end of the stick without picking up the other.

So the claim of the “servicer” is in actuality an action in equity or at law for recovery AGAINST THE BORROWER WITHOUT DOCUMENTATION OF ANY KIND BEARING THE BORROWER’S SIGNATURE. That is because the loans were originated as table funded loans which are “predatory per se” according to Reg Z. Speaking with any mortgage originator they will eventually either refuse to answer or tell you outright that the purpose of the table funded loan was to conceal from the borrower the parties with whom the borrower was actually doing business.

The only reason the “servicer” is claiming and getting the proceeds from foreclosure sales is that the real creditors and the Trust that issued Bonds (but didn’t get paid for them) is that the investors and the Trust are not informed. And according to the contract (PSA, Prospectus etc.) that they don’t know has been ignored, neither the investors nor the Trust or Trustee is allowed to make inquiry. They basically must take what they get and shut up. But they didn’t shut up when they got an inkling of what happened. They sued for FRAUD, not just breach of contract. And they received huge payoffs in settlements (at least some of them did) which were NOT allocated against the amount due to those investors and therefore did not reduce the amount due from the borrower.

Thus the argument about recovery is wrong because there really is no such claim against the investors. There is the possibility of a claim against the borrower for unjust enrichment or similar action, but that is a separate action that arose when the payment was made and was not subject to any agreement that was signed by the borrower. It is a different claim that is not secured by the mortgage or note, even if the  loan documents were valid.

Lastly I should state why I have put the “servicer”in quotes. They are not the servicer if they derive their “authority” from the PSA. They could only be the “servicer” if the Trust acquired the loans. In that case they PSA would affect the servicing of the actual loan. But if the money did not come from the Trust in any manner, shape or form, then the Trust entity has been ignored. Accordingly they are neither the servicer nor do they have any powers, rights, claims or obligations under the PSA.

But the other reason comes from my sources on Wall Street. The service did not and could not have made the “servicer advances.” Another bit of smoke and mirrors from this whole false securitization scheme. The “servicer advances” were advances made by the broker dealer who “sold” (in a false sale) mortgage bonds. The brokers advanced money to an account in which the servicer had access to make distributions along with a distribution report. The distribution reports clearly disclaim any authenticity of the figures used, the status of the loans, the trust or the portfolio of loans (non-existent) as a whole. More smoke and mirrors. So contrary to popular belief the servicer advances were not made by the servicers except as a conduit.

Think about it. Why would you offer to keep the books on a thousand loans and agree to make payments even if the borrowers didn’t pay? There is no reasonable fee for loan processing or payment processing that would compensate the servicer for making those advances. There is no rational business reason for the advance. The reason they agreed to issue the distribution report along with money that was actually under the control of the broker dealer is that they were being given an opportunity, like sharks in a feeding frenzy, to participate in the liquidation proceeds after foreclosure — but only if the loan actually went into foreclosure, which is why most loan modifications are ignored or fail.

Who had a reason to advance money to the creditors even if there was no payment by the borrower? The broker dealer, who wanted to pacify the investors who thought they owned bonds issued by a REMIC Trust that they thought had paid for and owned the loans as holder in due course on their behalf. But it wasn’t just pacification. It was marketing and sales. As long as investors thought the investments were paying off as expected, they would buy more bonds. In the end that is what all this was about — selling more and more bonds, skimming a chunk out of the money advanced by investors — and then setting up loans that had to fail, and if by some reason they didn’t they made sure that the tranche that reportedly owned the loan also was liable for defaults in toxic waste mortgages “approved” for consumers who had no idea what they were signing.

So how do you prove this happened in one particular loan and one particular trust and one particular servicer etc.? You don’t. You announce your theory of the case and demand discovery in which you have wide latitude in what questions you can ask and what documents you can demand — much wider than what will be allowed as areas of inquiry in trial. It is obvious and compelling that asked for proof of the underlying authority, underlying transaction or anything else that is real, your opposition can’t come up with it. Their case falls apart because they don’t own or control the debt, the loan or any of the loan documents.

Securitization for Lawyers: How it was Written by Wall Street Banks

For more information on foreclosure offense, expert witness consultations and foreclosure defense please call 954-495-9867 or 520-405-1688. We offer litigation support in all 50 states to attorneys. We refer new clients without a referral fee or co-counsel fee unless we are retained for litigation support. Bankruptcy lawyers take note: Don’t be too quick admit the loan exists nor that a default occurred and especially don’t admit the loan is secured. FREE INFORMATION, ARTICLES AND FORMS CAN BE FOUND ON LEFT SIDE OF THE BLOG. Consultations available by appointment in person, by Skype and by phone.

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Continuing with my article THE CONCEPT OF SECURITIZATION from yesterday, we have been looking at the CONCEPT of Securitization and determined there is nothing theoretically wrong with it. That alone accounts for tens of thousands of defenses” raised in foreclosure actions across the country where borrowers raised the “defense” securitization. No such thing exists. Foreclosure defense is contract defense — i.e., you need to prove that in your case the elements of contract are absent and THAT is why the note or the mortgage cannot be enforced. Keep in mind that it is entirely possible to prove that the mortgage is unenforceable even if the note remains enforceable. But as we have said in a hundred different ways, it does not appear to me that in most cases, the loan contract ever existed, or that the acquisition contract in which the loan was being “purchased” ever occurred. But much of THAT argument is left for tomorrow’s article on Securitization as it was practiced by Wall Street banks.

So we know that the concept of securitization is almost as old as commerce itself. The idea of reducing risk and increasing the opportunity for profits is an essential element of commerce and capitalism. Selling off pieces of a venture to accomplish a reduction of risk on one ship or one oil well or one loan has existed legally and properly for a long time without much problem except when a criminal used the system against us — like Ponzi, Madoff or Drier or others. And broadening the venture to include many ships, oil wells or loans makes sense to further reduce risk and increase the likelihood of a healthy profit through volume.

Syndication of loans has been around as long as banking has existed. Thus agreements to share risk and profit or actually selling “shares” of loans have been around, enabling banks to offer loans to governments, big corporations or even little ones. In the case of residential loans, few syndications are known to have been used. In 1983, syndications called securitizations appeared in residential loans, credit cards, student loans, auto loans and all types of other consumer loans where the issuance of IPO securities representing shares of bundles of debt.

For logistical and legal reasons these securitizations had to be structured to enable the flow of loans into “special purpose vehicles” (SPV) which were simply corporations, partnerships or Trusts that were formed for the sole purpose of taking ownership of loans that were originated or acquired with the money the SPV acquired from an offering of “bonds” or other “shares” representing an undivided fractional share of the entire portfolio of that particular SPV.

The structural documents presented to investors included the Prospectus, Subscription Agreement, and Pooling and Servicing Agreement (PSA). The prospectus is supposed to disclose the use of proceeds and the terms of the payback. Since the offering is in the form of a bond, it is actually a loan from the investor to the Trust, coupled with a fractional ownership interest in the alleged “pool of assets” that is going into the Trust by virtue of the Trustee’s acceptance of the assets. That acceptance executed by the Trustee is in the Pooling and Servicing Agreement, which is an exhibit to the Prospectus. In theory that is proper. The problem is that the assets don’t exist, can’t be put in the trust and the proceeds of sale of the Trust mortgage-backed bonds doesn’t go into the Trust or any account that is under the authority of the Trustee.

The writing of the securitization documents was done by a handful of law firms under the direction of a few individual lawyers, most of whom I have not been able to identify. One of them is located in Chicago. There are some reports that 9 lawyers from a New Jersey law firm resigned rather than participate in the drafting of the documents. The reports include emails from the 9 lawyers saying that they refused to be involved in the writing of a “criminal enterprise.”

I believe the report is true, after reading so many documents that purport to create a securitization scheme. The documents themselves start off with what one would and should expect in the terms and provisions of a Prospectus, Pooling and Servicing Agreement etc. But as you read through them, you see the initial terms and provisions eroded to the point of extinction. What is left is an amalgam of options for the broker dealers selling the mortgage backed bonds.

The options all lead down roads that are absolutely opposite to what any real party in interest would allow or give their consent or agreement. The lenders (investors) would never have agreed to what was allowed in the documents. The rating agencies and insurers and guarantors would never have gone along with the scheme if they had truly understood what was intended. And of course the “borrowers” (homeowners) had no idea that claims of securitization existed as to the origination or intended acquisition their loans. Allan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman, said he read the documents and couldn’t understand them. He also said that he had more than 100 PhD’s and lawyers who read them and couldn’t understand them either.

Greenspan believed that “market forces” would correct the ambiguities. That means he believed that people who were actually dealing with these securities as buyers, sellers, rating agencies, insurers and guarantors would reject them if the appropriate safety measures were not adopted. After he left the Federal Reserve he admitted he was wrong. Market forces did not and could not correct the deficiencies and defects in the entire process.

The REAL document is the Assignment and Assumption Agreement that is NOT usually disclosed or attached as an exhibit to the Prospectus. THAT is the agreement that controls everything that happens with the borrower at the time of the alleged “closing.” See me on YouTube to explain the Assignment and Assumption Agreement. Suffice it to say that contrary to the representations made in the sale of the bonds by the broker to the investor, the money from the investor goes into the control of the broker dealer and NOT the REMIC Trust. The Broker Dealer filters some of the money down to closings in the name of “originators” ranging from large (Wells Fargo, Countrywide) to small (First Magnus et al). I’ll tell you why tomorrow or the next day. The originators are essentially renting their names the same as the Trustees of the REMIC Trusts. It looks right but isn’t what it appears. Done properly, the lender on the note and mortgage would be the REMIC Trust or a common aggregator. But if the Banks did it properly they wouldn’t have had such a joyful time in the moral hazard zone.

The PSA turned out to be the primary document creating the Trusts that were creating primarily under the laws of the State of New York because New York and a few other states had a statute that said that any variance from the express terms of the Trust was VOID, not voidable. This gave an added measure of protection to the investors that the SPV would not be used for any purpose other than what was described, and eliminated the need for them to sue the Trustee or the Trust for misuse of their funds. What the investors did not understand was that there were provisions in the enabling documents that allowed the brokers and other intermediaries to ignore the Trust altogether, assert ownership in the name of a broker or broker-controlled entity and trade on both the loans and the bonds.

The Prospectus SHOULD have contained the full list of all loans that were being aggregated into the SPV or Trust. And the Trust instrument (PSA) should have shown that the investors were receiving not only a promise to repay them but also a share ownership in the pool of loans. One of the first signals that Wall Street was running an illegal scheme was that most prospectuses stated that the pool assets were disclosed in an attached spreadsheet, which contained the description of loans that were already in existence and were then accepted by the Trustee of the SPV (REMIC Trust) in the Pooling and Servicing Agreement. The problem was that the vast majority of Prospectuses and Pooling and Servicing agreements either omitted the exhibit showing the list of loans or stated outright that the attached list was not the real list and that the loans on the spreadsheet were by example only and not the real loans.

Most of the investors were “stable managed funds.” This is a term of art that applied to retirement, pension and similar type of managed funds that were under strict restrictions about the risk they could take, which is to say, the risk had to be as close to zero as possible. So in order to present a pool that the fund manager of a stable managed fund could invest fund assets the investment had to qualify under the rules and regulations restricting the activities of stable managed funds. The presence of stable managed funds buying the bonds or shares of the Trust also encouraged other types of investors to buy the bonds or shares.

But the number of loans (which were in the thousands) in each bundle made it impractical for the fund managers of stable managed funds to examine the portfolio. For the most part, if they done so they would not found one loan that was actually in existence and obviously would not have done the deal. But they didn’t do it. They left it on trust for the broker dealers to prove the quality of the investment in bonds or shares of the SPV or Trust.

So the broker dealers who were creating the SPVs (Trusts) and selling the bonds or shares, went to the rating agencies which are quasi governmental units that give a score not unlike the credit score given to individuals. Under pressure from the broker dealers, the rating agencies went from quality culture to a profit culture. The broker dealers were offering fees and even premium on fees for evaluation and rating of the bonds or shares they were offering. They HAD to have a rating that the bonds or shares were “investment grade,” which would enable the stable managed funds to buy the bonds or shares. The rating agencies were used because they had been independent sources of evaluation of risk and viability of an investment, especially bonds — even if the bonds were not treated as securities under a 1998 law signed into law by President Clinton at the behest of both republicans and Democrats.

Dozens of people in the rating agencies set off warning bells and red flags stating that these were not investment grade securities and that the entire SPV or Trust would fail because it had to fail.  The broker dealers who were the underwriters on nearly all the business done by the rating agencies used threats, intimidation and the carrot of greater profits to get the ratings they wanted. and responded to threats that the broker would get the rating they wanted from another rating agency and that they would not ever do business with the reluctant rating agency ever again — threatening to effectively put the rating agency out of business. At the rating agencies, the “objectors” were either terminated or reassigned. Reports in the Wal Street Journal show that it was custom and practice for the rating officers to be taken on fishing trips or other perks in order to get the required the ratings that made Wall Street scheme of “securitization” possible.

This threat was also used against real estate appraisers prompting them in 2005 to send a petition to Congress signed by 8,000 appraisers, in which they said that the instructions for appraisal had been changed from a fair market value appraisal to an appraisal that would make each deal work. the appraisers were told that if they didn’t “play ball” they would never be hired again to do another appraisal. Many left the industry, but the remaining ones, succumbed to the pressure and, like the rating agencies, they gave the broker dealers what they wanted. And insurers of the bonds or shares freely issued policies based upon the same premise — the rating from the respected rating agencies. And ultimate this also effected both guarantors of the loans and “guarantors” of the bonds or shares in the Trusts.

So the investors were now presented with an insured investment grade rating from a respected and trusted source. The interest rate return was attractive — i.e., the expected return was higher than any of the current alternatives that were available. Some fund managers still refused to participate and they are the only ones that didn’t lose money in the crisis caused by Wall Street — except for a period of time through the negative impact on the stock market and bond market when all securities became suspect.

In order for there to be a “bundle” of loans that would go into a pool owned by the Trust there had to be an aggregator. The aggregator was typically the CDO Manager (CDO= Collateralized Debt Obligation) or some entity controlled by the broker dealer who was selling the bonds or shares of the SPV or Trust. So regardless of whether the loan was originated with funds from the SPV or was originated by an actual lender who sold the loan to the trust, the debts had to be processed by the aggregator to decide who would own them.

In order to protect the Trust and the investors who became Trust beneficiaries, there was a structure created that made it look like everything was under control for their benefit. The Trust was purchasing the pool within the time period prescribed by the Internal Revenue Code. The IRC allowed the creation of entities that were essentially conduits in real estate mortgages — called Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits (REMICs). It allows for the conduit to be set up and to “do business” for 90 days during which it must acquire whatever assets are being acquired. The REMIC Trust then distributes the profits to the investors. In reality, the investors were getting worthless bonds issued by unfunded trusts for the acquisition of assets that were never purchased (because the trusts didn’t have the money to buy them).

The TRUSTEE of the REMIC Trust would be called a Trustee and should have had the powers and duties of a Trustee. But instead the written provisions not only narrowed the duties and obligations of the Trustee but actual prevented both the Trustee and the beneficiaries from even inquiring about the actual portfolio or the status of any loan or group of loans. The way it was written, the Trustee of the REMIC Trust was in actuality renting its name to appear as Trustee in order to give credence to the offering to investors.

There was also a Depositor whose purpose was to receive, process and store documents from the loan closings — except for the provisions that said, no, the custodian, would store the records. In either case it doesn’t appear that either the Depositor nor the “custodian” ever received the documents. In fact, it appears as though the documents were mostly purposely lost and destroyed, as per the Iowa University study conducted by Katherine Ann Porter in 2007. Like the others, the Depositor was renting its name as though ti was doing something when it was doing nothing.

And there was a servicer described as a Master Servicer who could delegate certain functions to subservicers. And buried in the maze of documents containing hundreds of pages of mind-numbing descriptions and representations, there was a provision that stated the servicer would pay the monthly payment to the investor regardless of whether the borrower made any payment or not. The servicer could stop making those payments if it determined, in its sole discretion, that it was not “recoverable.”

This was the hidden part of the scheme that might be a simple PONZI scheme. The servicers obviously could have no interest in making payments they were not receiving from borrowers. But they did have an interest in continuing payments as long as investors were buying bonds. THAT is because the Master Servicers were the broker dealers, who were selling the bonds or shares. Those same broker dealers designated their own departments as the “underwriter.” So the underwriters wrote into the prospectus the presence of a “reserve” account, the source of funding for which was never made clear. That was intentionally vague because while some of the “servicer advance” money might have come from the investors themselves, most of it came from external “profits” claimed by the broker dealers.

The presence of  servicer advances is problematic for those who are pursuing foreclosures. Besides the fact that they could not possibly own the loan, and that they couldn’t possibly be a proper representative of an owner of the loan or Holder in Due Course, the actual creditor (the group of investors or theoretically the REMIC Trust) never shows a default of any kind even when the servicers or sub-servicers declare a default, send a notice of default, send a notice of acceleration etc. What they are doing is escalating their volunteer payments to the creditor — made for their own reasons — to the status of a holder or even a holder in due course — despite the fact that they never acquired the loan, the debt, the note or the mortgage.

The essential fact here is that the only paperwork that shows actual transfer of money is that which contains a check or wire transfer from investor to the broker dealer — and then from the broker dealer to various entities including the CLOSING AGENT (not the originator) who applied the funds to a closing in which the originator was named as the Lender when they had never advanced any funds, were being paid as a vendor, and would sign anything, just to get another fee. The money received by the borrower or paid on behalf of the borrower was money from the investors, not the Trust.

So the note should have named the investors, not the Trust nor the originator. And the mortgage should have made the investors the mortgagee, not the Trust nor the originator. The actual note and mortgage signed in favor of the originator were both void documents because they failed to identify the parties to the loan contract. Another way of looking at the same thing is to say there was no loan contract because neither the investors nor the borrowers knew or understood what was happening at the closing, neither had an opportunity to accept or reject the loan, and neither got title to the loan nor clear title after the loan. The investors were left with a debt that could be recovered probably as a demand loan, but which was unsecured by any mortgage or security agreement.

To counter that argument these intermediaries are claiming possession of the note and mortgage (a dubious proposal considering the Porter study) and therefore successfully claiming, incorrectly, that the facts don’t matter, and they have the absolute right to prevail in a foreclosure on a home secured by a mortgage that names a non-creditor as mortgagee without disclosure of the true source of funds. By claiming legal presumptions, the foreclosers are in actuality claiming that form should prevail over substance.

Thus the broker-dealers created written instruments that are the opposite of the Concept of Securitization, turning complete transparency into a brick wall. Investor should have been receiving verifiable reports and access into the portfolio of assets, none of which in actuality were ever purchased by the Trust, because the pooling and servicing agreement is devoid of any representation that the loans have been purchased by the Trust or that the Trust paid for the pool of loans. Most of the actual transfers occurred after the cutoff date for REMIC status under the IRC, violating the provisions of the PSA/Trust document that states the transfer must be complete within the 90 day cutoff period. And it appears as though the only documents even attempted to be transferred into the pool are those that are in default or in foreclosure. The vast majority of the other loans are floating in cyberspace where anyone can grab them if they know where to look.

Relevance: THE FORECLOSER HAS NO RIGHT TO BE IN COURT WITHOUT THE SECURITIZATION DOCUMENTS AND RECORDS

 Courts and lawyers are continually ignoring the obvious. By zeroing in on the NOTE, they are ignoring the documents that allow the person in possession of the note to be in court. That results in elimination of critical elements of a prima facie case in which the Defendant borrower lacks the superior knowledge and resources of the Plaintiff and its co-venturers that would show the truth about his loan ownership and balance.

Premise:

Chronologically the document trail starts with the securitization documents. Without the securitization documents there is no privity or nexus between the borrowers and the lenders. Neither one of them signed the deal that the other signed. Without the Assignment and Assumption Agreement, the Prospectus and the Pooling And Servicing Agreement, the trust does not exist, the servicer has no powers, the trustee has no powers, and there is no right of representation or agency between any of those parties as it relates to either the lender investors or the homeowner borrowers.

 

The Assignment and Assumption Agreement between the originator and the aggregator sets forth all the rules and actions preceding, during and after the loan”closing”, including the underwriting by parties other than the originator and the ownership of the loan by parties other than the originator. It is a contract to violate public policy, the Federal Truth in Lending Law prohibiting table funded loans designed to withhold disclosure, and usually state deceptive and predatory lending statutes.

 

The Assignment and Assumption Agreement was an agreement to commit illegal acts that were in fact committed and which strictly governed the conduct of the originator, the closing agent, the document processing, the delivery of documents, the due diligence, the underwriting, the approval by parties other than the originator and the risk of loss on parties other than the originator. The Assignment and Assumption Agreement is essential to the Court’s knowledge of the intent and reality of the closing, intentionally withheld from the borrower at closing. It cannot be anything other than relevant in any action sought to enforce the documents produced at a loan closing that was conducted in strict adherence to the illegal Assignment and Assumption Agreement.

 

The other closing is with the investors who were accepting a proposed transaction to lend money for the origination or acquisition of loans through a trust. Those documents and records (Prospectus, Pooling and Servicing Agreement, Distribution reports, etc) provide for the creation and governance of the trust, the appointment of a trustee and the powers of the trustee, and the appointment and the powers of the Master Servicer and subservicers. Those documents also provide for there requirements of reporting and record keeping, including the physical location and custody of actual loan documents. Without those documents, there is no power or authority for the trustee, the trust, the Master Servicer, the subservicer, the Depository, the Securities Administrator the purchase of insurance, credit default swap trading, funding the origination or acquisition of loans, or collection and enforcement of loan documents. without those documents the Court cannot know what records should be kept and thus what records need to be produced to show the status of the obligation in the books and records of the creditor — regardless of whether the loan was actually securitized or just claimed to be securitized.

 

Procedure and UCC
In Judicial States, the Plaintiff is bringing suit alleging a default by the Defendant on a promissory note and for enforcement of a mortgage. The name of the payee on the note is different from the name of the Plaintiff in the lawsuit. The name of the mortgagee is different from the the name of the Plaintiff. The suit is bought by (a) a trustee on behalf of the holders of securities that make the holders of those securities (Mortgage Bonds) in a NY Trust (b) the “servicer” on behalf of the trust or the holders or (c) a company that alleges it is a holder or a holder with rights to enforce. None of them assert they are holders in due course which means they concede that the Plaintiff did not buy the loan in good faith without knowledge of the borrowers defenses. They assert they are holder in which case they are subject to all of the borrowers defense — which procedurally means the issues concerning the initial loan and any subsequent transfers can be in issue if the preemptive facts are denied and appropriate affirmative defenses and counterclaims are filed. These defenses are waived at trial if an objection is not timely raised.

 

In Non-Judicial States, the name of the “new” beneficiary is different from the name of the payee on the promissory note and the name of the beneficiary on the Deed of Trust. The “new beneficiary” files a “Substitution of Trustee”, the Trustee sends a notice of default, notice of sale and notice of acceleration based upon “representations” from the “new beneficiary.” This process allows a stranger to the transaction to assert its position outside of a court of law that it is the new beneficiary and even allows the new beneficiary to name a company as the “new trustee” in the Notice of Substitution of Trustee. The foreclosure is initiated by the new trustee on the deed of trust on behalf of (a) a trustee on behalf of the holders of securities that make the holders of those securities (Mortgage Bonds) in a NY Trust (b) the “servicer” on behalf of the trust or the holders or (c) a company that alleges it is a holder or a holder with rights to enforce. None of them assert they are holders in due course which means they concede that the Plaintiff did not buy the loan in good faith without knowledge of the borrowers defenses. They assert they are holder in which case they are subject to all of the borrowers defense — which procedurally means the issues concerning the initial loan and any subsequent transfers can be in issue if the preemptive facts are denied and appropriate affirmative defenses and counterclaims are filed. These defenses are waived at trial if an objection is not timely raised. In these cases it is the burden of the borrower to timely file a motion for Temporary Injunction to stop the trustee’s sale of the property.

 

Argument:
By failing to assert with clarity the identity of the creditor on whose behalf they are “holding” the note and mortgage (or deed of trust) and failing to assert the presence of the actual creditor (holder in due course) the parties initiating foreclosure have (a) failed to assert the essential elements to enforce a note and mortgage and (b) have failed to establish a prima facie case in which the burden should shift to the borrowers to defend. The present practice of challenging the defenses first is improper and contrary to the requirements of due process and the rules of civil procedure. If the Plaintiff in Judicial states or beneficiary in non-judicial states is unable to sustain their burden of proof for a prima facie case, then Judgment should be entered for the alleged borrower.

 

Evidence:
Virtually all loans initiated or originated or acquired between 1996 and the present are subject to claims of securitization, which is the first reason why the securitization documents are relevant and must be introduced as evidence along with proof of compliance with those documents because they are almost all governed by New York State law governing common law trusts. Any act not permitted by the trust instrument (Pooling and Servicing Agreement) is void, which means for purposes of the case narrative, the act or event never occurred.

If the Plaintiff or beneficiary is alleging that it is a holder and not alleging it is a holder in due course then there is a 96% probability that the creditor is either a trust or a group of investors who paid money to a broker dealer in an IPO where securities were issued by the trust and the investors money should have been paid to the trust. In all events, the assertion of “holder” status instead of “Holder in Due Course” means by definition that one of two things is true: (1) there is no holder in due course or (2) there is a Holder in Due Course and the party initiating the foreclosure and collection proceedings is asserting authority to represent the holder in due course. In all events, the representation of holder rather than holder in due course is an admission that the party initiating the foreclosure proceeding is there in a representative capacity.

 

THE FORECLOSER HAS NO RIGHT TO BE IN COURT WITHOUT THE SECURITIZATION DOCUMENTS:

 

If the proceeding is brought by a named trust, then the existence of the trust, the authority of the trust, the manner in which the trust may acquire assets, and the authority of the servicer, Master servicer, trustee of the trust, depository, securities administrator and others all derive from the trust instrument. If there is a claim of securitization and the provisions of the securitization documents were not followed then in virtually all foreclosure cases the wrong parties are initiating the foreclosures — because the money of the investors went direct to the origination and purchase of loans rather than through the SPV Trust which for tax purposes was designed to be a REMIC pass through trust.

 

If the foreclosing party identifies itself as a servicer and as a holder it is admitting that it is there in a representative capacity. Their prima facie case therefore includes the documents and events in which acquired the right to represent the actual creditor. Those are only the securitization documents.

 

If the foreclosing party identifies itself as a holder but does not mention that it is a servicer, the same rules apply — the right to be there is a representative capacity must derive from some written instrument, which in virtually cases is the Pooling and Servicing Agreement.

 

Representations that the loan is a portfolio loan not subject to securitization are generally untrue. In a true portfolio loan the UCC would not apply but the rules governing a holder in due course can be used as guidance for the alleged transaction. The “lender” must show that it actually funded the loan, in good faith (in accordance with the requirements of Federal and State law governing lending) and without knowledge of the borrower’s defenses. They would be able to show their underwriting committee notes, reports and correspondence, the verification of the loan, the property value, the ability of the borrower to repay and all other national standards for underwriting and appraisals. These are only absent when there is no risk of loss on the alleged loan, because if the borrower doesn’t pay, the money was never destined to be received by the originator anyway.

 

In addition, the Prospectus offering to the investors combined with the Pooling and Servicing Agreement constitute the “indenture” describing the manner in which the investment will be returned to the investors, including interest, insurance proceeds, proceeds of credit default swaps, government and non government guarantees, etc. This specifies the duties and records that must be kept, where they must be kept and how the investors will receive distributions from the servicer. Proof of the balance shown by investors is the only relevant proof of a dealt and the principal balance due, applicable interest due, etc. The provisions of the contract between the creditors and the trust govern the amount and manner of distributions to the creditor. Thus it is only be reference to the creditors’ records that a prima facie case for default and the right to accelerate can be made. The servicer records do not include third party payments but do include servicer advances. If records of servicer advances are not shown in court, and the provision for servicer advances is in the prospectus and/or pooling and servicing agreement, then the Court is unable to know the balance and whether any default occurred as a result of the borrower ceasing to make payments to the servicer.

 

In short, it is the prospectus and pooling and servicing agreement that provide the framework for determining whether the creditors got paid as per their expectations pursuant to their contract with the Trust. It is only by reference to these documents that the distribution reports to the investors can be used as partial evidence of the existence of a default or “credit event.” Representations that the borrower did not pay the servicer are not conclusive as to the existence of a default. Only the records of the creditor, who by virtue of its relationships with multiple co-obligors, can establish that payments due were paid to the creditor. Servicer records are relevant as to whether the servicer received payments, but not relevant as to whether the creditor received those payments directly or indirectly. The servicer and creditors’ records establish servicer advance payments, which if made, nullify the creditor default. The creditors’ records establish the amount of principal or interest due after deductions from receipt of third party payments (insurance, credit default swaps, guarantees, loss sharing etc.).

For more information call 954-495-9867 or 520-405-1688.

 

 

Why Is the PSA Relevant?

Many judges in foreclosure actions continue to rule that the securitization documents are irrelevant. This would be a correct ruling in the event that there were no securitization documents. Otherwise, the securitization documents are nothing but relevant.

There are three scenarios in which the securitization documents are relevant:

  1.  The party claiming to be a trustee of a trust is claiming to have the rights of collection and foreclosure.
  2.  The party claiming to be the servicer  for a trust is claiming to have the rights of collection and foreclosure.
  3.  The party claiming to be the holder with rights to enforce is claiming to have rights of collection and foreclosure. If the party claims to be a holder in due course, the inquiry ends there and the borrower is stuck with bringing claims against the intermediaries, being stripped of his right to raise defenses he/she could otherwise have made against the originator, aggregator or other parties.

The securitization scheme can be summarized as follows:

  1.  Assignment and Assumption agreement:  This governs procedures for the closing. This is an agreement between the apparent originator of the loan and an undisclosed third-party aggregator. This agreement exists before the first application for loan is received by the originator, and before the alleged “closing.” It governs the behavior of the originator as well as the rights and obligations of the originator. Specifically it states that the originator has no rights to the whatsoever. The aggregator is used as a conduit for the delivery of funds to the closing table at which the borrower is deceived into thinking that he received a loan from the originator when in fact the funds were wired by the aggregator on behalf of an unknown fourth party. The unknown fourth party is a broker-dealer acting as a conduit for the actual lenders. The actual lenders are investors who believe that they were buying mortgage bonds issued by a REMIC trust, which in turn would be using the money raised from the offering of the bonds for the purpose of originating or acquiring residential loans. Hence the assignment and assumption agreement is highly relevant because it dictates the manner in which the closing takes place. And it demonstrates that the loan was a table funded loan in a pattern of conduct that is indisputably “predatory per se.” It also demonstrates the fact that there was no consideration between originator and the borrower. And it demonstrates that there was no privity between the aggregator and the borrower. As the closing agent procured the signature of the borrower on false pretenses. Interviews with document processors for both originators closing agents now show that they would not participate in such a closing where the identity of the actual lender was intentionally withheld.
  2.  The pooling and servicing agreement: This governs the procedures for collection, disbursement and enforcement. This is the document that specifies the authority of the trustee, the servicer, the sub servicers, the documents that should be held by the servicer, the servicer advance payments, and the formulas under which the lenders would be paid. Without this document, none of the parties currently bring foreclosure actions would have any right to be in court. Without this document trustee cannot show its authority to represent the trust or the trust beneficiaries. Without this document servicer cannot show that it performed in accordance with the requirements of a contract, or that it was in privity with the actual lenders,  or that it had any right of enforcement, or that it computed correctly the amount of payment required from the borrower and the amount of payment required to be made to the lenders. It also specifies the types of third party payments that are made from insurance, swaps and other guarantors or co-obligors.
  3. Of specific importance is the common provision for servicer advances, in which the creditors are receiving payments in full despite the declaration of default by the servicer.  In fact, the declaration of default by the servicer is actually an attempt to recover money that was voluntarily paid to the creditor. It is not correctly seen as a declaration of default nor any right to demand reinstatement nor any right to accelerate because the creditor is not showing any default. It is a disguised attempt to assert a claim for unjust enrichment because the servicer made payments on behalf of the borrower, voluntarily, to the creditor that are not recoverable from the creditor. Usually they make this payment by the 25th of each month. Hence any prior delinquency is cured each month and eliminates the possibility of a default with respect to the creditor on the residential loan.

It is argued by the banks and accepted by many judges that mere possession of the note sufficient to enforce it in the amount demanded by the servicer. This is wrong. The amount demanded by the servicer and does not take into account the actual payments received by the actual creditor. Accordingly the computation of interest and principal is incorrect. This can only be shown by reference to the securitization documents, including the assignment and assumption agreement, the pooling and servicing agreement, the prospectus and supplements to the PSA and Prospectus.

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

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