Friday, September 20, 2013

Sham Transactions

The more you look at the false claims of securitization the more it stinks. We are dealing with a system that is based on really big lies. I'm sure our leaders of government have a very appealing rationalization why we must pretend the mortgage bonds are real, why we must pretend the mortgages are real, why we must pretend the notes are real, and why we must pretend the debts and defaults are real. But those are lies based on sham transactions. And those lies are based in public policy. And public policy is contrary to law.
My focus is on cases pending in the judicial branch of government. Our system of government was designed to insert the judicial branch into disputes so that fractures in public policy do not cheat citizens out of their basic rights. In this case, the failure of the other two branches of government to include the rights of homeowners is damaging both to the society generally and producing millions of cases of unjust enrichment and displacement of millions of people from their homes in cases, where if all facts were known two facts would be inescapably accepted: (1) mortgages filed as encumbrances against real property were fatally defective and unenforceable and (2) the balance owed on the debt is either impossible to ascertain or zero, with a liability owed to homeowners on the overpayments received in the midst of that opaque cloud we are calling "securitization."
The trigger for the writing of this article is once again coming from BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON as the "Trustee" of vast numbers of REMIC Trusts. Bill Paatalo, a private investigator, uncovered an officer of BONY who is very frustrated with BOA and others who are telling borrowers that BONY is the owner of their loan. Indeed, suits have been brought in the name of BONY without any reference to the trust; and of course suits have been brought in the name of BONY as Trustee of a REMIC Trust, which represents but does not own the loans (the ownership interest being "conveyed" with the issuance of the mortgage bond to investors who were duped into thinking they were buying high grade investments. BONY and DEUTSCH both say such suits are brought without their authorization and have instructed servicer's to cease and desist using the name of Deutsch of BONY MELLON in foreclosure suits.
The problem revealed is contained in an email Paatalo posted from an officer of BONY MELLON, who wants BOA to stop telling people that BONY is the owner of their loans. He says BONY doesn't own the loans and has no right, power or obligation to modify or mitigate damages caused by the borrower failing or stopping payments on the loan they unquestionably received. He says BONY is the Trustee for the loan and denies ownership and further denies the ability or right to modify.
What he doesn't say is what he means by "Trustee for the loan" and why the "trust" should be considered real as a legal person when there is no financial account or assets held in the name of the Trust. Like Reynaldo Reyes at Deutsch Bank, he is basically saying there are no trust assets, there never was any funding of the trust, and there never was an assignment or purchase of the loan by the trust --- for the simple reason that the Trust never had a bank account much less the money to buy loans or anything else.
So Reyes and this newly revealed actor from BONY are saying the same thing. They are Trustees in name only without any duties because no money or assets are in the trust. Which brings us back to the beginning. If the loan was securitized, the Trust would have had a bank account to receive money advanced by investors who were purchasing alleged mortgage bonds that promised that the investor also was an owner of the loans --- an undecided percentage interest in the loans.
That money in the Trust account would have been used to fund or purchase the loan to the borrower. And the Trust would have been the mortgagee or beneficiary on the mortgage or deed of trust. There would have been no need for MERS, or originators or any of the countless sham corporations that are now out of business and who supposedly loaned money to borrowers. If it was real, the records would show the Trust paid for the loan and the recorded documents from the loan closing would clearly show the Trust as the lender.
It is really a very simple deal, if it is real. But complexity was introduced by Wall Street, the effect of which was that the lenders didn't get the loans they were expecting, didn't get the collateral they thought they were getting and didn't even get named as lenders despite the fact that it was investor money that was used to make and acquire the loans. Like the borrowers, investors were stepping into a cloud that intentionally obscured the ownership of the loan.
On the one hand, the Banks covered ownership by the issuance and execution of an Assignment and Assumption Agreement, but that was before any loan applications existed, just like the prospectus and sale of the bonds --- a process known as selling forward on Wall Street. On the other hand, the bonds were issued in the name of the investment banks, a process called Street Name on Wall Street. On the third hand, the loan documents showed neither the investment banks nor the investors or even the REMIC Trusts. instead they showed some other entity as the lender even though the "lender" had advanced mooney whatsoever --- a process later dubbed as "pretender lenders" by me in in my writing and seminars.
By pushing title through pretender lenders and private exchanges that registered title that was never published (like the county recorders' offices publish recorded deeds, mortgages and liens), the Banks created a Cloud which by definition created clouded title to the property, the loan and created a mortgage document that was recorded despite naming the wrong terms and the wrong payee.
Pushing title away from the investors who advanced the money and toward themselves, the Banks were able to play with the money as if it were their own, and even purchase insurance and credit default swaps payable to the banks, who were clearly the intermediary agents of the investors. And the Banks even got the government to guarantee half the loans even though the underwriting standards were ignored --- since the banks had no risk of loss on the loans (they were using investor money and they were getting the right to receive third party payments from the government and private parties). Eventually after the meltdown, the Banks became part of a program where tens of billions of dollars worth of the bogus mortgage bonds owned by the investors were sold to the Federal government (some $50 Billion per month).
Through their creation of the Cloud, the banks were able to take the money of the investors and receive it as their own, concealing the initial theft (skimming) off the top by creating sham proprietary trades. Now they are receiving judgments and deeds from foreclosure auctions based upon their submission of a credit bid that clearly violates the very specific provisions of state statutes that identify who can submit a credit bid rather than cash at the auction. Only the actual owner of the unpaid account receivable has the right to submit a credit bid.
And by the creation of the Cloud judges and lawyers missed the point completely. The result is stripping the investors of value, ownership and right to collect on the loans they advanced. At no time has any Servicer filed a foreclosure in the name of the investors whose money was used to fund the deal. In no case is there any underlying real transaction in which real money was paid and something was received in exchange. The Courts are now the vehicle of public policy and manifest injustice by enforcement of unenforceable mortgages for fabricated notes referring to non existent debts.
The net result is that public policy and government action is contrary to the rule of law.

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