VICTORY for Homeowners: Received Title and 7 Figure Monetary Damages for Wrongful Foreclosure

Victory in California, as we have predicted for years. Maria L. Hutkin and Jude J Basile were the attorneys for the homeowners and obviously did a fine job of exposing the truth. Their tenacity and perseverance paid off big time for their clients and themselves. They showed it is not over until the truth comes out. So for all of you who are saying you can’t find a lawyer who “gets it” here are two lawyers that got it and won. And for all those who were screwed by the banks, it isn’t over. Now it is your turn to get the rights and damages you deserve.

Maria L. Hutkin and Jude J. Basile

Maria L. Hutkin and Jude J. Basile

The homeowners won flat out at a trial — something that should have happened in most of the 6.6 million Foreclosures conducted thus far. U.S. Bank showed its ugly head again as the alleged Trustee of a trust that was most probably nonexistent, unfunded and without any assets at all much less the homeowners alleged loan. Still the settlement shows how far Wall Street will go to pay damages rather than admit their liability to investors, insurers, counterparties in credit default swaps, and the Federal Reserve.
When you think of the hundreds of millions of wrongful foreclosures that were the subject of tens of billions of dollars in “settlements” that preserved homeowners rights to pursue further damages and do the math, it is obvious why even the total of all the “settlements” and fines were a tiny fraction of the total liability owed to pension funds and other investors, insurers, CDS parties, the Federal Government and of course the borrowers who never received a single loan from the banks in the first place. If 5 million foreclosures were wrongful, as is widely suspected at a minimum, using this case and some others I know about the damages could well exceed $5 Trillion. Simple math. Maybe that will wake up the good trial lawyers who think there is no case!

Maria L. Hutkin and Jude J. Basile

A fitting announcement on the 5th anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse. the economy is still struggling as more than 15 million American PEOPLE were displaced, lost equity and forced into bankruptcy by imperfect mortgages that were a sham, and thus imperfect foreclosures that were also a sham. Another 15 million PEOPLE will be displaced if these wrongful, illegal and morally corrupt sham foreclosures are allowed to continue.
This case, like the recent case won by Danielle Kelley (partner of GGKW) was based upon dual tracking. In Kelley’s case the homeowners had completed the process of getting an approved modification, which meant that underwriting, review, confirmation of data, and approval from the investor had been obtained. In Kelley’s case the homeowner had made the trial payments in full and paid the taxes, insurance, utilities and maintenance of the property.

The Bank argued they were under no obligation to fulfill the final step — permanent modification. Kelley argued that a new contract was formed — offer, acceptance and the consideration of payment that the Bank received, kept and credited to the homeowner’s account. But the bank as Servicer was still accruing the payments due on the unmodified mortgage, which is why I have been harping on the topic of discovery on the money trail at origination, processing, and third party payments. 

The accounting records of the subservicer and the Master Servicer should lead you to all actual transactions in which money exchanged hands, although getting to insurance payments and proceeds of credit default swaps might require discovery from the investment banker. So in Kelley’s case, the Judge essentially said that if an agreement was reached and the homeowner met the requirements of a trial period, the deal was done and entered a final order in favor of the homeowner eliminating the the foreclosure with prejudice.

In this One West case the court went a little further. The homeowners were lured into negotiations, expenses and augments under the promise of modification and then summarily without notice to the homeowner sold the property at a Trustee sale under the provisions of the deed of trust. The Judge agreed with counsel for the homeowners that this was dual tracking at its worst, and that the bank did not have the option of proceeding with the sale. 

The homeowners were forced to vacate the property and make other housing arrangements and these particular homeowners were enraged and had the resources to do what most homeowners are too fearful to do — go to the mat (go to trial.)

One West made several offers of settlement once the Judge made it clear that the homeowners had stated a cause of action for wrongful foreclosure. Bravely the attorneys and the homeowners rejected settlement and insisted on a complete airing of their grievances so that everyone would know what happened to them. After multiple offers, with trial drawing near, OneWest finally agreed to give clear title back to the homeowners and pay $1 million+ in damages on what was a six figure loan. 

We now have cases in both judicial and non-judicial jurisdictions in which the homeowner was awarded the house without encumbrance of a mortgage and even receiving monetary damages in which the attorneys achieved substantial rewards on 7 figure settlements  that probably would be much higher if they ever went to trial — particularly in front of a jury. This is only one of the paths to successful foreclosure defense. I hope attorneys and homeowners take note. Your anger can be channeled into a constructive path if the lawyers know how to understand these loans, and how to litigate them.

“There’s hope. I feel their pain.” — Danielle Kelley, Esq. , partner in Garfield, Gwaltney, Kelley and White.

http://calcoastnews.com/2013/09/onewest-bank-pays-7-figures-mortgage-fraud-case/

The courts are finally getting it! I hope VT listens.

n the other hand we should not assume that they have arrived nor that this decision will have pervasive effects throughout California or elsewhere in the United States or other countries.

J.P. Morgan did suffer a crushing defeat in this decision. And the borrower definitely receive the benefits of a judicial decision that will allow the borrower to sue for wrongful foreclosure including equitable and legal relief which in plain language means reversing the foreclosure and getting damages. Probably one of the most damaging conclusions by the appellate court is that an examination of whether the loan ever made it into the asset pool is proper in determining the proper party to initiate a foreclosure or to offer a credit bid at a foreclosure auction.  The court said that alleged transfers into the trust after the cutoff date are void under New York State law which is the law that governs the common-law trusts created by the banks as part of the fraudulent securitization scheme.

Before you give them a standing ovation remember that it is possible for additional documentation to be created, fabricated and forged showing that despite the apparent violation of the cutoff date, the trustee has accepted the loan into the trust. This will most likely be a lie. I don't think there is any entity acting as trustee of a trust that doesn't know that it is under intense scrutiny and doesn't want to be subject to liability that could amount to trillions of dollars advanced by investors with the purchase of bogus mortgage-backed bonds that were presumably managed by the trustee but in reality not managed at all  because the bonds were worthless. This gave the banks the opportunity to claim that they owned the bonds and therefore had an insurable interest which gave rise to the whole problem with AIG and AMBAC and other insurers or parties who had guaranteed the bond, the loan or any loss (credit default swaps).

The fact that the loan in this case was definitely securitized is also interesting. Of course Washington Mutual was stating to everyone that it was not involved in the securitization of mortgage loans when in fact nearly all of the loans originated became subject to claims of securitization. This case explains why I never say that the loan was securitized or that the loan was in any particular trust, to wit: I don't believe that a funded trust exists with the ability to purchase loans and therefore I don't believe the loans are in any of the asset pools. So when people ask me how they can prove which trust their loan is actually in, I reply that they are asking the wrong question.

What is being played out here in this case and hundreds of thousands of other cases is a representation by the foreclosing entity that the trust owns the loan when in fact it never owned the loan nor could it because the money that was advanced by investors was never deposited into the trust. We have the same banks representing to regulatory authorities and insurers that it is the bank and not the trust that owns the loan even though the bank merely made the loan using money advanced by investors who believed that they were buying mortgage-backed bonds. The truth is they were merely making a deposit into an account maintained by the investment bank. The resulting transactions do not qualify for exemption as securities or insurance under the 1998 law. Nor do they qualify for REMIC treatment under the Internal Revenue Code.

In other words if you take a close look and actually follow the path of the money and the path of the paper you will find that despite the pronouncements from the Department of Justice and other agencies, this is a simple fraud case using a Ponzi model. The hallmark of a Ponzi model is that it collapses as soon as the investors stop buying the bogus securities. If the government cares to do so it can freely prosecute the individuals and companies involved without any air of exemption under the 1998 law because none of the parties followed the securitization path presumed by the 1998 law. So we are back to this, to wit: a security is a security and subject to SEC regulations and insurance is an insurance contract subject to insurance regulators, and fraud is fraud subject to recovery of restitution, compensatory damages, punitive damages, treble damages etc.

You should remember when reading this decision that the appellate court was not ruling in favor of the borrower granting the substantive relief the borrower  was seeking. The appellate court merely reversed the trial court decision to dismiss the borrower's claims. That only means that the borrower now as an opportunity to prove the elements of quiet title, wrongful foreclosure, slander of title, cancellation of instruments and relief under California's version of unfair business practices. But the devil is in the details and proving the case requires aggressive discovery and aggressive preparation for trial. It is highly probable that the case will settle. The bank will probably be willing to pay almost any amount of money to avoid a judgment setting forth the elements of a wrongful foreclosure and how the bank violated the law.

The Bank will attempt to avoid any final order that undermines the value of loans that are subject to claims of securitization, because those loans supposedly support the value of the bogus mortgage-backed bonds sold to investors.  Any such final order would also undermine the balance sheet of J.P. Morgan and any other major bank carrying the mortgage bonds as assets on their balance sheet. If those assets are diminished, then the bank is not as well funded as it has been reporting. In fact, those assets might well vanish completely from the balance sheet of those banks, causing the banks to be seized by the FDIC and broken up into smaller pieces for regional and community banks to pick up. Hence this decision represents a risk factor that could eliminate the legal fiction created by smoke and mirrors from Wall Street banks, to wit: it is not the borrowers who are deadbeats, it is the banks who are broke and whose management has run off with billions and perhaps trillions of dollars that should be in the United States economy. The absence of that money lies at the root of our unemployment and low economic activity.

This Glaski case has many of the elements that we have been discussing for years. Fabricated documents, forgeries, perjury, false affidavits and no money trail to backup the story painted by the fabricated documents. And of course it has our old friend Washington Mutual Bank And the supposed take over by Chase Bank that never actually happened.

And it involves the issue of assignments and the fact that the assignment is not the transaction itself but only a report of a transaction. If the borrower proves that the transaction reported in the assignment or other instrument of conveyance never occurred, or if the borrower is successful in shifting the burden of proof to the bank to show that it did occur, the assignment will have no value whatsoever unless the transaction is present, to wit: that someone actually purchased the loan through the payment of money or other valuable consideration that was received by a party who actually owned the loan.

Thus even if Chase Bank were able to show that it entered into a transaction in which the loans were transferred (something we can find no evidence of which the FDIC receiver says never occurred) that would only be the equivalent of a quit claim deed, to wit: whoever received the consideration for the transfer of the loans was merely conveying any interest they had even if they had no interest at all. Hence the transactions by which Washington Mutual allegedly came to be the owner of the loan must be examined in the same way as the transaction between the Washington Mutual bankruptcy estate and chase bank.

You should also take note that the decision was published with the admonition that it is  "not to be published in the official reports."  this is further indication that the court is concerned about the far-reaching effects of the decision and essentially tells trial judges that they do not have to follow it. So for those who wish to point to this decision and say "game over" we are not there yet. But I do think that we passed the halfway point and we are probably in the fifth or sixth inning of a nine inning game. Translating that to time, I would estimate that it's going to take another three or four years to clean up this mess and that it might take several decades to clean up the title corruption that was created by the banks.

http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2013/08/01/glaski-v-bank-of-america-ca5-5th-appellate-district-securitization-failed-ny-trust-law-applied-ruling-to-protect-remic-status-non-judicial-foreclosure-statutes-irrelevant-because-sa/

America Lost

In America we are no longer proud. We have a government that is teaching our children that its OK to lie , cheat and steal. That integrity and honor is something only our ancestors Believed in.

Its no longer about  the proud nation we once were, its about America Lost.

 

Az Attorney General Gets It! Precisely Wrong

Nothing could have said it better than these words from the chief law enforcement officer of the state. He said it because he meant it. And he was sort of right in a twisted way. And he was expressing the frustration of all three branches of government together with nearly everyone including the borrowers. The words were "assuming no underlying injustice."

You see that everyone has become so wrapped up in the paperwork and the arguments about the paperwork nearly everyone has forgotten to ask the most basic question: WAS THERE A TRANSACTION WITH OFFER, ACCEPTANCE AND CONSIDERATION. WHERE IS THE MONEY? where is the canceled check or wire transfer receipt? He was only saying that the fabricated forged paperwork was an acceptable short-cut IF NO INJUSTICE is present. In other words, at the end of the day it is just the collection of a debt. But what if there is no debt? Then what is all that paperwork about?

So to make it clear, what I am saying is that if I loan you money, you owe it to me whether we have anything in writing or not. If I fabricate and forge your signature on it, what's the harm? You got the money, you agreed to pay it back, you still owe what I loaned you. And if the note, forged or not, conforms to the deal the borrower thought they were getting, what difference does it make whether you use the note or not?

Ok, there is a problem with the statute of frauds, and about a dozen other statutes and doctrines that arose to prevent fraud and injustice. So maybe it isn't acceptable to fabricate documents, forge signatures, lie to the courts and otherwise do things that ordinary citizens can and are put in jail for doing the exact same thing.

But so what? You owe me money, you know it and you are not going to get out of owing it just because I committed some crime. I didn't commit a crime in loaning you the money, did I? I committed a crime in collecting it --- and that is what is bothering everyone including even the borrowers.

So why do I write this blog, litigate cases against the "lenders", appear as an expert witness to give opinion evidence and explanations of the finance industry?

Well, let's see. What if I didn't loan you the money, AND I got paid more money than you received in a loan from someone else? Huh? Yes, think about it. What if I didn't loan you the money? What if the paperwork was not just fraudulent and criminally created, what if it was just plain wrong? What if there was no transaction at all between us? Should I still be allowed to collect from you, take your house, your livelihood, your reputation? Might you spot some injustice if you learned that banks, pension funds, governments, investors, the central bank (Federal Reserve), gave me ten times more money than you got on the loan?

You are assuming that because the money showed up at the closing table that the loan was real. But the money on the table was stolen. Oops that does make things a little different doesn't it? And here is the kicker ---- the thief got paid ten times over for making the loan appear real. The only injustice is to investors whose money was stolen and borrowers whose lives were stolen.

But I guess that isn't enough. It is ok to steal, it is ok to lie, It is ok to fabricate documents.it is ok to drain the money from our economy and blow up world commerce. You know, on second thought I don't agree with the Arizona Attorney General. I think he is a paid stooge and an idiot. Because I know him, met him and explained to him what the truth was, Along with his investigation team who like in Florida when they were getting close to an arrest were fired or transferred.

Injustice? Where is there not injustice in this whole thing. We have debased our currency, undermined the financial integrity of our governments, left pensioners with too little money to get the payments they were expecting, and we have taken homes away from people just because someone at the top thinks it is too inconvenient to bring the banks down, put the criminals in jail, and leave the victims without any effective remedy. I thought we were better than that and that people like the Arizona Attorney General should be investigated for corruption. But then I was always an idealist.