Showing posts with label FORECLOSURES. Show all posts

Thursday, December 19, 2013

This is true. I paid off First Premier Bank CC in 2004, when owned by Washington Mutual. Recently I had letters arriving asking for settlements and people calling my family telling them I could go to jail if I didn't pay. They updated it weekly on my credit report as well. I went to my VT AG who addressed this with them and guess what? They never responded .Chase and JP are selling these to recovery sites even if they were paid off.

Chase and JP claim to own these and sell them and claim to own the notes and sell them and foreclose . Now , they are claiming they don't , and cry wolf cause they were caught and want to sue the FDIC.. ah NO ! You lied Chase and JP and its now time you face your karma! I warned you .

JP Morgan Sues FDIC for WAMU Cash Over Disputed Mortgage Bonds

by Neil Garfield

EDITOR'S NOTE: The dots are starting to get connected. Here JP Morgan who said they were the successor for everything that was WAMU turns out to be arguing that this didn't actually happen and that some money is still left in the WAMU "estate." The issue that is not raised is what else is in the WAMU estate? I content that there are numerous loans or claims to loans that were never transferred to anyone successfully and I think the FDIC and JPM both know that. Chase is trying to limit its exposure for bad bonds while at the same time claiming ownership or servicing rights for the underlying mortgages.

Which brings me to a central procedural point: if these cases are to be properly litigated such that the truth of the transaction(s) comes out, then it cannot be done on the rocket docket of foreclosures. It should be assigned to regular civil litigation or even better complex litigation because the issues cannot be addressed in the 5-10 minutes that are allowed on the rocket docket.

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JPMorgan (JPM) has sued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for a portion of the $2.7B remaining in the FDIC receivership that liquidated Washington Mutual following the sale of its branches and deposits to JPMorgan for $1.88B during the financial crisis in 2008.

The lawsuit is the latest development in the dispute between JPMorgan and the FDIC over who should assume Washington Mutual's legal liabilities, such as those related to the sale of problematic mortgage bonds.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan has been sued by the State of Mississippi for alleged misconduct while going after credit-card users for missed payments. The bank's sins include pursuing consumers for money they didn't owe, Mississippi said.

The state is the second to sue JPMorgan over the issue, the other being California, while 15 others are examining the matter. JPM is already in early settlement talks with 14 of them.

Read more at Seeking Alpha:
http://seekingalpha.com/currents/post/1470511?source=ipadportfolioapp_email

Your Lender is the Federal Reserve System

by Neil Garfield

It is difficult to state with certainty exactly how many ugly mortgage bonds have been purchased by the Federal Reserve. But if you put pencil to paper we can estimate the number. The published figures indicate there was a purchase of several hundred billion in these defective bonds when the financial collapse occurred. To be on the safe side we will use a figure of $300 billion. Since then the published articles indicate that the Fed has been purchasing bonds monthly. The amount of monthly purchases of the mortgage bonds appears to vary between $55 billion and $35 Billion. So if we use an average of $45 billion per month of mortgage bonds that have been purchased by the Federal Reserve. This has been going on for about 55 months. So the total monthly purchase of mortgage bonds is around $2,225 Billion or $2.225 Trillion. Hence the total purchases by the Fed could be reasonably estimated at $2.525 Trillion.

This means that the Federal Reserve owns a substantial bulk of the bonds issued during the mortgage meltdown. Questions abound. The Federal Reserve knows the bonds were defective in a number of respects. But they are purchasing those bonds for the express purpose of propping up the financial system and presumably getting those bonds out of circulation. The question is why did they purchase these bonds from the banks? The banks were merely the intermediaries that created the REMIC trusts that issued the bonds. So are the he trust beneficiaries receiving this money? Nothing in the public domain indicates that the investors were paid by the banks that received this money. Since it was a purchase the bonds still exist which means that the largest investor in many trusts is the Federal Reserve. Is the Fed getting Servicer advances?

But the largest question on my mind is why the Federal Reserve as an agency has not addressed the fundamental economic problem of economic inequality that was caused by a deeply flawed system of defrauding investors and borrowers into entering into loan deals that were (a) different from each other and (b) could never work because of the values used for the loan and property?

If you take the number of Foreclosures that have been rubber stamped through the system plus the bond purchases by the Federal Reserve and add them together, the amount of "help" received by the banks is around $3.5 Trillion. The amount of help given to homeowners is a tiny fraction of that amount. If the Federal Reserve wants economic growth, it should use its potential influence as the largest investor in the bonds to mandate settlements that make economic sense to both investors and to borrowers. This correction stops the financial aid to banks who are keeping the money. But it stimulates investment and incidence in the financial system and the capability of the middle class to spend and stimulate the economy.

The main obstacle to fair settlements is the fact that we are still going through intermediary banks who we know have committed widespread fraud and whose balance sheets and income statements are being artificially inflated by showing values and profits that should not have been allowed. No new law is required. When you defraud investors the normal result upon discovery is restitution to those investors. If the investors (including the federal Reserve) are satisfied and seek no further payment on the debt due to these lenders, then a pro rata reduction of the debt supposedly owed by homeowners is merely the corresponding bookkeeping entry. The federal Reserve has an obligation to use its influence to force these settlements avoiding further displacement and further erosion of middle class wealth.

Monday, September 30, 2013

Why Judges Are Scowling at Banks, unless you live in VT

Come to VT- Judges side with banks even though the banks are presenting fraud.. because in our great state .. what happen throughout this country does not happen here. Blinders are on.

Why Judges Are Scowling at Banks

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

Published: September 28, 2013

LAST week, for the first time since the financial crisis, the government faced off in court against a major bank over lending practices during the mortgage mania. Lawyers for the Justice Department contend that Countrywide Financial, a unit of Bank of America, misrepresented the quality of mortgages it sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the taxpayer-owned mortgage finance giants, starting in 2007. Fannie and Freddie incurred gross losses of $850 million on the defective loans and net losses of $131 million, the government said.

Bank of America disagrees. Its lawyers say that Countrywide did not defraud Fannie or Freddie.

This case is undoubtedly big, but it is only one of many mortgage-related matters inching through the judicial system. And what is notable about some of the lower-profile matters is the tone and tack that federal judges are taking in their rulings. District court judges are not generally known as flamethrowers, but some seem to be losing patience with the banks.

For decades leading up to the foreclosure debacle, plaintiffs’ lawyers say, judges generally took the side of lenders when borrowers came to court complaining of problematic lending or predatory loan servicing. Many judges still do. But some are getting tough, perhaps having seen too many examples of dubious bank behavior.

“Maybe the judges are tired of the diet of baloney sandwiches the banks have been feeding them,” said April Charney, a foreclosure defense lawyer who for years represented troubled borrowers at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid in Florida. She is now in private practice.

Two recent rulings — one in New York involving Bank of America and one in Massachusetts involving Wells Fargo — serve as examples. In the Wells Fargo case, a ruling on Sept. 17 by Judge William G. Young of Federal District Court was especially stinging. In it, he required Wells Fargo to provide him with a corporate resolution signed by its president and a majority of its board stating that they stand behind the conduct of the bank’s lawyers in the case.

The case involved a borrower named Joseph Henning who fell behind on his mortgage, which he received from Wachovia, an entity later absorbed by Wells Fargo. In a suit filed against Wells Fargo in May 2009, Mr. Henning contended that the loan was predatory.

Judge Young agreed with the bank’s argument that federal laws pre-empted the state-law remedies Mr. Henning was seeking. But he did so reluctantly, calling it a win based “on a technicality.”

Then he chastised the bank. “The disconnect between Wells Fargo’s publicly advertised face and its actual litigation conduct here could not be more extreme,” the judge wrote. “A quick visit to Wells Fargo’s Web site confirms that it vigorously promotes itself as consumer-friendly,” he continued, “a far cry from the hard-nosed win-at-any-cost stance it has adopted here.”

If Wells Fargo does not supply the corporate resolution within 30 days of the ruling, the case will go to a jury trial, the judge said.

Mary Eshet, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, called the judge’s remarks in the ruling “inflammatory and unsubstantiated,” and added: “We believe Judge Young should follow the law which he recognizes and finalize his own judgment in this case.” The bank is asking an appellate court to require the judge to enter his dismissal order without the corporate resolution.

Valeriano Diviacchi, the lawyer for the borrower, said he had never seen a ruling requiring a corporate resolution as Judge Young’s did. Mr. Diviacchi said that he didn’t know why the judge made the ruling but that the judge appeared to want the case to be heard by a jury of Mr. Henning’s peers, people who may have had their own experiences with questionable bank practices.

“Judge Young is one of the few judges who will refer matters to juries — even when a cause of action does not entitle a party to a jury right — because he believes in it as a foundation of the justice system and a democratic society,” Mr. Diviacchi said.

The second case arose after Edwin Ramos and Michelle Ava Stouber-Ramos filed for bankruptcy and had the first and second mortgage on their Tampa, Fla., condominium discharged by the court. That kind of discharge protects a borrower from any attempts to collect the debts as a personal liability.

Bank of America received notice of the discharge in September 2010. But in spring 2012, the bank began sending letters to the Ramoses, saying their $26,991 second mortgage was “seriously delinquent” and demanding that they pay the amount owed immediately. Otherwise, the bank said, it would proceed with “collection action.”

According to Michael H. Schwartz, a lawyer in White Plains who represented the borrowers, Mr. Ramos started getting three phone calls a day from the bank, demanding repayment. When Mr. Ramos advised the bank’s representatives that the debt had been expunged in a bankruptcy proceeding, he was told “too bad,” according to a court filing.

The phone calls and letters continued even after Mr. Schwartz went back to court to ask that Bank of America be sanctioned for illegal attempts to collect the debt. During this time, Bank of America sold the servicing rights on the first mortgage to another company, which soon began sending its own demand letters to the Ramoses.

This month, the matter came before Robert D. Drain, a federal bankruptcy judge in New York. Judge Drain found Bank of America in contempt of the debt discharge order protecting the Ramoses and required the bank to pay Mr. Schwartz’s legal bills in the case. The judge also ordered the bank to pay $10,000 a month in sanctions to the Ramoses until it stopped making the repayment demands.

Judge Drain acknowledged that it wasn’t a lot of money to Bank of America. But, he said, he hoped that its lawyers would get the message. “This is not just a stupid mistake” by the bank, the judge said. “This is a policy.”

A Bank of America spokeswoman said the bank was working to resolve the court’s issues and “researching and investigating what transpired.”

But Mr. Schwartz said the Ramos case was just one of several in which he represented homeowners who were pursued by Bank of America over discharged debts. In another of his cases, court filings show that a homeowner received 105 phone calls and four threatening letters from the bank. “I believe the bank has made a conscious decision that it is less expensive to pay sanctions than to change its internal processes,” he said. “This problem is nationwide.”

Judges who take a more aggressive stance against the banks in such cases are doing what they can to hold these institutions accountable. It may not seem like a lot, but it is progress.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

#AskObamaHousing

Well, so he answered some questions, but here's some more.
#AskObamaHousing- President Obama, what is being done, about these private hedge funds, that suddenly come up with false paperwork that has been missing for years, with no assignments , no Allonge, nothing to show where they got them from and courts allowing this as proof , they own a note?

#AskObamaHousing -President Obama, Land records not recorded to show proof of ownership, and Judges FIXING them, this clearly shows Title Fraud, and leaves the homeowners in a situation of someone coming back to them, down the road creating more problems. The homeowners have a right to know who has their homes, and this is being denied by Judges across the country, and here in VT.

#AskObamaHousing -President Obama, What about Chase and the FDIC , allowing foreclosures of Washington Mutual and Long Beach Notes, that clearly were not there's to begin with? Example# Yes, we OWN both your notes ( Chase explains) they send you all the paperwork, the note, the mortgage, HUD papers. Everything is now in order and for the first time in 5 years , someone actually shows they own the note and mortgage Started in Sept 2006- Its now Summer of 2011 . Yet, the Judge who never saw this paperwork, allows in Dec 2008, Deustsche Bank to intervene saying, we bought the note in Sept 2006, yet, no land records recorded, no papers to show proof, no Bill of Sale that directly showed ownership ( they will make some up in 2012) Than in 2010 sells the note , still not showing how they bought it, to Archbay Holdings LLC 2010B - and than they sign land records, ( which still clearly show on the town records Long Beach Mortgage owns its , and this is in 2010) Their is NOTHING on the record that shows Deutsche Bank ever owned this note or was given to them by, Washington Mutual, Long Beach or Chase, Yet, the Judge allows Archbay to intervene.. still no proof of ownership. ( private Hedge fund that failed in 2012, and was taken over by York who funded it and removed all employees and CEO) Than after almost a year of Chase saying they owned it, they come back and say Oh, we made a mistake , were sorry,. we never owned the first note or had it in our possession! HUH? Yet, they sent all the papers and even CC the VT States Attorney and the OCC in 2011 , telling them as well they owned it. Suddenly, Archbay sells it to Roosevelt Mortgage and low and behold they have ALL the paperwork in 2013~The Judge sees it , and gives them my home! I have spent over 70,000.00 and I didn't get a federal bail out check, because I believed Chase! I am now selling my business to save my home, because all my savings , EVERYTHING is gone, because of of theft and loading the courts with paperwork to stall, for 7 years! Not to mention a Judge who just wanted this over , not allowing my lawyer or I to see how this note went from Long Beach to ending up in Roosevelts hands with all the documents that were never there before., or allowing me my rights to appeal.
I was charged for insurance ( I had insurance) Its an outrageous sum.
I was charged 365.00 for a drive by appraisal ( he stated the house was worth 160,000.00- 165,000.00 when a honest appraiser came just a year and a half before and appraised it at 117,000.00. )
OH, and I forgot to mention, how Chase in late 2012 stated after reviewing there records-AGAIN - nothing ever showed of a sale to Deutsche Bank only servicing transferred to Select Pro-Folio Services on Oct 2006, in which Washington Mutual remained as Master Servicer, which is how Chase had the original documents to begin with! Not to mention , how, even Select Pro-Folio Services lawyer never heard of Deutsche bank owning the note in OCT 2008.
So whats your take on this question President Obama?

#AskObamaHousing -President Obama,Are you aware of the many frauds still happening in this country? My answer is NO. People are subject to this still , happening NOW, and its being done by Hedge Funds being funded by the BIG Banks to hide the fraud and are still taking peoples home! What is being done about this? I know , NOTHING!

#AskObamaHousing -President Obama- How about you, come to these actual foreclosures, or with the Sheriffs and see for yourself the abuse actual homeowners you FORGOT, are enduring. Or how about you tell the children and the families, that nobody will work with you , because they want the homes because they can't rewrite these notes! How about YOU, take a stand for these people, like you promised during the re-election.

#AskObamaHousing -President Obama- I forgot to mention to you, I went looking for these people myself and to try and find the truth of who owned my home in 2008, because I knew when Deutsche Bank stepped in, something was wrong, I thought I found it when Chase said after 5 months of looking , that they owned my home and, even told my lawyer they owned my note and would work with me to fix the problems so I could pay for it, see I wasn't trying to do anything but PAY for my home , that was over appraised by Long Beach appraisers, and nobody would let me.. Nobody wanted my money, just my home.
I also forgot to mention that a week after Chase claimed they made a mistake , satisfied the second mortgage paid in full and stated it on the credit report and with town records as well . Not a dime was paid for it , but they wrote it like it was and did I forget to mention how Long Beach still has an open foreclosure on record for the first note that dates back to May 2006? So this ends my story.. but sir, there are millions more.
It would be nice to have these questions answered - #AskObamaHousing

Obama Takes to Social Media to Address Housing Issues

Wed, 2013-08-07 18:07 — Robert Ottone

President Barack Obama, fresh off discussing the potential elimination of government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs)—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, discussed his housing plan online, fielding questions from Vine, Twitter and other social media outlets using the hashtag #AskObamaHousing for a virtual roundtable discussion. Questions for the President began pouring in well before the designated start time and varied from topics, such as cities facing monumental foreclosures (like in Detroit), to what proposed initiatives have been outlined for those with already-existing portfolios. While the President was unable to field every question, he answered quite a few.
Calling the roundtable, A Better Bargain, the President, along with Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff moderated the event. While some of his answers were fairly standard, the President tackled a few curveballs, notably indicating that he is still pushing for a government refinance program, with interest rates being so low.
Obama also praised those who wish to rent, which he describes as a “safe” alternative to purchasing a home. Not long after giving that response, Obama answered a question regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with "You can't have a situation in which the government is underwriting and guaranteeing all the mortgage lending,” adding, “The private market can step in and do a good job and government can be a backstop." This is, of course, alluding to the work that Sens. Tim Johnson (D-SD) and Michael Crapo (R-ID) have been doing in their efforts to outline the potential dissolving of the GSEs.
The President also indicated that change isn’t immediate and that new laws and regulation could take time. The concept of shocking the market with such an abrupt change isn’t something that anyone in the Obama White House is looking to do.
"This is something that would have to be phased in,” Obama said.
Obama also put an emphasis on the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Bureau's push towards transparency. "The more knowledge consumers have the more empowered they are going to be,” Obama said.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Victims Of Mortgage Abuse Refuse To Cash Tiny Settlement Checks

Jul 22, 2013 at 10:16 am

A billion dollars in checks sent to foreclosed homeowners as part of a national settlement with big banks is going uncashed, another sign that the government’s much-criticized effort to redress mortgage abuses is coming up far short of its promised impact.
While the agency in charge of dispersing the funds has not specified how many individual checks make up that $1 billion total, the fact that recipients are not bothering to deposit the funds reinforces criticisms of the program. It distributed 4.2 million checks, which expire after 90 days. The vast majority of those checks were for just $300 each. Yet a review by the Independent Foreclosure Review (IFR) suggested that almost a quarter million Americans lost homes under false or illegal pretenses and that about 1.2 million borrowers had had to defend against wrongful foreclosure efforts. The IFR, part of the much-derided 2012 National Mortgage Settlement, has long been faulted for protecting the mortgage industry and for distributing checks for hundreds of dollars to homeowners who owed hundreds of thousands to abusive lenders. The uncashed checks account for a bit less than a third of the money allocated for the IFR program under the 2012 deal with financial firms.
The IFR’s review was quashed by a subsequent settlement amid sharp criticism from consumer activists that the review process was being warped into a coverup of bank and servicer misdeeds. Regulators explained their refusal to share details of industry abuses by saying those practices are “trade secrets” and that revealing them would hurt firms’ competitiveness.
The latest evidence of stumbling in the government’s efforts to do something about foreclosure abuses comes as the industry continues to prey upon borrowers. Authorities fielded about 60,000 official complaints in just six months about bank actions that violate the mortgage settlement, the independent monitor reported in June. Also last month, Bank of America was caught using sales tactics that are supposed to be illegal in its solicitation mailers. And individual horror stories about wrongful foreclosures continue to crop up around the country.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Surprise, surprise.

(Photo: Pranav Bhatt)Surprise, surprise.
Just when we thought the big banks couldn’t hit a new low, they do.
Six former employees of Bank of America have come forward, alleging that the big bank intentionally denied eligible homeowners mortgage loan modifications, and lied to those homeowners about the status of their mortgage payments and documents.
Bank of America allegedly used these dirty tactics to lead homeowners into foreclosures and in-house loan modifications, both of which helped reap massive profits for BOA’s bottom-line.
The employees who have come forward have also said that the big bank rewarded customer service representatives with hefty cash bonuses and gift cards to popular stores when they foreclosed on homes.
According to a lawsuit filed in federal court, a Bank of America employee who placed ten or more mortgage accounts into foreclosure a month could get up to a $500 bonus.
The lawsuit also alleges that the bank punished representatives who did not hit foreclosure target numbers or who objected to the bank’s tactics. In some cases, those employees who didn’t foreclose on enough people were fired.
This latest jaw-dropper out of Bank of America comes just days after it was revealed that the bank was also using deceptive mailers and sales pitches to sell consumers on mortgage refinancing plans that could actually add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of a borrower’s loan.
Despite these latest revelations about foreclosure targets, lies and dirty tactics, nobody at Bank of America is worried about going to jail.
That’s because our elected lawmakers in Washington, particularly Republican lawmakers, are scared straight by the idea of going after the big banks and going after corporate America.
Yet, these same lawmakers are just fine going after the big bad government, especially when it comes to things like the IRS controversy.
But, let’s look at the parallels between the IRS controversy and the latest news coming out of Bank of America.
With the IRS controversy, IRS agents deliberately went after and applied higher scrutiny towards potentially political organizations, liberal and conservative, applying for 501c3 tax-exempt status.
At Bank of America, employees allegedly intentionally denied eligible homeowners loan modifications, and pushed them into foreclosure to get a bonus.
With the IRS scandal, one IRS official took the fifth when testifying before Congress, but is the subject of both a criminal and an internal investigation.
At Bank of America, it’s alleged that customer service representatives were rewarded for lying to homeowners about the status of their mortgage payments and documents.
Despite the obvious similarities between these two scenarios, only one is being investigated loudly and publicly by Congress; The IRS controversy.
So, why is Congress willing to go to the ends of the earth to get to the bottom of the IRS scandal, but refusing to lift a finger when it comes to investigating America’s big banks?
Could it be that employees of the IRS do not make multimillion dollar campaign contributions to members of Congress?
Could it be that employees of the IRS don’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying?
And even the media, which is supposed to be an impartial and unbiased source of news and information, is afraid to go after big banks when they commit crimes.
The media would rather drag on ad nauseum about manufactured witch hunts like the IRS controversy, than discuss how the big banks, which American taxpayers have already saved once, are back up to their same old dirty tricks, and threatening to bring down the entire American economy once again.
America’s collective attitude towards the big banks and corporate America needs to change.
Bank of America should not get a slap on the wrist, while our elected officials in Washington waste their time and our tax dollars harassing unionized government employees at the IRS.
Congress and the Department of Justice should hold the big banks accountable for their actions, because America can’t afford another big-bank-caused economic and financial disaster

Friday, June 28, 2013

Don't Call It A Housing Recovery Yet

Former FDIC Chair: Don't Call It A Housing Recovery Yet

Most economists say the . But one banking expert who grappled with the colossal housing bust during the Great Recession says it's too soon to celebrate.
Despite a recent upturn in sales and prices, "the housing market is still very weak," said Sheila Bair, who headed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. from 2006 to 2011. Bair, speaking at a Washington "economic summit" organized by The Atlantic magazine, warned homeowners that "we need more experience and data to know if it's really turned around."
Bair said lenders may be sitting on huge numbers of foreclosed upon houses that have been held back from the market. As housing prices start to perk up, that hidden inventory may come flooding into the market - and pushing prices back down, she said.
Moreover, millions of homeowners are "under water," i.e., they still owe more on mortgages than they could get by selling their homes. As soon as they can sell at prices high enough to pay off old loans, they'll put their properties on the market— and again drive down prices, she said.
And there could be another worry: prices for all sorts of assets may already be too high now because interest rates have been held too low for too long by the Federal Reserve, she said.
The Fed policy makers have had good intentions, but their low-interest-rate efforts have not revived the economy.
"We are not getting new lending and new jobs out of this," Bair said. However, we do have "the risk of asset bubbles developing... well, they've already developed," she said.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

The Truth - Banks are the dead-beats not the borrowers

The Florida bill was clearly meant to speed up the "inevitable" foreclosure process, which is the wrong assumption right off the bat. If the foreclosures are wrongful we are not talking about some "i" that wasn't dotted or some "t" that wasn't crossed. We are talking about foreclosures that (a) didn't need to happen and (b) couldn't happen legally if the party bringing the foreclosure had no right to do so.

The fundamental paradigm shift that is coming is that the banks are the deadbeats, not the borrowers. The borrowers are seeking to enforce a fair deal; the banks are seeking to steal and lie their way through the PONZI scheme we called "Securitization."

Verification of the complaint has taken another bizarre turn. In reading the testimony and affidavits of those who "verified" the complaint, it turns out they signed the verification but knew nothing about the case. The only thing they verified was that the complaint contained information that was given to her or him by unknown parties through computer via a computer monitor.

Banks are using the verification aspect to bolster their false claims to the business records exception of hearsay. They are wrong and any judge who rules that is wrong if the verifier or affiant (a) is not the records custodian and (b) had no basis for personally knowing the truth. Pressed to give an accounting for how they know what they know, the verifier will answer "it's in the complaint." They often express confidence that it wouldn't be in the complaint if it wasn't true. Talk about circular logic!

The recent revelations about Bank of America are the tip of the iceberg of lying and deception that started when the first mortgage bond was sold and the first loan application was taken within the scope of the PONZI scheme that required bonds to be sold in order to make payments to the investors.

The fact that BOA told its employees to lie to customers in order to get them into foreclosure is enough to infer the truth, to wit: the goal was foreclosures and not financial recovery. How is that possible? What bank would not want the most it could get in mitigation of a "loss" it supposedly incurred as a result of a "default" by a "borrower" on a "debt" that was owed to the bank because the bank funded the origination or acquisition of the loan?

The questions answer themselves. If the Bank had a real loss they would want to mitigate the loss as quickly as possible. In the past that has always meant some sort of workout when that possible. Now we find out that BOA was paying its employees to lie and deceive the "borrowers" for the express purpose of getting the property into foreclosure even though that means getting a lot less money for the "creditor" than any modification, settlement or workout. So the answer is that they had no real loss and they must want the foreclosure for some other reason.

The "other reason" is simply that foreclosure is the cover-up for the PONZI scheme. And the government feels stuck by assurances it gave the large banks (see statements of future whistle blowers) when they forced the banks to acquire the investment banks, the aggregators and other players in this scheme, before the government knew that the scheme existed. So the government is buying up worthless mortgage bonds with no loans backing them and pretending that the bonds are really worth something. This is supposed to shore up the financial system by avoiding massive failures of the largest banks --- something that is eventually going to happen anyway because the $ trillions that were siphoned off from from investors were then siphoned off from the banks and management now controls that money.

If you look at the merger and bond activity you can see the banks acquiring other institutions in order to provide a safety valve through which part of the ill-gotten gains from the PONZI scheme can be repatriated and the "earnings" of the bank can be seen as stable or increasing even while the rest of the world goes to hell in a hand basket. (see below). The rest of the money is being controlled by a handful of people (see future whistle blowers) who are actually controlling world events by controlling the purse strings of all world economies.

Sounds like a conspiracy theory, doesn't it. Maybe a little less crazy now that we know that BOA was rewarding employees for lying to customers. And maybe a little less so now that we know the bonus was paid with a Target gift card. If it was a legitimate bonus, why use Target as the intermediary? Answer: the auditors of the bank probably would not like seeing bonuses paid to people who were supposedly working with borrowers on modification or settlement of the loan --- especially when the record shows that the bonus was for getting the case into foreclosure rather than settlement.

As you can read for yourself below, the pace of foreclosures is picking up and is going to accelerate under the new Florida law. They are in a rush to hush up any further whistle blowers who might blow the whole thing wide open. But the carrot they held out to homeowners might be the bank's undoing if the borrower moves promptly and fights the foreclosure on the basis of ownership of the loan. There is only one way to really own a loan and that is by paying for it. The argument has been rejected by many judges, but now it is right in the statute that the proof of ownership must be present as a condition precedent which means that the real burden of proof is switching back to the banks, where it belongs.

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Danielle Kelley, Esq. June, 2013

The banks wanted this bill - so let's take a look at the "consumer friendly" portions and get ready. Keep in mind the act is remedial in nature. All complaints filed after June 7, 2013 will be subject to a motion to dismiss if the plaintiff does not meet the requirements of the new bill:

1) they must give affirmative allegations that at the time foreclosure is filed they are the holder of the original note, allege with specificity the factual basis by which they are entitled to enforce the note under 673.3011 (no more either/or pleading),

3) a plaintiff given authority to sue (i.e. servicer or someone coming in with a POA like we've been seeing) - the Complaint shall describe their authority and identify with specificity the document that gives them authority to act on behalf of the Plaintiff.

Given what we know about how they verify complaints, they will have a hard road showing they can verify the plaintiff actually "has" the original note. I won't settle for anything less than a declaration that they have seen it in person - not on a computer screen. The bill states, "The term "original note" or "original promissory note" means the signed or executed promissory note rather than a copy thereof." I don't want to hear about a janitor who was adopted as assistant vice president through corporate resolution and is verifying they saw the "original note" on a screen. Keep in mind that they executed the complaints filed this month months ago - they sign right after they send off for verification usually.

If they file a lost note count they must attach an affidavit under penalty of perjury to the Complaint that

1) details a clear chain endorsements, transfers, or assignments Note;

2) set forth facts showing the Plaintiff is entitled to enforce the lost instrument (Note); and

3) attach documents to the affidavit such as copies of the Note, allonges, audit reports, or other evidence of acquisition, ownership, and possession.

Relevant portions of the bill below:

(2) A complaint that seeks to foreclose a mortgage or other lien on residential real property, including individual units of condominiums and cooperatives, designed principally for occupation by from one to four families which secures a promissory note must:

(a) Contain affirmative allegations expressly made by the plaintiff at the time the proceeding is commenced that the plaintiff is the holder of the original note secured by the mortgage; or

(b) Allege with specificity the factual basis by which the plaintiff is a person entitled to enforce the note under s. 673.3011.

(3) If a plaintiff has been delegated the authority to institute a mortgage foreclosure action on behalf of the person entitled to enforce the note, the complaint shall describe the authority of the plaintiff and identify, with specificity, the document that grants the plaintiff the authority to act on behalf of the person entitled to enforce the note. This subsection is intended to require initial disclosure of status and pertinent facts and not to modify law regarding standing or real parties in interest. The term "original note" or "original promissory note" means the signed or executed promissory note rather than a copy thereof. The term includes any renewal, replacement, consolidation, or amended and restated note or instrument given in renewal, replacement, or substitution for a previous promissory note. The term also includes a transferable record, as defined by the Uniform Electronic Transaction Act in s. 668.50(16).

(4) If the plaintiff is in possession of the original promissory note, the plaintiff must file under penalty of perjury a certification with the court, contemporaneously with the filing of the complaint for foreclosure, that the plaintiff is in possession of the original promissory note. The certification must set forth the location of the note, the name and title of the individual giving the certification, the name of the person who personally verified such possession, and the time and date on which the possession was verified. Correct copies of the note and all allonges to the note must be attached to the certification. The original note and the allonges must be filed with the court before the entry of any judgment of foreclosure or judgment on the note.

(5) If the plaintiff seeks to enforce a lost, destroyed, or stolen instrument, an affidavit executed under penalty of perjury must be attached to the complaint. The affidavit must:

(a) Detail a clear chain of all endorsements, transfers, or assignments of the promissory note that is the subject of the action.

(b) Set forth facts showing that the plaintiff is entitled to enforce a lost, destroyed, or stolen instrument pursuant to s. 673.3091. Adequate protection as required under s. 673.3091(2) shall be provided before the entry of final judgment.

(c) Include as exhibits to the affidavit such copies of the note and the allonges to the note, audit reports showing receipt of the original note, or other evidence of the acquisition, ownership, and possession of the note as may be available to the plaintiff.

(6) The court may sanction the plaintiff for failure to comply with this section.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Deutsche Bank at it again

I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT THE SEC, FDIC, AND CFPB, ARE ALLOWING DOUCHE BANK TO DO THIS!!! IT'S BECAUSE OF THE FRAUD THIS BANK DID TO OUR COUNTRY AND THEIR SHADOW BANKING THAT FORECLOSURES WERE SPIRALING OUTTA CONTROL. THEY EARNED THE NAME FORECLOSURE KING! HOW CAN OUR GOVERNMENT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN AND CONTINUE. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??????
HOW MANY SHADOW BANKS OR HEDGE FUNDS ARE YOU USING DB?? HAVE YOU INFORMED THE SEC THAT YOU SUPPLY THE MONEY, WRITE THE SECURITY, AND STAY ON AS TRUSTEE OF THESE BONDS?

Deutsche Bank Leading Wall Street Rental Loans

Deutsche Bank AG arranged a $1.5 billion credit line for Blackstone Group LP to buy single-family properties last week, after providing $2.1 billion to the firm earlier this year, according to three people with knowledge of the deal, who asked not to be identified because the loan is private. Leon Black’s Apollo Global Management LLC and Tricon Capital Group Inc., a Toronto-based real investment firm, also obtained loans for rental-home purchases this month from the Frankfurt-based bank.

The debt is giving an advantage to institutions competing with individuals, foreign investors and local landlords for a diminishing pool of distressed real estate to turn into rentals. While U.S. home prices remain about 28% below their 2006 peak, they’re climbing at the fastest pace in seven years, even as the homeownership rate declines and mortgage availability remains restricted after the housing crash.
“This allows us to further our acquisitions,” said Gary Berman, chief executive officer of Tricon Capital, whose $150 million loan has a minimum interest rate of 4.1%. “It’s attractively-priced capital.”
Tricon, which has bought 2,300 homes in areas including Southern California, Phoenix and Florida aims to acquire 4,000 in total by the end of next year. By using a credit facility, Tricon will increase potential returns to 11% to 12% compared with 7.5% without leverage, or borrowed money, Berman said.
Blackstone, which has purchased about 29,000 single-family homes in 13 metropolitan areas to become the largest owner in the U.S. obtained a $600 million credit line in October. The New York-based firm expanded it to $2.1 billion in March with a group of lenders led by Deutsche Bank. JPMorgan Chase & Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. participated in the new loan, said one of the people.
Deutsche Bank spokeswoman Renee Calabro and Blackstone spokesman Peter Rose declined to comment.
Banks are increasing the credit lines as more funds start leasing thousands of homes they’ve bought at foreclosure auctions, through open market purchases and in bulk deals.
American Homes 4 Rent, a Malibu, California-based single-family rental investor headed by Public Storage founderWayne Hughes, has a $500 million credit facility with Wells Fargo with an accordion feature that allows it to increase to $1 billion, according to a filing this month.
Silver Bay Realty Trust Corp., a real estate investment trust with more than 5,000 homes, obtained a $200 million facility in May from Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan.
“These neighborhoods even from where they were two years ago, look so much better,” Chief Executive Officer David Miller said in an interview. “You can see the difference because institutions like us are putting $20,000 or more into the homes.”
The loan “will give us enhanced flexibility to acquire additional assets,” Miller said in a call with investors last month. “The execution of this facility demonstrates the increasing recognition by the capital markets of the single-family rental industry as an asset class and we expect additional financing opportunities will materialize over time.”
The biggest lender in the industry, according to public filings and executives, is Deutsche Bank, which arranged a $200 million credit facility for Apollo this month, and a $100 million loan in April to Five Ten Capital LLC, a Piedmont, California-based single-family rental investor.
Deutsche Bank “is far and away the most sophisticated and best organized” of the lenders, Tricon’s Berman said.
In addition to earning fees from the credit lines, the bank eventually will sell debt to investors by securitizing rental payments, said Berman, whose company has $1.2 billion in U.S. real estate assets, including land and investments in builders.
The sale of asset-backed bonds will further transform a business that has traditionally been dominated by small investors into a new institutional asset class.
“It’s not a matter of if,” he said. “It’s a matter of when.”
The first securitization is about two or three months away, according to Steve Blevit, a Los Angeles attorney with Sidley Austin LLP, who’s worked on Deutsche Bank’s credit deals. The bank has a team of experts in commercial and residential real estate, who are able to structure single-family rental deals faster than competitors, Blevit said.
“No other lender in the space can do this like them,” he said.
While the credit lines can help firms increase returns, some single-family rental investors, such as Carrington Holding Co. CEO Bruce Rose, oppose using leverage because it adds a level of risk at a time when yields are shrinking as purchase prices rise faster than rents. It no longer makes sense for him to buy homes, given the cost of his capital, because they’re “too expensive for what the market has morphed into,” Rose said in an interview last month.
Home prices rose about 12% through April from a year earlier, according to real estate data service CoreLogic Inc., the biggest increase since February 2006. Individual buyers, spurred by low mortgage rates, pushed up sales of existing homes to an annual pace of 5 million in May, the highest since 2009 when tax incentives spurred purchases, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg ahead of a June 20 report from the National Association of Realtors. Borrowing costs for a 30-year mortgage rose to a 14-month high of 3.98% last week, according to Freddie Mac. That’s still down from 6.8% almost seven years ago.
While the biggest rental buyers have been able to access either public markets or bank-arranged credit lines, some smaller investors are seeking financing opportunities through Cerberus Capital Management LP, which started First Key Lending this year with plans to lend billions of dollars to landlords too big for government programs and too small for Wall Street. Fannie Mae limits landlords to loans on a maximum of 10 properties, and Freddie Mac will lend on four.
Cerberus is seeking to fill a void left by regional lenders that prior to the housing crash were the primary source of loans for landlords buying properties. At least 475 banks have failed since the real-estate collapse, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., while larger banks have tightened mortgage underwriting standards and are focusing on the biggest investors.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Mortgage pact abuses

Abusive lending practices revealed during the foreclosure crisis led to new rules designed to protect struggling homeowners. New guidelines are sometimes being violated, Attorney General Jack Conway said last week, adding consumers should stay on alert.
The rules are complex — there are 320 guidelines agreed to by five mortgage banks as part of banking reforms that include the $25 billion National Mortgage Settlement — so if you are fighting foreclosure or seeking better terms for a loan, consumer advocates say you should educate yourself about your rights.
“People who are in danger need to know this information,” said Brian Tucker. “These rules can help buy you time.”
New federal rules make sense to Tucker. The steelworker was unemployed with a broken leg when he asked JPMorgan Chase to lower the mortgage payment on his Valley Station home in 2009. The application process stretched over a year, during which Tucker found a job but was still struggling to pay his bills. Before long, Tucker was talking to one arm of the bank still processing his new loan application while also being served with a foreclosure notice by the bank’s collection department.
Now it is illegal for banks to pursue foreclosure while a homeowner is working in good faith to pursue a lower payment via a home loan modification.
“We worked very hard to keep this customer in his home,” Chase spokeswoman Amy Bonitatibus said Thursday. Citing bank privacy policy, she declined further comment on Tucker’s account.
Chase is one of the country’s five largest mortgage banks subject to the new rules. In settling, the banks admitted they violated the law by hastily pursuing foreclosures without verifying facts were correct. They also acknowledged they “routinely” signed foreclosure-related documents outside the presence of a notary public.
Under the new rules, struggling homeowners are supposed to find it easier to seek lower mortgage payments by applying for a loan modification, with clearer guidelines on how much time they have to submit, correct and respond to bank documents. So far, 1,757 Kentucky homeowners who endured foreclosure have received more than $61.1 million in settlement checks or loan modification relief from the five banks — Chase, Ally/GMAC, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — Attorney General Jack Conway said Tuesday. The deadline has passed for homeowners who lost their homes to foreclosure between 2008 and 2011 to apply for compensation.
But Conway said there is growing concern from states that some of the banks, which make and service 60 percent of all mortgage loans, are not abiding by new rules that give consumers time to try to save their home.
“There have been complaints from consumers that servicers are not meeting their obligations under the settlement,” Conway said. “We are aware of the concerns and are collaborating with other attorneys general about the best way to resolve these complaints to ensure that consumers receive the relief entitled to them.”
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman recently announced he will file a federal lawsuit accusing Bank of America and Wells Fargo of “repeated and persistent failure to comply” with the new standards.
Whether Kentucky will join that fight remains unclear. Conway said Tuesday his office is fielding similar complaints from homeowners, and he is conferring with attorney general colleagues on whether similar legal action is required.
Bank of America spokesman Richard Simon, responding to the threat of litigation by New York, praised the settlement and said the bank is working to address customer service problems. “This agreement has been good for New York, and we continue using these beneficial programs to assist troubled homeowners in New York and nationally,” he said.
JPMorgan Chase “is complying with every one of the 320 guidelines,” Bonitatibus said. “So far, we have helped 126,000 homeowners stay in their homes.”
Consumers’ new rights include specific time standards. Banks are required to provide borrowers with written notice they have received a loan modification application within three business days of getting it. Banks are also required to notify borrowers of missing documents or deficiencies in their loan modification application in five business days. Banks must give borrowers 30 days to correct problems or submit missing documents.
Banks must have a single point of contact to coordinate communication with a homeowner. And banks must explain in plain language in monthly statements what legal and interest charges are being racked up, and will be due to save the home if the application fails.
The new “servicing standards” have been in place more than a year, having been finalized with the U.S. Department of Justice in early 2012.
Tucker’s odyssey began in 2009 when Chase offered him a loan modification application for the home he bought in 1996 for $50,000. At the time, banks widely marketed loan modifications, under pressure from the federal “Making Home Affordable”
The bank gave Tucker a lower monthly “trial payment” while his application was being considered, reducing his $450 regular monthly payment to around $325. While he made the lower payment, Tucker said he did not know he would be on the hook for his old monthly payment if his loan modification application did not succeed.
The process dragged on for a year, during which the bank claimed his documents were lost several times, leading to faxing and re-faxing previously mailed items, Tucker said. Meanwhile, he found work assembling washers at GE’s Appliance Park for $13 per hour, half his former rate as a union ironworker.
Foreclosure proceedings began, with a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy serving notice on his front porch, he said. By September 2010, the bank declared his application had been rejected. To save his home, Tucker was informed he would have to reinstate his former mortgage. That totaled a year’s worth of partial mortgage payments and legal fees, all due within 10 days.
In a scramble, Tucker said, he saved his home by seeking emergency loans from loved ones. The loan’s back due amount, and late fees, came to $5,799 in with bank legal fees bringing the total to $8,000.
“I have dealt with loan sharks more forgiving than these people,” Tucker said. He declined to identify how much money he received, but said it “is a fraction” of the $8,000 required to save his Grafton Hall Road ranch.
Although Tucker did not lose his home, he still won compensation via the Independent Foreclosure Review. That federal program was designed to assist homeowners who suffered financial injury during a foreclosure process in 2009 and 2010, but held onto their homes. The deadline for that relief has passed for most lenders, excepts a handful of banks including GMAC Mortgage.
Foreclosure remains a local threat as wages retreat. One in five local homeowners is still vulnerable to defaulting on a mortgage, according to “Louisville’s Foreclosure Recovery,” a March 2012 report by the nonprofit Metropolitan Housing Coalition.
Incomes are falling in Louisville as many laid-off workers find employment, but often not at lower pay rates than before. Median income per capita is estimated at $42,500 in this year, down 5.2 percent from $44,833 in 2012, according to the latest guidelines for greater Louisville from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Catastrophic health crises, job loss and divorce continue to be leading causes of consistent foreclosure problems in the region, according to Christie J. McCravy, a spokeswoman for the Louisville Urban League.
By late May, 1,872 mortgage lenders had initiated foreclosure proceedings, an annual rate similar to the foreclosure pace in 2011 and 2012, according to Jefferson Circuit Court. There is evidence, however, that new lending guidelines are being adopted by the finance industry as a result of the National Mortgage Settlement and Independent Foreclosure Review.
As proof, there is evidence mortgage banks are slowing down in the race to sell homes on the block. In 2011 and 2012, 40 percent and 41 percent, respectively, of all foreclosure cases were canceled or withdrawn by lenders in Louisville. So far this year, the foreclosure cancellation rate is running at 51 percent.
The reduced percentage of homes actually sold in a foreclosure auction suggests banks “are holding off on moving for judgments,” Jefferson County Master Commissioner Edith Halbleib said Thursday.
Consumers can navigate changing mortgage industry standards best via certified, nonprofit housing counselors at agencies like the Louisville Urban League, the Housing Partnership and the Legal Aid Society, housing advocates say.
Home borrowers and homeowners seeking to modify a mortgage “need someone who knows their way around,” said Cathy Hinko, executive director of the Metropolitan Housing Coalition. “Barriers are huge, and having someone walk you through it is really important.”

America Lost