Can we trust Judges or the legal systems anymore?

Tell me these Judges aren't being bought out by these banks? Tell the truth, with all the money the Government agencies are raking in from these bank fraud cases , why would they allow the actual people being harmed in these cases to win?
Mers is based on fraudulent paperwork - plain and simple
Countrywide was know and has been proven to commit fraud and robo signing.
 Deutsche Bank, now here is a surprise, king of Fraud involved. 
Robo-Signing is illegal ( remember the 50 AG who , OH that's right, got the money for the states and everyone except the homeowner was helped?)

This is bullshit plain and simple.

Two borrower-initiated lawsuits alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems role in the plaintiffs’ deeds of trust caused them injury were both dismissed by federal judges in the Western District of Washington today.

In Reid v. Countrywide Bank NA, the plaintiff claims the defendants—Countrywide as the lender, LS Title as trustee and MERS as the beneficiary—committed fraud, violated the Washington Consumer Protection Act, were negligent, breached the duty of good faith and fair dealing, placed a cloud on their title, and inflicted emotional distress.

The court immediately dismissed the cloud of title and emotional distress claims filed in the first complaint. Allegations were also rejected that the plaintiff was injured by robo-signing acts and were unaware of who was entitled to receive their mortgage payments.

A second complaint was then submitted, repeating the same allegations identified in the first amended complaint.

U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour granted MERS’ motion to dismiss this case, ruling that the plaintiff’s claims against the Reston, Va.-based company were speculative at best.

“Although plaintiffs say that they have spent time and money making calls and hiring professionals trying to determine which entity hold the note to their loan, they have not explained how the lack of that information has injured them,” the judge says in the dismissal notice.

“They have not described any disputes that they have been unable to resolve or legal protections of which they have been unable to avail themselves because they do not know who holds their note.”

“Plaintiffs do not state, for example, that they have attempted to identify who holds the note in order to negotiate a loan modification,” the court document says. “Nor have they directed the court any authority stating that the loss of opportunity to engage in such negotiation is a cognizable injury.”

A similar ruling also was handed down from Judge Marsha Pechman, Chief U.S. District Judge of Washington, where she dismissed a wrongful foreclosure complaint against MERS System members and other defendants.

In June 2006, Ryan Wear borrowed $375,200 from Sierra Pacific Mortgage Co. to buy a house in Marysville, Wash. Wear executed a written promissory note, where he agreed to “make all payments under this note in the form of cash, check or money order.”

Wear sued Sierra Pacific, Deutsche Bank, GMAC Mortgage and MERS for fraud, violations of the Washington Consumer Protection Act, accounting, breach of fiduciary duty, violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, breach of the implied duty of good faith and fair dealing, and seeking to avoid the contract, to quiet title, and for declaratory judgment.

The plaintiff alleges that the defendants created and filed false assignments for the note and deed of trust and ultimately initiated nonjudicial foreclosure actions without having acquired any legal interest in the property. Wear also claims that the defendants collected payments to which they were not entitled, and failed to inform him of the true ownership of the loan and deed of trust.

However, the defendants argue that Wear failed to identify any unfair or deceptive act, the alleged unfair or deceptive acts had no impact on the public interest, and no injury was caused by the defendants’ alleged conduct.

Pechman agreed with the defendants, saying the plaintiff failed to show any fraudulent acts committed by MERS or injury caused by the company’s role in plaintiff’s deed of trust.

“The only injury identified by plaintiff is the pending foreclosure of his home,” the judge said in her ruling. “Plaintiff does not claim that any action by the defendants caused or induced the plaintiff to default on the loan…therefore, regardless of who the actual beneficiary was…plaintiff’s property would still face foreclosure.”

http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/dailybriefing/MERS-Wins-Dismissal-of-Two-Lawsuits-1039986-1.html?ET=nationalmortgage:e5001:490509a:&st=email&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NMN_Daily_Briefing_112013&site=default_tech

So Countrywide lives again in PennyMac

Well for those of you who are unaware of who Penny Mac is , these are the good old boys of Countrywide, you know the fraudsters who were up to their necks in the mortgage nightmare.
As an investor I would run not walk to the nearest exit.





 PennyMac CEO Stanford Kurland, who spent most of career at Countrywide, is recreating his old firm.

How nice, bankrupting the country the first time around wasn't enough.  So it's perhaps no surprise that one of the first firms to rush into this profit-filled fun house is headed by the former executives of the most notorious subprime lender of the era that led to the financial crisis. PennyMac (PMT), a finance company run almost entirely by alumni of Countrywide Financial.
 To head the office, PennyMac has tapped Stephen Brandt, who, according to a Congressional report released in July, ran Countrywide's "Friends of Angelo" program. The report found that Brandt's former unit handed out hundreds of sweetheart loans to members of Congress, their staffs and other government employees. One of the main thrusts of the division, according to the report, which was nicknamed after Countrywide's former CEO, Angelo Mozilo, was to soften anti-predatory lending laws.( How nice )
 "There's free money on the table and you don't have to work that hard to get it, especially if you are the former executives of Countrywide," In the past year, though, PennyMac has morphed into something that more resembles Countrywide. PennyMac's stated business plan was to buy up delinquent mortgage loans on the cheap, offer modifications and make some money in the process.( In other words NON PERFORMING LOANS- FORECLOSURES, that these monsters originally created! )

Look up PennyMac created by employees of country wide, you will be shocked.

PennyMac Readies Its First Jumbo Securitization

inShare2

PennyMac is putting its first jumbo mortgage-backed securities deal in the pipeline, a deal roughly $550 million in size, according to a Kroll presale report.

The $550,462,191 deal is backed by loans with a weighted average first-lien loan-to-value ratio of 69.7% and a combined first- and junior-lien loan-to-value ratio of 70.6%. Merrill Lynch is named as the lead manager for the deal.
“These low ratios exhibit a substantial margin of safety against potential home price declines,” Kroll said in its report. “However, it should be noted that these are the higher WA LTV and WA CLTV ratios seen in a pool rated by KBRA.”
Top originators contributing to the deal are AmeriSave (13.1%), Guaranteed Rate (9.6%), JMAC (8.2%), PRMG (6.3%), RPM (6.2%), Cobalt (6%) and George Mason (5.4%). Geographically, the higher state concentration is found in California (56.5%), the largest loan in the pool is $1.96 million.
Kroll assigned an expected AAA(sf) rating to six classes of exchangeable certificates in the transaction, two of which have 7.75% credit enhancement. It also assigned investment grade expected ratings of AA(sf), A(sf) and BBB(sf) to three tranches, which, respectively, have 5.2%, 3.45% and 2.45% CE.
One class with 1.4% CE received a speculative grade BB(sf) rating and two classes did not receive ratings from Kroll.
The transaction, which will be services by PennyMac, lacks a master servicer.

“In most RMBS transactions, upon a servicer default a master servicer generally steps in to facilitate the continuity of critical servicing functions such as loss mitigation and advancing of principal and interest,” Kroll noted in the presale report. “To mitigate concerns regarding the lack of a master servicer, Citibank NA, as fiscal agent, will be required to make any P&I advance due if the servicer fails to fund such advance.”

Another great post by Neil Garfield

Perils of Pooling: OneWest

by Neil Garfield

Apparently my article yesterday hit a nerve. NO I wasn't saying that the only problems were with BofA and Chase. OneWest is another example. Keep in mind that the sole source of information to regulators and the courts are the ONLY people who understand mergers and acquisitions. So it is a little like one of those TV shows where the only way they can get an arrest and conviction is for the perpetrator or suspect to confess. In this case, they "confess" all kinds of things to gain credibility and then lead the agencies and judicial system down a rabbit hole which is now a well trodden path. So many people have gone down that hole that most people that is the way to get to the truth. It isn't. It is part of a carefully constructed series of complex conflicting lies designed carefully by some very smart lawyers who understand not just the law but the way the law works. The latter is how they are getting away with it.

Back to OneWest, which we have detailed in the past.

The FDIC has posted the agreement at http://www.fdic.gov/about/freedom/IndyMacMasterPurchaseAgrmt.pdf

OneWest was created almost literally overnight (actually over a weekend) by some highly placed players from Wall Street. There is an 80% loss sharing arrangement with the FDIC and yes, there appears to be some grey area about ownership of the loans because of that loss sharing agreement. But the evidence of a transaction in which the loans were actually purchased by a brand new entity that was essentially unfunded is completely absent. And that is because OneWest and Deutsch take the position that the loans were securitized despite IndyMac's assurances to the contrary. The only loans in which OneWest appears to be a player are those in which the loan was subject to (false) claims of securitization. No money went to the trustee, no money went to the trust, no assets went into the pool because the REMIC asset pool lacked the funding to purchase any assets.

Add to that a few facts. Deutsch is usually the "trustee"of the REMIC asset pool, but Reynaldo Reyes says he has nothing to do. He has no trust accounts and makes no decisions and performs no actions. Sound familiar. I have him on tape and his deposition has already been taken and publicized on the internet by others. Reyes says the whole arrangement is "counter-intuitive" (a very creative way of saying it is a lie). It is up to the servicer (OneWest) to decide what loans are subject to modification, mediation or even reinstatement. It is up to the servicer as to when to foreclose. And the servicer here is OneWest while the Master Servicer appears to be the investment banking arm of Deutsch, although I do not have that confirmed.

The way Reyes speaks about it the whole thing ALMOST makes sense. That is, until you start thinking about it. If Deutsch Bank has an extensive trust subsidiary, which it does, then why is a VP of asset management in control of the trust operations of the REMIC asset pools. Answer: because there are no funded trusts and there are no asset pools with assets. Hence any statement by OneWest that it is the owner of the loan is untrue as is the allegation that Deutsch is the trustee because all trustee duties have been delegated to the servicer. That leaves the investor with an empty box for an asset pool and no trustee or manager or even an agent to to actually know what is going on or who is monitoring their money and investments.

Note that like BOfA using Red Oak Merger Corp., there is the creation of a fictional entity that was not used by the name of, no kidding, "Holdco." This is to shield OneWest from certain liabilities as a lender. Legally it doesn't work that way but practically it generally does work that way because judges listen to bank lawyers to tell them what all this means. That is like asking a 1st degree murder defendant to explain to the jury the meaning of reasonable doubt.

Now be careful here because there is a "loan sale" agreement referenced in the package posted by the FDIC. But it refers to an exhibit F. There is no exhibit F and like the ambiguous agreements with the FDIC in Countrywide and Washington mutual, there are words there, but they don't really say anything. Suffice it to say that despite some fabricated documents to the contrary, there is no evidence I have seen that any loan  receivable was transferred to or from a REMIC asset pool, Indy-mac, or Hold-co.

These people were not stupid and they are not idiots. And their lawyers are pretty smart too. They know that with the presumption of a funded loan in existence, the banks could pretty much get away with saying anything they wanted about the ownership, the identity of the creditor and the ability to make a credit bid at the auction of a property that should never have been foreclosed in the first instance --- and certainly not by these people.

But if you dig just a little deeper you will see that the banks are represented to the regulatory authorities that they own the bonds (not true because the bonds were created and issued to specific investors who bought them); thus they include the bonds as significant items on their balance sheet which allows them to be called mega banks or too big to fail when in fact they have a tiny fraction of the reserve requirements of the Federal Reserve which follows the Basel accords.

Then when you turn your head and peak into courtrooms you find the same banks claiming ownership of the loan receivable, which was created when the funding occurred at the "closing" of the loan. They know they are taking inconsistent positions but most judges lack the sophistication to pinpoint the inconsistency. And that is how 5 million people lost their homes.

On the one hand the banks are claiming there was no fraud in the issuance of mortgage backed bonds by a REMIC asset pool formed as a trust. In fact, they say the loans were transferred into the REMIC asset pool. Which means that ownership of the mortgage bonds is ownership of the loans --- at least that is what the paperwork shows that was used to sell pension funds on buying these worthless bogus bonds. Then they turn around and come to court as the "holder" and get a foreclosure sale in which the bank submits the credit bid and buys the property without spending one dime. What they have done is, in lay terms, offered the debt to pay for the property. But the debt, according to the same people is owned by the investors or the REMIC trust, not the banks.

Then they turn to the insurers and counterparties on credit default swaps, and the Federal reserve that is buying these bonds and they say that the banks own the bonds, have an insurable interest, and should receive the proceeds of payments instead of the investors who actually put up the money. And then they say in court that the account receivable is unpaid, there is a default, and therefore the home should be foreclosed. What they have done is create a chaotic complex of lies and turn it into an illusion that changes colors and density depending upon whom the banks are talking with.

There is no default on the account receivable if the account was paid, regardless of who paid it --- as long as it was really paid to either the owner of the loan receivable or the authorized agent of the owner (i.e., the investor/lender). And so it is paid. And if paid, there can be no action on the note because the loan receivable has been satisfied. There can be no action on the mortgage because it was never a perfected lien and because the loan receivable was extinguished by PAYMENT. You can't use the mortgage to enforce the note which is evidence for enforcement of a debt when the debt no longer exists.

Judges are confused. The borrower must owe money to someone so why not simply enter judgment and let the creditors sort it out amongst themselves. The answer is because that is not the rule of law and if a creditor has a claim against the borrower it should be brought by that creditor not some stranger to the transaction whose actions are stripping the real creditor of lien rights and collection rights over the debt. What the courts are doing, by analogy, is saying that you must have killed someone when you fired that gun so we will dispense with evidence and a jury and proceed to sentencing. We will let the people in the crowd decide who is the victim who can bring a wrongful death action against you even if we don't even know when the gun was fired and who pulled the trigger. In the meanwhile you are sentenced to death or life in prison under our rocket docket for murders of unknown persons.

The never ending lie

Perils of Pooling

by Neil Garfield

We hold these truths to be self evident: that Chase never acquired any loans from Washington Mutual and that Bank of America never required any loans from Countrywide.  A review of the merger documents approved by the FDIC reveals that neither Chase nor Bank of America wanted to assume any liabilities in connection with the lending operations of Washington Mutual or Countrywide, or Long Beach Mortgage ,respectively. The loans were expressly left out of the agreement which is available for everyone to see on the FDIC website in the reading room.

With the exception of a few instances in which the court pointed out that Chase only acquired servicing rights and that Bank of America may not have acquired any rights, judges have been rubber-stamping foreclosures initiated by Bank of America (or entities controlled by Bank of America like Recontrust) under the assumption that Bank of America must be the owner of the Countrywide mortgages. The same is true  for judges who have been rubber-stamping foreclosures initiated by Chase under the assumption that Chase must be the owner of the Washington Mutual mortgages,and  Long Beach Mortgage. After all, if they don't own the mortgages then who does? The answer is that in nearly all cases either BofA nor Countrywide and neither Chase nor WAMU, nor Long Beach Mortgage, owned the loans and their financial statements prove it.

Not only have the judges been rubber-stamping the foreclosures and participating in a scheme that is correcting our title records nationwide, the entry of judgment against the borrower and for Bank of America or for Chase completes the theft of the investors money that was used for exorbitant fees, profits and bonuses and then finally for the funding of the origination or acquisition of loans. The fact that the REMIC trust was ignored in both form and content has also been the subject of the defective rulings from the bench.  Not only have the courts ruled against the borrowers and for the banks, they have even ruled against the presentation of evidence that would have shown that the investors were being stripped of their expected lien rights and then stripped again on their expected return of principal and interest, and then barred by collateral estoppel from ever bringing it up.

Since most of the foreclosures have emanated from Bank of America and Chase it is a fair assumption that most of the foreclosure sales were void because no valid bid was received in exchange for the deed. The property is still owned by the original homeowner In any case where a credit bid was submitted by Bank of America or Chase on any loan in which either Countrywide Mortgage or Washington Mutual,or Long Beach Mortgage was involved. I might add that the Federal Reserve in New York is completely aware of these facts and is steadfastly refusing to reveal the truth to the public or even to the homeowners whose homes were illegally and wrongfully foreclosed by Bank of America and Chase for a loan where both Bank of America and Chase and their chain of affiliates had been paid multiple times on a loan receivable account owned by the source of the funds, to wit: the investors who thought they were buying mortgage bonds from a funded legally organized REMIC trust.

CAVEAT:  The courts are mainly concerned with finality. In many states there may be a statute of limitations to challenge a void deed from an auction sale. Check with an attorney who is licensed in the jurisdiction in which your property is located before you take any action or make any decision.

It seems crazy to think that someone could apply for a loan and get the benefits of funding without ever being required to pay it back to the lender.  But that is exactly what is happening as a result of defective court decisions.  The lender consists of a group of investors including pension funds that are now underfunded as a result of the civil and possibly criminal theft of funds by Bank of America and Chase or the investment firms acquired by them.

Homeowners are being forced to pay Bank of America and Chase rather than the investors who actually advanced the funds. Bank of America and Chase actively interfere and Stonewall whenever a borrower or an investor seeks to peek under the hood to see what is in the box. There is nothing in the box. The deal was always between the investors and homeowners. The bank's lied. They pretended that they were the lenders when in fact there were only the intermediaries. The result was that all the payments received from borrowers, government, the federal reserve, insurers, guarantors, co-obligors, and counterparties on credit  default swaps went to the accounts of Bank of America and Chase rather than to the investors.

 By holding back the money, Bank of America and Chase, just like other banks created the illusion of a default and since they had created the illusion of ownership of the default they took the money instead of handing it over to the investors. You read the lawsuits that have been filed by  investors against the investment banks that sold them worthless mortgage bonds issued by an empty asset pool you will see that they allege affirmatively that the notes and mortgages are unenforceable.

That makes it unanimous! Both the lender and the borrower agree that the documentation is defective and unenforceable. Both the lender and the borrower agree that the lender should get paid.  And both the lender and the borrower agree that the lender is entitled to be paid only once for the money advanced by the lender.  And both the lender and the borrower agree that the banks are holding trillions of dollars in money that should have been used to pay off the account receivable owned by the investors.

With the lender paid off or where the account receivable has been reduced by payments to the banks who were acting as agents of the investors but breaching their duties to the investors, the amount payable by the homeowner as a borrower would be correspondingly reduced or eliminated. In fact, under the requirements of the federal truth in lending act, the overpayment is due to the borrower for failure to disclose the true facts of the transaction. In fact, under federal law, treble damages, legal interest, attorneys fees and costs probably also apply.

Ocwen Financial Corporation, Inc.

Events

• $1.84B Bailout

  Apr. 16, 2009 Incentive Payments for Home Loan Modification

  Investment cap reflects adjustment made on Aug. 16, 2012.
  

  Part of Making Home Affordable

  More info from www.treasury.gov
  $347M has actually been disbursed.
  Dec. 31, 2012: $347M

  Subsidy as of December 2012: Borrower: $62,912,378; Investor: $166,083,615; Servicer: $118,131,642
  
  How special you and others like PennyMac the Good ole Boys of Country wide  , take out tax dollars and abuse us again and to top it off , you don't pay a dime back! Are you dumb ass investors paying attention yet??????????????
  

Remember Penny Mac is also know as Country Wide

Remember Penny Mac is also know as Countrywide, the same creeps and thieves, who took homes and bet against them and defrauded the country is at it still, except now their a private hedge fund, which makes them even more dangerous. Why would the SEC and the FDIC, and the US Government allow these thieves to keep going? Anybody got answers? If you ask the government, all you will get is a run around.. same with the SEC.

HUSTLE: A PLAN TO DESTROY HOMEOWNERS AND DEFRAUD INVESTORS: The U.S. Government in its complaint filed against Bank of America details the specific ways in which Countrywide was operating when loans were originated.

"Countrywide rolled out a new streamlined loan origination model is called the "hustle."

In order to increase the speed at which it originated and sold loans to the GSES,  countrywide eliminated every significant checkpoint on loan quality and compensated its employees solely based on the volume of loans originated, leading to rampant instances of fraud and other serious lung defects all while countrywide was informing the GSES that it had tightened its underwriting guidelines."

Countrywide eliminated underwriter review even from many high risk loans. In lieu of underwriter review, countrywide assigned critical underwriting tasks to loan processors who were previously considered unqualified even to answer borrower questions. At the same time, countrywide or eliminated previously mandatory checklists that provided instructions on how to perform these underwriting tasks. Under the Hustle, such instructions on proper underwriting were considered nothing more than unnecessary forms that would slow the swim lane down.

Countrywide also eliminated the position of compliance specialist, an individual previously responsible for conducting a final, independent check on alone to ensure that all conditions on the loans approval were satisfied prior to funding.

The Hustle began in full force in approximately August 2007.

Countrywide also concealed the quality control reports on Hustle loans demonstrating that instances of fraud and other material defects (i.e. defects making the loans in eligible for investors sell) were legion. Countrywide's own quality control reports identified material defect rate of nearly 40% in certain months, rates that were nearly 10 times the industry-standard defect rate of approximately 4%.

  The complaint above is from the United States Atty. for the Southern District of New York gives us a clear picture of the processing of loans without any underwriting standards at Countrywide and other aggregators across the country. The complaint is not authority, but it is a guide for what you can allege and what you can ask about in discovery.

It is time to ask the nuclear question, to wit: in light of the revelations that are already in the public domain with dozens of whistleblowers, is it not reasonable to assume that the aggregators not only knew about fabricated, forged and inaccurate loan applications, but actually intended that result. I ask that question because of the number of attempted prosecutions of people for mortgage fraud, when mortgage fraud was exactly what Countrywide wanted.  They clearly wanted the highest possible volume of loans approved under circumstances where it can only be assumed that they wanted those loans to fail, in order to be paid by insurers, counterparties on credit default swaps, the federal government in bailouts and now the Federal Reserve which appears to be  buying $85 billion in worthless mortgage bonds from the financial industry every month.

  Thus Wall Street collected money from the investors (and took a share of that and put it in their pocket), collected money from borrowers (and took a share of that and put it in their pocket), collected money from insurers which went only into their pockets, collected money from the proceeds of credit default swaps which went only into their pockets,  collected money from the government in the bank bailouts, collected money from the government sponsored entities who guarantee the loans, and are collecting money from the Federal Reserve who are buying worthless mortgage bonds which have little or no interest in any secured loan, residential or otherwise. On top of all of that Wall Street has taken the homes of more than 5 million families and is expected to take the homes of another 5 million families ---  supposedly to cover the "loss"  on mortgage bonds they never owned and mortgage loans they never owned.

And then you have the real question, to wit: why would banks create a scheme that originated loans, most of which were destined to fail in one fashion or another? And the answer is unavoidable and incontestable: they did it because that was the way they could make the most money.

And then the second real question, to wit: why would banks want foreclosures but not want the property?  And the related question is why would they want a foreclosure under circumstances where a modification would produce far greater proceeds to mitigate the loss on a loan that a foreclosure? And the related question to that is why would the largest bank in the world adopt a policy of fraud in order to guide people into foreclosure deceiving them into thinking that they were getting a modification? And the final question related to all of that is why with the modification not become permanent after the borrower has done everything correctly during the trial period?  The answer is extremely simple: the foreclosure process is the largest cover-up in history for the largest economic crime in history; it provides cover for all of the defects, multiple payments that were already received and never disclosed, and the diversion of money and property from investors and homeowners.

 So why are these investors trusting them again is my question.. they don't like money??

BOA, Deutsche Bank, Countrywide

FOR the last two weeks, a justice in New York State Supreme Court has heard testimony in one of the most pivotal cases of the financial crisis. The hearings will tell whether Bank of America can extinguish legal liability for more than a million Countrywide Financial loans by paying $8.5 billion in cash and agreeing to loan servicing improvements in a settlement struck with 22 investors in 2011.

But the case, being heard by Justice Barbara R. Kapnick, extends far beyond the impact of the settlement on Bank of America’s balance sheet. It is also laying bare an industry practice that has put investors in mortgage securities at a disadvantage and reduced their financial recoveries in the aftermath of the home loan mania.

The practice at issue involves trustee banks overseeing the vast and complex mortgage pools bought by pension funds, mutual funds and others. Trustees like Bank of New York Mellon were paid by investors to make sure that the servicers administering these mortgage deals, known as trusts, treated them properly. Trustees receive nominal fees — less than a penny on each dollar of assets — for the work.

But when mortgages soured, trustees declined to pursue available remedies for investors, such as pushing a servicer to buy back loans that did not meet quality standards promised when the securities were sold.

In other words, this case highlights a problem with trustees: they are a dog that could have barked but didn’t.

Before mortgage securities were undone by troubled loans, trustee inaction was not an issue. Trustees collected their fees at minimal effort and investors were satisfied.

But because trustees are hired by the big banks that package and sell the securities, their allegiances are divided. Sure, investors are paying the fees, but if a trustee wants to be hired by sellers of securities in the future, being combative on problematic loan pools may be unwise.

Trustee practices are under the microscope in Justice Kapnick’s courtroom because Bank of New York Mellon is the trustee overseeing all 530 Countrywide mortgage deals covered by the proposed $8.5 billion settlement. The trustee is supporting the deal between Bank of America and the 22 investors that include BlackRock, Pimco and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Losses by all investors in the securities are projected at $100 billion.

While lawyers for BlackRock and Pimco were negotiating this deal, other investors in the securities were not at the bargaining table. Nevertheless, they must abide by the settlement’s terms.

Some outside investors, including the American International Group, have objected, saying $8.5 billion is inadequate given the mountain of problem loans it covers. Lawyers for A.I.G. contend that Bank of New York put its interests ahead of other investors outside the settlement process. Had the trustee been more aggressive with Bank of America, the servicer administering the troubled securities, investors would have received more money in a settlement, A.I.G.’s lawyers say.

Bank of New York Mellon argues that the settlement is reasonable and that it has always acted in the best interests of all investors. 

But over the last two weeks, arguments and testimony have shed light on behind-the-scenes dealings during the settlement negotiations with Bank of America. Some of these details raise questions about the trustee’s assertiveness on behalf of all investors.

A crucial issue: the trustee didn’t request individual loan files from Bank of America to help determine how many mortgages had problems and, therefore, whether $8.5 billion was a reasonable recovery. A trustee has the right to request those files for investors who cannot get them on their own.

When loan files have been examined, recoveries have been far greater. Last year, for example, Deutsche Bank agreed to reimburse Assured Guaranty, a bond insurer, for 80 percent of losses on eight residential mortgage securities it had insured.

Asked about the basis for the $8.5 billion settlement, Kent Smith, a Pimco executive with experience in loan servicing, testified on June 7 that it came in part from an estimated percentage of problematic loans that was provided to the investors by Bank of America. But on cross-examination, he said the estimate was far lower than it would have been if Bank of New York Mellon had examined specific loan files.

The estimate, 36 percent, meant that just over one-third of the loans had violated underwriting representations and warranties made to investors. But a review of the loan files would have pushed the figure as high as 65 percent, he testified.

Additional testimony raised questions about fairness during the settlement talks. The 22 investors who struck the deal held at least 25 percent — a required threshold for taking action — in only 215 trusts, less than half the 530 covered by the settlement. No other investors had an advocate at the bargaining table. Asked who was representing investors outside the negotiating group, an in-house lawyer for Bank of New York Mellon said he did not know.

Then there’s an e-mail from Jason H. P. Kravitt, Bank of New York Mellon’s outside counsel, recounting how he told Bank of America that on one important point its and the trustee’s “self-interest” were aligned — neither wanted the Countrywide securities to go into default. If they did default, the trustee would have been forced to increase its oversight of Bank of America, adding to its costs. If the trustee did not sue the bank, investors could. 

Referring to a default, Mr. Kravitt said he told a Bank of America lawyer, “We don’t want it either, Chris.”

Asked about these matters, Kevin Heine, a Bank of New York Mellon spokesman, said, “We believe an $8.5 billion bird-in-the-hand settlement with significant servicing improvements is a far better result for all investors than the likely outcome following years of costly litigation.”

Trustees argue that they do not make enough money overseeing these loan pools to act on investors’ behalf. But this could be resolved if the Securities and Exchange Commission allowed or encouraged trustees to use trust assets to pay for loan reviews or litigation.

Justice Kapnick’s decision is not expected for months, and will affect only this settlement. But the revelations in her courtroom send a message to investors who might have expected trustees to protect their interests with more vigor. 

A note from livinglies

 by Neil Garfield

Editor's Comment: Finally the questions are spreading over the entire map of the false securitization of loans and the diversion of money, securities and and property from investors and homeowners. Read the article below, and see if you smell the stink rising from the financial sector. It is time for the government to come clean and tell us that they were defrauded by TARP, the bank bailouts, and the privileges extended to the major banks. They didn't save the financial sector they crowned it king over all the world.

Nowhere is that more evident than when you drill down on the so-called "trustees" of the so-called "trusts" that were "backed" by mortgage loans that didn't exist or that were already owned by someone else. The failure of trustees to exercise any power or control over securitization or to even ask a question about the mortgage bonds and the underlying loans was no accident. When the whistle blowers come out on this one it will clarify the situation. Deutsch, US Bank, Bank of New York accepted fees for the sole purpose of being named as trustees with the understanding that they would do nothing. They were happy to receive the fees and they knew their names were being used to create the illusion of authenticity when the bonds were "Sold" to investors.

One of the next big revelations is going to be how the money from investors was quickly spirited away from the trustee and directly into the pockets of the investment bankers who sold them. The Trustee didn't need a trust account because no money was paid to any "trust" on which it was named the trustee. Not having any money they obviously were not called upon to sign a check or issue a wire transfer from any account because there was no account. This was key to the PONZI scheme.

If the Trustees received money for the "trust" then they would be required under all kinds of laws and regulations to act like a trustee. With no assets in a named trustee they could hardly be required to do anything since it was an unfunded trust and everyone knows that an unfunded trust is no trust at all even if it exists on paper.

Of course if they had received the money as trustee, they would have wanted more money to act like a trustee. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. If they had received the money then they would have spent it on acquiring mortgages. And if they were acquiring mortgages as trustee they would have peeked under the hood to see if there was any loan there. to the extent that the loans were non-confirming loans for stable funds (heavily regulated pension funds) they would rejected many of the loans.

The real interesting pattern here is what would have happened if they did purchase the loans. Well then --- and follow this because your house depends upon it --- if they HAD purchased the loans for the "trust" there would have no need for MERS, no trading in the mortgages, and no trading on the mortgage bonds except that the insurance would have been paid to the investors like they thought it would.

If they HAD purchased the loans, then they would have a recorded interest, under the direction as trustees, for the REMIC trusts. And they would have had all original documents or proof that the original documents had been deposited somewhere that could be audited,  because they would not have purchased it without that. Show me the note never would have gotten off the ground or even occurred to anyone. But most importantly, they would clearly have mitigated damages by receipt of insurance and credit default swaps, payable to the trust and to the investment banker, which is what happened.

No, Reynaldo Reyes, it is not "Counter-intuitive." It was a lie from start to finish to cover up a PONZI scheme that failed like all PONZI schemes fail as soon as the "investors" stop buying the crap you are peddling. THAT is what happened in the financial crisis which would have been no crisis. Most of the loans would never have been approved for purchase by the trusts. Most of the defaults would have been real, most of the debts would have been real, and most importantly the note would be properly owned by the trust giving it an insurable interest and therefore the proceeds of insurance and credit default swaps would have been paid to investors leaving the number of defaults and foreclosures nearly zero.

And as we have seen in recent days, there would not have been a Bank of America driving as many foreclosures through the system as possible because the trustee would have entered into modification and mitigation agreements with borrowers. Oh wait, that might not have been necessary because the amount of money flooding the world would have been far less and the shadow banking system would be a tiny fraction of the size it is now --- last count it looks like something approaching or exceeding one quadrillion dollars --- or about 20 times all the real money in the world.

At some point the dam will break and the trustees will turn on the investment banks and those who are using the trustee's name in vain. The foreclosures will stop and the government will need to fess up tot he fact that it entered into tacit understandings with scoundrels. When you sleep with dogs you get fleas --- unless the dog is actually clean.