FedUpUSA

Archive for October 14th, 2010

So yesterday, early in the day, the associated press announced  LINK – JPMorgan exits electronic mortgage tracking system…

NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase’s CEO says the bank has stopped using the electronic mortgage tracking system used by major financial institutions.

JPMorgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, made the announcement in a conference call Wednesday to discuss the bank’s quarterly earnings.

Shortly thereafter some of the stories started to change throughout the internet…

Then CNBC Diana Olick reports  LINK – JP Morgan Chase Drops Electronic Mortgage Clearing House…

It was news to me, and to the AP wires, but a spokesman confirms, JP Morgan Chase no longer uses MERS, the electronic mortgage clearing house, that is at issue now in foreclosure litigation across the country. They dropped MERS in 2008.

So I asked Kelly why they dropped MERS. First he said, “In truth some courts won’t accept MERS for foreclosures.” But then he said it was “a matter of policy.” I’m sure they don’t want to come right out and say, well, we’re not exactly sure MERS is all that legal.

So, now my question to you Mr Kelly…

If JPMorgan Chase dropped MERS in 2008, how the heck is your internal Robo-signer Barbara Hindman signing off on hundreds of thousands of documents on behalf of MERS transferring the mortgages to JPMorgan Chase?

LINK – Pigs Ass: Chase Dumped MERS Two Years Ago. (Send out an APB! Rogue JPMCB Robosigner, Barbara Hindman, on the loose!)

From Urban Dictionary: The term “pigs ass” is used in many situations. It is most commonly used when someone claims something is not true.

First you have got to get a load of this propaganda spin! “Chase doesn’t register retail-originated loans with MERS. Many of the correspondent loans we purchase are already registered on MERS as are some of the loans that we service for investors,” says spokesman Tom Kelly. CEO Jamie Dimon kind of mentioned it off-hand on the earnings call this morning without really elaborating. (here)

Oh, so Chase just dabbles in MERS?

Remember people, presumption of falsity. Everything that spews from these American predators, presumption of falsity!

Here are some assignments of mortgage in the name of MERS. What of these, Mr. Dimon? Featuring Barbara Hindman, robosigner for JP Morgan Chase, there are hundreds of thousands of these nasty things, signed by her & her coworkers, filed in land records across America! See how she signs, under the veil of MERS, for many financial institutions? See how she is masquerading as an agent of the grantor when she is really employed by the grantee? See how she’s just robosigning papers which effectuates the transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars from any-entity-at-all to JP Morgan Chase?

1. assignment1.pdf
2. assignment2.pdf
3. assignment3.pdf
4. assignment4.pdf
5. assignment5.pdf

If five examples aren’t enough, head over to LINK – ForeclosureHamlet.org to check out twenty more…

Remember, this is an employee of JPMorgan Chase robosigning papers while masquerading as an agent of the grantor (Multiple defunct financial institutions) when she is really employed by the grantee. (JPMorgan Chase)

For more on Barbara and others just like her, see my Guide to Looking Up Public Records for Fraud below.

The Guide was written over a year ago but the information is still relevant.

4closureFraud

The foreclosure fraud crisis seems to escalate with each passing now.  It is being reported that all 50 U.S. states have launched a joint investigation into alleged fraud in the mortgage industry.  This is a huge story that is not going to go away any time soon.  The truth is that it would be hard to understate the amount of fraud that has gone on in the U.S. mortgage industry, and we are watching events unfold that could potentially rip the U.S. economy to shreds.  Many are now referring to this crisis as “Foreclosure-Gate“, and already it is shaping up to be the worst thing that has ever happened to the U.S. mortgage industry.  At this point, it seems inevitable that some financial institutions will go under as a result of this mess.  In fact, by the end of this thing we might see a whole bunch of lending institutions crash and burn.  This crisis is very hard to describe because it is just so darn complicated, but it is worth it to try to dig into this thing and understand what is going on because it has the potential to absolutely decimate the entire U.S. mortgage industry.

The truth is that there was fraud going on in every segment of the mortgage industry over the past decade.  Predatory lending institutions were aggressively signing consumers up for mortgages that they knew they could never repay.  Many consumers were also committing fraud because a lot of them also knew that they could never possibly repay the mortgages.  These bad mortgages were fraudulently bundled up and securitized, and these securitized financial instruments were fraudulently marketed as solid investments.  Those who certified that these junk securities were “AAA rated” also committed fraud.  Then these securities were traded at lightning speed all over the globe and a ton of mortgage paperwork became “lost” or “missing”. 

Then, when it came time to foreclose on these bad mortgages, a whole bunch more fraud started being committed.  The reality is that the “robo-signing” scandal is just the time of the iceberg.  The following are six things that you should know about how deep this foreclosure fraud crisis really goes….   

#1 According to the Associated Press, financial institutions were hiring just about whoever they could find, including hair stylists and Wal-Mart employees, as “foreclosure experts” to help them rush through the massive backlog of foreclosures that were rapidly piling up.

Apparently many of these “foreclosure experts” barely even knew what a “mortgage” was according to the AP….

In depositions released Tuesday, many of those workers testified that they barely knew what a mortgage was. Some couldn’t define the word “affidavit.” Others didn’t know what a complaint was, or even what was meant by personal property. Most troubling, several said they knew they were lying when they signed the foreclosure affidavits and that they agreed with the defense lawyers’ accusations about document fraud.

#2 There is soon going to be a colossal legal scramble to figure out who actually owns millions of U.S. mortgages.

In his recent article entitled “Invasion Of The Robot Home Snatchers“, Robert Scheer described the complete and total mess that the U.S. mortgage industry has created….

How do you foreclose on a home when you can’t figure out who owns it because the original mortgage is part of a derivatives package that has been sliced and diced so many ways that its legal ownership is often unrecognizable? You cannot get much help from those who signed off on the process because they turn out to be robot signers acting on automatic pilot. Fully 65 million homes in question are tied to a computerized program, the national Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), that is often identified in foreclosure proceedings as the owner of record.

Meanwhile, more organizations are stepping forward to help homeowners fight foreclosures.  National People’s Action, PICO National Network, Industrial Areas Foundation, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations have all partnered with the SEIU to launch the “Where’s The Note” campaign which is going to encourage homeowners to demand to see the note before submitting to a foreclosure.  Campaigns such as this are going to make foreclosures much more costly for banks.

#3 Legal battles over foreclosure documents could soon spawn thousands upon thousands of lawsuits across the United States.

Adam Levitin, a Georgetown University Law professor who specializes in mortgage finance and financial regulatory issues was recently quoted in an article on CNBC as saying the following about the situation we are currently in….

The mortgage is still owed, but there’s going to be a problem figuring out who actually holds the mortgage, and they would be the ones bringing the foreclosure. You have a trust that has been getting payments from borrowers for years that it has no right to receive. So you might see borrowers suing the trusts saying give me my money back, you’re stealing my money. You’re going to then have trusts that don’t have any assets that have been issuing securities that say they’re backed by a whole bunch of assets, and you’re going to have investors suing the trustees for failing to inspect the collateral files, which the trustees say they’re going to do, and you’re going to have trustees suing the securitization sponsors for violating their representations and warrantees about what they were transferring.

#4 The problems with foreclosure paperwork may be more widespread than anyone would have dared to imagine.

Attorney Richard Kessler recently conducted a study in which he found “serious errors” in approximately 75 percent of the court filings related to home repossessions that he examined.  Now he says that the foreclosure crisis could haunt the U.S. mortgage industry for the next ten years….

“Defective documentation has created millions of blighted titles that will plague the nation for the next decade.”

#5 If some banks discover that they are missing the paperwork for large numbers of mortgages (as is currently being alleged), those banks could be forced to significantly revalue those assets (as in “close to zero”) on their balance sheets. 

John Carney of CNBC recently described it this way….

The most damaging thing that could happen to banks would be the discovery that they simply cannot prove they hold a mortgage on a house. In that case, the loan would probably have to be written down to near zero. Even for current loans, the regulatory reserve requirements would double as the loan would no longer be a functional mortgage but an ordinary consumer loan. Depending on the size of the “no docs” portion of the loan portfolio, this might be a minor blip or require a bank to raise new capital to fill the hole in the balance sheet.

#6 Renowned investor Jim Sinclair is actually warning that the collapse of securitized mortgage debt could be the “final shot” that will wipe out many financial institutions across the United States. 

The recent warning that Sinclair posted on his blog is more than a little sobering…. 

I am asking for your attention again because of the depth of the fraud and now the size of the securitized mortgage debt OTC derivative pile of garbage that is in the trillions. This entire mountain of weapons of mass financial and social destruction is now in question. I have been telling you this for more than 2 years since the manufacturers and distributors of this crap were called by the NY Fed due to the loss of control over the paperwork.

I had dinner with my former partner, then lead director of and CEO of Bear Stearns. I could not contain myself so I asked him why he did so much business in OTC derivatives which were certain to bankrupt them. The answer I got was it was more than 50% of their profit. The right answer should have been it was more than 80% of their earnings.

Securitized mortgage debt is going to be the final shot that kills all kinds of financial entities in the Western world. The biggest holder of this putrid junk is pension funds.

Meanwhile, the stock market continues to go up, up, up as if everything is right in the world and as if a juicy new bull market is now upon us.

Well, let’s all join hands and sing happy songs around the campfire.

Perhaps if we all close our eyes and wish real hard all of this foreclosure fraud will just go away.

Then again, maybe not.

The Economic Collapse

Meet David J. Stern. He’s the high-living Florida lawyer who just might be the poster boy for the foreclosure mess that has currently embroiled Washington and Wall Street. Legal documents examined by The Upshot offer details on how Stern’s firm, and other “foreclosure mills” like it, may have helped to unfairly force thousands of struggling Americans from their homes.

As we reported yesterday, dozens of state attorneys general are looking into allegations that major banks have been playing fast and loose with foreclosure rules in trying to speed troubled borrowers into foreclosure. Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, GMAC Mortgage and others have announced a nationwide freeze on further foreclosures, and some federal lawmakers are calling for an across-the-board moratorium. 

But while the banks are ultimately responsible, the root of the problem appears to lie with “foreclosure mill” law firms like Stern’s. These operations process foreclosure cases on behalf of lenders, and their business model is based on moving the paperwork through as quickly as possible. That’s why such firms have pioneered practices like “robo-signing” — whereby their employees process thousands of court documents in pending foreclosures without ever actually reviewing them, as the law requires. Of course, it’s in the banks’ interest for their contractors to move quickly, because the faster a foreclosure moves, the less time a struggling borrower has to fight it. 

And Stern — no relation to the NBA commissioner of the same name — seems to have taken the foreclosure-mill concept to a whole new level. In 2009, his eponymous firm handled more than 70,000 foreclosure proceedings, on behalf of major lenders like Bank of America, JP Morgan, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, according to an investigative report from August by Mother Jones. 

So how did Stern’s outfit set that torrid pace? A deposition given last month by a former employee of Stern’s firm as part of a probe by Florida attorney general Bill McCollum, and examined by Yahoo! News, offers some hints. 

Among other issues, Tammie Mae Kapusta described alarming problems with the company’s process-serving procedure — the formal notification to homeowners, required by law, that a lender is opening foreclosure proceedings. “People were not served,” Kapusta told McCollum’s office. “Some of them would go to do modifications on loans, or go to take out other things, and it would come up that they were in foreclosure. And they would end up finding out that way that there was no actual service on them. … Service was a complete mess.” 

But the serving process wasn’t the only problem. Kapusta also testified that once a lender referred a case to Stern’s firm, any later payments by the homeowner were simply ignored: 

Q: What if a homeowner made payment? 

A: That was never there. 

Q: If that happened, it was never reflected. 

A: No. 

Kapusta added that she was “yelled at” for trying to talk to homeowners on the phone. “You’re giving them too much time,” she said she was told. “Everything was about getting the judgment entered because we have to report back to the banks.” 

A representative from Stern’s law office did not respond to a request for comment from Yahoo! News. A lawyer for Stern’s firm has previously denied Kapusta’s allegations. 

The techniques described by Kapusta may have been illegal, but they also seem to have been good for Stern’s bottom line. Mother Jones outlined his lavish lifestyle: 

His $15 million, 16,000-square-foot mansion occupies a corner lot in a private island community on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. It is featured on a water-taxi tour of the area’s grandest estates, along with the abodes of Jay Leno and billionaire Blockbuster founder Wayne Huizenga, as well as the former residence of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. (Last year, Stern snapped up his next-door neighbor’s property for $8 million and tore down the house to make way for a tennis court.) Docked outside is Misunderstood, Stern’s 130-foot, jet-propelled Mangusta yacht — a $20 million-plus replacement for his previous 108-foot Mangusta. He also owns four Ferraris, four Porsches, two Mercedes-Benzes, and a Bugatti — a high-end Italian brand with models costing north of $1 million a pop. 

Of course, Stern’s firm is hardly the only foreclosure mill that seems to have cut corners — and perhaps broken the law — in speeding tens of thousands of foreclosure cases through the system. As the New York Times reports today, an employee for one firm, an arm of Goldman Sachs, admitted in testimony last year: “I don’t know the ins and outs of the loan … I’m not a loan officer.” And JP Morgan Chase & Company used walk-in hires — derided by longer-term employees as “Burger King kids” — who barely seemed to know what a mortgage was. 

(Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke/AP) YahooBlogs