FedUpUSA

Archive for the ‘Mortgage Fraud’ Category

You done lefyer fingerprints all over, YOU ARE SO DUMB, You are really DUMB. For Real.   There is a MASTERPIECE of journalism that spells out the particular things that have recently occurred that clearly point to what is about to happen.

You must read this article, because it brings all of the recent  chaos together in once place so you can attempt to get your arms around the catastrophe that approaches on the horizon.

Read it HERE.

I get so tired of the FOX network commentators with their eye-rolling comments about this all blowing over pretty soon, and if only those deadbeats hadn’t bought houses they couldn’t afford…

For all those who are living in a vacuum:

The crisis was caused by herculean fraud perpetrated by wall street executives and their hedge fund co-horts and the big banks.  They cooked up a scheme to leach money from the largest consumer/government supported cash-cow they could think of, which turned out to BE the mortgage market.  There is NO ARGUMENT that a FEW people made poor decisions, even willfully lied to get a bigger loan so that they could have a really nice house, in an act of huge PERSONAL GREED FOR MORE FOR THEMSELVES.  Shame on them, and they should lose their house.

But these decisions, NOT ONE OF THEM, were made with the consideration that, “GEE, this MIGHT destroy my country and even national economy and bring financial armageddon!” Many Wall Street Firms CANNOT SAY THE SAME THING.  Remember this about Wall Street Criminals:

IN FULL AWARENESS OF THE POTENTIAL CATASTROPHIC NATIONAL CONSEQUENCES THEIR ACTIONS WOULD LIKELY CAUSE:

• THEY CAUSED people to take out mortgages they couldn’t afford. They plotted elaborate marketing campaigns to capture people’s trust and to inspire false expectations about what they were able to have for themselves.
• THEY CONVINCED people to take chances they couldn’t take and falsely allayed their fears of financial consequences of these chances by making FALSE CLAIMS about what they were (and WERE NOT) signing themselves up for.
• They reassured people that this was the financially SMART thing to do: “Pay of your credit card debt with a tax-deductible mortgage!!”
• They lobbied congress to pass laws and loopholes to allow them to conduct illegal business without fear of regulators shutting them down.
• They exploited the public trust in our financial regulators in that the loan broker must be telling me the truth, because he would get into BIG TROUBLE if he didn’t! {it sickens me to write this after what happened to me with Paramount Equity Mortgage}

They built a financial HINDENBERG in a great, secret hangar on Wall Street, sucked greedily on the toxic helium teat and dreamed up even bigger profit schemes… and the balloon grew and it grew and it grew… Unconscienable wealth was had by individuals who couldn’t believe their genius at scamming BOTH the US Government AND the American Public.  One of these Executives even said that the only thing they needed to fear was: PUBLIC AWARENESS.

It is now, finally, inevitably, about to explode.

They are starting to cannibalize each other now. They are turning, wild-eyed to the “Judicial System” to protect them after they have thoroughly corrupted it.  They are scattering like roaches beneath the glaring gaze of an ever-more-informed American Consumer who, like a recovering drug addict has realized that they were sold something that was known to be addictive and would destroy them, but would enrich the person selling to them.

They are angry. They want blood, and BLOOD THEY SHALL HAVE.

Wall Street yells: “It will cause an economical meltdown! There will be hardship!”

***HARDSHIP???!***

Have you been paying attention?

We have been enduring hardship and loss for TWO YEARS NOW! We have nothing left to LOSE!

We stand together with our torches and our pitchforks and we are coming for you.  Our voice has to be awfully loud to drown out the BIG GUYS on Wall Street… but eventually, we will drown them out.

Your worst enemy: PUBLIC AWARENESS has arrived, and we have an invitation for you…

Social Apocalypse

Massachusetts Register of Deeds John O’Brien and Forensic Mortgage Fraud Examiner Marie McDonnell find former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is victim of potential mortgage fraud;  expert says chain of title to new Arizona home clouded by robo-signers.

In a statement, McDonnell called the (JPM) foreclosure move a “hijack,” and a “fraud.”

Sarah Palin’s Tainted Chain of Title

Fortune examined hundreds of foreclosure documents to determine the validity of mortgage securitizations after Bank of America debunked testimony about them last fall. The results raise more questions than they answer.

FORTUNE — Are Countrywide mortgage-backed securities really mortgage-backed? Do banks even have the legal right to foreclose on certain homes?

These are just a few of the questions raised since the foreclosure crisis revealed shoddy mortgage servicing practices at many of the big banks – practices that have led to countless investigations and lawsuits. Court testimony by a former Countrywide employee added to the intrigue last fall, because she confessed that many loans there weren’t properly handled, bringing into doubt the validity of Countrywide’s securitization process. Bank of America, which owns Countrywide, quickly silenced the discussion with firm denials.

But Fortune has examined dozens of court records that corroborate the employee’s testimony. And if Countrywide’s mortgage securitizations systematically failed as it appears they did, Bank of America’s potential liability dwarfs its shareholder equity, as the Congressional Oversight Panel points out.

Last November, a decision in a New Jersey bankruptcy case brought to light the testimony of Linda DeMartini, operational team leader for the litigation management department for Bank of America, which intended to prove the bank had the right to foreclose on a debtor’s mortgage. Instead, her testimony was key to the judge’s ruling that Bank of America (BAC) couldn’t foreclose, and along the way DeMartini made two statements that called into question the securitization of Countrywide loans. She testified that Countrywide didn’t deliver the notes to the securitization trustee, and that Countrywide notes weren’t endorsed except on a case-by-case basis generally long after securitization ostensibly occurred. Both steps are required, in one form or another, under all securitization contracts.

Only the delivery issue was really scrutinized at the time, because without a doubt the failure to deliver the notes would invalidate the securitization. The other issue, failure to endorse the notes, sparked a debate: the American Securitization Forum argues the notes would still have been securitized without endorsement, while Adam Levitin, associate professor of law at Georgetown Law, convincingly argues that they would not have been.

If the securitization failed, a variety of securities fraud charges could follow. Indeed, one investor lawsuit based in part on DeMartini’s testimony about endorsements and delivery has already been filed. And investors aren’t the only possible pursuers of securities fraud — New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating mortgage securitizations by three banks, including Bank of America.

Bank of America vigorously denied DeMartini’s testimony, insisting that as a member of Countrywide’s mortgage servicing department, she didn’t know what was happening during securitization. Besides, BofA insisted, its policy was and always has been to comply with the securitization contracts.

No endorsements

Although law enforcement should be able to answer the delivery question easily — DeMartini indicated that Bank of America has FedEx tracking records for each note — it’s impossible for the public to check. But the endorsement of notes is easy to test. In every foreclosure, the bank must give the court the note or an accurate copy of it. And those notes are either properly endorsed or they’re not.

To check DeMartini’s testimony, Fortune examined the foreclosures filed in two New York counties (Westchester and the Bronx) between 2006 and 2010. There were 130 cases where the Bank of New York (BK) was foreclosing on behalf of a Countrywide mortgage-backed security. In 104 of those cases, the loan was originally made by Countrywide; the other 26 were made by other banks and sold to Countrywide for securitization.

None of the 104 Countrywide loans were endorsed by Countrywide – they included only the original borrower’s signature. Two-thirds of the loans made by other banks also lacked bank endorsements. The other third were endorsed either directly on the note or on an allonge, or a rider, accompanying the note.

The lack of Countrywide endorsements, combined with the bank’s representation to the court that these documents are accurate copies of the original notes, calls into question the securitization of these loans, as well as Bank of New York’s right, as trustee, to foreclose on them. These notes ostensibly belong to over 100 different Countrywide securities and worse, they were originally made as long ago as 2002. If the lack of endorsement on these notes is typical — and 104 out of 104 suggests it is — the problem occurs across Countrywide securities and for loans that pre-date the peak-bubble mortgage frenzy.

The lack of Countrywide endorsements also corroborates DeMartini, who said that in her 10 years at Countrywide she had never seen a note with an endorsement, and that as foreclosures had been increasingly litigated, she had been handling the original notes, not just the copies scanned into the bank’s database.

Bank of New York maintains that it had the right to foreclose on the notes. “The assignment language included in the pooling and servicing agreements that govern the trusts, along with the actual transfer of the mortgage note to the trustee and/or custodian, provide the trustee with the proper legal standing,” Bank of New York spokesman Kevin Heine said in a statement. But even if true, the right to foreclose must be demonstrated in every case, and it doesn’t seem to have been in any of these cases from New York.

As for the endorsements, foreclosure defense attorneys say a troubling phenomenon has been happening: “magically” appearing endorsements. That is, the note originally given the court has no endorsement, but after the defense points out the problem, an endorsed note is submitted. Here are several examples from Florida cases, all involving loans serviced by Countrywide, half of which were also made by Countrywide. Here is an example from a California bankruptcy case.

Todd Allen, the Florida attorney who shared the Florida examples, says the problem occurred with all the banks, not just Countrywide: “Magically appearing endorsements happen so often in Florida that I expect the banks’ explanation to begin with: ‘Once upon a time, in a land far, far away.’  Unfortunately, the courts often turn a blind eye to the banks’ shell game and homeowners are left with the empty shell.”

Bank of America continues to deny that it failed to endorse mortgages as DeMartini claimed, even after seeing the cases Fortune uncovered from New York. It issued this statement in response: “Bank of America’s policy is to conduct foreclosures in accordance with all applicable laws. After halting foreclosures last year, we reviewed our process with regulators and continue to do so as we incorporate improvements. Reviews have shown that foreclosed loans were seriously delinquent and that we could support our legal standing to foreclose. We believe the files referenced contain appropriate documentation. We offer home retention options and foreclosure avoidance programs to our distressed customers. Foreclosure is our last resort.”

It will be left to the investigators – and possibly ultimately the courts – to decide whether the applicable laws were indeed followed. Meanwhile, Countrywide managers have given interviews to Moody’s Investor Service, which led Moody’s to reassure investors that notes were systematically endorsed, either in blank on the note or via allonge.

But if that’s accurate, why don’t the sampled court records reflect it?

CNNMoney

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read about The Big Bank Ploy: We Never Got Your Documents

Live video streaming starts Wednesday May 25, 2011 at 9:45 AM.   Tune in right here to see it. Just click the photo below.

Bill Hultman of MERS will testify before the Banking and Financial Services Committee, of which Marty Knollenberg is the Chair.

Marty is my Representative and a long-time follower of FedUpUSA.  The following is my letter to him:

Marty,

I understand you are having a meeting with a representative from MERS tomorrow.  I wanted to be there tomorrow, but I can’t because I must be at work.  While I know this is rather a late message, I just wanted to urge you to take no BS from these guys.  I know you’ve been a VERY long time follower of FedUpUSA and have therefore, gotten ALL of the truth about MERS sent to you pretty much on a weekly basis for the past three years – but I wanted to personally urge you to get some hard questions answered.

1.  I’m sure you’re familiar with the recent Michigan Court of Appeals ruling that states (among other things) that MERS is in breach of MCL 600.3204(1)(d).    Further, the Appellate Court stated that MERS never had standing to foreclose on anyone because they never had the notes to begin with.  Which then begs the question:  If they never had the notes, then how can they ‘convey’ those notes to anyone else?   This is how the majority foreclosures in Michigan are being done and how MERS is going to circumvent the Appellate Court in the future.  They’re going to ‘create’ documentation that states they have transferred their rights to foreclose to the servicer. 

2.  MERS sells ‘corporate kits’ for $25.00.  For $25.00 anyone can be any officer of any banking entity they’d like.  I could buy a $25.00 MERS corporate kit  and become CEO of Bank of America for signing purposes tomorrow.  Exactly how is this remotely in compliance with contract law that requires parties act in ‘good faith’?   How could one not come to the conclusion that MERS was intentionally circumventing contract law?  (And I’m not even going to mention the outright forged documents.)

3.  MERS is an entity entirely owned by the banks for which they ‘transferred’ property.  Their corporation is nothing but a shell, their ‘officers’ being various officers of those banks.  They hold no assets and have no employees.  Their sales pitch to smaller mortgage lenders specifically stated that their purpose was to circumvent taxing authorities and recording fees.  Ask them exactly how anyone is supposed to believe this was legal or to believe that their very existence was not based on the idea of defrauding municipalities.  Why should state government be amenable to allowing fraud to be perpetrated upon its municipalities?

This was no ‘paperwork snafu’; this was intentional fraud from MERS’s very inception.  It is no small consideration that MERS was created by the big mortgage servicers for THEIR purposes.  While MERS may have done the dirty work, they were created specifically for that purpose by the big banks which are now being entirely propped up by the US taxpayer.

Marty:  stop the fraud.  Protect the citizens of Michigan.  This is precisely why I felt it was so important to educate you with all the information I have provided over the past three years.  You are now in a position to truly do something about the fraud and corruption.    Don’t let these guys walk without asking these hard questions.  Then, let’s work on getting some legislation, some HARD CORE legislation, in place to protect property rights in Michigan.  No entity should EVER be able to initiate foreclosure proceedings without first proving their right to do so with original documentation, with wet-ink signatures, and without fake signatures from phony corporate officers.

Sincerely,

Stephanie S. Jasky
Troy, MI
(248) 250-8700
http://www.FedUpUSA.org