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Archive for the ‘Mortgage Modificaton’ Category
The Banking Gears of Housing
September 20th, 2011 | 
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The banking gears of housing – Bank of America sells mortgage servicing rights on large loan pool to Fannie Mae. 400,000 loans shifted to Fannie Mae with $73 billion in unpaid principal.
Things just seem to get more perplexing with the housing market. Back in August the Wall Street Journal discussed a deal between Fannie Mae and Bank of America. The deal is odd even for the current banking system we have in place. It was reported that Fannie Mae purchased the servicing rights to 400,000 loans for the grand total of $500 million. Why would this be an issue you may ask? Well first, Fannie Mae being a GSE does not specifically service mortgages so buying a pool of loans with unpaid principal of $73 billion seems out of place. It also makes you wonder why a bank that has faced some troubles during the financial crisis would unload so many loans back to the government. This concern clearly does not go unnoticed and a Representative from the housing battered state of California sent a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) asking for more details on the deal.
The letter from Representative Darrell Issa
Source: Oversight Committee
In the letter, it is noted that the bank decided to sell the portfolio for a loss because the value of the loans were expected to deteriorate even further:
“The loans have a 13% delinquency rate, and more than half of the loans are in troubled U.S. real estate markets.”
Is this another form of bailout going on here? Why would the bank sell such a large loan portfolio back to Fannie Mae which is now under conservatorship? The pool of mortgages are already showing an unusually high default rate. The housing market is unlikely to bounce back soon and to the contrary, is already showing signs of a further correction ahead.
Read the rest at My Budget 360
Posted in Bank of America, Bankers, Banks, Corruption, Darrell Issa, Debt, Economic Crisis, Economy, Fannie Mae, FHFA, Financial System, Foreclosures, Fraud, Money, Mortgage Modificaton, Mortgage Servicers | 
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Bank-Favoring Government Corruption Reaches Pinnacle
For those who believe that Republicans: Corporate Kleptocrats and Democrats: Supporters of The People, you had damn well better wake the hell up.
WASHINGTON — New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Tuesday was kicked off the committee leading the 50-state task force charged with probing foreclosure abuses and negotiating a possible settlement agreement with the nation’s five largest mortgage firms, according to an email reviewed by The Huffington Post.
Why? Oh, that’s simple: He refused to cowtow to fraud by the banks, and is not going to put up with the crapjob that the Federal Government was trying to ram down the state’s throats.
Let’s deconstruct the entire fraud-laced mess that mortgages became during the 2000s. In no particular order:
- It appears that many of the so-called “RMBS”, that is, mortgage-backed securities, were either backed by nothing or were fraudulently issued. This is an extremely serious matter. There is clear evidence that many of these so-called “mortgage-backed securities” never had the mortgages (and promissory notes) transferred into them as required by law and at least a few allegations that some institutions, including Bear Stearns, illegally issued RMBS.
- The issue of fraudulent (that is, intentional) misrepresentation as to loan quality is one that has not been explored and nobody has been held to account for it. Yet we know this occurred. We know because not only are there multiple billion-dollar lawsuits over this in the present tense we have sworn testimony from a former risk officer of Citifinancial before the FCIC that states the institution knew the loans they were making, packaging and selling did not meet the quality standards they themselves claimed. This sort of conduct is not an accident, and it was a major contributor to the false “price appreciation” that occurred during 2003-2007 time period in home prices. False demand generated by fraudulent loans causes price increases that are not representative of actual value. There should be a criminal and civil sanction for the damage done to everyone in America by these acts including restitution.
- To cover up the above over 150,000 falsely-sworn affidavits and other process paperwork were filed in US Courtrooms. These ranged from “robosigned” documents where the person attesting to personal knowledge never read the document in question to claims of “lost” paperwork that was in fact intentionally destroyed or intentionally never transferred to the putative holder in the first place. A claim that something was “lost” when you never possessed it as a consequence of your willful act is an act of fraud. Notice how when the suits for foreclosure are filed nobody claims to be a creditor, but rather is a “holder”? There’s a reason for this – in many cases there was no economic loss by the person claiming the right to foreclose, and yet equity and statutory law provides that in order to sue someone there must be a harm you suffered as a consequence of the person you’re suing’s conduct. When the facts support your case, you plead them. When they don’t, you forge documents, pound the table about “free houses” and lie – under oath if necessary.
- The chain of supporting frauds has not been explored or stopped. Appraisal fraud, document fraud including altered paperwork by mortgage brokers and others in the chain of custody and other forms of willful and intentional misconduct were part and parcel of the supporting cast of actors in the bubble and its subsequent bust. While some of it was nothing more than wild-eyed speculative fervor (it’s not against the law to be stupid) there’s plenty of evidence of intentional misconduct in some of these acts and all of them merit a full exposition and investigation.
What the Feral Government is trying to do is cut off state rights. The states have primary enforcement power when it comes to these laws, as most anti-swindling laws embodied in fraud statutes are state matters. In addition the Feral Government has refused to enforce laws on its own books: It is a federal offense to commit fraud against a bank, including frauds committed against a bank by a representative, officer or employee of that same bank, yet the Feral Government has refused to bring these indictments even when sworn testimony exists to establish scienter – that is, knowledge that the conduct in question was wrong, such as the aforementioned testimony before the FCIC.
It is not surprising that the Feral Government has refused to bring indictments against the very institutions and persons that infest its own corridors. As I have repeatedly observed it is unreasonable to expect that a person who used to run Goldman Sachs (e.g. Hank Paulson) would bring an enforcement action against the company for conduct he personally presided over. Likewise, it is unreasonable to expect Tim Geithner to bring an enforcement action against an institution regulated by the NY Fed, the organization he ran, when doing so would implicate his own willful failure to do his job.
This incestuous relationship, which we the people have refused to put a stop to, means that the only remaining organ of government available to enforce laws is the State Attorney’s General. In many cases, such as Pat Bondi in Florida, there are allegations of corruption at this level as well, including claims that foreclosure fraud investigators were forced out of their positions.
I say let’s lift a glass to the NY Attorney general, and send a bronx cheer to those in DC who are trying to prevent justice from being done for for the American people. Those who got screwed by the bubble games in the 2000s and before are not just those unlawfully dispossessed of their homes; the victims extend to everyone in America, most-especially those senior citizens and other savers who did nothing wrong and yet have seen their earnings utterly destroyed as the Feral Government and its cronies on Wall Street and in the FOMC desperately claw funds from every corner of the planet in an attempt to save their own skins.
May their attempt fail and justice prevail.
Posted in Banks, Corruption, Debt, Economic Crisis, Economy, Financial System, Foreclosuregate, Foreclosures, Fraud, Government, Lawlessness, laws, Lawyers, Legal, Money, Mortgage Modificaton, Mortgage Servicers, Mortgages, State Attorneys General |
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Mortgage Settlement Collapsing?
Geithner may try, but he cannot compel Attorneys General in both parties to settle for pennies on the dollar and relinquish all of their liability for consumer protection violations and fraud upon state courts. He cannot influence investors who see a giant meal ticket in the form of forcing big banks to repurchase faulty mortgage backed securities. If there was a magic bullet in this debacle, it would already have been fired.
Now that sounds interesting. We know that the banks have been furiously lobbying in Washington DC to cast off the liability for their former actions. The problem? These are state law issues and Washington DC has no jurisdiction – even though it would like to so it can accept their bribes, er, “campaign contributions” to make it all go away.
They’ve trotted out Kathryn Wylde, the President of the Partnership for New York City, to attack Eric Schneiderman for his intervention in the Bank of America settlement with investors over mortgage backed securities. Wylde is going to bat for BofA as well as the Bank of New York Mellon, the trustee for the MBS in the settlement. And she is actually arguing that Schneiderman, by defending the rights of investors and seeking the truth on out and out securitization fraud, is threatening the existence of the financial sector in New York City. No, really.
That’s nothing new. The old “tanks in the street” argument is repeatedly trotted out – “the economy will collapse if you don’t let us continue to loot!”
Of course the problem with such a premise is that there’s only so much blood in the vampire’s victims, and eventually it all gets sucked out. Then the victim undergoes circulatory collapse and the looting stops, like it or not.
We’re there folks.
But some of the AGs who believe in their job description are starting to catch up here. And try as the elites and oligarchs might to stop them, a tipping point is being reached where the public may understand just how much the mortgage industry wrecked the system of private property in this country.
That would be nice.
The true tipping point is reached when ordinary Americans – including those who are paying their mortgages – come to realize that their titles have been clouded as well, and may be no good at all. Oh sure, you may believe you got a release of your mortgage, but if the bank in question never had the conveyance in the first place they gave you a worthless piece of paper. The truly bad news, if it comes at all, will only come later – perhaps many years later.
Can this eventually be sorted out? Probably. But you’re going to pay for it if the AGs don’t do their job and force the institutions that screwed this up to fix it – at their expense. Despite common belief your title insurance is going to be cold comfort, if any at all, simply because title insurance companies are rather thinly-capitalized – they exist to deal with things like a fence that is 2′ over the property line, not a situation where the entire value of your home is owned by someone other than you. Any material number of those sorts of claims and they’re bust – all of them.
The proper thing for these AGs to do is to bring criminal charges – not just civil ones. After all, mass fraud isn’t a civil matter, especially when you’re dispossessing people of their homes without any evidence that you actually hold the paper in question, and to cover this up you perpetuate fraud upon the court by “robosigning” and “creating” documents that you cannot produce – never mind assessing fees that are questionable at best.
Posted in Banks, Corruption, Economic Crisis, Economy, Financial System, Foreclosuregate, Foreclosures, Law Enforcement, Lawyers, Legal, Mortgage Loans, Mortgage market, Mortgage Modificaton, Mortgage Servicers, Mortgages, State Attorneys General |
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State Attorney Generals Poised To Make Theft ‘Legal’….For Banks
There are times that one has to wonder out loud exactly who’s passing envelopes full of $100 bills around to State Attorneys general – or whether what’s being passed is threats instead.
(Reuters) – State attorneys general are negotiating to give major banks wide immunity over irregularities in handling foreclosures, even as evidence has emerged that banks are continuing to file questionable documents.
A coalition of all 50 states’ attorneys general has been negotiating settlements with five of the biggest U.S. banks that would include payment of up to $25 billion in penalties and commitments to follow new rules. In exchange, the banks would get immunity from civil lawsuits by the states, as well as similar guarantees by the Justice Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development, which have participated in the talks.
So now perjury is ok? Oh, and not just past perjury either: According to Reuters robosigning is still going on!
It takes a special set of brass balls to get caught submitting bogus documents in a courtroom thousands of times, negotiate for some way to not get bent over the table (and perhaps imprisoned!) for doing it, and while negotiating some sort of settlement continuing to do the same thing that got you in trouble in the first place!
We’ve seen this in the defense and drug industry in the past, but this is particularly outrageous for the simple reason that it touches nearly everyone, and is so “in your face.”
I am not arguing that there should be “free houses” handed out. But at the same time you cannot allow banks – or anyone else – to make a mockery of the justice system. This pattern of behavior is extremely dangerous, for it risks the people deciding that the law no longer has meaning at once that happens all pretense of civil order is lost.
Posted in Banks, Corruption, Economic Crisis, Economy, Financial System, Foreclosuregate, Foreclosures, Fraud, Lawyers, Legal, Mortgage Industry, Mortgage Modificaton, Mortgage Servicers, State Attorneys General |
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Bank of America’s Lawyer Plays Dirty, Suit Charges
Homeowners’ lawyer alleges improper tactics by bank’s attorney.
An attorney who represents victims of foreclosures and mortgage fraud claims a senior partner with the law firm Bryan Cave LLP who represents Bank of America and Countrywide Mortgage is using underhanded tactics to try to put him out of business.
In the case filed in Orange County, Calif., Superior Court, attorney Gary Lane says the bank’s lawyers have used intentional and malicious tactics to prevent him from representing underprivileged defendants.
Lane operates a non-profit legal clinic, the Consumer Protection Assistance Coalition, in Irvine.
Lane, who has been in practice for 39 years, says that over the last three years his clinic began to handle a large number of cases involving homeowners wrongfully threatened by banks and mortgage lenders and has filed a number of suits against Bank of America and Countrywide.
Stuart Price, a senior partner at Bryan Cave, is responsible for handling Bank of America’s mortgage and foreclosure cases, the suit says and it alleges that in every case filed by Lane, Price files responses that include untrue and defamatory statements about Lane.
Lane’s suit lists actions that he alleges were taken solely to undermine his reputation and damage his business, including:
- failure to file a stipulation delaying a hearing, causing Lane to be sanctioned for not appearing;
- directed a witness to perjure herself, causing Lane to be sanctioned by the court;
- filed a motion asking that Lane be ordered to seek a judge’s approval before filing any additional actions against Bank of America; and
- filed a complaint with the State Bar taking issue with 78 lawsuits Lane had filed against Bank of America, causing Lane to be required to respond separately to each and every complaint;
Lane says that as a result of the law firm’s tactics, he has been required to spend “countless hours” responding to the tactical roadblocks.
In the case of the 78 complaints, Lane notes that the State Bar normally allows an attorney one month to respond to a complaint, anticipating that it will take that long to assemble a proper response. But since Price filed 78 complaints in a single document, Lane is being given only one or two months to respond.
Lane cites provisions in California’s civil procedure rules noting “a disturbing increase in lawsuits brought primarily to chill the valid exercise of the constitutional rights of free speech,” and alleges that the purpose of Price’s actions is to block Lane from bringing further lawsuits against Bank of America on behalf of troubled homeowners.
The suit seeks injunctive relief, legal fees and dismissal of the State Bar complaint.
Posted in Bank of America, Banks, Corruption, Economic Crisis, Economy, Financial System, Foreclosuregate, Foreclosures, Mortgage Loans, Mortgage Modificaton, Mortgage Servicers, Mortgages |
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Bulldoze It | Firefighter to Demolish Home Before Bank of America Forecloses
From AmpedStatus
Entire Cobb Mtn. Estate to be demolished by couple with dueling dozers rather than allow Bank of America to auction it off in the fraudulent foreclosure Ponzi scheme, bogus modification scam now sweeping our nation! An estimated 15 Million homes/families’ lives hang in the balance! We’re all in this together – How are you fighting back?
This was originally posted and flagged down within an hour the first time I posted two nights ago on Craigslist under: real estate and in just 18 minutes the second time I posted it under: free stuff. Please leave this up as it a serious commentary about the very real, current state of our nation!
More here…
From OhioFraudclosure…
NOT… Just another Foreclosure Story
NOT ..an America Birthday or 4th of July Celebration
Sadly – it’s another Bank of America foreclosure story………OR IS IT ???
Over the last few days everyone had emailed or linked me to the below insane HEADLINES
Craigslist Couple to give away contents of entire home….or
Couple to deploy Dueling Dozers in demo of own home
As it was, the only reason their story came out…was in trying to give away the contents of their home as “Free Stuff“ on Craigslist… What! ..Can you believe it? Someone trying to give away ALL the contents of their home!…Well no…and neither could Craigslist…so the ad was quickly flagged and taken down. Surely it was some type of fraudulent posting or someone “pranking” this couple…you know..trying to give away all their stuff. Frustrated – homeowner Robert posted again…..this time under Craigslist “Real Estate” Once again the ad was flagged and taken down. So Robert tried posting it – a third time. Yet again it was removed. By this time …Robert was so frustrated he attached “an explanation” to assure any Craigslist monitors….they were giving away…everything ….adding…..they(Ana & Rob) were going to bulldoze the house. Finally – Craigslist allowed his posting…..but only in the “Politics” category with the bizarre explanation of dueling dozers.
So we (OHIO FRAUDclosure) had to find out….Who was this “Insane Guy” and what kind of ”Crazy People”…give everything away and then plan – to bulldoze their home.
Behind the sensational headlines – I found a real couple – suffering real pain. And no matter how the Bank of America spokesperson tries to spin this story….it stops HERE and NOW. This is NOT another California family looking for a “Free Home.” This is NOT some crazy couple that ”overbought” during the real estate boom. And NO… they didn’t refinance 2 or 3 times to buy boats and cars so they could live it up somewhere near the California Coastline.
This is…the story ……of Ana and Robert Somerton…..real people & real victims – first suffering through a Counrtywide FRAUDulent loan, then with all Bank of Americas (BOA) failures with phony servicing attempts to implement …any of the Goverments’ failed “FRAUDclosure prevention” programs.
In 1990 Robert’s father (Ronald) bought a small 1.3 acre parcel of land, on which he planned to build a small 820 sq foot 1 bedroom 1 bath retirement cabin. Robert was excited for his father, who slowly, was building the home “out of pocket” (no loans) on weekends. Some six years later, and nearing completion of his dream home ..sadly.. Ronald passed away. Robert could not bear to have the home and property…slip away. He was determined to finish the home that his dad had so wanted. But, in order to buy out his sisters half of the estate and finish the home …Robert took out a loan against the value the property.
It was at this same time that he decided he should slightly increase the size … to a more usable 1275 sq. ft. He and his wife – Ana – eventually decided they would finish ”Ronald’s dream”. Robert told me ”We first painted the place, then we fenced in the yard for our dogs Magic and Pascual. We also converted the garage into our master bedroom, and added a new walk-thru closet and master bath to the end of house. I did all the drawings and most of the construction …with Ana helping out… on her days off.”
Be sure to check out the rest here…
Posted in Bank of America, Banks, Corruption, Economic Crisis, Economy, Financial System, Foreclosuregate, Foreclosures, Fraud, Lawlessness, Loan modifications, Mortgage Loans, Mortgage Modificaton, Mortgage Servicers, Mortgages |
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