Keep sending these in…
940 18 U.S.C. Section 1341—Elements of Mail Fraud
© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.
Archive | April, 2010
Law Office Of Ben-Ezra & Katz, Fort Lauderdale, FL Omits Postage Meter Date
Posted on 30 April 2010.
Posted in ben-ezra, conspiracy, envelope, foreclosure fraud, mail fraud, scam0 Comments
Foreclosure FRAUD?: Tell it to the Attorney General Bill McCollum 5/8 MIAMI
Posted on 30 April 2010.
PICKET…anyone??
Posted by Harriet Brackey on April 30, 2010 10:46 AM SunSentinel
If you want to speak to Florida’s Attorney General about foreclosure or loan modifications or mortgage fraud, here’s your chance.
Saturday, May 8, in Miami, Attorney General Bill McCollum will be on hand for a Mortgage Fraud Community Forum. He’s hosting the event with Florida’s Interagency Mortgage Task Force.
The session is on “The Housing Crisis, Who to Trust and Where to Turn.”
It’s open to the public and free, but reservations are required. Call 877-385-1621.
It will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus, Chapman Conference Center, 300 N.E. Second Ave.
The AG’s office says you can get help on how to face foreclosure, housing scams, mortgage fraud, loan modifications and finding legal assistance.
Certified housing counselors, volunteer lawyers, as well as representatives of Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo/Wachovia and SunTrust will be on hand.
Also attending will be representatives of:
Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Office of Financial Regulation, Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Florida Bar, Dade County Bar Legal Aid Society, Cuban American Bar and the Collins Center Foreclosure Mediation Program.
For more information, go to www.myfloridalegal.com/mortgagefraud.
Posted in foreclosure fraud0 Comments
OPERATION "DARK CLOUD"
Posted on 30 April 2010.
Cannot Confirm “YET” but HIGH FORCES are possibly investigating fraud on this blog. To make it even more satisfying, shortly after I received an email from a person in DC, I began to see the light from this dark cloud that looms above our homes. I sense something happening soon.
Keep sending your letters and emails to anyone who may have the power to seek those that hide…eventually someone will take notice and you never know who you will hear from!
Please allow me to narrow your search: Click the links below
FRAUD1
FRAUD2
FRAUD3
FRAUD4
FRAUD5
FRAUD6
“Please Do Not Hesitate To Contact Me”
Posted in concealment, conspiracy, corruption, foreclosure fraud0 Comments
Attorney general investigating Tampa foreclosure firm: TBO.com
Posted on 30 April 2010.
Florida Default Law Group, a huge foreclosure law firm has angered judges with its practices.
By MICHAEL SASSO | The Tampa Tribune
Published: April 30, 2010
TAMPA – The Florida Attorney General’s Office is investigating a Tampa-based foreclosure law firm that has become one of the state’s largest foreclosure mills.
On the agency’s Web site, the attorney general showed it has an “active public consumer-related investigation” into Florida Default Law Group. The agency notes that it is a civil investigation, rather than a criminal one, and the fact that is has an investigation isn’t proof of any violation of law.
Without going into much detail, the attorney general’s Web site says Florida Default Law Group, “Appears to be fabricating and/or presenting false and misleading documents in foreclosure cases.
“These documents have been presented in court before judges as actual assignments of mortgages and have later been shown to be legally inadequate and/or insufficient. Presenting faulty bank paperwork due to the mortgage crisis and thousands of foreclosures per month.”
Attempts to reach the Attorney General’s Office and Michael Echevarria, the head of Florida Default Law Group, were unsuccessful Thursday.
Based in a business park just off the Veteran’s Expressway, Florida Default Law Group files hundreds of foreclosure lawsuits alone in Hillsborough County on behalf of banks and mortgage servicing companies. The Tribune profiled Florida Default Law Group in January.
According to the Tribune’s review of 1,994 circuit court records, the firm filed initial legal documents for 323 foreclosure lawsuits in October. That was second only to the Law Offices of David J. Stern, a Broward County-based foreclosure firm that filed 352 foreclosure cases in October.
Florida Default Law Group operates in numerous counties in Florida, but it’s not clear how many lawsuits it files outside of Hillsborough County.
Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at (813) 259-7865.
Posted in concealment, conspiracy, corruption, DOCX, FDLG, florida default law group, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, forensic mortgage investigation audit, Lender Processing Services Inc., LPS, MERS, Mortgage Foreclosure Fraud, scam0 Comments
Geithner tells panel that more has to be done to help homeowners avoid foreclosure: Washington Post
Posted on 30 April 2010.
SCROLL DOWN AND SEE WHAT THEY ADMIT…
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 30, 2010
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told a Senate panel Thursday that mortgage lenders were still not doing enough to help homeowners avoid foreclosure and that some borrowers who qualify for federal aid are still losing their homes.
The industry’s performance varies by lender, he said, adding that the Treasury Department is conducting “targeted, in-depth compliance” reviews of lenders participating in the government’s foreclosure prevention program. Some firms could lose the incentive payments they earn for helping borrowers if their performance does not improve, he said.
“None of this is acceptable. We are committed to making sure that servicers hold up their end of the bargain,” Geithner said during a hearing of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee.
So far, the federal program, known as Making Home Affordable, has helped about 200,000 borrowers get a permanent loan modification. But the government is far short of helping the 3 million to 4 million homeowners it initially targeted. In the meantime, millions of homeowners are expected to fall into foreclosure over the next few years.
“I want to be clear that we do not believe [mortgage] servicers are doing enough to help homeowners, not doing enough to help them navigate the difficult and often frightening process of avoiding foreclosure,” Geithner told the committee. “They are not responding to the needs of responsible and increasingly desperate homeowners.” DinSFLA: So there are IRRESPONSIBLE ones?? Clarification, please Mr. Geithner…Who are the irresponsible ones “SIR” who got us in this Shit Hole of a mess??
Industry officials argue that they have helped millions of borrowers avoid foreclosure already, many outside the government program. “While we share the secretary’s continued frustration with anecdotes about lost paperwork and mistaken foreclosures, I don’t think blanket indictments of an entire industry are helpful,” said John A. Courson, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “Nevertheless, the industry is continuing to try and streamline and improve the loan modification process.”
Last month, the Treasury Department announced it was revamping the federal program, including by encouraging lenders to forgive a portion of a borrower’s mortgage debt if more is owed on the loan than the home is worth, a situation known as being underwater. Under the changes, lenders are now required to offer temporary mortgage relief to unemployed borrowers for at least three months.
But the government program is largely voluntary, and some lenders have already balked at the prospect of widespread use of principal forgiveness in which they would slash the mortgage balances of millions of homeowners. Also, housing advocates have argued that the help being offered to unemployed borrowers may not go far enough because it could take many much longer than three months to find a job.
“These changes won’t be implemented until the fall, maybe too little, too late,” said Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.).
Geithner also faced questions from committee members about the status of its bailout of the automakers, including General Motors and Chrysler. In a recent television ad, GM touted that it had repaid billions of dollars in government loans ahead of schedule.
But Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said that the commercial did not mention that taxpayers still own 61 percent of the company’s shares. “This is so frustrating to me because I believe the public is being misled,” Collins said.
Geithner said he was aware of concerns over GM’s claims in the commercial. “We still have substantial equity investments left in those companies, and as a result, some risk of loss, although a fraction of what we feared,” he said.
The administration wants to divest its interest in the automakers as soon as possible, Geithner said. There is a reasonable chance that all of the bailout funds given to the industry could be recovered.
“Nobody at GM has claimed victory. We know we have more work to do,” Greg Martin, a GM spokesman, said in an e-mail. “But early repayment of our loans is a milestone for the company and a clear sign that our plan is working, and a critical step toward returning GM to profitability and public ownership.”
Posted in foreclosure fraud, geithner0 Comments
In A Putative Class Action, The Third Circuit Holds That A Plaintiff Must Show Detrimental Reliance On Improper Loan Disclosure Statements To Obtain Actual Damages Under The Truth In Lending Act (TILA)
Posted on 29 April 2010.
Posted on February 1, 2010 by Sheppard Mullin
By Shannon PetersenOn December 31, 2009, the Third Circuit held that a borrower must prove detrimental reliance to obtain actual damages for a violation of the federal Truth in Lending Act (“TILA”). See Vallies v. Sky Bank, —F.3d—, 2009 WL 5154473 (3rd Cir. 2009).
Under TILA, the federal government requires that lenders make certain disclosures to borrowers about the terms of their loans before lending them money. TILA claims are at the epicenter of the mortgage litigation crises. Over the past two years, TILA claims, including class action claims, have flooded the state and federal courts. Most of these claims involve allegations that some technical TILA disclosure violation has occurred.
Though not a mortgage case, the allegations of the borrower in Vallies v. Sky Bank are typical. The plaintiff alleged that the finance charge statement made by the bank for an auto loan was misleading in that it did not include $395 representing the amount of the debt cancellation insurance, which the plaintiff alleged should have been included in the finance charge statement under TILA. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the bank because the borrower had failed to show that (1) he had read the TILA disclosure statement pertaining to finance charges, (2) he had understood the finance charges being disclosed, (3) had the disclosure been accurate by including an additional $395, he would have sought better terms or foregone the loan, and (4) if he had sought better terms, he would have obtained them.
The Third Circuit declined to state the specific facts or circumstances that constitute detrimental reliance under TILA, but affirmed the decision of the district court that detrimental reliance must be shown and had not been shown here. In so holding, the Third Circuit relied on the language of TILA itself, which provides for both actual damages and statutory damages. According to the Third Circuit, to obtain actual damages, a plaintiff must show causation by showing that he or she relied on a misleading or improper loan disclosure statement to his or her detriment. In contrast, to obtain statutory damages, a plaintiff must only show that a violation of TILA has occurred. (For class action suits, statutory damages under TILA are capped at the lesser of $500,000 or 1% of the defendant’s net worth.).
In reaching its decision, the Third Circuit considered but rejected as irrelevant the concerns of some legal commentators, who have noted that under a detrimental reliance standard actual damages for TILA loan disclosure violations may be difficult to prove. The court also disregarded the fact that “detrimental reliance may create obstacles for class certification because of the individualized fact-specific nature of the reliance inquiry.” The court distinguished other case law, holding that detrimental reliance under TILA is not necessary, on the grounds that those cases involved claims for statutory damages, not actual damages, under TILA.
Finally, the Third Circuit noted that it joined the holding of every other circuit court that has addressed the issue, including the First, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits. Citing United States v. Petroff-5 Kline, 557 F.3d 285, 297 (6th Cir. 2009) (“[A]ctual damages require a showing of detrimental reliance.”); McDonald v. Checks-N-Advance, Inc. (In re Ferrell), 539 F.3d 1186, 1192 (9th Cir. 2008) (finding no valid basis to overturn the rule of In re Smith requiring a showing of detrimental reliance to establish actual damages); Gold Country Lenders v. Smith (In re Smith), 289 F.3d 1155, 1157 (9th Cir. 2002) (“Wejoin with other circuits and hold that in order to receive actual damages for a TILA violation . . . a borrower must establish detrimental reliance.”); Turner v. Beneficial Corp., 242 F.3d 1023, 1028 (11th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (“We hold that detrimental reliance is an element of a TILA claim for actual damages . . . .”); Perrone v. Gen. Motors Acceptance Corp., 232 F.3d 433, 434–40 (5th Cir. 2000) (holding that detrimental reliance is an element of a claim for actual damages); Peters v. Jim Lupient Oldsmobile Co., 220 F.3d 915, 917 (8th Cir. 2000)(requiring a showing of proximate causation and adopting a four-prong reliance test for establishing actual damages); Bizier v. Globe Fin. Servs., Inc., 654 F.2d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 1981) (noting in dicta the need to show causation for an award of actual damages “in addition to a threshold showing of a violation of a TILA requirement”).
Under this law, it is not enough, as plaintiffs in TILA cases often do, to allege that a TILA loan disclosure violation has occurred. Instead, a plaintiff must also allege and prove that he or she relied on the misleading or improper statement and as a result of this reliance suffered actual damage. This recent decision of the Third Circuit also emphasizes the difficulty of certifying a class action for actual damages under TILA. Even where the named plaintiff has detrimentally relied on an improper loan disclosure statement, such reliance can rarely be universally inferred for other, unnamed class members. Instead, to determining detrimental reliance usually requires an individual inquiry about whether the class member read the disclosure statement, understood it, and relied on it to his or her detriment. For this reason, such cases are very difficult to certify for class treatment. See, e.g., Stout v. J.D. Byrider, 228 F.3d 709, 718 (6th Cir. 2000) (affirming the denial of class certification based on the need for individualized assessment of whether “each putative class member relied upon false representations or failures to disclose” under TILA).
Posted in concealment, foreclosure fraud, tila1 Comment
Davies v. Ndex- Palintiff's Supplemental Reply to Defendants Objection for an Evidence Hearing 4-26-2010
Posted on 29 April 2010.
From: b.daviesmd6605
FIGHTING FOR EVIDENCE HEARING. PLAINITIFF HAS COPY OF NOTE ENDORSED IN BLANK AND EVIDENCE THE SECURITY INTEREST WAS ASSIGNED SEPARATELY. THIS IS A NULLITY. I WANT THE TRUTH TO SURFACE. CALIFORNIA IS A HARD STATE TO HAVE A FAIR HEARING. I HOPE THIS ONE WILL PUT PRESSURE BY EVIDENCE FOR THE NEED TO DIRECTLY VIEW SUCH DOCUMENTS.
[ipaper docId=30294401 access_key=key-14o033pqagf95s18ucxm height=600 width=600 /]
© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.Posted in concealment, conspiracy, corruption, foreclosure fraud0 Comments
MERS CONTACTED StopForeclosureFraud.com
Posted on 29 April 2010.
Just to be clear SFF will post any correspondence from within those we mention on this blog and use it as a plat form to communicate.
Everyone is watching this site.
If you do comment please do so in a pleasant manner.
MERSCORP:
MERS submitted the following to Salt Lake Tribune Letter to the Editor. We have not yet learned whether they will publish it.
“The Tribune’s April 24 article on MERS was filled with errors and missing facts—facts that we had provided to the writer before the article was published.
Contrary to the article’s assertion, MERS does not remove land ownership information from public records because that information was never there to begin with. MERS fills an information void that the county records have never provided. We track the changes in servicing rights and note ownership, and we have helped numerous homeowners find their note owner. In fact, homeowners can contact their mortgage company through MERS and MERS can connect them with the note owner of their mortgage loan when the owner has agreed to be disclosed.
The borrower makes MERS the mortgagee with 100% transparency because they sign a document at closing acknowledging that MERS is the mortgagee. MERS also has a rule requiring that the note be presented at foreclosure.
Finally, the author failed to disclose that the article’s chief MERS critic, Christopher Peterson, is currently employed as a witness against MERS in a pending legal matter. This article provided a disservice to Tribune readers and they deserve better.”
Related Story:
Posted in MERS0 Comments
WE CAN'T SPELL S_CCESS…WITHOUT U! "ASSIGNMENTS WANTED"
Posted on 29 April 2010.
WE NEED EVERYONE TO PARTICIPATE
THE MORE THE BETTER!
SEND ME YOUR ASSIGNMENTS! I AM COMPILING THESE WITH LYNN SZYMONIAK, ESQ (FraudDigest”)…WE ARE WORKING DAY IN, DAY OUT TO STOP THIS!
Send to info@stopforeclosurefraud.com
BUT WE NEED YOU!! NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE!!
HELP PUT A STOP TO THIS.
Posted in concealment, conspiracy, corruption, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, fraud digest, Lynn Szymoniak ESQ4 Comments
!BAM! Foreclosure Lawyers Face New Heat In Florida: Wall Street Journal AMIR EFRATI
Posted on 29 April 2010.
Again…AMIR…SETS IT OFF!!
April 29, 2010, 12:46 PM ET
By Amir Efrati The Wall Street Journal
These are precarious times for lawyers in the business of filing foreclosure cases for banks. This is particularly true in one of the epicenters of the foreclosure crisis, Florida.
As we’ve noted before, the feds in Jacksonville recently started a criminal investigation of a company that is a top provider of the documentation used by banks in the foreclosure process. And a state-court judge ruled that a bank submitted a “fraudulent” document in support of its foreclosure case. That document was prepared by a local law firm.
For more Law Blog background on the foreclosure mess in our nation’s courts, this post will help.
The news today: the Florida Attorney General’s office said it has launched a civil investigation of Florida Default Law Group, based in Tampa, which is one of the largest so-called foreclosure-mill law firms in the state.
According to the AG’s website, it’s looking at whether the firm is “fabricating and/or presenting false and misleading documents in foreclosure cases.” It added: “These documents have been presented in court before judges as actual assignments of mortgages and have later been shown to be legally inadequate and/or insufficient.”
The issue: judges are increasingly running into situations in which banks are claiming ownership of properties they actually don’t own. Some of them end up chewing out the lawyers representing the banks.
The AG’s office said Florida Default Law Group appears to work closely with Lender Processing Services — the company we referenced earlier that is being investigated by the Justice Department.
LPS processes and sometimes produces documents needed by banks to prove they own the mortgages. LPS often works with local lawyers who litigate the foreclosure cases in court. Sometimes those same law firms produce documents that are required to prove ownership.
We’ve reached out to Florida Default Law Group and LPS and will let you know if we hear back.
Posted in concealment, conspiracy, corruption, DOCX, FDLG, florida default law group, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, Lender Processing Services Inc., LPS0 Comments
*BREAKING NEWS* Economic Crimes Division in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida *INVESTIGATING* FLORIDA DEFAULT LAW GROUP “FORECLOSURE MILL” & LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES “DOCx, LLC”
Posted on 29 April 2010.
UPDATE: Cannot confirm YET but others might be as well! Stay Tuned!
FDLG, LPS’ DocX is being investigated…lets see who’s next!
If you have evidence of Fraud make sure you contact them.
Active Public Consumer-Related Investigation
The case file cited below relates to a civil — not a criminal — investigation. The existence of an investigation does not constitute proof of any violation of law.
| Case Number: | L10-3-1095 |
| Subject of investigation: | Florida Default Law Group, PL |
| Subject’s address: | 9119 Corporate Lake Drive, Suite 300, Tampa, Florida 33634 |
| Subject’s business: | Law Firm, Foreclosures |
| Allegation or issue being investigated: Appears to be fabricating and/or presenting false and misleading documents in foreclosure cases. These documents have been presented in court before judges as actual assignments of mortgages and have later been shown to be legally inadequate and/or insufficient. Presenting faulty bank paperwork due to the mortgage crisis and thousands of foreclosures per month. This firm is one of the largest foreclosure firms in the State. This firm appears to be one of Docx, LLC a/k/a Lender Processing Services’ clients, who this office is also investigating. |
|
| AG unit handling case: | Economic Crimes Division in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida |
View contact information for Ft. Lauderdale.
Related Stories:
Scandalous – Substantiated Allegations of Foreclosure Fraud That Implicates the Florida Attorney General’s Office and The Florida Default Law Group
MISSION: VOID Lender Processing Services “Assignments” (LPS)
Posted in DOCX, florida default law group, foreclosure fraud, Lender Processing Services Inc., LPS4 Comments
She’s 100 years old and facing foreclosure: CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Posted on 29 April 2010.
REMOVE YOUR MONEY 9/11/2010
An army of volunteers seeks to help “Aunt Aggie,” a 100-year-old Monee woman who raised 40 foster kids on her farm
April 27, 2010|By Colleen Mastony, Chicago Tribune reporter
Let the bankers come with their foreclosure notices. Invite the building inspectors, too. At 100 years old, Agnes Albinger has lived on her 70-acre patch of farmland longer than most of those people have been alive.
She has seen two world wars come and go, survived the Depression — in part by subsisting on minnow stew — and raised 40 foster children. Now, she has become a rallying point in this rural community as she fights to keep her Monee farm.
“I’ll never leave,” she said one recent morning, as she stood with a walker on her sagging front porch, looking out over the fields she tended for most of her life. “I’d like to stay here until I die. This is my home. This was my land. I owned everything once. I worked awful hard on this place to make it what it was.”
As Albinger faces foreclosure on the property where she has lived since 1949, a coalition of friends and strangers has mobilized to help the woman everyone calls “Aunt Aggie.” They have set up a , Web site, saveagnesfarm.com, and volunteered to help with cleaning and repairs. On a recent Saturday, nearly 100 people showed up to clear brush and haul away rusting farm equipment.
For many in Will County, helping Albinger seems to be one of the few ways they can push back against the waves of foreclosures and layoffs that have swept the nation.
“It goes further than what’s happening to Agnes. This same thing is happening all over. The value of American land is going down, homes are foreclosing. All these bankers think about is how much money they can make,” said Jim Armstrong, 59, a friend who helped organize volunteers. “They don’t care that there’s people who live on this land, people who love this land.”
As for Albinger, she says she’d rather die than leave. Her body is stooped with age and her hands are gnarled from decades of labor. But her mind seems sharp, and she fiercely defends her right to live independently. ” Nursing homes are made for people who cannot help themselves,” said Albinger, who uses a walker and who has a live-in caretaker to help with the heavier chores. “I can cook my own meals. I can do my own dishes. I can do everything myself.”
But the question of her best interests remains complicated. The farm has fallen into disrepair. The yard is strewn with cast-off furniture, stacks of old tractor tires, two abandoned cars. The porch is piled with junk. The roof leaks and, until recently, Albinger kept her last chicken inside the house, to protect it from raccoons.
And yet, when asked what the place means to her, Albinger replied simply: “Home. Don’t you have a home? Then you know what it means. It’s security. Love. Peacefulness.”
From 1 big family to another
The fifth of 11 children, Albinger was born in 1909 to Lithuanian immigrant farmers who cultivated land they rented near Kankakee. As a child, she attended class in a one-room school house, herded cows on the open prairie and helped plow fields with a team of horses. After a failed harvest, the family moved to Chicago, where in 1940 Albinger married her husband, Matthew. “A wonderful husband,” she said.
The couple couldn’t have children of their own, so they became foster parents, taking in the orphaned and abandoned. They bought the farm in Monee in 1949. Back then, Albinger said the land was still “all prairies, all over. Wild animals, everywhere you could see.” But, a few years after they purchased the property, Matthew died of a heart ailment, she and family members said.
“When my husband died, I had the four (foster) kids,” Albinger recalled. “And the welfare let me keep them. They said they’ll be company for me. As they grew up, I got more.”
Over the years, she raised 35 boys and five girls. In 1969, she was nominated for Cook County Foster Mother of the Year, according to news clippings.
“She taught me everything — how to live and survive,” said Michael Follmann, 54, who had bounced between more than a dozen “pretty brutal” foster homes by the time he came to Albinger’s farm. “I was a hot-headed young boy at the age of 9 after all the stuff that happened to me. I didn’t trust or believe in anybody. Then Agnes stepped into my life and taught me what it was like to trust people again, to have faith in people.”
“In my opinion, she saved my life,” said Greg Crosby, 54, who was 5 years old when his father abandoned him and five other siblings. The children had been malnourished and close to starvation, Crosby said, when Albinger took them in — all six kids — and made sure that the state didn’t split them up. “She taught us how to garden and things like that. She taught us to take care of animals. It meant everything.”
“I got my work ethic and, I think, my integrity through her,” said Greg’s brother, Ray Crosby, 57.
“I still call her ‘Mom,’ ” said Richard Rose, 49, who was 6 when he came to the farm. “Who knows where I would be if it wasn’t for her.”
Albinger introduced her foster children to the wonders of farm life. She showed them how to feed baby chicks by dripping water off a fingertip, and how to use a hand crank to separate the milk from the cream. She kept all sorts of animals including, at times, two peacocks, a pony and a monkey.
Life followed the rhythms of the seasons. They planted corn in the spring, cut hay in the summer and brought turnips into the cellar in the fall.
As years passed, the children grew up and moved away. But Albinger kept the farm going and, even well into her 80s, still milked the cows by hand and kept a few head of beef cattle. “I used to overhaul my own tractors. I did all my own field work,” she said. “I wasn’t afraid of work.”
The farm had been free of debt, family members said, until 2000, when court and land records show that Albinger took out a $100,000 mortgage on the property. Albinger then began to sign over parcels of land to a trust and also to a company called Phoenix Horizon LLC, which according to state records was formed by Albinger’s niece, Bridget Gruzdis, 47.
In an e-mailed response to questions from the Tribune, Gruzdis said Phoenix Horizon was created “for the sole purpose of land development and sale.”
Over six years, Albinger and Gruzdis took out a series of mortgages on the farm, eventually borrowing $700,000, according to court and land records.
Albinger says she might have signed some papers but never knew about the mortgage debt. In September, the bank initiated foreclosure proceedings. As recently as last week, a prospective buyer walked the property, which was put on the market a few years ago by Phoenix Horizon and is listed for $4.6 million, according to Ron Sales, a real estate agent in the area. But Albinger and other family members said they didn’t even know the farm was for sale.
Monee Deputy Police Chief John Cipkar said that the department is investigating and detectives are trying to determine if “Agnes was in full knowledge of what she was doing” when she signed. DinSFLA- Course she didn’t! They knew what they were doing was pulling a scam!
Gruzdis said in her e-mail that Albinger is suffering from dementia — an assertion that other family members dispute. She said that Albinger was involved in the formation of Phoenix Horizon and that the mortgages were taken to cover Albinger’s expenses and to “provide funds for Phoenix Horizon’s business objectives.”
“Agnes absolutely did know,” Gruzdis wrote. “Agnes was personally involved and signed all documents with her own hand.” DinSFLA- Not so fast “STAR”…your part of the investigation!
‘If I get to live here…’
In Will County, many hope that Albinger will somehow be able to stay on her land. In preparation for a May 1 deadline set by the Monee code enforcement department, volunteers have cleaned out Albinger’s basement, removed a crumbling shed from the yard and towed away the old tractors. Next, they hope to fix up the interior of the house.
“You’d have to be coldhearted not to have some compassion for her,” said Jim Frazier, 57, a volunteer. “I feel that she should be able to stay there at least to live out the days she has left.”
Meanwhile, Albinger’s extended family is struggling to decide if they should move her to a nursing home, a place where they believe she would be well-cared for, but where they fear she would be unhappy. “Myself, I would like to see her stay,” said Bob Szorc, 68, a nephew. “I would like to see her retain her independence. And once she goes to a nursing home, that’s not going to happen.”
“If she goes to a nursing home, her life will be cut short. I don’t think she’ll care to live anymore,” said Patricia Ritacco, 72, a niece. “You know, sometimes when you take away what’s important to people, they can’t exist any longer.”
As for Albinger, she is enjoying spring on the farm. The daffodils are blooming in her garden and the lilac bushes have begun to flower along the northern fence line.
Even at 100 years old, Albinger is thinking about farming and making plans for the future. On a recent morning, she stood on her porch and eyed her last chicken, clucking in a cage. “She’s a nice little girl,” Albinger said. “If I get to live here, I’m going to buy a rooster and see if I can raise a couple of chicks.”
Where is OPRAH??? Chicago hello???
Posted in foreclosure fraud1 Comment
POLICE RAID: Deutsche Bank And 50 Other Banks In Germany
Posted on 28 April 2010.
Gregory White | Apr. 28, 2010, 12:42 PM
Bild.de has broke the news of German police raids of Deutsche Bank and fifty other financial firms over tax-evasion charges.
The investigation involves 150 people suspected of evading VAT charges due in carbon trading schemes.
The taxes avoided add up to €1 billion, according to Bild.
Bild explains the tax scheme as this:
Dealers in different EU countries buy and sell permits which allow industrial enterprises to release a certain amount of greenhouse gases.
On the sale from dealer A to dealer B across a state border, no VAT is due. Upon the resale of the permits by dealer B to dealer C within the same country (i.e. Germany), VAT does become owed which dealer C can then claim back from the tax office.
Dealer B owes the authorities 19 per cent in VAT – it doesn’t pay, but pockets the 19 per cent and disappears off the market.
Posted in concealment, corruption1 Comment
Take a STAND! REMOVE YOUR MONEY 9/11/2010
Posted on 28 April 2010.
ENOUGH is ENOUGH!
The more they destroy our lives, the more we lose our identity!
Posted in concealment, conspiracy, corruption, securitization3 Comments
TILA VIOLATION "FRAUD": DAVIES V. NDEX WEST, UNIVERSAL AMERICAN MORTGAGE, DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST, MERS, 2924,2923.5, B
Posted on 28 April 2010.
Mr. Davies asked me to post this info for all you to see the FRAUD!
Especially Indymac FSB F/K/A Onewest
Why were any of these NOT signed over by Universal American Mortgage Corp??
The ONLY “lender” he knew at the time of closing was Universal American Mortgage Corp!
DISCLOSURE! DISCLOSURE! DISCLOSURE!
§ 226.18 Content of disclosures.
For each transaction, the creditor shall disclose the following information as applicable:
(a) Creditor. The identity of the creditor making the disclosures.
(a) Creditor. The identity of the creditor making the disclosures.
SEE CASEY LIMP as Vice President in each???
Now this is at the bottom of each page…but I bet these are “not” the originals.
Posted in concealment, conspiracy, corruption, foreclosure fraud, forensic mortgage investigation audit, Mortgage Foreclosure Fraud, scam, securitization, tila9 Comments
WELLS FARGO to some…HELLS FARGOT to OTHERS! Tenants of foreclosed places with no heat or hot water, with bugs, with ceilings falling down, with mold, that's called a hole.
Posted on 27 April 2010.
Little do these people know…these banks do not care one bit! They surely didn’t care to help the owners when they had it. Only until the complaints pour in do they attempt “Damage control”!
Come here and voice your anger! … Everyone mentioned sure does stop here daily.
New Legal Push For Foreclosure Victims: CITYLIMITS
Tenants have a message for the bank that holds mortgages on 10 Bronx buildings that have gone into foreclosure and disrepair: You own it, you fix it.
Thursday, Apr 22, 2010
Tenants at 3018 Heath Avenue and nine other buildings in the The Bronx have had enough. After living for years with roaches, rats, sagging ceilings, broken plumbing and long stretches without heat or hot water, they are demanding the bank that owns their buildings make repairs. The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development lists 756 immediately hazardous C violations against the 10 buildings.
“When you live in a place with no heat or hot water, with bugs, with ceilings falling down, with mold, that’s called a hole. People should live in a home,” said Yorman Nunez, a board member of the NorthWest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, which helped organize the tenants. “Wells Fargo is just letting this happen.”
Wells Fargo, and its special servicer LNR Partners Inc., control the trust that holds the mortgage on the buildings. 3018 Heath Ave. and nine other buildings, formerly owned by private equity backed investor Milbank Real Estate, went into foreclosure in March 2009. Since then, tenants have been unable to get repairs, and uncertain who is in charge. So on Wednesday Legal Services NYC filed a motion in the ongoing foreclosure proceeding, begging the judge to make the bank take care of the building and its tenants while the foreclosure process continues.
The tenants position was neatly summed up in a hand-lettered sign that read: “You lend it, you mend it.”
Elected officials underscored the point.
“The lender is now the owner. They have a responsibility to maintain these buildings,” said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. “If Milbank couldn’t pay their mortgage, the lender, which is now the landlord, has to step up to the plate.”
In addition to Diaz, tenants were joined by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, City Councilmember Fernando Cabrera and representatives from U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano’s office.
Stepping into a foreclosure case to seek relief for tenants is a new legal strategy, said Ed Josephson, housing coordinator for Legal Services NYC. He is one of the attorney’s working on the case. The idea is to go straight to the bank that gave the mortgage–or bought it via a mortgage-backed security–to push for repairs.
“We know what will happen when we get into court,” he said. “Everybody is going to say that they don’t have any responsibility. They structure things on purpose to avoid liability. But the point is there will be a lot of pressure on all these banks to fork of the money because they created this disaster.”
The Milbank properties are only a handful of the hundreds of rental buildings in the five boroughs that housing experts say are teetering near fiscal collapse. Bought in the heady days of the real estate boom for far more than their rents could support, and leveraged with sky-high mortgages, the buildings are going into foreclosure. Tenants, meanwhile, are left in a lurch. The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, which has been working on issues of over-leveraged buildings since 2006, released a seven-page list of buildings it said are at risk of default.
Quinn said she knows the Milbank buildings are not isolated disasters. “We are working closely through the distressed property taskforce and we will look at other buildings where this type of lawsuit makes sense,” she said.
A hearing on the motion is scheduled for May 10 in Bronx Supreme Court.
LNR Partners declined, through a spokesperson, to comment.
Posted in foreclosure, wells fargo0 Comments
Hedge Funds and the Global Economic Meltdown: MUST WATCH VIDEOS!
Posted on 27 April 2010.
Do you know who is the next Lehman? Sit back and relax…ENJOY!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUKSU1qahgE]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcjssQSthNU]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q48eSoTNByQ]
Source: writerjudd
Posted in bear stearns, concealment, conspiracy, corruption, naked short selling0 Comments
Bankruptcy Stalls ‘Extreme Makeover’ Foreclosure: WSJ
Posted on 27 April 2010.
April 27, 2010, 1:30 PM ET
By Dawn Wotapka
Milton and Patricia Harper narrowly avoided foreclosure. Again.
Their 5,300-square-foot McMansion, built for the “Extreme Makeover” television show was set to be auctioned off in Atlanta earlier this month. But the Harpers averted that fate with a Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing–for the second time.
The couple had filed for their first Chapter 13 in early 2009, as foreclosure loomed on their supersized home. The bankruptcy halted the process. It’s possible that the family was unable to fulfill the payment plan set up under the bankruptcy and thus had to file again this year–a common occurrence says Jessica Gabel, a law professor with Georgia State University.
The Harpers didn’t return a call for comment. Lender JP Morgan Chase, which now needs court permission to proceed with a foreclosure sale, declined to comment.
As we’ve written, the Harper episode aired in the 2004-2005 season. The family’s modest home with septic-tank issues was replaced by a showpiece resembling an English castle. In addition to a new house, which they were given outright, the Harpers received a scholarship fund for their three sons.
Mortgage troubles came after the family used the house as collateral for a $450,000 loan, which was modified by Chase in 2008.
Meanwhile, the family still seems to be trying to raffle off the house. They’ve recently updating their raffle Web site, however, no auction date is listed.
“That is unusual,” said Ms. Gabel, the professor. “That doesn’t pass the smell test. They’re going to have to demonstrate to the court why they should proceed” with the raffle. Plus, she added, any post-bankruptcy petition income might have to go to creditors.
Posted in bankruptcy, jpmorgan chase0 Comments
Lassiter Notwithstanding: The Right to Counsel in Foreclosure Actions
Posted on 27 April 2010.
Fast forward it’s getting much worse! Where are our rights heading??
ARTICLE: Lassiter Notwithstanding: The Right to Counsel in Foreclosure Actions
January / February, 2010
43 Clearinghouse Rev. 448
Author
By John Pollock
Excerpt
As I write, 250,000 new households are going into foreclosure every three months. 1 In the first three months last year, 22 percent of homeowners were “underwater” (i.e., owed more than their homes were worth), while a third of home sales in the previous year were either short sales or purchase of bank-repossessed properties. 2 Few signs of improvement are on the horizon: 1.5 million foreclosures occurred in the first half of 2009 alone, and some estimate that 8.1 million mortgages will be in foreclosure over the next four years. 3 The result is a tidal wave of cases swamping the state and federal courts–cases whose sheer volume and procedural irregularities strain the promise of due process.
The shortage of legal assistance during this crush of “foreclosure actions” compounds the due process concerns: no state provides a statutory right to counsel in any foreclosure proceedings, and consequently more than half of foreclosed homeowners are handling their cases without counsel. 4 Yet having an attorney is critical: while even a delinquent borrower may have a variety of options (e.g., mediation, modification, relief under federal law, various state-law claims and defenses) only an attorney can evaluate the options properly and advise the homeowner as to the most efficacious strategy.
Establishing a Fourteenth Amendment right to counsel in foreclosure actions requires an advocate to contend with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Lassiter v. Department of Social Services. 5 Where there is no threat to “physical liberty,” by which the Court meant incarceration, …
Copyright (c) 2010 by Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy
Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy
Posted in foreclosure fraud0 Comments
Peterson Scholarship Highlighted in SL Trib Article on Loan Registry
Posted on 27 April 2010.
April 26, 2010 by Barry Scholl
An April 25 Salt Lake Tribune article on the legal controversy surrounding the loan registry system known as MERS prominently mentions the scholarship of Christopher Peterson, a professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, and also includes an interview with Peterson.
MERS, an acronym for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, was created by the nation’s largest lenders in the early 1990s as a mechanism to reduce paperwork and recording fees. The private computer system allowed lenders to “in effect, put[] loans under MERS’ name, “ thus enabling lenders to “avoid having to file public documents each time a mortgage was bought and sold,” according to the Tribune article.
Peterson, the author of a forthcoming scholarly article on MERS in the University of Cincinnati Law Review, described it as “one of the buried, yet-to-emerge bombs in the whole mortgage crisis.” He also describes MERS as “a tax evasion broker,” that prevents counties from collecting millions in recording fees.
© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.
MERS, an acronym for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, was created by the nation’s largest lenders in the early 1990s as a mechanism to reduce paperwork and recording fees. The private computer system allowed lenders to “in effect, put[] loans under MERS’ name, “ thus enabling lenders to “avoid having to file public documents each time a mortgage was bought and sold,” according to the Tribune article.
Peterson, the author of a forthcoming scholarly article on MERS in the University of Cincinnati Law Review, described it as “one of the buried, yet-to-emerge bombs in the whole mortgage crisis.” He also describes MERS as “a tax evasion broker,” that prevents counties from collecting millions in recording fees.
To read the Salt Lake Tribune article, click here.
Posted in Christopher Peterson, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosures, MERS, MERSCORP, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC.0 Comments
Borrower Bailout?: Goldman Sachs Conveyor Belt
Posted on 27 April 2010.
Via: Livinglies
Borrower Bailout?: Goldman Sachs Conveyor Belt
- If you have a GSAMP securitized loan you might want to pay particular attention here. In fact, if you ever had a securitized loan of any kind you should be very interested.
- Hudson Mezzanine: The use of the word “mezzanine” is like the use of the word “Trust.” There is no mezzanine and there is no trust in the legal sense. It is merely meant to convey the fact that a conduit was being used to front multiple transactions — any one of which could be later moved around because the reference to the conduit entity does not specifically incorporate the exhibits to the conduit.
- The real legal issue here is who owns the profit from these deals? The profit is derived from insurance. The cost of insurance was funded from the securitized chain starting with the sale of securities to investors for money that was pooled.
- That pool was used in part to fund mortgages and insurance bets that those mortgages would fail. 93% of the sub-prime mortgages rated Triple AAA got marked down to junk level even if they did not fail, and insurance paid off because of the markdown. That means money was paid based upon loans executed by borrowers, whether they were or are default or not.
- If enough of the pool consisted of sub-prime mortgages, the the entire pool was marked down and insurance paid off. So whether you have a sub-prime mortgage or a conventional mortgage, whether you are up to date or in default, there is HIGH PROBABILITY that a payment has been made from insurance which should be allocated to your loan, whether foreclosed or not.
- The rest of the proceeds of investments by investors went as fees and profits to middlemen. If you accept the notion that the entire securitization chain was a single transaction in which fraud was the principal ingredient on both ends (homeowners and ivnestors), then BOTH the homeowner borrowers and the investors have a claim to that money.
- Homeowners have a claim for undisclosed compensation under the Truth in Lending Act and Investors have a claim under the Securities laws. (That is where these investor lawsuits and settlements come from).
- What nobody has done YET is file a claim for borrowers. The probable reason for this is that the securities transactions giving rise to these profits seem remote from the loan transaction. But if they arose BECAUSE of the execution of the loan documents by the borrower, then lending laws apply, along with REG Z from the Federal reserve. The payoff to borrowers is huge, potentially involving treble damages, interest, court costs and attorney fees.
- Under common law fraud and just plain common sense, there is no legal basis for allowing the perpetrator of a fraud to keep the benefits arising out of the the fraud. So who gets the money?
April 26, 2010
Mortgage Deals Under Scrutiny as Goldman Faces Senators
By LOUISE STORY
WASHINGTON — The legal storm buffeting Goldman Sachs continued to rage Tuesday just ahead of what is expected to be a contentious Senate hearing at which bank executives plan to defend their actions during the housing crisis.
Senate investigators on Monday claimed that Goldman Sachs had devised not one but a series of complex deals to profit from the collapse of the home mortgage market. The claims suggested for the first time that the inquiries into Goldman were stretching beyond the sole mortgage deal singled out by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The S.E.C. has accused Goldman of defrauding investors in that single transaction, Abacus 2007-AC1, have thrust the bank into a legal whirlwind.
The stage for Tuesday’s hearing was set with a flurry of new documents from the panel, the Permanent Senate Subcommittee on Investigations. That was preceded by a press briefing in Washington, where the accusations against Goldman have transformed the politics of financial reform.
In the midst of this storm, Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, plans to sound a conciliatory note on Tuesday.
In a statement prepared for the hearing and released on Monday, Mr. Blankfein said the news 10 days ago that the S.E.C. had filed a civil fraud suit against Goldman had shaken the bank’s employees.
“It was one of the worst days of my professional life, as I know it was for every person at our firm,” Mr. Blankfein said. “We have been a client-centered firm for 140 years, and if our clients believe that we don’t deserve their trust we cannot survive.”
Mr. Blankfein will also testify that Goldman did not have a substantial, consistent short position in the mortgage market.
But at the press briefing in Washington, Carl Levin, the Democrat of Michigan who heads the Senate committee, insisted that Goldman had bet against its clients repeatedly. He held up a binder the size of two breadboxes that he said contained copies of e-mail messages and other documents that showed Goldman had put its own interests first.
“The evidence shows that Goldman repeatedly put its own interests and profits ahead of the interests of its clients,” Mr. Levin said.
Mr. Levin’s investigative staff released a summary of those documents, which are to be released in full on Tuesday. The summary included information on Abacus as well as new details about other complex mortgage deals.
On a page titled “The Goldman Sachs Conveyor Belt,” the subcommittee described five other transactions beyond the Abacus investment.
One, called Hudson Mezzanine, was put together in the fall of 2006 expressly as a way to create more short positions for Goldman, the subcommittee claims. The $2 billion deal was one of the first for which Goldman sales staff began to face dubious clients, according to former Goldman employees.
“Here we are selling this, but we think the market is going the other way,” a former Goldman salesman told The New York Times in December.
Hudson, like Goldman’s 25 Abacus deals, was a synthetic collateralized debt obligation, which is a bundle of insurance contracts on mortgage bonds. Like other banks, Goldman turned to synthetic C.D.O.’s to allow it to complete deals faster than the sort of mortgage securities that required actual mortgage bonds. These deals also created a new avenue for Goldman and some of its hedge fund clients to make negative bets on housing.
Goldman also had an unusual and powerful role in the Hudson deal that the Senate committee did not highlight: According to Hudson marketing documents, which were reviewed on Monday by The Times, Goldman was also the liquidation agent in the deal, which is the party that took it apart when it hit trouble.
The Senate subcommittee also studied two deals from early 2007 called Anderson Mezzanine 2007-1 and Timberwolf I. In total, these two deals were worth $1.3 billion, and Goldman held about $380 million of the negative bets associated with the two deals.
The subcommittee pointed to these deals as examples of how Goldman put its own interests ahead of clients. Mr. Levin read from several Goldman documents on Monday to underscore the point, including one in October 2007 that said, “Real bad feeling across European sales about some of the trades we did with clients. The damage this has done to our franchise is very significant.”
As the mortgage market collapsed, Goldman turned its back on clients who came knocking with older Goldman-issued bonds they had bought. One example was a series of mortgage bonds known as Gsamp.
“I said ‘no’ to clients who demanded that GS should ‘support the Gsamp’ program as clients tried to gain leverage over us,” a mortgage trader, Michael Swenson, wrote in his self-evaluation at the end of 2007. “Those were unpopular decisions but they saved the firm hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The Gsamp program was also involved in a dispute in the summer of 2007 that Goldman had with a client, Peleton Partners, a hedge fund founded by former Goldman workers that has since collapsed because of mortgage losses.
According to court documents reviewed by The Times on Monday, in June 2007, Goldman refused to accept a Gsamp bond from Peleton in a dispute over the securities that backed up a mortgage security called Broadwick. A Peleton partner was pointed in his response after Goldman refused the Gsamp bond.
“We do appreciate the unintended irony,” wrote Peter Howard, a partner at Peleton, in an e-mail message about the Gsamp bond.
Bank of America ended up suing Goldman over the Broadwick deal. The parties are awaiting a written ruling in that suit. Broadwick was one of a dozen or so so-called hybrid C.D.O.’s that Goldman created in 2006 and 2007. Such investments were made up of both mortgage bonds and insurance contracts on mortgage bonds.
While such hybrids have received little attention, one mortgage researcher, Gary Kopff of Everest Management, has pointed to a dozen other Goldman C.D.O.’s, including Broadwick, that were mixes of mortgage bonds and insurance policies. Those deals — with names like Fortius I and Altius I — may have been another method for Goldman to obtain negative bets on housing.
“It was like an insurance policy that Goldman stuck in the middle of the sandwich with all the other subprime bonds,” Mr. Kopff said. “And it was an insurance policy designed to protect them.”
An earlier version of this article misidentified Senator Levin’s home state.
Relatated Stories:
Shareholders Sue Goldman, Blankfein Confirming Trusts Do NOT Own the Loans
Posted in cdo, concealment, conspiracy, corruption, foreclosure fraud, goldman sachs, hank paulson, john paulson, livinglies, matt taibbi, neil garfield, S.E.C., securitization1 Comment
Why Don’t Lenders Renegotiate More Home Mortgages? The Effect of Securitization
Posted on 27 April 2010.
Abstract:
Securitization does not explain the reluctance among lenders to renegotiate home mortgages. We focus on seriously delinquent borrowers from 2005 through the third quarter of 2008 and show that servicers renegotiate similarly small fractions of securitized and portfolio loans. The results are robust toseveral different definitions of renegotiation and hold in subsamples where unobserved heterogeneity is likely to be small. We argue that information issues endemic to home mortgages where lenders negotiatewith large numbers of borrowers lead to barriers to renegotiation fundamentally different from thosepresent with other types of debt.
[scribd id=30566817 key=key-ojw4kxq7pqgfvsh43qo mode=list]
Posted in conspiracy, foreclosure fraud, LPS, S.E.C.0 Comments
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