Listen carefully because this is probably the most important post on this site. I know for a fact, many of you carry stress on your shoulders until it knocks you down like a ton of bricks without any notice. You get absolutely no warning.
A series of studies over the past year, including one that zeroed in on Florida and other hard-hit states, found that people who go through home foreclosures suffer more stress-related illnesses, from high blood pressure to depression to heart trouble to nausea.
With foreclosures expected to begin rising again in the coming year, doctors and mortgage counselors said they expect to see more distressed homeowners fall ill.
Mandi Shaw was dealt a seemingly insurmountable hand.
The 47-year-old Utah woman’s heart is at only 20 percent of normal capacity, and the results of her birth defects include clubbed feet, no fingers on her right hand and teeth so soft they fell out, according to Deseret News.
Her disabilities are making it impossible for her to work and nearly impossible to pay her mortgage, according to the news site. Now, Shaw is turning to YouTube for help in keeping their home.
To anyone willing to help, Shaw says in the video: “I would be forever grateful and indebted.”
The federal judge overseeing the Securities and Exchange Commission’s fraud case against Citigroup became even more direct in his criticism of the agency’s actions on Thursday, accusing the commission of misleading both his court and the federal court of appeals.
NOTE: Below in her request appears a reference to a link @ #4 Nevada v. LPS, but where is her lawsuit against LPS??
Attorney General Pam Bondi today filed a motion asking the Fourth District Court of Appeal to certify that its recent decision in Law Offices of David Stern, P.A. v. State of Florida passes upon a question of great public importance. In Stern, the Fourth DCA held that the Attorney General’s Office lacked authority under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (“FDUPTA”) to subpoena records of the Stern firm as part of an investigation into possible misconduct in the firm’s handling of foreclosure cases.
Applicable court rules require certification from the Fourth DCA before this office may appeal the Stern decision to the Florida Supreme Court. The Attorney General’s motion asks the Fourth DCA to certify that its decision in Stern passes upon the following question of great public importance: whether the creation of invalid assignments of mortgages by a law firm and subsequent use of such documents by the firm in foreclosure litigation on behalf of the purported assignee is an unfair and deceptive trade practice which may be the subject of an investigation by the Office of the Attorney General.
FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
VICTOR BALDERAS and BELEN BALDERAS, Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
COUNTRYWIDE BANK, N.A., a National Banking Association; AAA FUNDING, INC., DBA USA Funding, a California corporation; COUNTRYWIDE HOME MMA-JMA LOANS, INC., DBA America’s Wholesale Lender, a New York corporation; MOR CAZAKOV, an individual; GALENA KOROL, an individual; DOES 1 through 10, inclusive, Defendants-Appellees. þ
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California
Michael M. Anello, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted
June 9, 2011—Pasadena, California
Filed December 29, 2011
EXCERPT:
KOZINSKI, Chief Judge:
The Balderases allege that they are immigrants who were rooked by a bank that signed them up for loans it knew they couldn’t afford, on terms they didn’t agree to. These are the facts as recited in the complaint: Mor Cazakov, a mortgage broker, cold-called the Balderases, representing that he could refinance their home, switch them to a fixed rate mortgage and let them cash out $50,000, all without a penalty. Subsequently, Soraya Qassim, a “duly authorized agent” of Countrywide Bank (Countrywide), filled out a uniform residential loan application (URLA) for them and showed up unannounced at their home, urging the Balderases to sign it. But the form was in English, which they can’t read, and it overestimated their income by over $40,000 per year. Qassim told them it was an informal document the bank needed, so the Balderases signed.
Three days later, on the evening of Monday, September 25, 2006, Cazakov showed up at their home with a notary public and loan documents also written in English. He told them that Countrywide “demanded” their signatures “that night” and he couldn’t and wouldn’t leave without getting them. The Balderases protested and asked to arrange the loan signing when their English-literate daughter could attend. But Cazakov said that Countrywide had instructed him to stay until he got the signatures, and he “engaged in a series of actions designed to intimidate, harass, and pressure [the Balderases] into signing the loan documents.” After six hours of unrelenting pressure by Cazakov and several unsuccessful attempts to read the paperwork, the Balderases capitulated and signed the documents just after midnight. On Wednesday, they called Cazakov and asked him to rescind the loans. He refused. They then called Countrywide a day later seeking the same relief. Countrywide also refused, falsely representing it was too late. In fact, the three-day statutory rescission period extended through the next day, Friday, September 29.
The Balderases filed a complaint alleging, among other things, a violation of the Truth In Lending Act (TILA). See 15 U.S.C. §§ 1601 et seq. Countrywide filed a 12(b)(6) motion, which the district court granted. This timely appeal followed.
A devastating report by Reuters shows that the federal government is focusing on small scale swindlers while ignoring crimes by big banks despite a wealth of evidence against them. The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
SUPREME COURT – STATE OF NEW YORK IAS PART 43 – SUFFOLK COUNTY
DEUTSCHE BANK TRUST COMPANY AMERICAS AS INDENTURE TRUSTEE FOR THE REGISTERED HOLDERS OF SAXON ASSET SECURITIES TRUST 2005-3 MORTGAGE LOAN ASSET BACKED NOTES, SERIES 2005-3, Plaintiff,
-against-
DENNIS D. DAY, SMI MORTGAGE, “JOHN DOE #1” through “JOHN DOE #12”, the last twelve names being fictitious and unknown to plaintiff, the persons or parties intended being the tenants, occupants. persons or corporations, if any, having or claiming an interest in or lien upon the premises, described in the complaint, Defendant, ,
EXCERPT:
The plaintiff alleges in the verified complaint that there has been compliance with RPAPL § 1304; however, neither a copy of the purported 90-day notice nor an affidavit of service of the notice in compliance with RPAPI. § 1304 has been annexed to the moving papers (see, Aurora Loan Servs., LLC v Weisblum, 85 AD3d 95, supra). Without an affidavit of service from one with personal knowledge of compliance with the specific service requirements of RPAPI., § 1304 or, in the alternative, an affidavit sufficient to show why the requirements of § 1304 do not apply, the Court may not grant an order of reference.
The Real Estalker is one of my favorite blogs and actually was one of a few that inspired me to create this site. Please check it out!
And Yes, we know Mr. Mozilo, this is just one of a few hundred you call “primary residence”. If walls could only talk in this house.
The Real Estalker-
mansion located behind the guarded gates of the well-heeled Sherwood County Clubowned as per property records–and much to our pearl clutching flabbergast–by the vastly-loathed and utterly disgraced former Countrywide Financial CEO and COB Angelo Mozilo who has the architecturally conventional (mc)mansion listed on the open market with an asking price of $3,400,000.
Mister Mozilo, a mortgage industry maverick who co-founded Countrywide in 1969 and nearly 30 years later co-founded the dramatically collapsed IndyMac Bank (now OneWest Bank), is widely regarded as one of the more Machiavellian sub-mortgage-men who helped march the U.S. (and global) economy straight off the cliff in the mid-Noughts. While Mister Mozilo and his mortgage-making army pushed and pedaled sub-prime home loans he talked up the then-flourishing company’s stock price, earned hundreds of millions in compensation, and cashed out more than $400,000,000 worth of Countrywide stock, a large portion of it during the last couple of years of his tattered tenure as the king of Countrywide.
One by One, judges are going to finally have enough of the ponzi’s.
To the judges who aren’t turning a blind eye… thank you.
NYT-
A federal judge in Wisconsin has challenged the Securities and Exchange Commission over a proposed settlement of fraud charges against a publicly traded company, citing as a precedent the agency’s pending case against Citigroup.
That represents a significant expansion of the impact of the Citigroup case, in which Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Federal District Court in New York threw out a proposed settlement between the company and the S.E.C.
Judge Rakoff said he had rejected the Citigroup settlement because there were no established facts on which to base a decision whether the settlement was “fair, reasonable, adequate and in the public interest.”
In a last-minute move, Citi- Mortgage called off the foreclosure sale of a St. Louis Park house whose owner battled to stay in her home with the support of the Minnesota attorney general.
Nancy Gosselin was scheduled to lose her house in a sheriff’s auction scheduled for Tuesday, even though an investigation by the attorney general determined that at most, she had missed one payment of $584 more than two years ago.
After Gosselin was featured in a Whistleblower column on Nov. 13, CitiMortgage postponed the foreclosure for a month. Then, this week, Gosselin got the good news.
And… Millions of Americans Are Realizing their titles are flawed…and millions more know better than buying a foreclosed house because the banks can’t prove they own the home they foreclosed on.
Best of all Millions of Americans know for a fact banks are stealing our homes!
Business Insider-
If you’re planning on ditching your mortgage payments and letting your home fall into foreclosure, now just may be the time to do it.
Thanks to record long waits for foreclosure reviews this year, 40 percent of homeowners in default have been sitting pretty in their homes for the last two years without paying a dime, CNN Money reports.
Bell, C.J., Harrell Battaglia Greene *Murphy Adkins Barbera, JJ. Opinion by Harrell, J.
Filed: December 20, 2011
EXCERPT:
A nonholder in possession, however, cannot rely on possession of the instrument alone as a basis to enforce it. The transferee’s right to enforce the instrument derives from the transferor (because by the terms of the instrument, it is not payable to the transferee) and therefore those rights must be proved. Com. Law § 3-203 cmt. 2; accord Leavings v. Mills 175 S.W.3d 301 (Tex. Ct. App. 2004 ) (“A person not identified in a note who is seeking to enforce it as the owner or holder must prove the transfer by which he acquired the note.”) The transferee does not enjoy the statutorily provided assumption of the right to enforce the instrument that accompanies a negotiated instrument, and so the transferee “must account for possession of the unindorsed instrument by proving the transaction through which the transferee acquired it.” Com. Law § 3-203 cmt. 2. If there are multiple prior transfers, the transferee must prove each prior transfer. U.S. Bank Nat’l Assoc. v. Ibanez, 941 N.E.2d 40, 53 (Mass. 2011) (citing In re Parrish, 326 B.R. 708, 720 (Bankr. N.D. Ohio 2005)). Once the transferee establishes a successful transfer from a holder, he or she acquires the enforcement rights of that holder. See Com. Law § 3-203 cmt. 2. A transferee’s rights, however, can be no greater than his or her transferor’s because those rights are “purely derivative.” Lawrence, supra, § 3-203:15R. Thus, the Substitute Trustees here, who possess an unindorsed note and wish to enforce it, had the burden of proving their status as nonholder in possession.
Michael Olenick, Gretchen Morgenson, and Yves Smith have all written pretty damning things about the foreclosure reviews persuant to the OCC consent orders with major mortgage servicers. (For my own previous thoughts, see here and here.) I’ve just started to peruse some of the engagement letters with the firms conducting the reviews, and the rot is even worse that these other critics portray.
What follows is in no way a comprehensive cataloging of the problems in the OCC foreclosure review process–this is just what I spotted from the briefest of perusals. Yet it is clear that there are two types of serious problems: conflicts of interest and flawed substance of the review process. I’ll lay both out below and then give some thoughts as to what could and should be done to remedy this farcical process in order to ensure some accountability to the public and justice for homeowners. The post concludes with some thoughts about the core problem–the OCC–and what can be done to remedy it.
We all would agree that all the banks share the same protocols in how they conduct business. All frauds.
HuffPO-
Confidential whistleblower documents that helped spark a massive state and federal investigation into how Bank of New York Mellon Corp charged pension funds for currency exchange, provide a rare window into how a bank insider aided a lawsuit against the bank.
The information provided by whistleblower Grant Wilson, who worked at BNY Mellon, included a detailed analysis of how the bank allegedly provided “fictitious” foreign-currency costs for pension funds.
The analysis included a step-by-step guide to how currencies were traded and internal profits generated by the bank, according to documents seen by Reuters. A memo detailing fellow employees also was provided.
They never lost a single penny from the foreclosures but made billions of profits. Course whatever they ask for they will pay a price to get it…except not to you.
HuffPO-
Banks helped create the housing crisis, and now they’re seeking a new way to profit from it. As Bloomberg reported Monday, several financial and investment companies have submitted proposals to the federal government, suggesting ways that they can help manage a program to rent out 180,000 foreclosed homes.
Fair and affordable housing advocates are calling on the Obama administration to reject help from the financial sector, or at least limit its influence.
“It’s really a question of whether the banks that made so much money creating this crisis are going to profit again,” Jeremy Rosen, policy director at the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, told The Huffington Post.
The Wall Street Journal ran a story today (12/27/11) entitled “SEC Ups Its Game to Identify Rogue Firms.”
“Rogue” is an interesting word with a range of definitions. When it is used as an adjective its meaning is: “a playfully mischievous person; scamp.” The trivialization of the most destructive elite frauds is one of the most common forms of what criminologists call “neutralization” of the moral content of wrong doing. Neutralization increases crime.
The actual story makes it clear that the criminals that the SEC was identifying were not “rogues.” They were the CEOs of seemingly legitimate firms. The SEC is identifying “accounting control frauds” – the frauds that cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined. The SEC is not identifying a few rotten apples, but roughly 100 hedge funds likely to have engaged in accounting fraud. The WSJ describes the SEC’s identification system:
“The list is the low-tech product of a high-tech effort by the SEC to crack down on fraud at hedge funds and other investment firms. After the agency failed to detect the $17.3 billion Ponzi scheme by Bernard L. Madoff, who wowed investors with steady returns over several decades, SEC officials decided they needed a way to trawl through performance data and look for red flags that might signal a possible fraud.
In 2009, the SEC began developing a computer-powered system that now analyzes monthly returns from thousands of hedge funds. Officials won’t say exactly how it works or how much it cost to build, but the agency has announced four civil-fraud lawsuits filed as a result of what it calls the “aberrational performance initiative.”” The SEC should be applauded for finally understanding that “if it’s too good to be true; it probably isn’t true.” Our agency put a similar system in place in 1984 to identify the S&L accounting control frauds that were driving that crisis. A quarter-century later, the SEC began to follow our well-trodden trail – but only with regard to felons inhabiting the middle of the fraud food chain (hedge funds).
The SEC has, inevitably, discovered that accounting fraud is common among …
Rumors have been swirling for quite some time of this connection and here is some info below.
This doc below is asking for a legal opinion of eNotes…but read this carefully.
“We note that a state potentially could adopt legislation restricting operation of mortgage note registries to trust companies or similar entities;19 however, such a law would only be valid if it applied equally to electronic and paper mortgage notes.20”
Here’s a link when C&B said their goodbye’s as soon as Mr. Holder became the US AG in 2009:
This isn’t rocket science… The Banks created this unreliable system, destroyed land records, screwed the courts, screwed the counties of fees and fabricated documents that were all pre-dated in order to make them appear legit. All the Supreme Court needs to do is read Max Gardner’s Top Tips for Fake Mortgage Documents or read to spot the crime.
A case before the Nevada State Supreme Court next week could have far-reaching impact on Nevadans struggling to stay in their homes. Among the issues before the justices is what proof lenders must provide to show they own the property they seek to foreclose.
If you act like a bank, you think like a bank …you’ll think you’re above the law as well.
National Mortgage News-
The Federal Housing Finance Agency believes California Attorney General Kamala Harris is pestering Fannie Mae with stupid questions. Whether that opinion is enough justification for the government-sponsored enterprise to ignore her queries is to be determined.
Earlier in the week Harris filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court, seeking to force Fannie to respond to a lengthy list of questions about defaulted loans it guarantees in the state and other matters. Appended to the filing is a letter from Arnold & Porter attorneys representing the FHFA, who argue that the agency’s authority over Fannie shield it from California’s questions.
by Marian Wang ProPublica, Dec. 27, 2011, 10:56 a.m.
This is part of our year-end series, looking at where things stand in each of our major investigations.
If last year [1] was the year in which faulty foreclosures and bank errors became a full-blown scandal, this has been the year of waiting for something to be done about it.
First, there’s the still-to-come multi-state settlement over alleged fraud on the part of the country’s five largest mortgage servicers. That’s the settlement being brokered by a coalition of state attorneys general and once touted [2] as homeowners’ best bet for redressing banks’ flaws in foreclosure and mortgage documentation. Over the past year, one story after another declared such a deal was imminent, but the details — the total price tag [3], the deal’s framework, and the expected date — have continually been changing.
Earlier this month, the Des Moines Register reported Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller — a point man for the attorneys’ general probe — as saying that the final deal should be complete before Christmas [4] and would include a measure to reduce the total debt owed by underwater homeowners. No deal has yet been announced. Miller wouldn’t disclose a dollar figure on the size of the settlement — or whether California, one of the hardest-hit states, would participate.
Over the course of the year, some state attorneys general seemed to lose faith in the coordinated effort, voicing concerns that the eventual settlement would be too easy on the banks.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris signaled her hesitation too [5], as did the attorneys general of New York [6], Delaware, Nevada, Massachusetts [7], Kentucky [8] and Minnesota [9]. These state attorneys general — many of whom have filed their own suits against major servicers [10], foreclosure processing firms [11], and other players [12] — questioned whether the settlement would limit their ability to take more aggressive action against foreclosure abuses in their states and either expressed doubts about whether they’d sign on to the final settlement or pulled out of the talks altogether.
Banks, meanwhile, have pushed for the settlement to include broader releases from legal liability over mortgage-related abuses. According to a recent Wall Street Journal piece, they’ve tried to make their participation in the settlement contingent on being shielded [13] from the possibility of lawsuits brought by the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Also still to be determined? An official to monitor the banks and servicers [14] and ensure they comply with whatever agreement is eventually reached.
Meanwhile, federal banking regulators have also begun to act. In April, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Reserve accused eight mortgage servicers and two third-party mortgage processing firms of 201Cunsafe and unsound [15]” foreclosure practices and ordered them to come up with a plan to prevent the same errors going forward. (Read the orders [16] they received.) But the revamp plans drawn up by the banks are kept confidential [17]. And no financial penalties [18] have been issued, though regulators have said that they’re still to come.
Regulators also launched an interagency foreclosure review program [19] [PDF] this year to identify and compensate homeowners who were wronged in the foreclosure process. The plan is to review sample loan files pulled from the files from 14 largest mortgage servicers, as well as files from homeowners who submit a request for a review.
The regulators in charge of the program have so far declined to disclose information on key aspects of the review, such as what kinds of compensation are available to homeowners, how compensation would be calculated, and for what specific offenses. (Homeowners with questions can see our FAQ on the reviews [20] to see whether they’re eligible for review and how to apply.)
The reviews themselves are being conducted by outside consulting firms [21] that will be supervised by the regulators but paid by the banks. As we’ve reported [22], some lawmakers have raised concerns about the experience of the reviewers and whether they will truly be able to operate independently of the banks.
Finally, it bears mentioning that despite the efforts on both the federal and state level to address the systemic failures of banks and mortgage servicers, errors are continuing [23] — and they’re still causing wrongful foreclosures.
The only subset of homeowners who seem to have gotten a break — or redress for botched foreclosures — is military families. Earlier this year, the Justice Department settled lawsuits [24] against subsidiaries of Bank of America and Morgan Stanley over allegations that they wrongfully foreclosed on active duty service members, in violation of a law that specifically offers them greater protection from foreclosure. As part of that settlement, the two companies apologized [25] and paid a combined penalty of $22 million, plus compensation to certain service members who suffered wrongful foreclosures.
Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (Regulation X)
AGENCY: Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.
ACTION: Interim final rule with request for public comment.
SUMMARY: Title X of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and ConsumerProtection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) transferred rulemaking authority for a number of consumer financial protection laws from seven Federal agencies to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (Bureau) as of July 21, 2011. The Bureau is in the process of republishing the regulations implementing those laws with technical and conforming changes to reflect the transfer of authority and certain other changes made by the Dodd-Frank Act. In light of the transfer of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) rulemaking authority for the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) to the Bureau, the Bureau is publishing for public comment an interim final rule establishing a new Regulation X (Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act). This interim final rule does not impose any new substantive obligations on persons subject to the existing Regulation X, previously published by HUD.
DATES: This interim final rule is effective December 30, 2011. Comments must be received on or before February 21, 2012.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CFPB-2011- 0030 or RIN 3170-AA06, by any of the following methods: Electronic: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
Mail: Monica Jackson, Office of the Executive Secretary, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, 1500 Pennsylvania Ave. NW., (Attn: 1801 L Street), Washington, DC 20220.
Hand Delivery/Courier in Lieu of Mail: Monica Jackson, Office of the Executive Secretary, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, 1700 G Street NW., Washington, DC 20006.
All submissions must include the agency name and docket number or Regulatory Information Number (RIN) for this rulemaking. In general, all comments received will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov. In addition, comments will be available for publicinspection and copying at 1700 G Street NW., Washington, DC 20006, on official business days between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern Time. You can make an appointment to inspect the documents by telephoning (202) 435-7275.
All comments, including attachments and other supporting materials, will become part of the public record and subject to public disclosure. Sensitive personal information, such as account numbers or social security numbers, should not be included. Comments will not be edited to remove any identifying or contact information.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Joseph Devlin or Jane Gao, Office of Regulations, at (202) 435-7700.
Recent Comments