My mother always said “Don’t have nothing good to say, Don’t say anything at all”

FOX BUSINESS-

The impasse over the nationwide mortgage foreclosure settlement continues, but could a meeting Tuesday provide the much needed breakthrough that brings the California Attorney General into the settlement and paves the way for a deal?

Some people close the negotiations say yes. That is because California Attorney General Kamala Harris will be attending a meeting with Iowa’s Attorney General, Tom Miller, who is leading the negotiations with the banks over faulty mortgage foreclosures and who is likely to press Harris to join the broader group.

What a team!

HW-

Attorneys General for Delaware and New York secured permission from a U.S. District Judge to intervene in court proceedings discussing the Bank of New York Mellon (BK: 18.03 -0.33%) $8.5 billion settlement with Bank of America (BAC: 5.045 -3.90%) over toxic mortgage-backed securities.

The AGs are eager to get a presence in the proceedings, so they can represent the interests of the investing public in their respective states before a final deal is reached. Admission to the process gives the AGs a chance to hear where talks are going and an opportunity to object to provisions of the deal.

[HOUSING WIRE]

Another great job by Shahien Nasiripour

FT-

Eric Schneiderman, New York attorney-general, has launched an investigation into possibly unlawful foreclosures on the mortgages of active-duty members of the US military.

Data released last week by a federal banking regulator suggested that 10 leading lenders may have seized the homes of about 5,000 service members in violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. The nearly-decade old law restricts foreclosures on the homes of members of the US armed forces while they are on active duty.

[FINANCIAL TIMES]

© 2010-12 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.
www.StopForeclosureFraud.com

For those who are just following: Lawrence was the whistleblower who turned in LPS’ employees to Nevada AG Masto that led to indictments of robo-signing.

LAS VEGAS (KSNV MyNews3) —

The notary who signed tens of thousands of false documents in a massive robo-signing scandal case was found dead in her home on Monday.

The notary, 43-year-old Tracy Lawrence, was supposed to be in court at 8:30 Monday morning for her sentencing hearing. When her attorney did not hear from her for more than an hour, Sr. Deputy Attorney General Robert Giunta asked for a bench warrant to be issued for Lawrence. The judge denied the request.

Metro Homicide Detectives are working currently the case. It is unclear if her death was due to natural causes, or if it was a suicide or homicide. Last Monday, Lawrence pled guilty to only one criminal charge of notary fraud.

[KSNV MyNews3]

AP-

A government watchdog said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac improperly foreclosed on homeowners and cost the government billions of dollars by not holding major banks to strict underwriting requirements.

The report released Tuesday also said the Federal Housing Finance Agency gave “undue deference” to Fannie and Freddie officials and didn’t scrutinize more than $35 million in bonuses and compensation to Fannie and Freddie executives.

FHFA’s inspector general had previously released each of the findings on an individual basis. But the semi-annual report to Congress sketched a portrait of abuse at the two mortgage giants that the government failed to stop.

Fannie, Freddie and the FHFA didn’t respond to the report. But they have responded to similar allegations in previous reports.

[ASSOCIATED PRESS]

© 2010-12 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.
www.StopForeclosureFraud.com

Federal Housing Finance Agency Acting Director Edward J. DeMarco has announced the appointments of Richard B. Hornsby, as FHFA’s Chief Operating Officer (COO),
and Jon Greenlee, as the agency’s Deputy Director of the Division of Enterprise Regulation.

Scribd

HuffPO-

Even those people putting their lives on the line for their country may not be safe from the American foreclosure crisis.

Ten lenders are reviewing close to 5,000 foreclosures of homes belonging to active-duty service members in an attempt to discover if they were carried out improperly, according to data from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, cited by the Financial Times. The OCC’s report is based on projections prepared by the lenders and and their consultants. Bank of America said it is reviewing 2,400 foreclosures of homes belonging to active-duty service members and Wells Fargo said it’s looking at nearly 900 cases. Citigroup is reviewing 700 foreclosures, the bank said.

[HUFFINGTON POST]

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

ORATAI CULHANE,

Plaintiff,

v.

AURORA LOAN SERVICES
OF NEBRASKA,

Defendant.

EXCERPT:

Nationwide, courts are grappling with challenges to MERS’s
power to assign mortgages as well as its practice of deputizing
employees of other companies to make assignments on its behalf.
The present case is distinct only in that it is this Court’s
first encounter with MERS and with the question whether its
involvement in the origination and assignment of a mortgage loan
clouds record title to the mortgaged property. The public has an
interest in ensuring the liquidity of the mortgage market. Thus,
even if Culhane is unable to exercise her equitable right of
redemption and foreclosure of her mortgage loan is inevitable,
title must pass free of cloud and not subject to challenge in any
future action for summary process or to try title on the ground
that the foreclosure process was conducted unlawfully. See
Bevilacqua v. Rodriguez, 460 Mass. 762, 772 (2011); Bank of N.Y.
v. Bailey, 460 Mass. 327, 333-34 (2011).

[...]

Indeed, a MERS certifying officer is more akin to an Admiral in the Georgia navy or a Kentucky Colonel with benefits than he is to any genuine financial officer. In its rush to cash in on the sale of mortgage-backed securities, the MERS system supplies the thinnest possible veneer of formality and legality to the wholesale marketing of home mortgages to large institutional investors.14

Scribd

I’m sure this is only a “tip” of this iceberg!

Around the conference room table were a dozen or so hedge- fund managers and other Wall Street executives — at least five of them alumni of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., of which Paulson was chief executive officer and chairman from 1999 to 2006. In addition to Eton Park founder Eric Mindich, they included such boldface names as Lone Pine Capital LLC founder Stephen Mandel, Dinakar Singh of TPG-Axon Capital Management LP and Daniel Och of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC.

Business Week-

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson stepped off the elevator into the Third Avenue offices of hedge fund Eton Park Capital Management LP in Manhattan. It was July 21, 2008, and market fears were mounting. Four months earlier, Bear Stearns Cos. had sold itself for just $10 a share to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Now, amid tumbling home prices and near-record foreclosures, attention was focused on a new source of contagion: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together had more than $5 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and other debt outstanding.

[BUSINESS WEEK]