HuffPO-

Do you owe more on your mortgage than your home is worth? If so, you are not alone. Nearly one out of every four Americans who has a mortgage is trapped “underwater.” More mortgage holders were underwater at the end of 2011 than in any previous period since 2009, when real estate research firm Corelogic first began tracking the issue.

As a practical matter being underwater can be financially paralyzing. If you need to sell your house, you might actually have to pay the bank to take it off your hands. Emotionally, living underwater is essentially the American Dream in reverse. A nightmare in which your (probably) largest financial asset might never regain its value.

To help sort it out, HSH, a company…

[HUFFINGTONPOST]

Rolling Stone-

Here’s yet another form of hidden bailout the federal government doles out to our big banks, without the public having much of a clue.

This is from the WSJ this morning:

Some of the biggest names on Wall Street are lining up to become landlords to cash-strapped Americans by bidding on pools of foreclosed properties being sold by Fannie Mae…

While the current approach of selling homes one-by-one has its own high costs and is sometimes inefficient, selling properties in bulk to large investors could require Fannie Mae to sell at a big discount, leading to larger initial costs.

In con artistry parlance, they call this the “reload.” That’s when you hit the same mark twice – typically with a second scam designed to “fix” the damage caused by the first scam. Someone robs your house, then comes by the next day and sells you a fancy alarm system, that’s the reload.

In this case, banks pumped up the real estate market by creating huge volumes of subprime loans, then dumped a lot of them on, among others, Fannie and Freddie, the ever-ready enthusiastic state customer. Now the loans have crashed in value, yet the GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises) are still out there feeding the banks money through two continuous bailouts.

[ROLLING STONE]

Thanks to Abigail Field for the title post and thank you to Joe over at BP Investigative Agency for this submission.

According to a Handwriting Expert… yes, documents were forged and altered.

As if Breaking and Entering weren’t enough, add forgery to the lengths JP Morgan Chase will go to take a home.

When foreclosure proceedings began on William Paatalo’s  Montana property in  January 2010, he, like many homeowners, felt emotionally drained and devastated. “ I couldn’t believe how I got to this place.  I had perfect credit in 2008.  I was making payments on three properties through Washington Mutual, but they began to misapply payments to the wrong accounts and even turned off my ‘auto-pay’ feature in an attempt to sabotage my credit and spin me into default.”

  By the time Paatalo discovered the error, his credit had tanked and things started spiraling downward. “It was brutal. My business lines of credit were shut down, and I couldn’t access any of my lines of credit ; WAMU was slow to acknowledge the problem; the credit agencies ignored me; and then I got the foreclosure notices.  It was a living hell. I spent a lot time being angry. “

In the end, Paatalo did what many home owners  are now doing.  He started pushing back.  “I didn’t want to just roll over.  I figured I still had some rights, so I began the painstaking process of researching my loan in hopes I could modify or delay the action.  The Trustee’s sale wasn’t   scheduled until June, so I figured I had a little bit of time to rectify the situation.”

But unbeknownst to Paatalo, Chase, who had acquired WAMU in 2008, took early action.  In March, they broke into his home, changed all the locks, and stole property, including  personal documents and a handgun.  “I was out of town, and when I found out what they had done I was outraged.” 

Paatalo filed a criminal complaint and took additional action. However, law enforcement sat idle as it was perceived to be a “civil matter.”  Tired of being victimized, he began investigating practices in the mortgage industry and uncovered much of what is now known.  In October of 2010 he filed suit against JP Morgan Chase pro se and has been litigating since then. 

But his case, scheduled for trial in September, took a bizarre turn recently.  “I was reading about the class action suit in California Bakenie v. JPMorgan Chase Bank  and I got to wondering if my note might’ve been forged.  So I got a color copy of the note, and in my office I magnified the signatures 800 fold.”

What he found was astounding.  Even to the layman’s eye, the signatures appeared to have been photo-shopped.  In one instance, even the signature line was colored blue.  “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  It looked like something a high school kid did. 

 Paatalo sent the document to Dr. Laurie Hoeltzel  in southern California;  a handwriting / document expert with over 20 years of experience.  Her findings verified what Paatalo suspected, the documents had indeed been forged.  “All along Chase has argued on record they hold the note.  Clearly, they do not.  It’s one thing to claim the note entitles them to foreclose, it’s another to commit a felonious act to illegally take a home they are not entitled to.  It’s absolutely appalling.  This is no longer a civil dispute.”

 Paatalo intends to file a criminal complaint against Chase, along with formal Bar complaints against their attorneys . The expert declaration is now in the hands of Montana’s Federal Magistrate Judge Carolyn  Ostby.   How this new information plays out in court is yet to be determined, but Paatalo is sure of one thing.  “Nothing these banks do surprises me anymore.  I can only hope our judicial system has the backbone to hold these people accountable.”

 Addendum:  Paatalo notified Chase of his discovery last week and was attempting to have the evidence surrendered to the court and sequestered.  After all, attorneys have a duty to uphold justice and refrain from assisting in fraud. He was notified today by Chase’s attorney that the documents had been removed from Butte, Montana and are now in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Paatalo has objected to the transferring of the documents, and Chase’s attempts to withhold evidence of a crime.

Read the handwriting expert’s affidavit below begin at page 5…

[ipaper docId=86007729 access_key=key-2fuvvomrypzyggrt999p height=600 width=600 /]

Sun Sentinel-

Were they wearing orange shirts on Friday to protest management? Or to get psyched for happy hour?

Either way, orange-shirted workers no longer have jobs at the Deerfield Beach law firm of Elizabeth R. Wellborn P.A.

A spokeswoman said the law firm had “no comment at this time.”

Four workers tell the story this way: For the past few months, some employees have worn orange shirts on pay-day Fridays so they’d look like a group when they went out for happy hour.

[SUN SENTINEL]

Statement of
Suzanne G. Killian
Senior Associate Director
Division of Consumer and Community Affairs
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
before the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
Field Hearing
Brooklyn, New York
March 19, 2012

[ipaper docId=85978667 access_key=key-1lbngjg3kpp46v5ywuug height=600 width=600 /]

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.

Congress of the United States
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Failure to Recover: The State of the Housing Markets, Mortgage Servicing
Practices, and Foreclosures

Monday, March 19, 2012

Brooklyn, New York
TESTIMONY OF LEGAL SERVICES NYC

Meghan Faux

[ipaper docId=85950565 access_key=key-16o6wirnq5zh7j0gi4zm height=600 width=600 /]

On behalf of SFF and the millions of homeowners whom were illegally foreclosed upon, we sincerely thank you Judge Schack for taking your time to care and present yourself on this day to speak of your many experiences first hand.

You sir are owed an enormous thank you from across the U.S.A.

Thank you!

.

Statement of the Hon. Arthur M. Schack,

New York State Supreme Court

“FAILURE TO RECOVER: The State OF Housing Markets, Mortgage Servicing Practices and Foreclosures”

March 19, 2012

[ipaper docId=85950017 access_key=key-1ku9e98dn5vbvcod7s50 height=600 width=600 /]

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.