Hey, girl, you can totally trust Goldman Sachs now when it suggests you should buy subprime mortgages. Not like that other time.
Goldman is telling its clients to buy stakes in some of the ABX subprime-mortgage indexes that it helped create back before the crisis, back when it was betting against subprime mortgages. It was betting against subprime mortgages so hard that its pet name for that bet was “the big short,” just like the Michael Lewis book.
We know Goldman has hurt you in the past. A lot. We know it has only been a few years since Goldman was selling you collateralized debt obligations stuffed with toxic subprime mortgages with one tentacle and then betting heavily against them with the other. But it has paid its dues, baby: $550 million, to be exact. That’s real money. Money that took several hours of hard work to make up. Those hours gave Goldman time to think about how it had done you wrong. Actually, scratch that — Goldman doesn’t admit or deny wrongdoing, baby. You know that’s not how it rolls. But you get the picture. Anyway, the Securities and Exchange Commission says Goldman is totally in the clear now.
This Announcement introduces new requirements for the Fannie Mae Mortgage Release (formerly referred to as deed-in-lieu of foreclosure) processes as part of the Servicing Alignment Initiative. These new requirements are consistent with the aligned policies described in the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Directive to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to help simplify and streamline the Mortgage Release processes. In addition, Fannie Mae is replacing all references in the Servicing Guide to the term “deed-in-lieu of foreclosure” with “Mortgage Release.”
Fannie Mae will now offer three exit options for borrowers completing a Mortgage Release, the three exit options are:
immediate move (standard Mortgage Release),
three-month transition with no rent payment required, and
All the uneducated buyers putting contracts on properties will be in a for one rude awakening when most of the 1.25 MILLION homes put on hold due to fraudulent documents hit the auction block, this does not count new foreclosures.
Don’t believe me? Then again, not many believed robo-signing existed either.
Foreclosures are very, very, very, very far from over.
Credit Slips-
Bloomberg has a story Foreclosure Wave Averted as Doomsayers Defied. I think it’s a great example of defining deviancy downward. There’s no question that we haven’t seen a foreclosure tsunami in the wake of the federal-state servicing fraud settlement. But there was little reason to expect one and let’s not lose sight of the big picture–foreclosure levels are still incredibly high.
Here’s why it didn’t make a lot of sense to expect a huge pick up in foreclosures: there simply isn’t the system bandwidth to handle them. Servicers really can’t move significantly more foreclosures through the courts/trustee systems if they wanted. States have adopted all kinds of approaches that have significantly slowed down the foreclosure process. If I started a foreclosure in New York state today, I probably wouldn’t have title and possession until early 2015. To the extent they could, it would risk pushing down housing prices and triggering more defaults. Moreover, the banks’ plan for several years has been to slowly recognize losses against earnings. If all defaults had been foreclosed at once, the banking system would look a lot less solvent. The game plan has always been to run the clock. Hence all the “kick the can down the road” mods. As a result, what we’re likely to see is not a foreclosure tsunami, but rather an extended foreclosure high-tide.
Watch this video and listen to what he says about robo-signer Jeffrey Stephan and the Maine Sup. Judicial Court.
Thomas A. Cox is a retired bank lawyer in Portland, Maine who serves as the Volunteer Program Coordinator for the Maine Attorney’s Saving Homes (MASH) program. He represents homeowners in foreclosure, and assists and consults with other volunteer lawyers in providing pro bono legal services to these Maine homeowners.
Jeffrey Stephan was a GMAC Mortgage employee who signed summary judgment affidavits on behalf of GMAC in foreclosure proceedings instituted in Maine. The notarization on the summary judgment documents falsely stated that Stephan personally appeared and swore before the notary, when he did not. The U.S. District Court for the District of Maine certified the following question of state law to the Maine Supreme Court: “Is Maine’s common law judicial proceedings privilege an available defense to both legal and equitable claims brought under the Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act based upon statements made in court filings of affidavits and certifications in state judicial foreclosure proceedings?” The Supreme Court declined to answer the certified question, where (1) if the Court answered the question in the affirmative, then the claim would be immediately and summarily dismissed even though the facts may have established that the privilege was not available to the defendant under any circumstances; and (2) if the Court answered the question in the negative, it would render a broad pronouncement of law that would have no application to this case if a threshold issue produced the same result – namely, that the judicial proceedings privilege was simply unavailable on these particular facts.
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT Reporter of Decisions
Decision: 2012 ME 131 Docket: Fed-11-295 Argued: February 16, 2012 Decided: November 29, 2012
Panel: ALEXANDER, LEVY, SILVER, MEAD, GORMAN, and JABAR, JJ.
NICOLLE BRADBURY et al.
v.
GMAC MORTGAGE, LLC
MEAD, J.
EXCERPT:
[¶3] The court also included a recitation of facts2 within its certification that “[t]he Law Court may consider as true.” The factual recitation included the following statement: “[T]he notarization on the [summary judgment] documents falsely stated that Stephan3 personally appeared and swore before the notary, when he did not.”
[¶4] We conclude that the interplay between (1) the four corners of the certified question, (2) the representation that the lawsuit will be dismissed in its entirety if we answer the question in the affirmative, and (3) the fact of the defective notarization of the affidavits requires us to respectfully decline to answer the certified question.
Wall Street pays its respects to the president it tried to defeat.
Fox Nation-
As CEOs concluded their meeting with President Barack Obama Wednesday evening, the White House deployed three uniformed Secret Service officers to keep the awaiting reporters from speaking with the group, among them Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
CONNIE L. PEDERSON, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff,
v.
LAW OFFICES OF DANIEL C. CONSUEGRA, P.L., a Florida Professional Limited Liability Corporation, Defendant. _________________________________________/
CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT JURY DEMAND
1. On behalf of the putative class, Plaintiff alleges a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq. (“FDCPA”). Simply put, Defendant sent a demand letter to Plaintiff and the putative class which failed to comport with the mandated requirements of §1692g of the aforesaid federal statute.
A U.S. judge kept alive a federal regulator’s lawsuits against big banks including Credit Suisse Group AG and Bank of America Corp over allegations they misled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into purchasing billions of dollars worth of risky mortgage debt.
The rulings, by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan, were the latest in a series of decisions allowing the Federal Housing Finance Agency to proceed with lawsuits against banks it blames for losses incurred by Fannie and Freddie.
This shouldn’t be hard. Where is her money Wells Fargo?
ABC NEWS-
A woman in Tualatin, Ore., says she’s at the end of her rope fighting a three-year battle with Wells Fargo for mistakenly stating she has missed mortgage payments on her home, which is now in foreclosure.
Dee Dingman, 79, and her late husband moved into their four-bedroom home in 1967. After her husband, Leland, died in March 2008, Dingman took out a new mortgage while she paid off his medical bills, never missing a payment. Court records show she promised to pay $308,000 plus interest on June 16, 2008.
The next year, after Wells Fargo’s acquisition of Wachovia was completed in Jan. 2009, Dingman began receiving foreclosure notices. She believes the bank did not corrrectly process her payment since around Oct. 2009. But her bank records show her mortgage payments have been deposited by Wells Fargo. Despite efforts to clear up the mistake and paying nearly $12,000 in attorney fees, her home is now in judicial foreclosure.
Even if you surrender your home in bankruptcy, you are still liable for your homeowner’s or condominium owner’s association dues that become due after the date of filing.
As a general rule, all the debt that you owe on the day you file your bankruptcy is discharged, including past-due HOA and COA dues. However, because you remain the deed-title owner of your real property until your lender takes the property back, you owe current dues and assessments going forward.
But this doesn’t answer the question, “Should I pay?” Well, the answer depends on your plan, but one thing is for sure. You should pay your HOA and COA dues if you continue to live in the home or if you continue to rent out your rental property.
APPELLATE DIVISION : SECOND JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT ANITA R. FLORIO, J.P. JOHN M. LEVENTHAL LEONARD B. AUSTIN JEFFREY A. COHEN, JJ. 2011-11770 (Index No. 2559/08)
[*1]HSBC Mortgage Corporation (USA), respondent,
v
Leon Carr, etc., et al., defendants, Dale Hansen, appellant.
Rossi & Crowley, LLP, Douglaston, N.Y. (Thomas J. Rossi, Sally Sancimino, and Nadav Zamir of counsel), for appellant. Stern & Eisenberg, P.C., Lancaster, N.Y. (Len M. Garza and Kenneth Britt of counsel), for respondent.
DECISION & ORDER
In an action to foreclose a mortgage, the defendant Dale Hansen appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Taylor, J.), dated September 15, 2011, which denied his motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against him.
ORDERED that the order is reversed, on the law, with costs, and the motion of the defendant Dale Hansen for summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against him is granted.
In 2003, the defendants Leon Carr and Claudette Carr (hereinafter together the Carrs) obtained a home equity line of credit account (hereinafter the HELOC) in the amount of $50,000 from the plaintiff, HSBC Mortgage Corporation (USA) (hereinafter HSBC). The HELOC was secured by a mortgage on the subject property (hereinafter the HSBC HELOC mortgage), which was then owned by the Carrs. In 2004, the Carrs refinanced the subject property, obtaining a loan from IndyMac Federal Savings Bank (hereinafter IndyMac) in the amount of $285,000 which was secured by a mortgage on the subject property (hereinafter the IndyMac mortgage). In connection with the IndyMac mortgage, the Carrs requested a “payoff letter” from HSBC relating to the HSBC HELOC mortgage. A check that satisfied the balance due on the HELOC, as of that time, was sent to HSBC. Accompanying that check was an HSBC form (hereinafter the HSBC form) indicating that the Carrs requested that a discharge of the HSBC HELOC mortgage be forwarded to IndyMac’s counsel and closing agent, attorney Robert Mandel. It is undisputed that HSBC received and negotiated the check, but did not close the HELOC. It is also undisputed that HSBC received the completed HSBC form.
In 2005 and 2006, the Carrs withdrew $47,788.06 in new funds from the still-open HELOC. In December 2007, IndyMac commenced an action to foreclose the IndyMac mortgage; HSBC was not named as a party in that action. In January 2008, HSBC commenced the instant action to foreclose the HSBC HELOC mortgage, naming, among others, “Mortgage Electronic [*2]Registration Systems, Inc. as Nominee for Indymac Bank, F.S.B.” as a defendant.
In November 2008, IndyMac obtained title to the subject property after being the successful bidder at the foreclosure auction held in connection with IndyMac’s foreclosure action. Ultimately, in April 2010, title to the subject property was transferred to the defendant Dale Hansen. In January 2011, Hansen, as the record owner of the subject property, was granted leave to intervene as a defendant in the instant action. In his answer, he asserted counterclaims, inter alia, for the cancellation and discharge of the HSBC HELOC mortgage.
Hansen moved for summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against him, arguing that HSBC was obligated to close the HELOC in 2004 when, in the course of the IndyMac refinancing, the outstanding balance on the HELOC was paid in full and the HSBC form requesting that a satisfaction of the HSBC HELOC mortgage be sent to Mandel for filing was submitted to HSBC. In support of his motion, Hansen submitted, among other things, an affirmation from Mandel stating that he tendered both the “payoff check” and the HSBC form to HSBC. Hansen also submitted, inter alia, a copy of the check payable to HSBC in an amount sufficient to pay off the HELOC balance and the HSBC form, along with the cover letter from Mandel, transmitting the check and the HSBC form. The cover letter stated that enclosed was a “payoff check[ ] . . . for the . . . referenced loan in the amount [of] $47,355.93” and advised that “any questions” should be directed to him.
HSBC opposed Hansen’s motion, arguing that Hansen failed to establish his entitlement to judgment as a matter of law. HSBC contended that tendering the HSBC form advising that a discharge of the HSBC HELOC mortgage was to be forwarded to Mandel was not enough to close the HELOC. The Supreme Court denied Hansen’s motion, concluding that he failed to meet his prima facie burden. Hansen appeals, and we reverse.
The Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law provides, with respect to a credit line mortgage, that: “After payment of authorized principal, interest and any other amounts due thereunder or otherwise owed by law has actually been made, and . . . on written request, a mortgagee of real property situate in this state . . . must execute . . . a satisfaction of mortgage” (RPAPL 1921[1]). “A letter requesting that a mortgagee close a credit line and send a satisfaction of the mortgage, or the transmission to the mortgagee of a satisfaction of mortgage accompanied by a request to execute it and return it to a title company for recording” is sufficient to “satisfy the statutory requirement of a written request for a satisfaction of mortgage” (HSBC Bank, USA v Pugkhem, 88 AD3d 649, 650 [citation omitted]). Here, the HSBC form requesting that a mortgage satisfaction be forwarded to Mandel for filing was sufficient to satisfy the writing requirement of RPAPL 1921(1). While the HSBC form requesting a mortgage discharge was not signed by the Carrs themselves, this fact is not determinative (see Merrill Lynch Equity Mgt. v Kleinman, 246 AD2d 884; Barclays Bank of N.Y. v Market St. Mtge. Corp., 187 AD2d 141). By negotiating the payoff check without any further inquiry, HSBC effectively waived any possible right it might have had to insist that the necessary “written request” for a discharge of the HSBC HELOC mortgage (RPAPL 1921[1]) be signed by the Carrs as the parties that established the HELOC (cf. Merrill Lynch Equity Mgt. v Kleinman, 246 AD2d at 885-886; see also E*Trade Bank v Perez, 22 Misc 3d 1127[A], 2009 NY Slip Op 50314[U][Sup Ct, Queens County]).
Accordingly, Hansen’s submissions were sufficient to establish his prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law (see HSBC Mtge. Corp. [USA] v Pascoe,AD3d, 2012 NY Slip Op 07631 [2d Dept 2012]; Merrill Lynch Equity Mgt. v Kleinman, 246 AD2d 884, 885; Barclays Bank of N.Y. v Market St. Mtge. Corp., 187 AD2d 141; cf. HSBC Bank, USA v Pugkhem, 88 AD3d 649; Matter of Reitman v Wachovia Natl. Bank, N.A., 49 AD3d 759). In opposition, HSBC failed to raise a triable issue of fact.
HSBC’s remaining contentions are without merit. Accordingly, the Supreme Court should have granted Hansen’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against him. [*3] FLORIO, J.P., LEVENTHAL, AUSTIN and COHEN, JJ., concur.
APPELLATE DIVISION : SECOND JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT PETER B. SKELOS, J.P. MARK C. DILLON RANDALL T. ENG LEONARD B. AUSTIN, JJ. 2011-04084 (Index No. 11413/09)
[*1]HSBC Mortgage Corporation (USA), respondent,
v
Dwora Gerber, appellant, et al., defendants. Djinsad Desir, New City, N.Y., for appellant.
Rosicki, Rosicki & Associates, P.C., Plainview, N.Y. (Andrew Morganstern of counsel), for respondent.
DECISION & ORDER
In an action to foreclose a mortgage, the defendant Dwora Gerber appeals from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Rockland County (Kelly, J.), dated December 6, 2010, as granted those branches of the plaintiff’s motion which were for summary judgment on the complaint, and to appoint a referee to compute.
ORDERED that the order is reversed insofar as appealed from, on the law, with costs, and those branches of the plaintiff’s motion which were for summary judgment dismissing the verified answer of the defendant Dwora Gerber and on the complaint, and to appoint a referee to compute are denied.
The plaintiff commenced this action to foreclose a mortgage. In answering the complaint, the defendant Dwora Gerber (hereinafter the defendant) set forth several affirmative defenses including that, as a condition precedent and in order to maintain the action, the plaintiff, pursuant to the mortgage documents, was required to send a notice of default/acceleration prior to the commencement of the action, and that the plaintiff had failed to properly do so. The plaintiff moved, inter alia, for summary judgment on the complaint and to appoint a referee to compute.
The plaintiff failed to establish its prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law. The plaintiff failed to show that it complied with a condition precedent contained in the mortgage agreement, which required that it give the defendant notice of default prior to demanding payment of the loan in full (see Norwest Bank Minn. v Sabloff, 297 AD2d 722; GE Capital Mtge. Servs. v Mittelman, 238 AD2d 471). The unsubstantiated and conclusory statements in the affidavits of the plaintiff’s employees that the required notice of default was sent in accordance with the terms of the mortgage, combined with the copy of the notice of default, failed to establish that the required notice was mailed to the defendant by first class mail or actually delivered to her notice address if sent by other means, as required by the mortgage agreement (see New York & Presbyt. Hosp. v Allstate Ins. Co., 29 AD3d 547; see also Mid City Constr. Co., Inc. v Sirius Am. Ins. Co., 70 AD3d 789). Since the plaintiff failed to meet its prima facie burden, we need not consider the sufficiency of the defendant’s papers in opposition (see Winegrad v New York Univ. Med. Ctr., 64 NY2d 851, 853). Accordingly, the Supreme Court erred in granting those branches of the plaintiff’s motion [*2]which were for summary judgment on the complaint and to appoint a referee to compute.
The plaintiff’s remaining contentions are without merit. SKELOS, J.P., DILLON, ENG and AUSTIN, JJ., concur.
U.S. securities regulators have dropped an inquiry into Wells Fargo & Co mortgage securities offerings, the bank said in a securities filing on Wednesday.
The staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission notified the bank on Nov. 20 that it closed its investigation and doesn’t plan to recommend an enforcement action, the bank said in the filing.
In February, the No. 4 U.S. bank by assets received a so-called Wells notice from the SEC over disclosures provided in certain mortgage-backed securities offerings. Such notices usually indicate the agency plans to take some kind of enforcement action and gives firms a chance to respond.
The financial industry is obsessed with President Obama’s second-term regulatory appointments. Who will be Treasury secretary? Who could head the Federal Housing Finance Administration? But hardly anyone is paying much attention to the Office of Financial Research.
This entity was created by the Dodd-Frank Act to conduct independent research on the sweeping risks to the financial system. Ah, right, another group of Washington wonks who will issue reports carrying vague warnings of risks looming sometime in the uncertain future. Yawn. I hadn’t paid much attention either.
Jamie Dimon might not be interested in politics, but Warren Buffett said he thinks the JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO could lead the U.S. Treasury Department.
Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A), told Charlie Rose in a PBS interview that Dimon would be the best person for the Treasury Secretary job “if we did run into problems in the market,” Bloomberg reports. Buffett appeared as part of a promotional tour for a new book about him, Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything.
A Sacramento County animal control officer has been killed and a bank representative wounded as they were trying to deal with a pet or pets left inside a home that fell into foreclosure.
The former occupant of the home on First Street in Galt was evicted on Tuesday. He left a pet or pets behind. By law, the foreclosing bank is responsible to care for left-behind pets.
President Barack Obama is meeting with another batch of CEOs today to marshal support for his proposal to reduce the deficit, his third such session in the past two weeks.
But this time there’s a twist: He invited a banker. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein gets to join the club.
The first meeting had attracted a bit of a hullabaloo among Wall Street watchers because the President, while looking for help solving the fiscal crisis, turned to corporate titans but no bankers. With his infamous “fat cat” reference and the perception of a distrust of Wall Street, the slight appeared pointed to some.
But now Obama has let in Blankfein, despite Goldman Sachs abandoning him in the election. That makes one banker out of 26 CEOs that have publicly met with the president.
Joshua Rosner, financial services analyst and co-author of “Reckless Endangerment,” wants to know where the $140 billion given to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is.
Contemporary negotiable instruments law developed hundreds of years ago, before every important institution of the modern financial world: incorporated banks, business corporations, developed capital markets, global monetary systems, electronic transfers, and even paper currency.1 It is counterintuitive that this ancient law of negotiable instruments would have any relevance to one of the world’s most sophisticated, cutting-edge tools of high finance — the pooling and securitization of mortgage loans. Yet, the courts routinely look to such law to resolve a foreclosure crisis spawned by the collapse of mortgage-backed securitization, a process which is as strained as trying to decide First Amendment issues using cases pre-dating the Constitution. It is all the more extraordinary that, just as the nation begins to awaken to “robo-signing” and other such pervasive and methodical abuses of the court systems, judges should find themselves slavishly compelled to apply a body of law shaped (and then abandoned) by the very authors of such scandals: the financial institutions.
This article explores the historical underpinnings of negotiability and whether the evidentiary shortcut that negotiability appears to offer as a means of proving a plaintiff’s standing to sue can or should be applied in the context of the foreclosure cases facing the courts today. Examination of the original purposes of negotiability, as well as recent changes to the Uniform Commercial Code, leads to the conclusion that mere possession of a negotiable instrument (the promissory note) is insufficient to enforce a mortgage. The possessor or “holder” must prove ownership of the instrument — a complete chain of title from the original creditor — to invoke the equitable remedy of foreclosure.
For investors, mortgage-backed securities class actions have, in the main, been a disappointment, with settlements in a half-dozen cases netting just pennies for every dollar of losses sustained by noteholders. But even as the last dozen or so pending MBS class actions plod toward a conclusion, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals remains compelled by the class certification issues the cases present.
In a one-page order Monday, a three-judge 2nd Circuit panel agreed to hear Credit Suisse’s interlocutory appeal of U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan’s grant of class certification to investors in an IndyMac MBS offering. Credit Suisse, which was IndyMac’s underwriter, argued in a brief filed back in July that Kaplan didn’t take account of investors’ varying knowledge of IndyMac’s underwriting standards when he certified a class of all investors in the $650 million offering. Kaplan, according to Credit Suisse’s lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, improperly shifted the burden on classwide predominance: Instead of insisting that class counsel at Wolf Popper show that investors uniformly relied on IndyMac’s representations, the judge said Credit Suisse hadn’t shown sufficient evidence that individual issues predominated over classwide reliance.
Compilation of 34,189 Pages Of Unsealed Or Otherwise Newly Released Documents (11/19-11/20 – 11/23-11/20: MBIA v Countrywide Home Loans Motion For Summary Judgement On Breach of Insurance Agreements):
THESE ARE HUGE FILES CONVERTED INTO SEARCHABLE FORM AND COMPILED INTO A FIVE DOCUMENTS. THE FILINGS RANGE FROM NOV 19-23 AND ARE PROVIDED BELOW. HAPPY READING!
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