THE UNITED STATE DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

JILL DEMPSEY Individually and on Behalf
Of Others Similarly Situated,
Plaintiff,

v.

OCWEN LOAN SERVICING, LLC,
Defendant
–

CLASS ACTION
COMPLAINT FOR VIOLATIONS OF
THE PENNSYLVANIA MORTGAGE
SATISFACTION ACT, AND REAL
SETTLEMENT PROCEDURES
ACT

JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

A Fighting Chance” author Elizabeth Warren discusses the erosion of America’s middle class and makes the case for tougher regulation of the banking industry.

.

WAYNE, Pa., May 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Ryan & Maniskas, LLP has commenced an investigation into potential securities law violations by certain officers of Ocwen Financial Corp. (“Ocwen” or the “Company”) (NYSE: OCN).

Ocwen shareholders should contact Richard A. Maniskas, Esquire at 877-316-3218 or at rmaniskas@rmclasslaw.com to learn more about this investigation or visit: www.rmclasslaw.com/cases/ocn.

Ocwen, through its subsidiaries, is engaged in the servicing and origination of mortgage loans in the United States and internationally. The Company’s Servicing segment provides residential and commercial mortgage loan servicing, special servicing, and asset management services to owners of mortgage loans and foreclosed real estate.

Our investigation concerns Ocwen’s mortgage servicing process practices.  In December 2013, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) and authorities in 49 states sued Ocwen, accusing it of years of “significant and systemic misconduct that occurred at every stage of the mortgage servicing process.”  Ocwen agreed to settle these charges and is required to provide $2 billion in loan modification relief to homeowners and $125 million to consumers who were improperly foreclosed upon.  The CFPB action makes clear that, more than three years after agreeing to adhere to mortgage servicing industry standards, the Company has made no significant improvements to its practices.  Ocwen’s shares have fallen nearly 30% this year.

If you own Ocwen shares and would like to learn more about these claims or if you wish to discuss these matters and have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights, contact Richard A. Maniskas, Esquire toll-free: (877) 316-3218 or visit: www.rmclasslaw.com/cases/ocn.  You may also email Mr. Maniskas at rmaniskas@rmclasslaw.com.  For more information about class action cases in general, please visit our website: www.rmclasslaw.com.

Ryan & Maniskas, LLP is a national shareholder litigation firm.  Ryan & Maniskas, LLP is devoted to protecting the interests of individual and institutional investors in shareholder actions in state and federal courts nationwide.

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SOURCE Ryan & Maniskas, LLP

RELATED LINKS
http://www.rmclasslaw.com

A home or anything else is not worth dying for.

WAPO-

The foreclosure crisis increasingly looks like a public health crisis, too. Researchers have connected foreclosures to depression, stress-related illnesses and spikes in emergency room visits. Last week, The Washington Post’s Dina elBoghdaddy wrote that it even appears foreclosures may raise the blood pressure of neighbors who simply live near these repossessed homes.

Worse yet: A new study in the American Journal of Public Health argues that foreclosures — independent of other economic consequences of the financial crisis — have contributed to the rise in suicides since 2005. Data suggests, however, that this has been the case only among the age groups for whom the stakes of foreclosure have been arguably the highest.

Researchers Jason Houle at Dartmouth and Michael Light at Purdue looked at state-level suicide rates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alongside proprietary foreclosure data from RealtyTrac in all 50 states and the District of Columbia between 2005 and 2010. Their analysis compared the two datasets within each state across time, and across each state at fixed moments, controlling for variables captured in data from the American Community Survey (including demographics, unemployment and poverty rates, divorce rates and population density).

[WASHINGTON POST]

Questions raised if a deceased person signed documents well after they passed away?? C’mon this is ludicrous.

We have another Martha Kunkle on our hands… “Affidavits Do Tell Dead Tales” Portfolio’s Martha Kunkle

Detroit Free Press-

Detroit Legal News clerk Chris Fahgren’s notarized signature appeared on dozens of legal documents required for posting public foreclosure notices in the newspaper in late December 2009 and early 2010.

But Fahgren was in a coma at the time, following a Dec. 21, 2009, car accident. Even after she died on Jan. 4, 2010, her signature — dated and notarized — continued to show up in legal documents for more than three weeks, including one dated Jan. 30, 2010.

[DETROIT FREE PRESS]

IN THE INTERMEDIATE COURT OF APPEALS
OF THE STATE OF HAWAII

FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION,
Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

DAVID S. BROWN,
Defendant-Appellant

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE SECOND CIRCUIT
LAHAINA DIVISION

MEMORANDUM OPINION

In this case, Plainiff-Appellee Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) filed a “Verified Complaint For Ejectment” (Complaint) in the District Court of the second Circuit, Lahaina Division (district court), seeking a judgement for possession of the property located at 95 Hui Road F, Apt. A, Lahaina, Hawaii (Property)and a writ of possession directing the removal of Defendant-Appellant David S. Brown (Brown) and any other persons from the Property. Fannie Mae asserts that it is entitled to possession of the Property by virtue of a non-judicial foreclosure sale at which it purchased the Property and a “Mortgagee’s Quitclaim Deed Pursuant To Power of Sale” in which OneWest Bank FSB (OneWest Bank), as the foreclosing mortgagee, conveyed the Property to Fannie Mae.

[…]

No END in sight!

Florida Realtors-

RealtyTrac released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report for April 2014 today, and it found that Florida continues to lead the nation in foreclosures.

While the state’s foreclosure activity – a count of all homes in some phase of the foreclosure process – declined 9 percent year-to-year in April, the state still led the nation with a foreclosure rate nearly three times higher than the national average.

Nationwide, foreclosure filings – default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions – were reported on 115,830 properties in April, a 1 percent decrease from the previous month and 20 percent decline year-to-year. Overall, one in every 1,137 housing units had a foreclosure filing during the month.

Despite the drop, however, banks repossessed more homes in April – a 4 percent increase month-to-month. Still, repossessions dropped 14 percent year-to-year.

[FLORIDA REALTORS]

KRNV-

If you own a home, or are thinking about buying one, you may want to check your paperwork. You could be paying thousands of dollars for an insurance policy which you will never be able to collect on.

On Your Side is investigating what’s called Lender Paid Mortgage Insurance, or LPMI. It’s an insurance policy designed to protect the bank if you lose your home. But you are footing the bill, and you might not even know it.

In November 2011, Reno resident Rollin Lazzarone was busy submitting paperwork for a loan modification, hoping to keep his home and avoid foreclosure, when the Caughlin Fire happened. It destroyed 32 homes, including Lazzarone’s on Meadow Country Drive in southwest Reno.

[KRNV]

Bloomberg-

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein said he understands the concern over the potential impact to the financial markets of any global bank pleading guilty to a crime.

“There’s concern being shown, and I don’t magnify it, but I don’t minimize it either,” Blankfein said today in an interview after the New York-based firm’s annual shareholder meeting in Irving, Texas. “You hope it’s not existential, and you hope there’s not a knock-on effect to that.”

Credit Suisse Group AG is close to reaching an agreement to plead guilty and pay about $2.5 billion to the U.S. Justice Department and regulators to resolve investigations into whether it helped Americans evade taxes, three people familiar with the matter have said. A guilty plea by Credit Suisse (CSGN)’s parent company would be the first by a major global bank in the U.S. in more than two decades.

[BLOOMBERG]

To learn more about What an Assignment of Mortgage is go to my page: https://stopforeclosurefraud.com/what-is-an-assignment-of-mortgage/

See exactly how the process is done… http://www.nwtc.com/ntclink/Services/DocumentProcessingServices/AssignmentProcessingServices.aspx

Seattle PI-

State officials are charging foreclosure trustee Cal-Western of Washington Inc. with unfair and deceptive business practices, and a temporary restraining order has been issued in King County Superior Court that halts its foreclosures until May 29.

Cal-Western is a Washington foreclosure trustee with an office in Vancouver, Wash., but the company conducts many of its operations in southern California. Foreclosure trustees are required to act as neutral parties between borrowers and lenders while conducting foreclosure proceedings.

The Washington State Attorney General’s Office alleges Cal-Western gave borrowers an incorrect phone number in their Notices of Trustee’s Sale and Foreclosure, making it difficult for borrowers, some desperate to save their homes, to contact the firm quickly without physically traveling to Vancouver.

[SEATTLE PI]

Forget the book tour designed to polish his legacy. Tim Geithner’s record on housing will forever live in infamy

Salon-

As Salon pointed out yesterday, Bush-era economist and Romney advisor Glenn Hubbard claims former Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner lied in his book “Stress Test,” when describing a conversation from 2012 about Hubbard supporting tax increases. But while the he said/she said doesn’t interest me, a separate, throwaway statement by Hubbard does matter — in fact, it tells you plenty about Geithner and his policy preferences during Obama’s first term.

“I saw some of the excerpts about housing and I must say I split my side in laughter because Tim Geithner personally and actively opposed mortgage refinancing, constantly,” Hubbard told Politico. “And now he’s claiming this would be a great idea in the country.”

We aren’t obligated to believe Hubbard here, especially because his recollection of the tax conversation is probably misleading, if not untrue. And unfortunately, Hubbard declined to elaborate when I asked him for more detail. However, we have a ton of public information available to inform the debate over Geithner and housing.

[SALON]

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

The financial ties that many judges have to banks raise questions about conflicts of interest and a bias against homeowners victimized by mortgage fraud.

East Bay Express-

In early 2006, as California’s real estate bubble was beginning to burst, an elderly Los Angeles couple, Fannie Marie and Milton Gaines, fell behind on their mortgage payments and received a notice of default from their lender, Countrywide Home Loans. Hoping to avoid foreclosure, the couple agreed to a plan suggested by Countrywide: They would obtain a loan modification provided by a third party, a businessman named Joshua Tornberg. What the Gaineses didn’t know, however, was that Tornberg was the fiancée of the Countrywide employee who made the recommendation. And instead of saving the Gaineses’ house, Tornberg scammed the elderly couple, recorded an altered deed, and extracted $240,000 from the property before walking away, according to court documents.

Then things really went to hell. In August 2006, Milton Gaines died, leaving his wife to battle two banks, a title company, a mortgage servicer, and Tornberg. Fannie Marie Gaines filed suit against Countrywide, Tornberg, and others involved in the fraud. Then, in 2009, she passed away, too, but their son pressed forward with the lawsuit.

The case, however, was tied up in Los Angeles County Superior Court for six years as Countrywide and the other defendants filed counter-motions and stalled. Countrywide eventually reached a settlement with the Gaines family, but the company’s actions, and the alleged fraud its employee initiated, remained central to the case against the other defendants. Further, mediation with those defendants — Fidelity National Title Company, Lehman Brothers bank, Aurora Loan Servicing, and Tornberg — ultimately failed. In August 2012, a superior court judge dismissed the case on a legal technicality: It had taken more than five years to come to trial. The Gaineses’ lawyers appealed, but two Second Appellate District Court judges denied the appeal, tallying yet another victory for the banking industry.

[EAST BAY EXPRESS]

AG to Review All Legal Options if FHFA Does Not Comply With Massachusetts Law

BOSTON – Saying in a letter  file size 2MB today that the use of buyback programs and principal reductions are “key to helping homeowners recover from this foreclosure crisis,” Attorney General Martha Coakley urged the new director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to use buybacks or face legal action.

“We believe that buyback programs implemented by credible not-for-profit institutions, and loan modification programs that permit principal reductions for distressed borrowers, are key to helping homeowners recover from this foreclosure crisis and restoring a healthy economy,” AG Coakley said in the letter to Melvin Watt, the new director of FHFA.

AG Coakley states that her office is reviewing all legal options as the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, currently under FHFA conservatorship, refuse to comply with the August 2012 Massachusetts law An Act to Prevent Unnecessary and Unreasonable Foreclosures.

The groundbreaking law requires that creditors not prohibit sales to non-profits like Boston Community Capital’s “Stabilizing Urban Neighborhoods” program (SUN). Through this initiative, BCC purchases a home that is typically owned by a lending bank at its current market value and finances its immediate resale to the former homeowner. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have continued to block buybacks even though they lose money in the process.

In the case Suero v. Freddie Mac, SUN and the 2012 Massachusetts law were both referenced in the decision by the U.S District Court to issue a preliminary injunction  which prevented the foreclosure and sale of the plaintiff’s home in Dorchester. The decision also referenced a February 2013 letter  the AG’s office sent to FHFA explaining that Massachusetts law now explicitly forbids banks from refusing to consider offers from legitimate buyback programs merely because the property will be resold to the former homeowner.

Because FHFA has refused to change its policy, AG Coakley sent a new letter to Director Watt, stating that the current FHFA policy of prohibiting such sales, even at fair market value, is in direct conflict with the Massachusetts law and represents an economic loss for taxpayer-owned Fannie and Freddie.

“To date, [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] have not complied with this provision, which has unfortunately impeded the ability of buyback programs to maximize the number of borrowers they can assist, which in turn has hindered the broader goals of neighborhood stabilization and revitalization,” AG Coakley said. “Our office is considering all available legal avenues, including litigation, to ensure compliance with Massachusetts law, should FHFA fail to promptly amend its policies to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to participate in credible buyback programs.”

Buyback programs such as the SUN Initiative adhere to strict and conservative underwriting standards. For example, SUN provides only 30 year fixed-rate mortgages and as a result, financing is only extended to homeowners who can truly afford to stay in their homes, preventing displacement and avoiding neighborhood blight.

The letter also continues the push for principal reductions. Since 2012, AG Coakley has  encouraged principal reduction  by Fannie and Freddie as a critical foreclosure prevention tool. In an April 2012  letter  to then-Acting FHFA Director Edward DeMarco, AG Coakley was joined by 10 other Attorneys General urging Fannie and Freddie to permit principal reduction in loan modifications. Despite a change in leadership, Fannie and Freddie continues to prohibit principal reduction as a means of keeping people in their homes.

#########

The entire financial system is defective!

Bloomberg-

ResCap filed for bankruptcy protection in May 2012 after investors who bought mortgage-backed bonds claimed they were loaded with faulty loans. It was liquidated to resolve more than $100 billion in potential lawsuits.

In lawsuits filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, ResCap said it’s seeking to recover “billions of dollars in liabilities and losses” over the “defective” loans. It wants the banks held responsible for more than 24 lawsuits alleging ResCap securitized bad loans, as well as for hundreds of claims, including securities fraud and breach of warranty, that it faced in bankruptcy.

[BLOOMBERG]

Wonder how they cured all the forged documents and the ownership of the notes?

NASDAQ-

Three of the largest U.S. mortgage servicers have rectified failures to comply with parts of a $25 billion landmark national mortgage settlement, the watchdog overseeing the process said Wednesday.

Bank of America Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. passed all tests reviewing their compliance with the National Mortgage Settlement during the third and fourth quarters of last year, said the monitor for the settlement, Joseph A. Smith.

In December, Mr. Smith had released a report saying those banks had each failed at least two of 29 metrics that measure standards over how to provide relief to homeowners under threat of foreclosure. In total, the three banks failed on seven metrics in the first half of 2013.

[NASDAQ]

Palm Beach Post-

The new single-family home rental business run by Wall Street-types is a long-term venture that executives at a conference this week in Boca Raton said will only grow as homeownership rates continue to fall.

The second annual Single Family Aggregation, REO to Rental Forum is a three day conference for the relatively new phenomenon of corporatizing home rentals.

About 800 people are attending the conference, organized by the New York-based Information Management Network.

[PALM BEACH POST]

Title SHOULD READ…How to rob a bank (from the inside, that is with the government watching)

Ted.com

William Black is a former bank regulator who’s seen firsthand how banking systems can be used to commit fraud — and how “liar’s loans” and other tricky tactics led to the 2008 US banking crisis that threatened the international economy. In this engaging talk, Black, now an academic, reveals the best way to rob a bank — from the inside.

Clouded Titles-

Here’s something that hasn’t been touched on since all of these lawsuits against the banks have come into fruition:

Your right to defend title!

It’s contractual … and you’ll find it in your Mortgage or Deed of Trust just before the covenants begin … possibly near the phrase TRANSFER OF RIGHTS IN THE PROPERTY.

Most MERS-originated mortgages contain references under TRANSFER OF RIGHTS IN THE PROPERTY (the long-form mortgages and deeds of trust especially) that indicate that the Borrower is giving MERS (an acronym for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.; not to be confused with its parent, MERSCORP Holdings, Inc. or the name used at the U. S. Office of Patents and Trademarks (MERS, Inc.) to register its “business model”, MERS) some sort of contractual rights to act as a nominee (an agent with extremely limited, if any, authority to act) for the lender and the “lender’s successors and assigns. The problem with these definitions is that they’re vague and ambiguous, because once you get to the section under TRANSFER OF RIGHTS IN THE PROPERTY, the phrase, “and the successors and assigns of MERS” is added. What this phrase doesn’t state is what (or who) those “successors and assigns” are. So if MERS (which has no members; the members have contracts with MERSCORP) comes into court and declares that it has contractual rights of some sort (to act as an agent, a lender, a trustee … of sorts, your girlfriend, my dead sister, or any other entity), you allegedly gave it some sort of right to do something if you should allegedly “default” on your loan payments.

The problem is …

[CLOUDED TITLES]

Digital Journal-

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, May 12, 2014, As a result of unscrupulous bank practices, such as “Robo-Signing”, Mortgage Document Packages were sold off in batches with no oversight. Supporting Documents were far and few between, and exactly who owned many of these properties could not be determined. The result was thousands of Homeowners losing their homes without Due Process. Those people who had the capability of speaking out received some relief, which often amounted to a “pat on the back”, or a Check in the amount of $300.00, or even as little as $25.00, which was supposed to satisfy people who lost homes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The resultant “Mortgage Meltdown” was the impetus for the Government to convene a 49 State Attorney Task Force, which created the Independent Foreclosure Review (IFR). The IFR, which started in 2011, was supposed to help compensate homeowners whose homes were foreclosed or were in danger of foreclosure between 2009 to 2010, by giving them the chance to apply for a review of their foreclosure process by independent consultants.

However, in January last year, 13 mortgage servicers and federal bank regulators have agreed to put an end to the IFR which was perceived to be time-consuming and costly, and exchange it with a multi-million dollar settlement instead. According to statistics from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency or OCC, 95% of the checks that were issued from the identified Mortgage Servicers were in the amount of $300. Some people who did not even submit a claim form were able to receive this settlement, something that others find questionable. The consultants and the attorneys received more in compensation than most of the defrauded homeowners. Of course the IFR was terminated, as it was not going to work in the favor of the banks.

The instant case is most disturbing in that an elderly individual was defrauded by his Caretaker, who even went to the extent of Forging his signature to the “Deed of Trust” Document. The home went from a free-and-clear property, to a property deep in debt. A Forensic expert agreed that the signature was indeed a Forgery, yet the bank officials decided to use it anyway as a Fiduciary Instrument to further their own interests, and proceed with the Foreclosure.

If an 88 year old individual has no legal recourse, it represents a legal system that has gone “sour”. Steven Rosenberg, whose father is the victim of not only Caretaker Abuse, but also of One West Bank Abuse, is not going to stand idly by and watch his family home become another statistic. How many other families have lost their homes due to criminal actions of caretakers, and then the banks? It is almost as if the banks invite these criminal episodes to take place so that their position is enhanced in the foreclosure process.

[DIGITAL JOURNAL]

SUN-SENTINEL-

Lift the rollaway gates on some South Florida storage facilities, and a secret life emerges.

The men and women huddled inside are not just storing old photo albums and family heirlooms. They’re living among them.

With nowhere else to go, these homeless have found temporary shelter in the one place that feels like home: the rented unit holding the last of their possessions.

[SUN-SENTINEL]