As life slowly returns to normal in hurricane-ravaged parts of Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, housing experts and consumer advocates worry another crisis is on the horizon: Foreclosures.
Already, legal aid groups are working with people who arestruggling to make mortgage payments on homes made uninhabitable by the storms, while paying rent somewhere else.
Although most mortgage lenders are offering grace periods for homeowners in disaster zones, the real trouble beginswhen those grace periods run out.
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Sunday – November 12
——————— Veterans Day Special: What Every Homeowner Needs To Know To Emotionally Survive Foreclosure
In discussing foreclosures and the numerical proliferation of pretender lenders and robo-signers, for example, we too often tend to forget the individuals and family members who are the victims of mortgage abuse behind the aggregate numbers, who are the veterans too often also of courtroom abuse, and their emotional ordeal and personal needs beyond financial losses alone.
It therefore seems fitting this Veterans Day Weekend to go behind the statistics and to examine some of the terrible harm inflicted on homeowners, the veterans as it were of foreclosures, such as divorce, suicide, crime, drug and alcohol abuse, child endangerment, homelessness, physical illness, and mental depression.
We will also consider whether such disturbing byproducts of the present foreclosure system are worth it to society when other more sensible and humane ways of handling mortgage defaults exist.
And finally we will suggest realistic ways of coping with, as well as avoiding, some of the worse aspects of such threats to personal health and safety and to the social order.
Your co-host, John Waihee, former Hawaii Governor, and I are therefore pleased to rebroadcast this Veterans Day Weekend, especially for our many new listeners, our May 17, 2015 Radio Program “What Every Homeowner Needs To Know To Emotionally Survive Foreclosure”.
Please go to our website, www.foreclosurehour.com, and join your fellow homeowners in the Homeowners SuperPac today.
A Membership Application is posted there waiting for your support.
Justice Department Sues Northwest Trustee Services, Inc. in Bellevue, Washington, for Illegally Foreclosing on Homes of at Least 28 Servicemembers
The U.S. Department of Justice today filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleging that Northwest Trustee Services, Inc. (Northwest) violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). The complaint alleges that since 2010, Northwest completed foreclosures on at least 28 homes owned by servicemembers without obtaining the required court orders.
The SCRA protects the rights of servicemembers on active duty by suspending or modifying certain civil obligations. The law prohibits foreclosing on the home of a servicemember during active military service and one year thereafter without a court order if the mortgage originated prior to the servicemember’s period of military service.
The department launched an investigation into Northwest’s practices after United States Marine veteran Jacob McGreevey of Vancouver, Washington, submitted a complaint to the department’s Servicemembers and Veterans Initiative in May 2016. Northwest had foreclosed on McGreevey’s home in August 2010, less than two months after he was released from active duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom. McGreevey sued both PHH Mortgage (his mortgage servicer) and Northwest in 2016, but a U.S. District Court Judge accepted PHH and Northwest’s argument that McGreevy had waited too long to file his case, and dismissed the case on that basis. The department’s investigation revealed that, in addition to McGreevey, NWTS had foreclosed on other homes of SCRA-protected servicemembers in violation of the SCRA since 2010.
“As we reflect this Veterans Day on the great debt we owe to those who have fought so hard for our freedom, we also reaffirm our commitment to protecting the rights of those who serve,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General John M. Gore of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Our men and women in uniform make immense personal sacrifices to keep our country safe. Losing their home to an unlawful foreclosure should not be one of them.”
“The loss of a home is a devastating blow for anyone – but far worse for active duty service members often called to war zones far from Western Washington,” said U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes. “Our investigation revealed that Northwest Trustee Services repeatedly failed to comply with laws that are meant to ensure our service members do not have to fight a two front war – one on behalf of all of us, and the other against illegal foreclosures. My office will continue to work closely with our colleagues in the Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C. to protect Western Washington service members from this kind of misconduct.”
In addition to monetary damages for affected servicemembers, the SCRA provides for civil monetary penalties of up to $60,788 for the first offense and $121,577 for each subsequent offense. The department will also seek injunctive relief to prevent future foreclosures that violate the SCRA.
Northwest Trustee Services is based in Bellevue, Washington, and describes itself as a full-service trustee company providing foreclosure services to mortgage lenders in the Western United States. The complaint is an allegation of unlawful conduct. The allegations must still be proven in federal court.
This case is being jointly handled by the department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.
The department’s enforcement of the SCRA is conducted by the Civil Rights Division’s Housing and Civil Enforcement Section, often in partnership with local United States Attorney’s Offices. Since 2011, the department has obtained over $450 million in monetary relief for servicemembers through its enforcement of the SCRA. The SCRA provides protections for servicemembers in areas such as evictions, rental agreements, security deposits, prepaid rent, civil judicial proceedings, installment contracts, credit card interest rates, mortgage interest rates, mortgage foreclosures, automobile leases, life insurance, health insurance and income tax payments. For more information about the department’s SCRA enforcement, please visit www.servicemembers.gov.
Servicemembers and their dependents who believe that their rights under the SCRA have been violated should contact the nearest Armed Forces Legal Assistance Program Office. Office locations may be found at http://legalassistance.law.af.mil/content/locator.php.
As head of civil processing for the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, Sgt. Tim Grundmann supervised employees who serve subpoenas, eviction notices and notices of foreclosure.
Thus it was embarrassing to Grundmann when a clerk told him:
“You’re being sued. You’re being foreclosed on.”
That was in 2013, when the Tampa Bay area was still reeling from the housing crash and 70,000 homeowners in Pinellas alone had been hit with foreclosure notices. The overwhelming majority of those had not been paying their mortgages and were living in their houses rent free.
“Financial institutions securitized billions in Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOC). These same institutions argue in courts across the country that HELOCs are negotiable instruments under the Uniform Commercial Code, and therefore, the banks do not have to prove ownership of the debt, rather merely possession; “Even if we stole the HELOC, we have the right to enforce it under the Uniform Commercial Code, because we have possession of the original instrument.” A California Court disagreed, and in considering a borrower’s motion for summary adjudication, held that HELOCs are not payable for a fixed sum and are therefore not negotiable instruments; a ruling that helps pave the way to force banks to prove ownership of billions of dollars in HELOCs under contract law.
“The HELOC Is Not a Negotiable Instrument
Section 104.3104 of Nevada’s Uniform Commercial Code provides that, among other things, “‘negotiable instrument’ means an unconditional promise or order to pay a fixed amount of money.” Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 104.3104(1). Neither of the parties has cited to any Nevada authorities dealing with the issue of whether a note evidencing a line of credit qualifies as a Courts applying other states’ versions of UCC § 3-104 have held that lines of credit or revolving loans are not negotiable instruments as they fail the “fixed amount” requirement. Am First Fed. v. Gordon, 2015 WL 3798210 (Conn. Super. Ct. May 26, 2015); Heritage Bank v.Bruha, 812 N.W.2d 260 (2012); Yin v. Society Nat’l Bank Ind., 665 N.E.2d 58 (1996); Resolution Trust Corp. v. Oaks Apts. Joint Venture, 966 F.2d 995 (5th Cir. 1992); Cadle Co. v. Richardson, 597 So. 2d 1052 (1992). Under the terms of the HELOC, the obligee promises to lend Baroni money “from time to time” upon her request, up to a credit limit of $134,998.00, and Baroni promises to pay “when and as due, all loans made under this Agreement” pursuant to periodic monthly statements. The HELOC, however, does not state “a fixed amount of money” that Baroni is required to pay and the revolving nature of the agreement demonstrates Baroni would owe different amounts at different points in time depending upon her requests for loans and payments on account of those loans. Therefore, the HELOC does not qualify as a negotiable instrument within the meaning of section 104.3104.2 Because the HELOC is not a negotiable instrument, section 104.3205 does not apply to the HELOC. Nev. Rev. Stat. § 104.3205.”
More former Wells Fargo employees allege they were fired after they tried to blow the whistle on shady activity at the bank.
That’s according to a new filing by Wells Fargo (WFC), which disclosed claims of “retaliation” by ex-employees.
Wells Fargo has been at the center of a number of scandals over the past year. This filing addresses two in particular — when the bank forced thousands of customers into car insurance they didn’t need, and when it wrongly charged homebuyers to lock in mortgage rates.
Forbes says that it first started having suspicions about Ross’s net worth after it examined the financial-disclosure forms he filed after being nominated by Trump to lead the Department of Commerce. In all, the forms showed he had assets with a net worth of just $700 million, which was far below the $3.7 billion he had claimed to be worth, and below the $2.9 billion that Forbes had believed he was worth.
Ross initially told Forbes that he had shifted $2 billion into family trusts prior to being nominated for commerce secretary by Trump, which meant that he did not have to disclose it.
However, Forbes investigated the matter further and concluded that the $2 billion “never existed.”
Wells Fargo & Co is facing litigation over previously disclosed sales problems related to its auto lending and mortgage businesses, the bank disclosed in a regulatory filing on Friday.
The lawsuits include two class action cases alleging violations of federal and state consumer fraud laws, as well as claims brought by former employees who said they were fired for raising concerns over problematic sales practices. Wells Fargo disclosed the litigation in its third-quarter financial filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“The disclosures included in our filing today reflect the company’s continued commitment to transparency. Our top priority is to rebuild trust, and we remain focused on making things right for our customers, team members, community partners and shareholders,” a company spokesman wrote via email.
The third-largest U.S. lender has spent more than a year trying to rebuild its reputation following a sales scandal that led to the departure of its CEO and a companywide overhaul of its business practices. The company says it is continuing to review all its businesses to root out bad practices.
In January, prosecutors concluded one of the last multibillion-dollar settlements related to the 2008 mortgage collapse. The deal, with Credit Suisse, required the bank to pay $2.48 billion to settle allegations that its securities unit had misled buyers of home-loan bundles it had sold between 2005 and 2007.
Credit Suisse also agreed to provide $2.8 billion worth of financial relief to troubled borrowers under the settlement by forgiving or modifying mortgages and helping to finance affordable housing projects across the country.
When they announced the $5.28 billion deal, prosecutors cited it as evidence that the United States government can and will ride herd on large financial institutions if they engage in misconduct.
“Today’s settlement underscores that the Department of Justice will hold accountable the institutions responsible for the financial crisis of 2008,” said Loretta E. Lynch, the attorney general at the time.
Aside from shutting off water to Detroit residents, no public policy draws so much criticism as the annual Wayne County auction of tax-foreclosed properties.
For good reason, too. In recent years, thousands of owner-occupied Detroit homes have been seized by the Wayne County Treasurer’s office for non-payment of property taxes.
When the county puts these houses out to auction, it threatens to boot residents out of their homes. Often the houses wind up in the hands of absentee landlords, and the displaced residents wind up in shabbier housing elsewhere.
Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary in the Trump administration, shares business interests with Vladimir Putin’s immediate family, and he failed to clearly disclose those interests when he was being confirmed for his cabinet position.
Ross — a billionaire industrialist — retains an interest in a shipping company, Navigator Holdings, that was partially owned by his former investment company. One of Navigator’s most important business relationships is with a Russian energy firm controlled, in turn, by Putin’s son-in-law and other members of the Russian president’s inner circle.
Some of the details of Ross’s continuing financial holdings — much of which were not disclosed during his confirmation process — are revealed in a trove of more than 7 million internal documents of Appleby, a Bermuda-based law firm, that was leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The documents consist of emails, presentations and other electronic data. These were then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists— a global network that won the Pulitzer Prize this year for its work on the Panama Papers — and its international media partners. NBC News was given access to some of the leaked documents, which the ICIJ calls the “Paradise Papers.”
COMING TO YOU LIVE DIRECTLY FROM THE DUBIN LAW OFFICES AT HARBOR COURT, DOWNTOWN HONOLULU, HAWAII
LISTEN TO KHVH-AM (830 ON THE AM RADIO DIAL)
ALSO AVAILABLE ON KHVH-AM ON THE iHEART APP ON THE INTERNET
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Sunday – November 5
——————— “Foreclosure Terrorists” Are at Least Equally Dangerous: A Rebroadcast of Gary Dubin’s “Exclusive Tell-All Interview With Retired Big Five Bank Executive”
Media headlines and press reports continue to be filled with references to terrorist threats and terrorist attacks taking place periodically throughout the United States, disrupting the lives of thousands while causing hundreds of deaths annually.
Drawing relatively little similar attention in the media, however, is the enormous amount of financial, emotional, and social disruption and emotional grief resulting in the United States from more than 15 million American families being foreclosed on thus far (with another 15 million foreclosures expected) and the number of foreclosure-related deaths multiplying, including suicides, occurring in the United States since 2008.
And yet, without in any way downplaying the seriousness of conventional terrorism as an immediate local and global threat, compare the numbers.
In reality more Americans have suffered more financial loss and even more deaths (by suicide or otherwise) than the total amount of financial losses and deaths caused by foreclosure terrorists in the United States, even including 9/11.
It seems appropriate, therefore, to rebroadcast our exclusive interview with a Big Five Bank Executive, originally aired on December 21, 2014, especially for our many new listeners since then, asking the question are “foreclosure terrorists” equally dangerous or perhaps in effect worse?
There is at least one difference: Conventional terrorists often wear explosive vests, whereas foreclosure terrorists are more difficult to identify, usually dressed in business suits with the Wall Street Journal tucked under their arms, making their way to their offices at the Treasury Department.
Yet the media coverage and expose of foreclosure terrorists is incredibly scarce, perhaps because in place of conventional terrorist weaponry, their often obscured weapons are photoshopped promissory notes, false endorsements, perjured mortgage assignments, and robo-signing perjurers, before which myopic judges genuflect.
And these foreclosure terrorists will continue to win in court until homeowners band together and unite state by state. The foreclosure terrorists can be defeated, but only if we unite.
Please go to our website, www.foreclosurehour.com, and join your fellow homeowners in the Homeowners SuperPac today.
A Membership Application is posted there waiting for your support.
This Sunday, Daylight Savings Time ends. The Foreclosure Hour will therefore be heard one hour earlier on Sundays on the U.S. Mainland (5:00 p.m. Pacific Time and 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time). In Hawaii there is no time change.
Additionally, our broadcasts now immediately repeat the following hour locally on KHVH AM Radio and on the iHeart Internet Radio.
However, locally in Hawaii only this Sunday’s show will be aired on KHVH AM at 2:00 p.m. instead of 3:00 p.m. due to the start of the Raiders football game being aired this Sunday starting in our regular time slot.
This local time change is for this Sunday only; however, it will not affect the time of the iHeart Internet Radio airing of this Sunday’s show nationally.
Listen to today’s show, posted on our website at www.foreclosurehour.com, and find out how you can change American history, beat the banks, by joining the Homeowners SuperPAC today.
EVERY SUNDAY 3:00 PM HAWAII (2:00 p.m. instead of 3:00 p.m. due to the start of the Raiders football game being aired this Sunday starting in our regular time slot.) 5:00 PM PACIFIC 8:00 PM EASTERN ON KHVH-AM (830 ON THE DIAL) AND ON iHEART RADIO
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.
Opinion filed October 25, 2017.
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Lee County; James H. Seals, Senior Judge.
Mark P. Stopa of Stopa Law Firm, Tampa, for Appellant.
W. Bard Brockman and Christian J. Bromley of Bryan Cave LLP, Atlanta, Georgia, for Appellee.
NORTHCUTT, Judge.
Following a bench trial, Bank of America, N.A., obtained a judgment foreclosing a mortgage on Nancy Lee Buckingham’s home. We reverse because the bank failed to prove that it had standing to foreclose.
The bank filed a complaint alleging that it was the holder of the note and mortgage in question and that Buckingham was in default because she had stopped making payments. The complaint was verified by Ocwen Loan Servicing, as servicer for the bank. In her answer, Buckingham raised the affirmative defense that the bank lacked standing to sue on the note.
The only witness at trial was Shelia King, a senior loan analyst with Ocwen. King testified that Ocwen was the subservicer for the loan, but Buckingham objected that there were no documents in evidence to support the assertion that Ocwen was the subservicer for this specific loan. King’s testimony was premised on a limited power of attorney that was admitted into evidence; it did not specifically reference the Buckingham loan. The power of attorney authorized Ocwen to act for the bank in regard to certain mortgage loans identified in a flow subservicing agreement. This included the power to file suit on the bank’s behalf. However, the bank did not introduce the agreement into evidence, and as pointed out by Buckingham both below and on appeal, there was no evidence that the Buckingham loan was included in the agreement.
Beyond that, the evidence did not prove the bank’s standing. A copy of Buckingham’s note, which was executed in favor of Mortgagease, Inc., was attached to the complaint. There was an allonge to the note that transferred it from Mortgagease to ABN AMRO Mortgage Group. In turn, the note contained a subsequent endorsement from ABN in favor of LaSalle Bank, N.A. Finally, there was a blank endorsement executed by Bank of America as “[s]uccessor by merger to LaSalle Bank, N.A.”
“It is well settled that a plaintiff seeking to foreclose on a mortgage loan must establish that it had standing to foreclose at the time it filed the complaint.” Rosa v. Deutsche Bank Nat’l Tr. Co., 191 So. 3d 987, 988 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016). “A plaintiff alleging standing as a holder `must prove not only physical possession of the original note but also, if the plaintiff is not the named payee, possession of the original note endorsed in favor of the plaintiff or in blank (which makes it bearer paper).'” Id. (quoting Kiefert v. Nationstar Mortg., LLC, 153 So. 3d 351, 353 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014)).
In the present case, the note did not contain an endorsement in favor of the plaintiff bank. Although the note was ultimately endorsed in blank by the bank as a successor by merger to LaSalle Bank, there was no evidence establishing the merger, let alone that the bank acquired all of LaSalle Bank’s assets. See Fiorito v. JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., 174 So. 3d 519, 521 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015) (“While Chase also could have established standing through its merger with WAMU, the [loan] officer’s testimony fell short of establishing that Chase acquired all of WAMU’s assets, including Appellant’s note and mortgage, by virtue of the merger.”); see also DiGiovanni v. Deutsch Bank Nat’l Tr. Co., 42 Fla. L. Weekly D772, D774 (Fla. 2d DCA Apr. 5, 2017) (“Without any evidence to show that Bankers Trust had been renamed Deustche Bank, Deustche Bank failed to show that it had standing to foreclose.”). On the present record, the endorsement in blank by the bank appears to be an anomalous endorsement[1] and a nonentity.
The bank did not present competent, substantial evidence that it was the holder of the note at the time the complaint was filed. The bank also did not establish that Ocwen was acting as its agent with the power to file suit on its behalf in regard to the Buckingham loan where the agreement was not entered into evidence and the last valid endorsement to the note was in favor of LaSalle Bank. This is not a situation such as in Phan v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Co., ex rel. First Franklin Mortgage Loan Trust 2006-FF11, 198 So. 3d 744, 747-49 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016), which held that Deustche Bank had constructive possession of the note because its agent was holding the note endorsed in blank on its behalf.
We reverse the final judgment and remand for entry of a final order of involuntary dismissal of the action. Elsman v. HSBC Bank USA, 182 So. 3d 770, 772 (Fla. 5th DCA 2015) (reversing the foreclosure judgment and remanding for an entry of an order of involuntary dismissal where HSBC Bank failed to prove standing at trial).
Reversed and remanded with instructions.
LaROSE, CJ., and SILBERMAN, J., Concur.
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED.
[1] “The term `anomalous indorsement’ means an indorsement made by a person who is not the holder of the instrument. An anomalous indorsement does not affect the manner in which the instrument may be negotiated.” § 673.2051(4), Fla. Stat. (2014).
We are urging Congress to pass a resolution calling for the House Committee on the Judiciary to investigate whether sufficient grounds exist for the impeachment of Donald John Trump, President of the United States.
President Trump on Wednesday signed a repeal of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rule on forced arbitration, winning praise from banking and business groups.
Trump approved the resolution to repeal the CFPB rule, meant to prevent banks and credit card companies from blocking customers from joining class-action lawsuits against them, in a private Oval Office signing.
The House passed a resolution to repeal the rule in July, which passed the Senate two weeks ago.
Wells Fargo’s board has spent more than half a million dollars on lobbyists in the past year as it’s pushed to move past a major sales scandal over fake accounts, new disclosures show.
The board has paid $600,000 to Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck – among the largest lobbying firms in Washington – from Oct. 1, 2016, to Sept. 30, an Observer search of lobbying activity on Opensecrets.org found. Federal reports filed by Brownstein show the firm has received $150,000 every quarter since the scandal erupted in September 2016.
The lobbying comes at a time when the board is making some changes, including plans for Chairman Stephen Sanger and two other longtime directors to retire at the end of the year. Such moves haven’t been enough, though, for some members of Congress who want the removal of more directors.
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