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ATTORNEY GENERAL CUOMO EXPANDS PROBE OF NEW YORK FORECLOSURE ACTIONS

ATTORNEY GENERAL CUOMO EXPANDS PROBE OF NEW YORK FORECLOSURE ACTIONS

Demands information from Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and GMAC Mortgage/Ally ~Calls for suspension of foreclosures by mortgage servicers engaged in “robo-signing” in New York until accuracy of court documents and integrity of process are assured

NEW YORK, NY (October 12, 2010) – Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that he is seeking information from four major mortgage servicers – Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and GMAC Mortgage/Ally – concerning the filing of affidavits that falsely attest the signer has personal knowledge of the facts presented in home foreclosure proceedings, a practice known as “robo-signing.”

In view of the prevalence of this practice in the industry, Cuomo also called on mortgage servicers engaged in “robo-signing” in New York to immediately suspend all foreclosure actions in the state until they correct their procedures to comply with New York law and can assure the public and the courts that integrity has been restored.

“I will not allow New Yorkers to lose their homes due to mortgage goliaths that buck the system by submitting affidavits signed without knowledge of the facts,” said Attorney General Cuomo. “Such conduct is a fraud upon our courts and a slap in the face of New Yorkers struggling to get by in this economy. My office will continue to root out these practices so homeowners receive the full protections afforded by our judicial system.”

Recent reports indicate that employees of these mortgage servicers routinely signed affidavits submitted in foreclosure proceedings without personal knowledge of the underlying facts or verification of loan file information, and without even reading the documents they signed. This practice, known as “robo-signing,” has tainted the integrity of the foreclosure process by which homeowners in New York lose their homes. Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and GMAC Mortgage announced that they were temporarily halting pending foreclosures, while Wells Fargo has not suspended foreclosures despite the deficiencies uncovered.

Attorney General Cuomo is calling on these mortgage servicers to submit documents and information to his office concerning how foreclosure documents are prepared, verified, attested to and notarized, and how required notices are provided to New York homeowners. The letters request that the mortgage servicers stop re-filing foreclosures that had been suspended (and in Wells Fargo’s case, cease proceeding with pending foreclosures) until the Attorney General’s Office is assured that reliable and fair procedures are in place and that accurate, trustworthy documentation will be submitted to the New York courts. The letters also request that the mortgage servicers refrain from filing any new foreclosures until they can provide assurances that their procedures comply with New York law and are neither tainted nor inaccurate.

Because of the gravity of these transgressions and the high volume of foreclosures, Attorney General Cuomo is calling on all mortgage servicers engaged in “robo-signing” in New York to immediately suspend all pending foreclosure actions in the state, including evictions and foreclosure sales. Cuomo is also requesting that the mortgage servicers not file any new foreclosures until the companies correct their procedures.

Tens of thousands of New Yorkers have been devastated by the foreclosure crisis. In fact, the foreclosure rates in Nassau and Suffolk Counties rank among the ten highest in the nation. More than 60,000 New York homes are currently in foreclosure, and 130,000 New York homeowners have received pre-foreclosure notices this year after falling behind on their mortgage payments.

In addition to his office’s review of Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo and GMAC Mortgage/Ally, Attorney General Cuomo is working with other state attorneys general, banking regulators and other interested parties to assess the veracity of servicers’ foreclosure filings and ensure the fairness and accuracy of their processes.

Attorney General Cuomo advises New York homeowners who are facing foreclosure proceedings to do the following:

  • Contact the court to find out the status of your foreclosure proceeding.
  • Seek representation or advice from a qualified attorney. If necessary, contact your local bar association or legal services office for a referral. If you are unable to retain counsel, carefully review any documents filed thus far with the court to ensure their accuracy.
  • If you have not done so already, immediately contact your lender or servicer to discuss available alternatives to foreclosure such as a loan modification.
  • For a general description of the foreclosure process, refer to www.nyprotectyourhome.com/fc_timeline.html.
  • Consult with a government-approved housing counseling agency. To find counselors approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in your local area, call 800-569-4287 or visit www.hud.gov. A list of housing counselors also can be found via the NYS Banking Department at www.banking.state.ny.us.
  • Call HOPE NOW at 1-888-995-HOPE. HOPE NOW is an alliance of housing counselors, mortgage companies, investors and other mortgage market participants that provides free foreclosure prevention assistance.
  • If you live in New York City, call 311 to schedule free foreclosure counseling sessions at the Center for New York City Neighborhoods.

New York homeowners who believe their homes were foreclosed based upon false or inaccurate documents filed in court by their lender or servicer should seek representation from an attorney. They may also file a complaint with the New York Attorney General’s Bureau of Consumer Frauds & Protection by calling 800-771-7755 or visiting www.ag.ny.gov.

The investigation, led by Special Deputy Attorney General for Consumer Frauds & Protection Joy Feigenbaum, is being handled by Special Counsel Mary Alestra, Assistant Attorney General Brian Montgomery and Deputy Bureau Chief Jeffrey Powell of the Bureau of Consumer Frauds & Protection under the direction of Executive Deputy Attorney General for Economic Justice Maria Vullo and Deputy Attorney General for Economic Justice Michael Berlin.


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



Posted in assignment of mortgage, bank of america, CONTROL FRAUD, corruption, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, foreclosures, forgery, GMAC, investigation, jpmorgan chase, MERS, MERSCORP, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC., rmbs, robo signers, securitization, servicers, STOP FORECLOSURE FRAUD, Supreme Court, Susan Chana Lask, Violations, washington mutual, wells fargo6 Comments

WAMU ERIKA HERRERA “NOTARY” INVALID 2001-2005

WAMU ERIKA HERRERA “NOTARY” INVALID 2001-2005

I feel this is the beginning of this as well.

Hat Tip to a subscriber on this:

Erika Herrera CA Notary Public No. 1290845 Revocation Cert 9-29-10,

If Erika Herrera Notarized your foreclosure documents the foreclosure is illegal!!

Employed by Washington Mutual and acting as a Notary was not a legal Notary in California where she worked and notarized thousands of foreclosure documents. Please see attached and inform all of your members nationwide!

She has notarized documents including affidavits and assignments.

[ipaper docId=38474072 access_key=key-109r7e20m5mr3d6kyqag height=600 width=600 /]

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



Posted in assignment of mortgage, Erika Herrera, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosures, Notary, notary fraud, wamu, washington mutual0 Comments

HERE COMES JPMORGAN CHASE, LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES…AND THE ROBO-SIGNERS

HERE COMES JPMORGAN CHASE, LENDER PROCESSING SERVICES…AND THE ROBO-SIGNERS

Mortgage Fraud

Chase Home Finance, LLC
Whitney Cook
Beth Cottrell
Margaret Dalton
JPMorgan Chase
Lender Processing Services
Long Beach Mortgage
Stacy Spohn
Christina Trowbridge
Washington Mutual Bank

Action Date: September 30, 2010
Location: New York, NY

On September 29, 2010, financial giant JP Morgan Chase announced it was suspending 56,000 foreclosures because its documents may have been “submitted without proper review.” To assist JPMorgan Chase, Fraud Digest suggests that it dismiss those actions where the Affidavits or Mortgage Assignments were signed by the following robo-signers: Beth Cottrell, Whitney Cook, Christina Trowbridge and Stacy Spohn from the Chase Home Finance office in Franklin County, OH; Margaret Dalton and Barbara Hindman from the Jacksonville, FL office of JPMorgan Chase; and any of the Lender Processing Services robo-signers from the Dakota County, MN office including Christina Allen, Liquenda Allotey, Christine Anderson, Alfonzo Greene, Laura Hescott, Bethany Hood, Cecelia Knox, Topako Love, Jodi Sobotta, Eric Tate, Amy Weis and Rick Wilken. In particular, JP Morgan Chase should look at those cases where the bank has supposedly assigned mortgages to WaMu, WMALT, Long Beach Mortgage Company and NovaStar trusts years after the closing dates of these trusts. The number of questionable or fraudulent documents is likely to be much closer to 560,000 than to 56,000, and that will only be a good beginning.

Sample Of The Work

[ipaper docId=38430629 access_key=key-g6cuuygszzcvosanu4s height=600 width=600 /]

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



Posted in assignment of mortgage, chain in title, chase, conflict of interest, conspiracy, CONTROL FRAUD, corruption, deed of trust, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, foreclosures, forgery, fraud digest, investigation, jeffrey stephan, jpmorgan chase, Kristine Wilson, Law Offices Of David J. Stern P.A., law offices of Marshall C. Watson pa, Lender Processing Services Inc., LPS, MERS, MERSCORP, Moratorium, mortgage, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC., Notary, robo signers, shapiro & fishman pa, STOP FORECLOSURE FRAUD, stopforeclosurefraud.com, Supreme Court, Violations, Wall Street, wamu, washington mutual9 Comments

CONGRESSMAN GRAYSON CALLS ON FLORIDA SUPREME COURT TO HALT ALL FORECLOSURES

CONGRESSMAN GRAYSON CALLS ON FLORIDA SUPREME COURT TO HALT ALL FORECLOSURES

September 20, 2010

Chief Justice Charles T. Canady
Florida Supreme Court
500 South Duval Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1900

Dear Chief Justice Canady,

I am disturbed by the increasing reports of predatory ‘foreclosure mills’ in Florida. The New York Times and Mother Jones have both recently reported on the rampant and widespread practices of document fraud and forgery involved in mortgage assignments. My staff has spoken with multiple foreclosure specialists and attorneys in Florida who confirm these reports.

Three foreclosure mills – the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson, Shapiro & Fishman, and the Law Offices of David J. Stern – constitute roughly 80% of all foreclosure proceedings in the state of Florida. All are under investigation by Attorney General Bill McCollum. If the reports I am hearing are true, the illegal foreclosures taking place represent the largest seizure of private property ever attempted by banks and government entities. This is lawlessness.

I respectfully request that you abate all foreclosures involving these firms until the Attorney General of the state of Florida has finished his investigations of those firms for document fraud.

I have included a court order, in which Chase, WAMU, and Shapiro and Fishman are excoriated by a judge for document fraud on the court. In this case, Chase attempted to foreclose on a home, when the mortgage note was actually owned by Fannie Mae.

Taking someone’s home should not be done lightly. And it should certainly be done in accordance with the law.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Alan Grayson
Member of Congress


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



Posted in assignment of mortgage, bogus, chain in title, chase, conflict of interest, congress, conspiracy, CONTROL FRAUD, corruption, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, foreclosures, forgery, investigation, Law Offices Of David J. Stern P.A., law offices of Marshall C. Watson pa, MERS, MERSCORP, Moratorium, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC., Mortgage Foreclosure Fraud, notary fraud, title company, trade secrets, Trusts, Wall Street, wamu, washington mutual1 Comment

Handcuffs for Wall Street, Not Happy-Talk

Handcuffs for Wall Street, Not Happy-Talk

“If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists
– to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.”
– BARACK OBAMA, speech, Aug. 28, 2006

Zach Carter

Zach Carter

Economics Editor, AlterNet; Fellow, Campaign for America’s Future

Posted: September 12, 2010 02:52 PM

The Washington Post has published a very silly op-ed by Chrystia Freeland accusing President Barack Obama of unfairly “demonizing” Wall Street. Freeland wants to see Obama tone down his rhetoric and play nice with executives in pursuit of a harmonious economic recovery. The trouble is, Obama hasn’t actually deployed harsh words against Wall Street. What’s more, in order to avoid being characterized as “anti-business,” the Obama administration has refused to mete out serious punishment for outright financial fraud. Complaining about nouns and adjectives is a little ridiculous when handcuffs and prison sentences are in order.

Freeland is a long-time business editor at Reuters and the Financial Times, and the story she spins about the financial crisis comes across as very reasonable. It’s also completely inaccurate. Here’s the key line:

“Stricter regulation of financial services is necessary not because American bankers were bad, but because the rules governing them were.”

Bank regulations were lousy, of course. But Wall Street spent decades lobbying hard for those rules, and screamed bloody murder when Obama had the audacity to tweak them. More importantly, the financial crisis was not only the result of bad rules. It was the result of bad rules and rampant, straightforward fraud, something a seasoned business editor like Freeland ought to know. Seeking economic harmony with criminals seems like a pretty poor foundation for an economic recovery.

The FBI was warning about an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud as early as 2004. Mortgage fraud is typically perpetrated by lenders, not borrowers — 80 percent of the time, according to the FBI. Banks made a lot of quick bucks over the past decade by illegally conning borrowers. Then bankers who knew these loans were fraudulent still packaged them into securities and sold them to investors without disclosing that fraud. They lied to their own shareholders about how many bad loans were on their books, and lied to them about the bonuses that were derived from the entire scheme. When you do these things, you are stealing lots of money from innocent people, and you are, in fact, behaving badly (to put it mildly).

The fraud allegations that have emerged over the past year are not restricted to a few bad apples at shady companies– they involve some of the largest players in global finance. Washington Mutual executives knew their company was issuing fraudulent loans, and securitized them anyway without stopping the influx of fraud in the lending pipeline. Wachovia is settling charges that it illegally laundered $380 billion in drug money in order to maintain access to liquidity. Barclays is accused of illegally laundering money from Iran, Sudan and other nations, jumping through elaborate technical hoops to conceal the source of their funds. Goldman Sachs set up its own clients to fail and bragged about their “shitty deals.” Citibank executives deceived their shareholders about the extent of their subprime mortgage holdings. Bank of America executives concealed heavy losses from the Merrill Lynch merger, and then lied to their shareholders about the massive bonuses they were paying out. IndyMac Bank and at least five other banks cooked their books by backdating capital injections.

Continue reading…..The  Huffington Post


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



Posted in Bank Owned, citi, conspiracy, Economy, FED FRAUD, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, foreclosures, goldman sachs, hamp, indymac, investigation, jobless, lehman brothers, MERS, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC., OCC, racketeering, RICO, rmbs, Wall Street, wamu, washington mutual, wells fargo0 Comments

CLASS ACTION AMENDED against MERSCORP to include Shareholders, DJSP

CLASS ACTION AMENDED against MERSCORP to include Shareholders, DJSP

Kenneth Eric Trent, P.A. of Broward County has amended the Class Action complaint Figueroa v. MERSCORP, Inc. et al filed on July 26, 2010 in the Southern District of Florida.

Included in the amended complaint is MERS shareholders HSBC, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Company, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, WAMU, Countrywide, GMAC, Guaranty Bank, Merrill Lynch, Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), Norwest, Bank of America, Everhome, American Land Title, First American Title, Corinthian Mtg, MGIC Investor Svc, Nationwide Advantage, Stewart Title,  CRE Finance Council f/k/a Commercial Mortgage Securities Association, Suntrust Mortgage,  CCO Mortgage Corporation, PMI Mortgage Insurance Company, Wells Fargo and also DJS Processing which is owned by David J. Stern.

MERSCORP shareholders…HERE

[ipaper docId=36456183 access_key=key-26csq0mmgo6l8zsnw0is height=600 width=600 /]

Related article:

______________________

CLASS ACTION FILED| Figueroa v. Law Offices Of David J. Stern, P.A. and MERSCORP, Inc.

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



Posted in bank of america, chain in title, citimortgage, class action, concealment, CONTROL FRAUD, corruption, countrywide, djsp enterprises, fannie mae, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, foreclosures, forgery, Freddie Mac, HSBC, investigation, jpmorgan chase, Law Offices Of David J. Stern P.A., lawsuit, mail fraud, mbs, Merrill Lynch, MERS, MERSCORP, mortgage, Mortgage Bankers Association, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC., Mortgage Foreclosure Fraud, non disclosure, notary fraud, note, racketeering, Real Estate, RICO, rmbs, securitization, stock, title company, trade secrets, trustee, Trusts, truth in lending act, wamu, washington mutual, wells fargo13 Comments

WaMu Will Face Trial in November Over $4 Billion of Low-Ranking Securities

WaMu Will Face Trial in November Over $4 Billion of Low-Ranking Securities

By Steven Church – Aug 25, 2010 4:20 PM ET

Washington Mutual Inc., the ex-owner of the biggest U.S. bank to fail, will face a November trial in an investor lawsuit over ownership of $4 billion in low-ranking debt known as trust-preferred securities, a judge said.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary F. Walrath in Wilmington, Delaware, scheduled a trial for Nov. 1, the first day of a confirmation hearing on WaMu’s reorganization plan. Lawyers for WaMu and investors, including Black Horse Capital LP and Lonestar Partners LP, agree the issue must be resolved before the company can end its bankruptcy and distribute more than $6 billion to creditors.

As the confirmation hearing continues in November, other critics of WaMu’s plan may want to use any facts or arguments presented by the investors to attack the reorganization proposal, Walrath said. Shareholders claim that the holding company’s bank should never have been seized by regulators and sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2008.

“Others may want to ride your coattails,” Walrath told an attorney for Black Horse at a court hearing yesterday. “The first day of confirmation will be yours.”

In July, a group of investors sued WaMu and JPMorgan over the way the trust-preferred securities were converted from debt- like investments into equity. The investors, who bought $1 billion of the trust-preferred securities, got preferred equity in WaMu when the exchange happened just before WaMu collapsed.

‘Rampant Fraud’

Continue reading…REUTERS

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



Posted in CONTROL FRAUD, corruption, investigation, jpmorgan chase, Real Estate, Trusts, wamu, washington mutual0 Comments

Something strange about this NY foreclosure case involving JPMorgan Chase…

Something strange about this NY foreclosure case involving JPMorgan Chase…

Just in yesterday’s post we were puzzled about how exactly JPMC is foreclosing on WAMU loans without finalizing the deal. This case is a perfect example.

2010 NY Slip Op 32126(U)

23 EAST 39th STREET DEVELOPERS LLC, FARZANEH YEROUSHALMI, and BEHROUZ BENYAMINPOUR, Plaintiffs,
v.
JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, as successor to WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK, ALLEN GUTTERMAN, 23 EAST 39th STREET MANAGEMENT CORP. JOSEPH J. BLAKE & ASSOCIATES, INC., MARIE RIOS, “JOHN DOE,” “ROBERT DOE” and “JANE DOE NO. 1 to 50,” the last being fictitious names, Defendants.

603703/09, Motion seq. No 001.

Supreme Court, New York County.

July 30, 2010

DECISION/ORDER

MARCY S. FRIEDMAN, Judge.

This action arises out of plaintiffs’ purchase of a $10.4 million townhouse located at 23 East 39th Street in Manhattan. Plaintiffs sue for rescission of the purchase and mortgage agreements based on fraud and misrepresentation of the value of the property. By separate motions, JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association, as successor to Washington Mutual Bank (“Chase”) and Joseph J. Blake & Associates (“J.J. Blake”) move, pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(1) and (7), to dismiss the complaint based on documentary evidence and for failure to state a cause of action.[1]

The relevant facts are as follows: Plaintiffs purchased the townhouse pursuant to a five-year “lease back” agreement in which the sellers of the property agreed to rent the space from plaintiffs for $700,000 annually with an option to terminate after one year. Although the $7.25 million mortgage on the property was issued by Washington Mutual Bank (“Wamu”), Chase acquired the mortgage from the FDIC after the FDIC took over Wamu in late 2008. JJ. Blake prepared an appraisal of the property for Wamu. Within a few months after plaintiffs closed title, the sellers ceased paying rent to plaintiffs. Plaintiffs then defaulted on the mortgage and Chase commenced an action to foreclose on the property entitled JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. v 23 E. 39th St. Devs. LLC, et. al., (Sup Ct, New York County, Index No. 104639/09). By order in the foreclosure action dated February 11, 2010, this court granted Chase’s motion for summary judgment to foreclose, issued an order of reference to compute, and appointed a receiver to manage the property.

It is well settled that on a motion to dismiss addressed to the face of the pleading, “the pleading is to be afforded a liberal construction (see, CPLR 3026). Wc accept the facts as alleged in the complaint as true, accord plaintiffs the benefit of every possible favorable inference, and determine only whether the facts as alleged fit within any cognizable legal theory.” (Leon v Martinez, 84 NY2d 83. 87-88 [1994]. See 511 W. 232nd Owners Corp. v Jennifer Realty Co., 98 NY2d 144 [2002].) However, “the court is not required to accept factual allegations that are plainly contradicted by the documentary evidence or legal conclusions that are unsupportable based upon the undisputed facts.” (Robinson v Robinson, 303 AD2d 234, 235 [1st Dept 2003]. See also Water St. Leasehold LLC v Deloitte & Touche LLP, 19 AD3d 183 [1st Dept 2005], lv denied 6 NY3d 706 [2006].) When documentary evidence under CPLR 3211 (a)(1) is considered, “a dismissal is warranted only if the documentary evidence submitted conclusively establishes a defense to the asserted claims as a matter of law.” (Leon v Martinez, 84 NY2d at 88; Arnav Indus., Inc. Retirement Trust v Brown, Raysman, Millstein, Felder & Steiner, L.L.P., 96 NY2d 300 [2001].)

In order to plead a claim for fraud, plaintiff must allege “a material misstatement, known by the perpetrator to be false, made with an intent to deceive, upon which the plaintiff reasonably relies and as a result of which he sustains damages.” (Megaris Furs. Inc. v Gimbel Bros., Inc., 172 AD2d 209, 213 [1st Dept 1991] [emphasis omitted].) Moreover, “each element must be pleaded with particularity” and “the circumstances constituting the wrong shall be stated in detail.” (LaSalle Nat. Bank v Ernst & Young L.L.P., 285 AD2d 101, 109 [1st Dept 2001] [internal citation omitted]; CPLR 3016[b].) A cause of action seeking rescission based on fraud must be plead “with the specificity required by CPLR 3016(b)” (Accurate Copy Serv. of Am. v Fisk Bldg. Assocs. L.L.C., 72 AD3d 456 [1st Dept 2010]), and “is to be invoked only when there is lacking complete and adequate remedy at law.” Rudman v Cowels Communications. Inc., 30 NY2d 1, 13 [1972].)

Plaintiffs’ sole cause of action against Chase is to rescind the mortgage, mortgage note, and guarantee “[d]ue to the inflated appraised value and/or the 5-year lease.” (Ps.’ Amended Compl., Fourth Cause of Action, ¶ 61 [Ex. 3 to Supp. Aff. of Joseph Muccia].) However, plaintiffs fail to allege with any particularity that Chase engaged in any fraudulent acts that would provide a basis for rescission of the mortgage. Further, plaintiffs do not claim that, when Wamu issued the mortgage to them, Wamu (as opposed to the seller) made misrepresentations on which they relied that would constitute a fraud. Even if plaintiffs adequately plead a cause of action that would permit them to rescind the mortgage agreement, the specific language of the Purchase and Assumption Agreement between the FDIC and Chase states that Chase specifically does not assume “any liability associated with borrower claims for payment of or liability to any borrower for monetary relief, or that provide for any other form of relief to any borrower . . ., related in any way to any loan or commitment to lend made by [Wamu] prior to failure . . ., or otherwise arising in connection with [Wamu’s] lending or loan purchase activities.” (Muccia Aff., Ex. ¶ 2.5.) Thus, pursuant to the express terms of the Purchase and Assumption Agreement, any potential liability by Wamu to plaintiffs was not transferred to Chase. (See Cassesc v Washington Mut., Inc., 2008 WL 7022845, *3 [ED NY 2008].) Accordingly, plaintiffs’ fourth cause of action will be dismissed.

Plaintiffs’ sole cause of action against J.J. Blake appears to allege fraudulent misrepresentation. Specifically, plaintiffs claim that JJBlake “inflated the value of the property so WAMU will underwrite the Mortgage,” “exaggerated the square footage of the Property,” and “knew that there was no 5-year lease with one-year option to renew.” (Ps.’ Amended Compl., Fifth Cause of Action, ¶¶ 38a, 38f, 38g.) Plaintiffs fail, however, to allege any facts demonstrating that they relied on any of the alleged misrepresentations in the appraisal when they purchased the property. Moreover, J.J. Blake conclusively shows, based on the affidavit of plaintiff Behrouz Benyaminpour, that plaintiffs did not receive the appraisal until after they closed on the property. (Aff. of Jonathan Bruno, Ex. H., ¶ 26.) Contrary to plaintiffs’ apparent suggestion, this large-scale commercial transaction docs not implicate a consumer fraud. Plaintiffs’ fifth cause of action against J.J. Blake will accordingly be dismissed.

In light of plaintiffs’ complete failure to set forth any misrepresentations to them by Chase or J.J. Blake, or otherwise to adequately plead causes of action against Chase and J.J. Blake, plaintiffs’ claimed need for discovery is not a basis for denying the instant motions.

It is hereby ORDERED that the motions of JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association, as successor to Washington Mutual Bank, and Joseph J. Blake & Associates to dismiss the complaint is granted to the extent of dismissing the complaint as against them; and it is further

ORDERED that the remaining claims are severed and shall continue; and it is further

ORDERED that the remaining parties are directed to appear in Part 57 (60 Centre Street, Room 335) for a preliminary conference on Thursday, September 30, 2010, at 11:00 a.m.

This constitutes the decision and order of the court.

[1] Although Chase moved to dismiss plaintiffs’ original complaint (Chase’s Motion, Ex. A), in its supplemental reply, Chase addresses the allegations in plaintiffs’ amended complaint (Supp. Aff. of Joseph Muccia, ¶ 3). Accordingly, the court will consider Chase’s motion as to plaintiffs’ amended complaint. (Sec Sage Realty Corp. v Proskauer Rose LLP, 251 AD2d 35, 38 [1st Dept 1998].)

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



Posted in conspiracy, fdic, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosures, jpmorgan chase, washington mutual1 Comment

Could WAMU/ JPMorgan Chase Foreclosures be invalid?

Could WAMU/ JPMorgan Chase Foreclosures be invalid?

This is going to raise questions on how this has been able to proceed without the finalizing of the sale.

You cannot have an omelet if the chicken hasn’t laid the egg yet!

  • Were the shareholders made aware that JPMC never finalized the deal?
  • How does this effect those who filed for Bankruptcy?
  • Why hasn’t the FDIC stepped up when they knew that this was on going and never finalized the sale?
  • What happens to those who have an assignment of mortgage from WAMU to JPMC?
  • Is JPMC currently servicing any of WAMU’ loans?
  • All the chain in title that are in question?
  • Bailout? What Bailout?

Thanks to Foreclosure Hamlet and 4closurefraud for this alert!

Via: 4ClosureFraud

This is very intriguing… Check out the the excerpts from the report below…

Game Changer?

WaMu sale hasn’t closed, document suggests

Next month will mark two years since federal regulators seized Washington Mutual and sold it to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion. Now a document that appears to be from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation suggests the deal still hasn’t closed.

“Everyone is saying the sale is finalized,” said the shareholder, Farokh Lam, of Woburn, Mass. “It is not.

Lam noticed that on pages 7 and 9, the original WaMu purchase and sale agreement allows the FDIC to extend the settlement date. He says he asked about it, and the FDIC confirmed in phone calls and emails that the settlement date was set for Aug. 30, 2010, and could be extended further.

“Settlement Date” means the first Business Day immediately prior to the day which is one hundred eighty (180) days after Ban Closing, or such other date prior thereto as may be agreed upon by the Receiver and the Assuming Bank. The Receiver, in its discretion, may extend the Settlement Date.

It says: “The purpose of this amendment is to extend the time period for Final Settlement to August. 30, 2010.

WaMu’s final days were chronicled in depth by Puget Sound Business Journal Staff Writer Kirsten Grind in an award-winning series.

Does this mean that all the WAMU foreclosures being pushed through the courts by JPMorgan Chase using the FDIC Purchase and Sale Agreement are invalid?

Does it mean if they haven’t closed the deal THEY DO NOT OWN THE LOANS OR THEIR SERVICING RIGHTS?

Where are the windfall profits going after the foreclosure sale?

What if the agreement changes before it is finalized?

So many questions…

Pipe up in the comments and let me know what you think.

The way I see it is, if they haven’t finalized the deal, how can they foreclose on the homes?

[ipaper docId=36027673 access_key=key-5z7g1dy0c99oralt1p0 height=600 width=600 /]

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



Posted in discovery, fdic, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosures, investigation, jpmorgan chase, non disclosure, psa, securitization, servicers, STOP FORECLOSURE FRAUD, wamu, washington mutual4 Comments

POWER HOUSE NY AG ANDREW CUOMO goes after WAMU APPRAISAL FRAUD!

POWER HOUSE NY AG ANDREW CUOMO goes after WAMU APPRAISAL FRAUD!

2010 NY Slip Op 04868

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK BY ANDREW CUOMO, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
FIRST AMERICAN CORPORATION, ET AL., Defendants-Appellants.

406796/07, 1308.

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, First Department.

Decided June 8, 2010.

DLA Piper LLP (US), New York (Richard F. Hans, Patrick J. Smith, Kerry Ford Cunningham and Jeffrey D. Rotenberg of counsel), for appellants.

Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General, New York (Richard Dearing, Benjamin N. Gutman and Nicole Gueron of counsel), for respondent.

Before: Gonzalez, P.J., Saxe, Catterson, Acosta, JJ.

GONZALEZ, P.J.

This appeal calls upon us to determine whether the regulations and guidelines implemented by the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) pursuant to the Home Owner’s Lending Act of 1933 (HOLA) (12 USC § 1461 et seq.) and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA) (Pub L 101-73, 103 STAT 183 [codified in scattered sections of 12 USC]), preempt state regulations in the field of real estate appraisal.

The Attorney General claims that defendants engaged in fraudulent, deceptive and illegal business practices by allegedly permitting eAppraiseIT residential real estate appraisers to be influenced by nonparty Washington Mutual, Inc. (WaMu) to increase real estate property values on appraisal reports in order to inflate home prices. We conclude that neither federal statutes, nor the regulations and guidelines implemented by the OTS, preclude the Attorney General of the State of New York from pursuing litigation against defendants First American Corporation and First American eAppraiseIT, LLC. We further conclude that the Attorney General has standing to pursue his claims pursuant to General Business Law § 349.

In a complaint dated November 1, 2007, plaintiff, the People of the State of New York, commenced this action against defendants asserting claims under Executive Law § 63(12) and General Business Law § 349, and for unjust enrichment. The complaint alleges that in Spring 2006, WaMu hired two appraisal management companies, defendant eAppraiseIT and nonparty Lender’s Service, Inc., to oversee the appraisal process and provide a structural buffer against potential conflicts of interest between WaMu and the individual appraisers. The gravamen of the Attorney General’s complaint asserts that defendants misled their customers and the public by stating that eAppraiseIT’s appraisals were independent evaluations of a property’s market value and that these appraisals were conducted in compliance with the Uniform Standards and Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP), when in fact defendants had implemented a system allowing WaMu’s loan origination staff to select appraisers who would improperly inflate a property’s market value to WaMu’s desired target loan amount.[1]

Defendants moved for dismissal of the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211, asserting that the Attorney General is prohibited from litigating his claims because HOLA and FIERRA impliedly place the responsibility for oversight of appraisal management companies on the OTS, and asserting a failure to state a cause of action. Supreme Court denied defendants’ motion, finding that HOLA and FIRREA do not occupy the entire field with respect to real estate appraisal regulation and that the enforcement of USPAP standards under General Business Law § 349 neither conflicts with federal law, nor does it impair a bank’s ability to lend and extend credit. We affirm.

The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution provides that Federal laws “shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding” (US Const, art VI, cl [2]), and it “vests in Congress the power to supersede not only State statutory or regulatory law but common law as well” (Guice v Charles Schwab & Co., 89 NY2d 31, 39 [1996], cert denied 520 US 1118 [1997]). Indeed, “[u]nder the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause (US Const, art VI, cl 2), the purpose of our preemption analysis is . . . to ascertain the intent of Congress” (Matter of People v Applied Card Sys., Inc., 11 NY3d 105, 113 [2008], cert denied ___ US ___, 129 S Ct 999 [2009]). Congressional intent to preempt state law may be established “by express provision, by implication, or by a conflict between federal and state law” (Balbuena v IDR Realty LLC, 6 NY3d 338, 356 [2006], quoting New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v Travelers Ins. Co., 514 US 645, 654 [1995]). Express preemption occurs when Congress indicates its “pre-emptive intent through a statute’s express language or through its structure and purpose” (Altria Group, Inc. v Good, 555 US ___, ___, 129 S Ct 538, 543 [2008]). Absent explicit preemptive language, implied preemption occurs when “[t]he scheme of federal regulation [is] so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it . . . [o]r the Act of Congress may touch a field in which the federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject” (Rice v Santa Fe El. Corp., 331 US 218, 230 [1947]). Further, when “[a] conflict occurs either because compliance with both federal and state regulations is a physical impossibility, or because the State law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress,” the State law is preempted (City of New York v Job-Lot Pushcart, 213 AD2d 210, 210 [1995], affd 88 NY2d 163 [1996], cert denied 519 US 871 [1996] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]).

Here, defendants do not argue, nor have they directed this Court’s attention to any language within HOLA or FIRREA that establishes, that Congress expressly created these statutes to supersede state law governing the causes of actions asserted in the Attorney General’s complaint. Defendants also have not argued that there exists a conflict between federal and State laws or regulations. Rather, defendants assert that because Congress has legislated so comprehensively, and that federal law so completely occupies the home lending field, the Attorney General is precluded from bringing claims against them under the theory of field preemption. Thus, the necessary starting point is to determine whether HOLA and FIRREA so occupy the field that these two statutes preempt any and all state laws speaking to the manner in which appraisal management companies provide real estate appraisal services.

In 1933, Congress enacted HOLA “to provide emergency relief with respect to home mortgage indebtedness at a time when as many as half of all home loans in the country were in default” (Fidelity Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v De la Cuesta, 458 US 141, 159 [1982] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]). HOLA created a general framework to regulate federally chartered savings associations that left the regulatory details to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB). The FHLBB’s authority to regulate federal savings and loans is virtually unlimited and “[p]ursuant to this authorization, the [FHLBB] has promulgated regulations governing the powers and operations of every Federal savings and loan association from its cradle to its corporate grave” (id. at 145 [internal citations and quotation marks omitted]).

When Congress passed FIRREA in 1989, it restructured the regulation of the savings association industry by abolishing the FHLBB and vested many of its functions into the newly-created OTS (see FIRREA § 301 [12 USCA § 1461 et seq.] [establishing OTS], § 401 [12 USCA § 1437] [abolishing the FHLBB]). According to FIRREA’s legislative history

“[t]he primary purposes of the [FIRREA] are to provide affordable housing mortgage finance and housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income individuals through enhanced management of federal housing credit programs and resources; establish organizations and procedures to obtain and administer the necessary funding to resolve failed thrift cases and to dispose of the assets of these institutions . . . and, enhance the regulatory enforcement powers of the depository institution regulatory agencies to protect against fraud, waste and insider abuse”

(HR Rep 101-54 [I], at 307-308, reprinted in 1989 US Code Cong to Admin News, at 103-104). FIRREA was also designed “to thwart real estate appraisal abuses, [by] establish[ing] a system of uniform national real estate appraisal standards.

It also requires the use of state certified or licensed appraisers for real estate related transactions with the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Fannie Mac), the RTC, or certain real estate transaction [sic] regulated by the federal financial institution regulatory agencies” (HR Rep 101-54 (I), at 311, reprinted in 1989 US Code Cong to Admin News, at 107).

Further, 12 USCS § 3331, which was enacted as part of FIRREA, states that the general purpose of this statute, is

“to provide that Federal financial and public policy interests in real estate related transactions will be protected by requiring that real estate appraisals utilized in connection with federally related transactions are performed in writing, in accordance with uniform standards, by individuals whose competency has been demonstrated and whose professional conduct will be subject to effective supervision.”

The uniform standards described in 12 USCS § 3331, are defined in 12 USCS § 3339 which requires that the OTS, as a

“Federal financial institution[] regulatory agency . . . shall prescribe appropriate standards for the performance of real estate appraisals in connection with federally related transactions[2] under the jurisdiction of each such agency or instrumentality. These rules shall require, at a minimum — (1) that real estate appraisals be performed in accordance with generally accepted appraisal standards as evidenced by the appraisal standards promulgated by the Appraisal Standards Board of the Appraisal Foundation; and (2) that such appraisals shall be written appraisals.”

The Appraisal Standards Board (ASB) of the Appraisal Foundation promulgates the appraisal standards mandated by 12 USC § 3339 and are called USPAP. The Appraisal Foundation is a private “not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of professional valuation [and] was established by the appraisal profession in the United States in 1987? (Welcome to The Appraisal Foundation [The Appraisal Foundation], https://netforum.avectra.com/eWeb/StartPage.aspx?Site=TAF [accessed May 27, 2010]). The ASB is responsible for “develop[ing], interpret[ing] and amend[ing]” USPAP (Welcome to The Appraisal Foundation, https://netforum.avectra.com/eWeb/ DynamicPage.aspx?Site=TAF & WebCode=ASB [accessed May 27, 2010]). However, “[e]ach U.S. State or Territory has a State appraiser regulatory agency, which is responsible for certifying and licensing real estate appraisers and supervising their appraisal-related activities, as required by Federal law” (State Regulatory Information [The Appraisal Foundation], https://netforum.avectra.com/eWeb/DynamicPage.aspx?Site=taf & WebCode=RegulatoryInfo [accessed May 27, 2010]; see also State Appraiser Regulatory Programs > State Contact Information [Appraisal Subcommittee], https://www.asc.gov/State-Appraiser-Regulatory-Programs/StateContactInformation.aspx [accessed May 27, 2010] [listing each State appraiser regulatory agency’s website]). Further, the OTS itself has determined that

“[i]t does not appear that OTS is required by title XI of FIRREA to implement an appraisal regulation that reaches all the activities of savings and loan holding companies, at least to the extent that those activities are unrelated to the safety and soundness of savings associations or their subsidiaries. Neither the language of Title XI nor its legislative history indicate that Congress intended title XI to apply to the wide range of activities engaged in by savings and loan holding companies and their non-saving association subsidiaries” (55 Fed Reg 34532, 34534-34535 [1990], codified at 12 CFR 506, 545, 563, 564 and 571).

Indeed, the OTS encourages financial institutions

“to make referrals directly to state appraiser regulatory authorities when a State licensed or certified appraiser violates USPAP, applicable state law, or engages in other unethical or unprofessional conduct. Examiners finding evidence of unethical or unprofessional conduct by appraisers will forward their findings and recommendations to their supervisory office for appropriate disposition and referral to the state, as necessary” (OTS, Thrift Bulletin, Interagency Appraisal and Evaluation Guidelines at 10 [November 4, 1994], http://files.ots.treas. gov/84042.pdf [accessed May 27, 2010]).

In looking at the legislative history it becomes clear that Congress intended to establish

“a system of uniform real estate appraisal standards and requires the use of State certified and licensed appraisers for federally regulated transactions by July 1, 1991. . . The key . . . lies in the creation of State regulatory agencies and a Federal watchdog to monitor the standards and to oversee State enforcement. . . It is this combination of Federal and State action . . . that . . . assur[es] . . . good standards are properly enforced (135 Cong Rec S3993-01, at S4004 [April 17, 1989], 1989 WL 191505 [remarks of Senator Christopher J. Dodd]).

Thus, we conclude that neither HOLA or FIRREA preempts or precludes the Attorney General from pursuing his claims.

Having rejected defendants’ general arguments for preemption under HOLA and FIRREA, “[t]he Court’s task, then, is to decide which claims fall on the regulatory side of the ledger and which, for want of a better term, fall on the common law side” ( Cedeno v IndyMac Bancorp, Inc., 2008 WL 3992304, *7, 2008 US Dist LEXIS 65337, *22 [SD NY 2008] [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]). Defendants assert that the Attorney General is preempted from pursuing his claims because subsequent to FIRREA’s passage, the OTS issued extensive regulations specifically addressing the composition and construction of appraisal programs undertaken by federal savings and loans.

It is well settled that “[a]gencies delegated rulemaking authority under a statute . . . are afforded generous leeway by the courts in interpreting the statute they are entrusted to administer” (Rapanos v United States, 547 US 715, 758 [2006]). Indeed, the OTS regulations “have no less pre-emptive effect than federal statutes” (Fidelity Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn., 458 US at 153). 12 CFR 545.2, states that regulations promulgated by the OTS are “preemptive of any state law purporting to address the subject of the operations of a Federal saving association.” However, 12 CFR 560.2(a) limits the language of 12 CFR 545.2 by setting parameters to the OTS’ authority to promulgate regulations that

“preempt state laws affecting the operations of federal savings associations when deemed appropriate to facilitate the safe and sound operation of federal savings associations, to enable federal savings associations . . . to conduct their operations in accordance with the best practices of thrift institutions in the United States, or to further other purposes of the HOLA” (12 CFR 560.2[a]).

12 CFR 560.2(b) provides a non-exhaustive list of illustrative examples of the types of state laws preempted by 12 CFR 560.2(a). Further, 12 CFR 560.2(c) states that the following types of State law are not preempted

“to the extent that they only incidentally affect the lending operations of Federal savings associations . . . (1) Contract and commercial law; (2) Real property law; (3) Homestead laws specified in 12 U.S.C. 1462a(f); (4) Tort law; (5) Criminal law; and (6) Any other law that OTS, upon review, finds: (i) Furthers a vital state interest; and (ii) Either has only an incidental effect on lending operations or is not otherwise contrary to the purposes expressed in paragraph (a) of this section.”

The OTS advises that when a court is

“analyzing the status of state laws under § 560.2, the first step will be to determine whether the type of law in question is listed in paragraph (b). If so, the analysis will end there; the law is preempted. If the law is not covered by paragraph (b), the next question is whether the law affects lending. If it does, then, in accordance with paragraph (a), the presumption arises that the law is preempted. This presumption can be reversed only if the law can clearly be shown to fit within the confines of paragraph (c). For these purposes, paragraph (c) is intended to be interpreted narrowly. Any doubt should be resolved in favor of preemption” (61 Fed Reg 50951-01, 50966-50967 [1996]).

Defendants argue that the Attorney General’s challenges to defendants’ business practices are preempted because the conduct falls within 12 CFR 560.2(b)(5), which provides examples of loan-related fees “including without limitation, initial charges, late charges, prepayment penalties, servicing fees, and overlimit fees.” Defendants also assert that their alleged conduct is within 12 CFR 560.2(b)(9), which provides

“[d]isclosure and advertising, including laws requiring specific statements, information, or other content to be included in credit application forms, credit solicitations, billing statements, credit contracts, or other credit-related documents and laws requiring creditors to supply copies of credit reports to borrowers or applicants” (id.).

Lastly, defendants assert that their alleged conduct falls within 12 CFR 560.2(b)(10) which states that “[p]rocessing, origination, servicing, sale or purchase of, or investment or participation in, mortgages” is preempted.

The Attorney General’s complaint asserts that defendants engaged in conduct proscribed by Executive Law § 63(12)[3] and General Business Law § 349[4] . It further alleges that defendants unjustly enriched themselves by repeated use of fraudulent or illegal business practices, in that they allowed WaMu to pressure eAppraiseIT appraisers to compromise their USPAP-required independence and collude with WaMu to inflate residential appraisal values so that the appraisals would match the qualifying loan values WaMu desired.

Under the first prong of the preemption analysis, we find that this action brought pursuant to Executive Law § 63(12), General Business Law § 349(b) and on the theory of unjust enrichment is not preempted by 12 CFR 560.2(b)(5) because it involves no attempt to regulate bank-related fees. We also find, under the first prong of the preemption analysis, that there is no preemption pursuant to 12 CFR 560.2(b)(9) because these claims do not involve a state law seeking to impose or require any specific statements, information or other content to be disclosed. Although at least one case has held that claims similar to those asserted here were preempted (see Spears v Washington Mut., Inc., 2009 WL 605835 [ND Cal 2009]), we find under the first prong of the preemption analysis that 12 CFR 660.2(b)(10) does not preclude the Attorney General’s complaint because prosecution of the alleged conduct will not affect the operations of federal savings associations (FSA) in how they process, originate, service, sell or purchase, or invest or participate in, mortgages.

The question then becomes whether the Attorney General is nevertheless precluded from litigating his claims under the second prong of the preemption analysis. Because enjoining a real estate appraisal management company from abdicating its publicly advertised role of providing unbiased valuations is not within the confines of 12 CFR 560.2(c), we answer it in the negative.

Defendants argue the OTS’s authority under HOLA and FIRREA is not limited to oversight of a FSA and that its authority under these two statues extends over the activity regulated and includes the activities of third party agents of a FSA. Defendants assert that providing real estate appraisal services is a critical component of the processing and origination of mortgages and represents a core component of the controlling federal regime. Defendants cite 12 USC § 1464(d)(7)(D) and State Farm Bank, FSB v Reardon (539 F3d 336 [6th Cir 2008]) for support. 12 USC § 1464(d)(7) states, in pertinent part, that

“if a savings association . . . causes to be performed for itself, by contract or otherwise, any service authorized under [HOLA] such performance shall be subject to regulation and examination by the [OTS] Director to the same extent as if such services were being performed by the savings association on its own premises . . .”

Here, it is alleged eAppraiseIT and Lender’s Service, Inc., were hired by WaMu to provide appraisal services. However, defendants are incorrect in asserting that providing real estate appraisal services is an authorized banking activity under HOLA. In an opinion letter dated October 25, 2004, OTS concluded that it had the authority to regulate agents of an FSA under HOLA because

“[i]nherent in the authority of federal savings associations to exercise their deposit and lending powers and to conduct deposit, lending, and other banking activities is the authority to advertise, market, and solicit customers, and to make the public aware of the banking products and services associations offer. The authority to conduct deposit and lending activities, and to offer banking products and services, is accompanied by the power to advertise, market, and solicit customers for such products and services . . . A state may not put operational restraints on a federal savings association’s ability to offer an authorized product or service by restricting the association’s ability to market its products and services and reach potential customers . . . Thus, OTS has authority under the HOLA to regulate the Agents the Association uses to perform marketing, solicitation, and customer service activities” (2004 OTS Op No. P-2004-7, at 7, http://files.ots.treas.gov/560404.pdf, 2004 OTS LEXIS 6, at *15 [accessed May 27, 2010]).

State Farm Bank, FSB v Reardon (539 F3d 336 [6th Cir 2008]) follows this principle. In Reardon, the plaintiff, a FSA chartered by the OTS under HOLA, decided to offer, through its independent contractor agents, first and second mortgages and home equity loans in the State of Ohio. The Sixth Circuit concluded that although the statute at issue

“directly regulates [the plaintiff FSA’s] exclusive agents rather than [the FSA] itself . . . the activity being regulated is the solicitation and origination of mortgages, a power granted to [the FSA] by HOLA and the OTS. This is also a power over which the OTS has indicated that any state attempts to regulate will be met with preemption . . . [T]he practical effect of the [statute] is that [the FSA] must either change its structure or forgo mortgage lending in Ohio. Thus, enforcement of the [statute] against [the FSA’s] exclusive agents would frustrate the purpose of the HOLA and the OTS regulations because it indirectly prohibits [the FSA] from exercising the powers granted to it under the HOLA and the OTS regulations” (Reardon, 539 F3d at 349 [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]).

Since appraisal services are not authorized banking products or services of a FSA, defendants have failed to show that the Attorney General is preempted from pursuing his claims under 12 USC § 1464(d)(7)(D). Consequently, under the second prong of the preemption analysis, the result of the Attorney General litigating his claims against a company that independently administers a FSA’s appraisal program would “only incidentally affect the lending operations of [the FSA]” (12 CFR 560.2[c]). Thus, defendants have failed to show that OTS’s regulations and guidelines preempt or preclude the Attorney General from pursuing his claims.

Defendants assert that Cedeno v IndyMac Bancorp, Inc. (2008 WL 3992304, 2008 US Dist LEXIS 65337 [SD NY 2008]) provides this Court with persuasive authority that the federal government and its regulators alone regulate the mortgage loan origination practices of FSAs including all aspects of the appraisal programs they utilize. In Cedeno, the Southern District found preemption precluded a private individual from maintaining a cause of action against a bank. It was alleged that the bank failed to disclose to the plaintiff that it selected appraisers, appraisal companies and/or appraisal management firms who would inflate the value of residential properties in order to allow the bank to complete more real estate transactions and obtain greater profits. This practice resulted in the plaintiff being misled as to the true equity in her home. The Southern District found that the conduct of the bank was

“directly regulated by the OTS: the processing and origination of mortgages, a loan-related fee, and the accompanying disclosure. The appraisals are a prerequisite to the lending process, and are inextricably bound to it. Because the plaintiff’s claim is not a simple breach of contract claim, but asks the Court to set substantive standards for the Associations’ lending operations and practices, it is preempted” (Cedeno, 2008 WL 3992304, *9, 2008 US Dist LEXIS 65337, at *28 [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]).

Contrary to defendants’ assertions, we find that Cedeno is not applicable here because Cedeno does not reach the question as to whether HOLA, FIRREA or OTS’s regulations and guidelines are intended to regulate the conduct of real estate appraisal companies.

Annexed to the OTS’s October 25, 2004 opinion letter is a document entitled Appendix A — Conditions. In this document, OTS requires FSAs that wish to use agents to perform marketing, solicitation, customer service, or other activities related to the FSA’s authorized banking products or services to enter into written agreements that “(4) expressly set[] forth OTS’s statutory authority to regulate and examine and take an enforcement action against the agent with respect to the activities it performs for the association, and the agent’s acknowledgment of OTS’s authority” (2004 OTS Op No. P-2004-7, at 16, http://files.ots. treas.gov/560404.pdf, 2004 OTS LEXIS 6, at *37 [accessed May 27, 2010]). We note that defendants have neither asserted that such written agreements exist nor produced such documents.

Thus, we conclude that the Attorney General may proceed with his claims against defendants because his challenge to defendants’ allegedly fraudulent and deceptive business practices in providing appraisal services is not preempted by federal law and regulations that govern the operations of savings and loan associations and institution-affiliated parties.

Defendants assert that the Attorney General cannot rely upon a substantive violation of a federal law to support a claim under General Business Law § 349 because this is an improper attempt to convert alleged violations of federal law into a violation of New York law. Defendants claim that where a plaintiff seeks to rely upon a substantive violation of a federal law to support a claim under General Business Law § 349, the federal law relied upon must contain a private right of action.

However, the Attorney General is statutorily charged with the duty to “[p]rosecute and defend all actions and proceedings in which the state is interested, and have charge and control of all the legal business of the departments and bureaus of the state, or of any office thereof which requires the services of attorney or counsel, in order to protect the interest of the state” (Executive Law § 63[1]). Indeed, when the Attorney General becomes aware of allegations of persistent fraud or illegality of a business, he

“is authorized by statute to bring an enforcement action seeking an order enjoining the continuance of such business activity or of any fraudulent or illegal acts, [and] directing restitution and damages’ (Executive Law § 63 [12]). He is also authorized, when informed of deceptive acts or practices affecting consumers in New York, to bring an action in the name and on behalf of the people of the state of New York to enjoin such unlawful acts or practices and to obtain restitution of any moneys or property obtained’ thereby (General Business Law § 349 [b])” (People v Coventry First LLC, 13 NY3d 108, 114 [2009]).

It is well settled that “[o]n a motion to dismiss pursuant to CPLR 3211, the court must accept the facts as alleged in the complaint as true, accord plaintiffs the benefit of every possible favorable inference, and determine only whether the facts as alleged fit within any cognizable legal theory’” (Wiesen v New York Univ., 304 AD2d 459, 460 [2003], quoting Leon v Martinez, 84 NY2d 83, 87-88 [1994]). The Attorney General’s complaint alleges that defendants publicly claimed on their eAppraiseIT website that eAppraiseIT provides a firewall between lenders and appraisers so that customers can be assured that USPAP and FIRREA guidelines are followed and that each appraisal is being audited for compliance. The Attorney General charges that defendants deceived borrowers and investors who relied on their proclaimed independence by allowing WaMu’s loan production staff to select the appraiser based upon whether they would provide high values.

We find defendants’ assertions that the Attorney General lacks standing under General Business Law § 349 and that his complaint fails to state a cause of action are without merit.

Indeed, the Attorney General’s complaint references misrepresentations and other deceptive conduct allegedly perpetrated on the consuming public within the State of New York, and “[a]s shown by its language and background, section 349 is directed at wrongs against the consuming public” (Oswego Laborers’ Local 214 Pension Fund v Marine Midland Bank, 85 NY2d 20, 24 [1995]). Therefore, we find that the Attorney General’s complaint articulates a viable cause of action under General Business Law § 349, and that this statute provides him with standing.

Consequently, we conclude that defendants have failed to demonstrate that HOLA, FIRREA or the OTS’s regulations and guidelines preempt or preclude the Attorney General from pursuing the causes of action articulated in his complaint. We additionally find that the Attorney General has standing under General Business Law § 349. We have reviewed defendants’ remaining contentions and we find them without merit.

Accordingly, the order of the Supreme Court, New York County (Charles Edward Ramos, J.), entered April 8, 2009, which, insofar as appealed from as limited by the briefs, denied defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint on the ground of federal preemption, should be affirmed, without costs.

All concur.

THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST DEPARTMENT.

[1] USPAP is incorporated into New York law and it prohibits a State-certified or State licensed appraiser from accepting a fee for an appraisal assignment “that is contingent upon the appraiser reporting a predetermined estimate, analysis, or opinion or is contingent upon the opinion, conclusion or valuation reached, or upon the consequences resulting from the appraisal assignment” (NY Exec Law § 160-y; 19 NYCRR 1106.1).

[2] 12 USC § 3350(4) states that “[t]he term federally related transaction’ means any real estate-related financial transaction which—(A) a federal financial institutions regulatory agency or the Resolution Trust Corporation engages in, contracts for, or regulates; and (B) requires the services of an appraiser.”

[3] Executive Law § 63(12) states, in pertinent part, that “[w]henever any person shall engage in repeated fraudulent or illegal acts or otherwise demonstrate persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business, the attorney general may apply, in the name of the people of the state of New York . . . for an order enjoining the continuance of such business activity or of any fraudulent or illegal acts, directing restitution and damages. . .”

[4] General Business Law § 349(b) states, in pertinent part, that “[w]henever the attorney general shall believe from evidence satisfactory to him that any person, firm, corporation or association or agent or employee thereof has engaged in or is about to engage in any of the acts or practices stated to be unlawful he may bring an action in the name and on behalf of the people of the state of New York to enjoin such unlawful acts or practices and to obtain restitution of any moneys or property obtained directly or indirectly by any such unlawful acts or practices.”

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Posted in foreclosure, foreclosures, wamu, washington mutual0 Comments

SEC KNEW ABOUT SUBPRIME ACCOUNTING FRAUD A DECADE AGO

SEC KNEW ABOUT SUBPRIME ACCOUNTING FRAUD A DECADE AGO

by Elizabeth MacDonald FoxBusiness

The Securities and Exchange  Commission is missing a bigger fraud while it chases the banks. Even though it knew about this massive, plain old fashioned accounting fraud back in 1998.
Instead, the market cops are probing simpler disclosure cases that could charge bank and Wall Street with not telling investors about their conflicts of interest in selling securities they knew were damaged while making bets against those same securities behind the scenes, via credit default swaps.
Those probes have gotten headlines, but there aren’t too many signs that this will lead to anything close to massive settlements or fines.

For instance, the SEC doesn’t appear to be investigating how banks frontloaded their profits via channel stuffing — securitizing loans and shoving paper securitizations onto investors, while booking those revenues immediately, even though the mortgage payments underlying those paper daisy chains were coming in the door years, even decades, later. Those moves helped lead to $2.4 trillion in writedowns worldwide.
The agency said it  believed banks were committing subprime securitization accounting frauds back in 1998 and claimed to be ‘probing’ them.
I had written about these SEC probes into potential frauds while covering corporate accounting abuses at The Wall Street Journal. The rules essentially let banks frontload into their revenue the sale of subprime mortgages or other loans that they then packaged and sold off as securities, even though the payments on those underlying loans were coming in the door over the next seven, 10, 20, or 30 years.
Estimating those revenues based on the value of future mortgage payments involved plenty of guesswork.

Securitization: Free Market Became a Free For All
The total amount of overall mortgage-backed securities generated by Wall Street virtually tripled between 1996 and 2007, to $7.3 trillion. Subprime mortgage securitizations increased from 54% in 2001, to 75% in 2006. Back in 1998, the SEC had warned a dozen top accounting firms that they must do a  better job policing how subprime lenders book profits from loans that are repackaged as securities and sold on the secondary market. The SEC “is becoming increasingly concerned” over the way lenders use what are called “gain on sale” accounting rules when they securitize these loans, Jane B. Adams, the SEC’s deputy chief accountant, said in a letter sent to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the nation’s chief accounting rule makers.
At that time, subprime lenders had come under fire from consumer groups and Congress, who said banks were using aggressive accounting to frontload profits from securitizing subprime loans. Subprime auto lender Mercury Finance collapsed after a spectacular accounting fraud and shareholder suits, New Century Financial was tanking as well for the same reason.

SEC Knew About Subprime Fraud More than a Decade Ago
The SEC more than a decade ago believed that subprime lenders were abusing the accounting rules.
When lenders repackage consumer loans as asset-backed securities, they must book the fair value of profits or losses from the deals. But regulators said lenders were overvaluing the loan assets they kept on their books in order to inflate current profits. Others delayed booking assets in order to increase future earnings. Lenders were also using poor default and prepayment rate assumptions to overestimate the fair value of their securitizations.
Counting future revenue was perfectly legal under too lax rules.
But without it many lenders that are in an objective sense doing quite well would look as if they were headed for bankruptcy.
At that time, the SEC’s eyebrows were raised when Dan Phillips, chief executive officer of FirstPlus Financial Group, a Dallas subprime home equity lenders, had said the poor accounting actually levitated profits at lenders.
“The reality is that companies like us wouldn’t be here without gain on sale,” he said, adding, “a lot of people abuse it.”
But this much larger accounting trick, one that has exacerbated the ties that blind between company and auditor, is more difficult to nail down because it involves wading through a lot of math, a calculus that Wall Street stretched it until it snapped.

Impenetrably Absurd Accounting
These were the most idiotic accounting rules known to man, rules manufactured by a quiescent Financial Accounting Standards Board [FASB] that let bank executives make up profits out of thin air.
It resulted in a folie à deux between Wall Street and complicit accounting firms that swallowed whole guesstimates pulled out of the atmosphere.
Their accounting gamesmanship set alight the most massive off-balance sheet bubble of all, a rule that helped tear the stock market off its moorings.
The rules helped five Wall Street firms – Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros., Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch – earn an estimated $312 billion based on fictitious profits during the bubble years.

Who Used the Rule?
Banks and investment firms including Citigroup, Bank of America and Merrill all used this “legit” rule.
Countrywide Financial made widespread use of this accounting chicanery (see below). So did Washington Mutual. So did IndyMac Bancorp. So did FirstPlus Financial Group, and as noted Mercury Finance Co. and New Century Financial Corp.
Brought to the cliff’s edge, these banks were either bailed out, taken over or went through bankruptcies.
Many banks sold those securitized loans to Enron-style off-balance sheet trusts, otherwise called “structured investment vehicles” (SIVs), again booking profits immediately (Citigroup invented the SIV in 1988).
So, presto-change-o, banks got to dump loans off their books, making their leverage ratios look a whole lot nicer, so in turn they could borrow more.
At the same time, the banks got to record immediate profits, even though those no-income, no-doc loans supporting those paper securities and paper gains were bellyflopping right and left.
The writedowns were then buried in obscure line items called “impairment charges,” and were then masked by new profits from issuing new loans or by refinancings.

Rulemakers Fight Back
The FASB has been fighting to restrict this and other types of accounting games, but the banks have been battling back with an army of lobbyists.
The FASB, which sets the rules for publicly traded companies, is still trying to hang tough and is trying to force all sorts of off-balance sheet borrowings back onto bank balance sheets.
But these “gain on sale” rules, along with the “fair value” or what are called “marked to market” rules, have either been watered down or have enough loopholes in them, escape hatches that were written into the rules by the accountants themselves, so that auditors can make a clean get away.
As the market turned down, banks got the FASB to back down on mark-to-market accounting, which had forced them to more immediately value these assets and take quarterly profit hits if those assets soured – even though they were booking immediate profits from this “gain on sale” rule on the way up.
Also, the FASB has clung fast to the Puritanism of their rulemaking by arguing a sale is a sale is a sale, so companies can immediately book the entire value of a sale of a loan turned into a bond, even though the cash from the underlying mortgage has yet to come in the door.

Old-Fashioned ‘Channel Stuffing’
This sanctioned “gain on sale” accounting is really old-fashioned “channel stuffing.”
The move lets companies pad their revenue and profit numbers by stuffing lots of goods and inventory (mortgages and subprime securities) into the system without actually getting the money in the door, and booking those channel-stuffed goods as actual sales in order to cook ever higher their earnings.
Sort of like what Sunbeam did with its barbecue grills in the ’90s.

Intergalactic Bank Justice League
Cleaning up the accounting rules is an easier fix instead of a new, belabored, top-heavy “Systemic Risk Council” of the heads of federal financial regulatory agencies, as Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn) envisions in financial regulatory reform.
An intergalactic Marvel Justice League of bank regulators can do nothing in the face of chicanery allowed in the rules.

Planes on a Tarmac
What happened was, banks and investment firms like Citigroup and Merrill Lynch who couldn’t sell these subprime bonds, or “collateralized debt obligations,” as well as other loan assets into these SIVs got caught out when the markets turned, stuck with this junk on their balance sheets like planes on a tarmac in a blizzard.
Bank of America saw its fourth-quarter 2007 profits plunge 95% largely due to SIV investments. SunTrust Banks’ earnings were nearly wiped out, a 98% drop in the same quarter, because of its SIVs.
Great Britain’s Northern Rock ran into huge problems in 2007 stemming from SIVs, and was later nationalized by the British government in February 2008.
Even the mortgage lending arm of tax preparer H&R Block used the move. Block sold its loans to off-balance-sheet vehicles so it could book gains about a month earlier than it otherwise would. Weee!
The company had $75 million of these items on its books at the end of its fiscal 2003 year. All totally within the rules.

Leverage Culture
The rampant fakery helped fuel a leverage culture that got a lot of homes put in hock.
Banks, for instance, started advertising home equity loans as “equity access,” or ways to “Live Richly” or as Fleet Bank once touted, “The smartest place to borrow? Your place.”
In fact, Washington Mutual and IndyMac got so excited by the gain on sale rules, they went so far as to count in profits futuristic gains even if they had only an “interest rate” commitment from a borrower, and not a final mortgage loan.
Talk about counting chickens before they hatch.

Closer Look at Wamu
Look at Wamu’s profits in just one year during the runup to the bubble. Such gains more than tripled in 2001 at Wamu, to just shy of $1 billion, or 22% of its pretax earnings before extraordinary items, up from $262 million, or 9%, in 2000.
But in 2001, Washington Mutual took $1.7 billion in charges, $1.1 billion of it in the final, fourth quarter, to reflect bleaker prospects for the revenue stream of all those servicing rights.
It papered over the hit with a nearly identical $1.8 billion gain on securitizations and portfolio sales.

Closer Look at Countrywide
The accounting fakery let Countrywide Financial Corp., the mortgage issuer now owned by Bank of America, triple its profit in 2003 to $2.4 billion on $8.5 billion in revenue.
At the height of the bubble, Countrywide booked $6.1 billion in gains from the sale of loans and securities. But this wasn’t cold, hard cash. No, this was potential future profits from servicing mortgage portfolios, meaning collecting monthly payments and late penalties.

Posted in bank of america, cdo, concealment, conspiracy, corruption, countrywide, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, S.E.C., scam, securitization, washington mutual0 Comments

SENATE FINDS MASSIVE FRAUD WASHINGTON MUTUAL: SPECIAL DELIVERY FOR WAMU VICTIMS!

SENATE FINDS MASSIVE FRAUD WASHINGTON MUTUAL: SPECIAL DELIVERY FOR WAMU VICTIMS!

Senate finds Massive FRAUD in SHam-MU! WaMu has allegedly defrauded hundreds of thousands of homeowners with unfair, deceptive and perhaps illegal lending policies and practices. Many of these homeowners are now facing the possibility of or are in foreclosure.

666 Pages with “Private” emails you’d like to read. Please be patient to upload.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scribd id=31356428 key=key-2ds6hgs6mi4aixhlw07z mode=list]

 

Posted in concealment, conspiracy, corruption, credit score, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, forensic loan audit, forensic mortgage investigation audit, jpmorgan chase, scam, securitization, washington mutual0 Comments

Another "HOME RUN" in Nassau, NY! Judge awards FREE home to woman after mortgage records lost: NEWSDAY

Another "HOME RUN" in Nassau, NY! Judge awards FREE home to woman after mortgage records lost: NEWSDAY

Originally published: May 6, 2010 8:47 PM
By SID CASSESE  sid.cassese@newsday.com

The house at 517 Pinebrook

Photo credit: Newsday / Karen Wiles Stabile | The house at 517 Pinebrook Ct. in West Hempstead, which a judge awarded to Corliss Gittens, free of any liens and mortgages because nobody opposed the action. (May 6, 2010)

A Lakeview woman got an early birthday present when a Nassau County State Supreme Court Justice awarded her the house she lives in, free and clear of any liens and mortgages because nobody opposed the action.

Tuesday, Corliss Gittens, who turned 48 Friday, received the award of her six-room ranch-style house at 517 Pinebrook Ct. from Justice John Galasso.

Gittens bought the house from her parents in late 2000. But when she mailed monthly checks to the mortgage company, Homeside Lending, the checks were never cashed, said Hempstead lawyer Fred Brewington, who represents Gittens. In 2001, Gittens was told by Homeside Lending officials that it could not locate evidence of the mortgage in its records.

“She had a mortgage and a deed. She went to a closing and purchased the house,” said Brewington. “She never stopped trying to find out to whom she should pay the mortgage because the uncertainty was making her distraught.”

Eventually, Gittens learned Homeside ceased to exist, and its parent company, SR Investments, was sold to Washington Mutual in 2002. Washington Mutual was in turn acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2008. All of the companies, as well as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, were named as respondents.

None opposed Gittens’ suit.

Brewington said he reached out to Chase on the issue, only to be told the bank knew nothing about it.

Michael Fusco, a spokesman for Chase in Manhattan, said the bank “has no comment at this time.”

Gittens did not want to be interviewed for the story, but Brewington quoted her as saying: “After so many years of existing in limbo, I am happy that I will have the resources of my property available to me.”

He said Gittens once sought a second mortgage, but failed to get it because no one could get any information on the existing one. He added that her case was filed to wipe out that mortgage.

County records show the 2009 property tax on the house as $7,667.44.

In his decision Galasso said: “The Court directs the Clerk of the County of Nassau in whose office the mortgage and note were presumably recorded on or about March 6, 2001, to mark the record of the debt secured by the mortgage canceled and discharged.”

County Clerk Maureen O’Connell said Thursday she got the order Thursday and will execute it immediately.

Posted in concealment, conspiracy, corruption, foreclosure, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure mills, forensic mortgage investigation audit, jpmorgan chase, reversed court decision, securitization, washington mutual0 Comments

Move Over Fannie Mae…Revealing the "TRIPLETS" Maiden Lane, Maiden Lane II and Maiden Lane III

Move Over Fannie Mae…Revealing the "TRIPLETS" Maiden Lane, Maiden Lane II and Maiden Lane III

Fed Reveals Bear Stearns Assets It Swallowed in Firm’s Rescue (Bloomberg)

By Craig Torres, Bob Ivry and Scott Lanman

April 1 (Bloomberg) — After months of litigation and political scrutiny, the Federal Reserve yesterday ended a policy of secrecy over its Bear Stearns Cos. bailout.

In a 4:30 p.m. announcement in a week of congressional recess and religious holidays, the central bank released details of securities bought to aid Bear Stearns’s takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Bloomberg News sued the Fed for that information.

The Fed’s vehicle known as Maiden Lane LLC has securities backed by mortgages from lenders including Washington Mutual Inc. and Countrywide Financial Corp., loans that were made with limited borrower documentation. More than $1 billion of them are backed by “jumbo” mortgages written by Thornburg Mortgage Inc., which now carry the lowest investment-grade rating. Jumbo loans were larger than government-sponsored mortgage buyers such as Fannie Mae could finance — $417,000 at the time.

“The Fed absorbed that risk on its balance sheet and is now seen to be holding problematic, legacy assets,” said Vincent Reinhart, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington who was the central bank’s monetary- affairs director from 2001 to 2007. “There is both an impairment to its balance sheet and its reputation.”

The Bear Stearns deal marked a turning point in the financial crisis for the Fed. By putting taxpayers at risk in financing the rescue, the central bank was engaging in fiscal policy, normally the domain of Congress and the U.S. Treasury, said Marvin Goodfriend, a former Richmond Fed policy adviser who is now an economist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

‘Panic’ Cause

“Lack of clarity on the boundary between responsibilities of the Fed and of the Congress as much as anything else created panic in the fall of 2008,” Goodfriend said. “That created a situation in which what had been a serious recession became something near a Great Depression.”

Central bankers also created moral hazard, or a perception for investors that any financial firm bigger than Bear Stearns wouldn’t be allowed to fail, said David Kotok, chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors Inc. in Vineland, New Jersey.

Policy makers’ resolve was tested months later by runs against the largest financial companies. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed into bankruptcy in September 2008. The ensuing panic caused the Fed to take even more emergency measures to push liquidity into markets and institutions. It rescued American International Group Inc. from collapse and allowed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley to convert into bank holding companies, putting them under greater oversight by the central bank.

Early Failure

“Letting somebody fail early would have been a better choice,” Kotok said. “You would have ratcheted moral hazard lower and Lehman wouldn’t have been so severe.”

The Bear Stearns assets include bets against the credit of bond insurers such as MBIA Inc., Financial Security Assurance Holdings Ltd. and a unit of Ambac Financial Group, putting the Fed in the position of wagering companies will stop paying their debts.

The Fed disclosed that some of Maiden Lane’s assets were portions of commercial loans for hotels, including Short Hills Hilton LLC in New Jersey, Hilton Hawaiian Village LLC in Hawaii, and Hilton of Malaysia LLC, in addition to securities backed by residential mortgages.

More than a year after Washington Mutual, the largest U.S. savings and loan, was purchased by JPMorgan Chase in a distressed sale arranged by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the home loans that helped bring down the Seattle-based thrift live on in the Maiden Lane portfolio.

Lending Standards

For example, 94 percent of the mortgages in one security, called WAMU 06-A13 2XPPP, required limited documentation from borrowers, meaning the lender often didn’t ask customers for proof of their incomes. Almost 10 percent of the borrowers whose mortgages make up the security have been foreclosed on, and almost a quarter are more than two months late with payments, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The portfolio also includes $618.9 million of securities backed by Countrywide, mortgages now rated CCC, eight levels below investment grade. All the underlying loans are adjustable- rate mortgages, with about 88 percent requiring only limited borrower documentation, according to Bloomberg data. About 33.6 percent of the borrowers are at least 60 days late. Countrywide is now part of Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp.

CDO Holdings

Maiden Lane has $19.5 million of securities from a series of collateralized debt obligations called Tropic CDO that are backed by trust preferred securities of community banks and thrifts. CDOs are investment pools made up of a variety of assets that provide a flow of cash.

Trust preferred securities, or TruPS, have characteristics of debt and equity and their interest payments are tax- deductible.

The securities created by Bear Stearns are rated C, one level above default, by Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings.

CDO securities have tumbled in value as banks are failing at the fastest rate in 17 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The average price of TruPS CDO debt of this rating is pennies on the dollar, according to Citigroup Inc.

“The trust of the taxpayer was abused,” said Janet Tavakoli, president of Chicago-based financial consulting firm Tavakoli Structured Finance Inc. CDOs rated CCC and lower “have a high likelihood of default,” she said.

Bernanke Defense

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke defended the Bear Stearns deal as a rescue of the financial system. He said in a speech at the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyoming conference in August 2008 that a sudden Bear Stearns failure would have caused a “vicious circle of forced selling” and increased volatility.

“The broader economy could hardly have remained immune from such severe financial disruptions,” Bernanke said in the speech. The Fed chief, who took office in 2006 and began his second term as chairman this year, also has repeatedly called for an overhaul of financial regulations that would allow authorities to take over a failing financial institution and oversee an orderly unwinding of its positions.

Bernanke said last year that nothing made him “more angry” than the AIG case, blaming the insurer for making “irresponsible bets” and a lack of regulatory oversight for the debacle. Officials “had no choice but to try and stabilize the system” by aiding the firm in September 2008, he said.

Yesterday’s release by the Fed, through its New York regional bank, also identified securities acquired in the bailout of AIG held in vehicles known as Maiden Lane II and III.

Market Value

Assets in Maiden Lane II totaled $34.8 billion, according to the Fed, which set their current market value in its weekly balance sheet at $15.3 billion. That means Maiden Lane II assets are worth 44 cents on the dollar, or 44 percent of their face value, according to the Fed.

Maiden Lane III, which has $56 billion of assets at face value, is worth $22.1 billion, or 39 cents on the dollar, according to the Fed’s weekly balance sheet. A similar calculation for the Bear Stearns portfolio couldn’t be made because of outstanding derivatives trades.

“The Federal Reserve recognizes the importance of transparency to its financial stability efforts and will continue to review disclosure practices with the goal of making additional information publicly available when possible,” the New York Fed said in yesterday’s statement.

Deal With Chase

The central bank said it reached agreement on “issues of confidentiality” for the assets with JPMorgan Chase, which bought Bear Stearns in 2008, and AIG. New York-based JPMorgan and AIG would incur the first losses on the portfolios.

Joe Evangelisti, a spokesman for JPMorgan, and Mark Herr, a spokesman for AIG, declined to comment.

In April 2008, Bloomberg News requested records under the federal Freedom of Information Act from the Fed’s Board of Governors related to JPMorgan’s acquisition of Bear Stearns. The central bank responded that records retained by the New York Fed “were proprietary records of the Reserve Bank, and not Board records subject” to the request, court records show.

Bloomberg filed suit in November 2008 in U.S. District Court in New York, challenging the Fed’s denial, as well as the denial of a separate request made in May 2008, seeking records of four other emergency lending programs.

The district court held that the Fed should release documents related to those four programs, and should search documents held by the New York regional bank to determine whether any of them should be considered records of the board of governors.

The U.S. Court of Appeals on March 19 upheld the district court’s ruling on the lending programs.

Representative Darrell Issa of California said in a statement that yesterday’s disclosure may “signal a new willingness to cooperate with Congress as we investigate how these bailout deals were structured and what the decision making process entailed.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Craig Torres in Washington at ctorres3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 1, 2010 01:34 EDT

Posted in bernanke, bloomberg, countrywide, foreclosure fraud, washington mutual0 Comments

To ROB a COUNTRY, OWN a BANK: William Black

To ROB a COUNTRY, OWN a BANK: William Black

William Black, author of “Best way to rob a bank is to own one” talks about deliberate fraud on Wall St. courtesy of TheRealNews

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA_MkJB84VA]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISsR7ZiWlsk]

Stop trying to get through the front door…use the back door…Get a Forensic Audit!

Not all Forensic Auditors are alike! FMI may locate exactly where the loan sits today.

 

This will make your lender WANT to communicate with you. Discover what they don’t want you to know. Go back in time and start from the minute you might have seen advertisements that got you hooked ” No Money Down” “100% Financing” “1% interest” “No income, No assetts” NO PROBLEM! Were you given proper disclosures on time, proper documents, was your loan broker providing you fiduciary guidance or did they hide undisclosed fees from you? Did they conceal illegal kickbacks? Did your broker tell you “Don’t worry before your new terms come due we will refinance you”? Did they inflate your appraisal? Did the developer coerce you to *USE* a certain “lender” and *USE* a certain title company?

If so you need a forensic audit. But keep in mind FMI:

DO NOT STOP FORECLOSURE

DO NOT NEGOTIATE ON YOUR BEHALF WITH YOUR BANK OR LENDER

DO NOT MODIFY YOUR LOAN

DO NOT TAKE CASES that is upto your attorney!

FMI does however, provide your Attorney with AMMO to bring your Lender into the negotiation table.

Posted in bank of america, bernanke, chase, citi, concealment, conspiracy, corruption, fdic, FED FRAUD, federal reserve board, FOIA, foreclosure mills, forensic mortgage investigation audit, fraud digest, freedom of information act, G. Edward Griffin, geithner, indymac, jpmorgan chase, lehman brothers, Lynn Szymoniak ESQ, MERS, Mortgage Foreclosure Fraud, nina, note, onewest, scam, siva, tila, title company, wachovia, washington mutual, wells fargo0 Comments

Fed Ends Bank Exemption Aimed at Boosting Mortgage Liquidity: Bloomberg

Fed Ends Bank Exemption Aimed at Boosting Mortgage Liquidity: Bloomberg

By Craig Torres

March 20 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve Board removed an exemption it had given to six banks at the start of the crisis in 2007 aimed at boosting liquidity in financing markets for securities backed by mortgage- and asset-backed securities.

The so-called 23-A exemptions, named after a section of the Federal Reserve Act that limits such trades to protect bank depositors, were granted days after the Fed cut the discount rate by half a percentage point on Aug. 17, 2007. Their removal, announced yesterday in Washington, is part of a broad wind-down of emergency liquidity backstops by the Fed as markets normalize.

The decision in 2007 underscores how Fed officials defined the mortgage-market disruptions that year as partly driven by liquidity constraints. In hindsight, some analysts say that diagnosis turned out to be wrong.

“It was a way to prevent further deleveraging of the financial system, but that happened anyway,” said Dino Kos, managing director at Portales Partners LLC and former head of the New York Fed’s open market operations. “The underlying problem was solvency. The Fed was slow to recognize that.”

The Fed ended the exemptions in nearly identical letters to the Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Deutsche Bank AG, and Barclays Bank Plc posted on its Web site.

Backstop Liquidity

The Fed’s intent in 2007 was to provide backstop liquidity for financial markets through the discount window. In a chain of credit, investors would obtain collateralized loans from dealers, dealers would obtain collateralized loans from banks, and then banks could pledge collateral to the Fed’s discount window for 30-day credit. In Citigroup’s case, the exemption allowed such lending to its securities unit up to $25 billion.

“The goal was to stop the hemorrhaging of risk capital,” said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey. “Investors were being forced out of the securities market because they couldn’t fund their positions, even in higher-quality assets in some cases.”

Using mortgage bonds without government-backed guarantees as collateral for private-market financing began to get more difficult in August 2007 following the collapse of two Bear Stearns Cos. hedge funds.

As terms for loans secured by mortgage bonds got “massively” tighter, haircuts, or the excess in collateral above the amount borrowed, on AAA home-loan securities rose that month from as little as 3 percent to as much as 10 percent, according to a UBS AG report.

Lehman Collapse

By February 2008, haircuts climbed to 20 percent, investor Luminent Mortgage Capital Inc. said at the time. After Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed in September 2008, the loans almost disappeared.

“These activities were intended to allow the bank to extend credit to market participants in need of short-term liquidity to finance” holdings of mortgage loans and asset- backed securities, said the Fed board’s letter dated yesterday to Kathleen Juhase, associate general counsel of JPMorgan. “In light of this normalization of the term for discount window loans, the Board has terminated the temporary section 23-A exemption.”

The “normalization” refers to the Fed’s reduction in the term of discount window loans to overnight credit starting two days ago from a month previously.

The Fed eventually loaned directly to securities firms and opened the discount window to primary dealers in March 2008. Borrowings under the Primary Dealer Credit Facility soared to $146.5 billion on Oct. 1, 2008, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers two weeks earlier. Borrowings fell to zero in May 2009. The Fed closed the facility last month, along with three other emergency liquidity backstops.

Discount Rate

The Fed also raised the discount rate a quarter point in February to 0.75 percent, moving it closer to its normal spread over the federal funds rate of 1 percentage point.

The one interest rate the Fed hasn’t changed since the depths of the crisis is the benchmark lending rate. Officials kept the target for overnight loans among banks in a range of zero to 0.25 percent on March 16, where it has stood since December 2008, while retaining a pledge to keep rates low “for an extended period.”

Removing the 23-A exemptions shows the Fed wants to get “back to normal,” said Laurence Meyer, a former Fed governor and vice chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC in Washington. “Everything has gone back to normal except monetary policy.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Craig Torres in Washington at ctorres3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 20, 2010 00:00 EDT

Posted in bank of america, bear stearns, bernanke, bloomberg, chase, citi, concealment, conspiracy, corruption, Dick Fuld, fdic, FED FRAUD, federal reserve board, FOIA, forensic mortgage investigation audit, freedom of information act, G. Edward Griffin, geithner, jpmorgan chase, lehman brothers, note, RON PAUL, scam, washington mutual, wells fargo0 Comments

HARVARD LAW AND ECONOMIC ISSUES IN SUBPRIME LITIGATION 2008

HARVARD LAW AND ECONOMIC ISSUES IN SUBPRIME LITIGATION 2008

This in combination with A.K. Barnett-Hart’s Thesis make’s one hell of a Discovery.

 
LEGAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES IN
SUBPRIME LITIGATION
Jennifer E. Bethel*
Allen Ferrell**
Gang Hu***
 

Discussion Paper No. 612

03/2008

Harvard Law School Cambridge, MA 02138

 

 ABSTRACT

This paper explores the economic and legal causes and consequences of recent difficulties in the subprime mortgage market. We provide basic descriptive statistics and institutional details on the mortgage origination process, mortgage-backed securities (MBS), and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). We examine a number of aspects of these markets, including the identity of MBS and CDO sponsors, CDO trustees, CDO liquidations, MBS insured and registered amounts, the evolution of MBS tranche structure over time, mortgage originations, underwriting quality of mortgage originations, and write-downs of investment banks. In light of this discussion, the paper then addresses questions as to how these difficulties might have not been foreseen, and some of the main legal issues that will play an important role in the extensive subprime litigation (summarized in the paper) that is underway, including the Rule 10b-5 class actions that have already been filed against the investment banks, pending ERISA litigation, the causes-of-action available to MBS and CDO purchasers, and litigation against the rating agencies. In the course of this discussion, the paper highlights three distinctions that will likely prove central in the resolution of this litigation: The distinction between reasonable ex ante expectations and the occurrence of ex post losses; the distinction between the transparency of the quality of the underlying assets being securitized and the transparency as to which market participants are exposed to subprime losses; and, finally, the distinction between what investors and market participants knew versus what individual entities in the structured finance process knew, particularly as to macroeconomic issues such as the state of the national housing market. ex ante expectations and the occurrence of ex post losses; the distinction between the transparency of the quality of the underlying assets being securitized and the transparency as to which market participants are exposed to subprime losses; and, finally, the distinction between what investors and market participants knew versus what individual entities in the structured finance process knew, particularly as to macroeconomic issues such as the state of the national housing market. 

 continue reading the paper harvard-paper-diagrams

 
 

 

Posted in bank of america, bear stearns, bernanke, chase, citi, concealment, conspiracy, corruption, credit score, Dick Fuld, FED FRAUD, G. Edward Griffin, geithner, indymac, jpmorgan chase, lehman brothers, mozillo, naked short selling, nina, note, scam, siva, tila, wachovia, washington mutual, wells fargo1 Comment

Michael Lewis: How a Few Wall Street Outsiders Scored Shorting Real Estate Before the Collapse

Michael Lewis: How a Few Wall Street Outsiders Scored Shorting Real Estate Before the Collapse

This is worth the time to read and watch

By Damien Hoffman The Wall St. Cheat

Posted on March 14 2010

Michael Lewis’s new book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine,is already #1 at Amazon. Tonight he had some very cool interviews on 60 Minutes discussing how a few Wall Street outsiders made billions shorting real estate, his thoughts on Wall Street bonuses, and more. These videos are highly recommended now that the NCAA brackets are out and the tournaments are over until Thursday:

Go HERE for the powerful videos

Posted in bank of america, bear stearns, bernanke, chase, citi, concealment, conspiracy, corruption, FED FRAUD, foreclosure fraud, forensic mortgage investigation audit, G. Edward Griffin, geithner, george soros, hank paulson, indymac, jpmorgan chase, lehman brothers, michael dell, mozillo, naked short selling, nina, note, onewest, RON PAUL, scam, siva, steven mnuchin, tila, wachovia, washington mutual, wells fargo0 Comments

Move Your Money…

Move Your Money…

Move your money to a community bank or a credit union…watch the videos.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icqrx0OimSs]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AmfNft0Eow]

Here is Arianna Huffington: Move Your Money: A New Year’s Resolution

Go HERE to see where to go to move your money in your area

Posted in bank of america, bear stearns, chase, citi, concealment, conspiracy, corruption, FED FRAUD, geithner, indymac, jpmorgan chase, Mortgage Foreclosure Fraud, onewest, wachovia, washington mutual, wells fargo0 Comments

TOPAKO LOVE; LAURA HESCOTT; CHRISTINA ALLEN; ERIC TATE …Officers of way, way too many banks Part Deux “The Twilight Zone”

TOPAKO LOVE; LAURA HESCOTT; CHRISTINA ALLEN; ERIC TATE …Officers of way, way too many banks Part Deux “The Twilight Zone”

First, Lynn Szymoniak ESQ. presented “Compare these Titles & Signatures” & “Too Many Jobs”…Now the next of many of compare these signatures & titles series. “Officers of Way, Way too many banks”…Part Deux “The Twilight Zone”.

How can you be an OFFICER of all these banks and Why is your signature never signed the same??? Minnesota? LPS? Bueller? …anyone?…Bueller?

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



Posted in dennis kirkpatrick, DOCX, erica johnson seck, FIS, foreclosure fraud, Former Fidelity National Information Services, fraud digest, indymac, Law Offices Of David J. Stern P.A., Lender Processing Services Inc., LPS, Lynn Szymoniak ESQ, marshall watson, MERS, Mortgage Foreclosure Fraud, roger stotts, washington mutual12 Comments

MERS KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid… "SCAM"

MERS KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid… "SCAM"

If self nominating officers signing on

behalf of MERS, et al~ wasn’t good

enough…

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C., February 24, 2010:  Although only bankers are aware of it, there is a second wave of economic disaster starting to build up that will make the earlier one pale into insignificance. Let us start out with MERS, shall we?

MERS = Mortgage Electronic Registration Inc.holds approximately 60 million American mortgages and is a Delaware corporation whose sole shareholder is Mers Corp. MersCorp and its specified members have agreed to include the MERS corporate name on any mortgage that was executed in conjunction with any mortgage loan made by any member of MersCorp. Thus in place of the original lender being named as the mortgagee on the mortgage that is supposed to secure their loan, MERS is named as the “nominee” for the lender who actually loaned the money to the borrower. In other words MERS is really nothing more than a name that is used on the mortgage instrument in place of the actual lender. MERS’ primary function, therefore, is to act as a document custodian. MERS was created solely to simplify the process of transferring mortgages by avoiding the need to re-record liens – and pay county recorder filing fees – each time a loan is assigned. Instead, servicers record loans only once and MERS’ electronic system monitors transfers and facilitates the trading of notes. It has very conservatively estimated that as of February, 2010, over half of all new residential mortgage loans in the United States are registered with MERS and recorded in county recording offices in MERS’ name

MersCorp was created in the early 1990’s by the former C.E.O.’s of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Indy Mac, Countrywide, Stewart Title Insurance and the American Land Title Association. The executives of these companies lined their pockets with billions of dollars of unearned bonuses and free stock by creating so-called mortgage backed securities using bogus mortgage loans to unqualified borrowers thereby creating a huge false demand for residential homes and thereby falsely inflating the value of those homes. MERS marketing claims that its “paperless systems fit within the legal framework of the laws of all fifty states” are now being vetted by courts and legal commentators throughout the country.

The MERS paperless system is the type of crooked rip-off scheme that is has been seen for generations past in the crooked financial world. In this present case, MERS was created in the boardrooms of the most powerful and controlling members of the American financial institutions. This gigantic scheme completely ignored long standing law of commerce relating to mortgage lending and did so for its own personal gain. That the inevitable collapse of the crooked mortgage swindles would lead to terrible national repercussions was a matter of little or no interest to the upper levels of America’s banking and financial world because the only interest of these entities was to grab the money of suckers, keep it in the form of ficticious bonuses, real estate and very large accounts in foreign banks. The effect of this system has led to catastrophic meltdown on both the American and global economy.

MERS, as has clearly been proven in many civil cases, does not hold any promissory notes of any kind. A party must have possession of a promissory note in order to have standing to enforce and/or otherwise collect a debt that is owed to another party. Given this clear-cut legal definition,  MERS does not have legal standing to enforce or collect on the over 60 million mortgages it controls and no member of MERS has any standing in an American civil court.

MERS has been taken to civil courts across the country and charged with a lack of standing in reposession issues. When the mortgage debacle initially, and inevitably, began, MERS always routinely brought actions against defaulting mortgage holders purporting to represent the owners of the defaulted mortgages but once the courts discovered that MERS was only a front organization that did not hold any deed nor was aware of who or what agencies might hold a deed, they have routinely been denied in their attempts to force foreclosure.  In the past, persons alleging they were officials of MERS in foreclosure motions, purported to be the holders of the mortgage, when, in fact, they not only were not the holder of the mortgage but, under a court order, could not produce the identity of the actual holder. These so-called MERS officers have usually been just employees of entities who are servicing the loan for the actual lender. MERS, it is now widely acknowledged by the courts, has no legal right to foreclose or otherwise collect debt which are evidenced by promissory notes held by someone else.

The American media routinely identifies MERS as a mortgage lender, creditor, and mortgage company, when in point of fact MERS has never loaned so much as a dollar to anyone, is not a creditor and is not a mortgage company. MERS is merely a name that is printed on mortgages, purporting to give MERS some sort of legal status, in the matter of a loan made by a completely different and almost always,a totally unknown entity.

The infamous collapse of the American housing bubble originated, in the main, with one Angelo Mozilo, CEO of the later failed Countrywide Mortgage.

Mozilo started working in his father’s butcher shop, in the Bronx, when he was ten years old. He graduated from Fordham in 1960, and that year he met David Loeb. In 1968, Mozilo and Loeb created a new mortgage company, Countrywide, together. Mozilo believed the company should make special efforts to lower the barrier for minorities and others who had been excluded from homeownership. Loeb died in 2003

In 1996, Countrywide created a new subsidiary for subprime loans.

  • Countrywide Financial’s former management
  • Angelo R. Mozilo, cofounder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer
  • David S. Loeb, cofounder, President and Chairman from 1969 to 2000
  • David Sambol, president, chief operating officer, director
  • Eric P. Sieracki, chief financial officer, executive managing director
  • Jack Schakett, executive managing director, chief operating officer
  • Kevin Bartlett, executive managing director, chief investment officer
  • Andrew Gissinger, executive managing director, chief production officer, Countrywide Home Loans[14]
  • Sandor E. Samuels, executive managing director, chief legal officer and assistant secretary
  • Ranjit Kripalani, executive managing director and president, Capital Markets
  • Laura K. Milleman, senior managing director, chief accounting officer
  • Marshall Gates, senior managing director, chief administrative officer
  • Timothy H. Wennes, senior managing director, president and chief operating officer, Countrywide Bank FSB
  • Anne D. McCallion, senior managing director, chief of financial operations and planning
  • Steve Bailey, senior managing director of loan administration, Countrywide Home Loans

The standard Countrywide procedure was to openly solicit persons who either had no credit or could not obtain it, and, by the use of false credit reports drawn up in their offices, arrange mortgages. The new home owners were barely able to meet the minimum interest only payments and when, as always happens, the mortgage payments are increased to far, far more than could be paid, defaults and repossessions were inevitable. Countrywide sold these mortgages to lower-tier banks which in turn, put them together in packages and sold them to the large American banks. These so-called “bundled mortgages” were quickly sold these major banking houses to many foreign investors with the comments that when the payments increased, so also would the income from the original mortgage. In 1996, Countrywide created a new subsidiary for subprime loans.

At one point in time, Countrywide Financial Corporation was regarded with awe in the business world. In 2003, Fortune observed that Countrywide was expected to write $400 billion in home loans and earn $1.9 billion. Countrywide’s chairman and C.E.O., Angelo Mozilo, did rather well himself. In 2003, he received nearly $33 million in compensation. By that same year, Wall Street had become addicted to home loans, which bankers used to create immensely lucrative mortgage-backed securities and, later, collateralized debt obligations, or C.D.O.s—and Countrywide was their biggest supplier. Under Mozilo’s leadership, Countrywide’s growth had been astonishing.

He was aiming to achieve a market share—thirty to forty per cent—that was far greater than anyone in the financial-services industry had ever attained. For several years, Countrywide continued to thrive. Then, inevitably, in 2007, subprime defaults began to rocket upwards , forcing the top American bankers to abandoned the mortgage-backed securities they had previously prized. It was obvious to them that the fraudulent mortgages engendered by Countrywide had been highly suceessful as a marketing program but it was obvious to eveyone concerned, at all levels, that the mortgages based entirely on false and misleading credit information were bound to eventually default. In August of 2007, the top American bankers cut off.   Countrywide’s short-term funding, which seriously hindered its ability to operate, and in just a few months following this abandonment,  Mozilo was forced to choose between bankruptcy or selling out to the best bidder.

In January, 2008, Bank of America announced that it would buy the company for a fraction of what Countrywide was worth at its peak. Mozilo was subsequently named a defendant in more than a hundred civil lawsuits and a target of a criminal investigation.  On June 4th, 2007 the S.E.C., in a civil suit, charged Mozilo, David Sambol, and Eric Sieracki with securities fraud; Mozilo was also charged with insider trading. The complaint formalized a public indictment of Mozilo as an icon of corporate malfeasance and greed.

In essence, not only bad credit risks were used to create and sell mortgages on American homes that were essentially worthless. By grouping all of these together and selling them abroad, the banks all made huge profits. When the kissing had to stop, there were two major groups holding the financial bag. The first were the investors and the second were, not those with weak credit, but those who had excellent credit and who were able, and willing to pay off their mortgages.

Unfortunately,  just as no one knows who owns the title to any home in order to foreclose, when the legitimate mortgage holder finally pays off his mortgage, or tries to sell his house, a clear title to said house or property cannot ever be found so, in essence, the innocent mortgage payer can never own or sell his house. This is a terrible economic time bomb quietly ticking away under the feet of the Bank of America and if, and when, it explodes, another bank is but a fond memory.

Readers wishing to find out if their title is secure should write to www.ChinkintheArmor.net, leave a comment on any article and ask for contact information for legal advice.

http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a3019.htm

Full Deposition of the Infamous Erica Johnson Seck RE: Indymac Federal Bank Fsb, Plaintiff, Vs. Israel a. Machado – 50 2008 CA 037322xxxx Mb

SOON TO BE FAMOUS ROGER STOTTS & DENNIS KIRKPATRICK VP’s, MERS, ATTORNEY in FACT, ONEWEST, INDYMAC, Deutsche BANK et al~~

BOGUS ASSIGNMENTS 3…Forgery, Counterfeit, Fraud …Oh MY!

Posted in chase, concealment, conspiracy, corruption, dennis kirkpatrick, erica johnson seck, fraud digest, geithner, george soros, indymac, Law Offices Of David J. Stern P.A., lehman brothers, Lender Processing Services Inc., LPS, michael dell, Mortgage Foreclosure Fraud, mozillo, note, onewest, roger stotts, scam, sewer service, steven mnuchin, Uncategorized, wachoiva, washington mutual, wells fargo1 Comment


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