In February, JPMorgan Chase donated a home to an Iraq war veteran in Bucoda, Wash., and Bank of America waived the $140,000 debt that a Florida man still owed after the sale of his foreclosed home. Over the last year, Wells Fargo has demolished about a dozen houses in Cleveland.
Banks do things like this — real estate transactions that do nothing to prevent foreclosure — all the time. But beginning this month, they can count such activities as part of their new commitment to help people stay in their homes.
That commitment comes under the landmark $25 billion foreclosure abuse settlement between the government and five major banks announced last month. The settlement promises that of the $25 billion, the banks will give $17 billion “in assistance to borrowers who have the intent and ability to stay in their homes,” according to a summary of the settlement. But more than half of that money can be used in ways that will not stop foreclosures, including some activities that are already standard bank practices.
For example, the banks can wipe out more than $2 billion of their obligation by donating or demolishing abandoned houses. Almost $1 billion can be used to help families that have already defaulted move out.
Chain of title – proof of who really owns a house – underpins the entire U.S. system of real estate.
Broken chain of title due to slipshod paperwork was a serious issue uncovered in the nationwide robosigning scandal and again last month in a city report that found San Francisco foreclosure paperwork riddled with errors.
Those revelations draw new attention to title companies, which insure a home’s clear title for both buyers and lenders.
“If there is not a clear chain of title in the foreclosure process, how can there be a clear chain of title for the person buying foreclosed property?” said San Francisco Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting, who commissioned the audit. “Given our report, it calls into question whether entities selling a foreclosure really have the right to transfer that property to somebody else.”
“If you’re going to take someone’s home away, you’ve got to prove you have the right to do it, and you have to follow the law when you do it,” Atty Glenn Russell said.
Busines Week-
The highest court in Massachusetts is poised to rule as soon as this month on a foreclosure case that could lead to a surge in claims from home owners seeking to overturn seizures.
The justices are deciding whether to uphold a lower court ruling that gave a Boston home back to Henrietta Eaton after Sam Levine, a 25-year-old Harvard Law School student, argued in front of the nation’s oldest appellate court that the loan servicer made mistakes when it foreclosed because it didn’t hold the note proving she was obliged to pay the mortgage.
“If the Massachusetts court says this defense works, that would have a huge ripple effect across the country,” said Kurt Eggert, a professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California.
Abstract: Two parallel real estate bubbles emerged in the United States between 2004 and 2008, one in residential real estate, the other in commercial real estate. The residential real estate bubble has received a great deal of popular, scholarly, and policy attention. The commercial real estate bubble, in contrast, has largely been ignored.
This Article explores the causes of the commercial real estate bubble. It shows that the commercial real estate price bubble was accompanied by a change in the source of commercial real estate financing. Starting in 1998, securitization became an increasingly significant part of commercial real estate financing. The commercial mortgage securitization market underwent a major shift in 2004, however, as the traditional buyers of subordinated commercial real estate debt were outbid by collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Savvy, sophisticated, experienced commercial mortgage securitization investors were thus replaced by investors who merely wanted “product” to securitize. The result was a noticeable decline in underwriting standards in commercial mortgage backed securities that contributed to the commercial real estate price bubble.
The commercial real estate bubble holds important lessons for understanding the residential real estate bubble. Unlike the residential market, there is almost no government involvement in commercial real estate. The existence of the parallel commercial real estate bubble presents a strong challenge to explanations of the residential bubble that focus on government affordable housing policy, the Community Reinvestment Act, and the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Instead, the changes in commercial real estate financing closely mirror changes in the residential real estate financing, which shifted from regulated government-sponsored securitization to unregulated private securitization. This indicates that changes in the securitization market contributed to the problems in both the commercial and residential real estate markets.
Not surprisingly, there’s been some attempts to downplay the significance of the SF City Assessor-Recorder foreclosure audit. The attacks have come in three flavors: questions about the auditors’ own background; questions about the accuracy of the report; and the “who cares, as these are just lousy deadbeats” argument. Even if we acknowledge that there is something to each of these attacks, they don’t take away from the core finding of the report, which is that things are FUBAR in mortgage documentation, and that is going to inevitably result in some honest, but unfortunate homeowners being harmed.
The first attack is on the credentials and former activities of the auditors. Given the deeply compromised background of the OCC foreclosure review auditors, this is a chutzpadik attack. The sad truth is that there isn’t a huge pool of people who can do this sort of audit. (Yes, takes it takes a thief and all that…)
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court justices signaled last month they may rule in favor of Eaton when they asked parties in the case to submit briefs arguing whether such a decision should be applied retroactively or only to future lending. If retroactive, it would cloud the titles of the 40,000 Massachusetts properties seized in the last five years and while the ruling only applies to the state, it could serve as a model for homeowners trying to overturn foreclosures in other states.
Bloomberg-
The highest court in Massachusetts is poised to rule as soon as this month on a foreclosure case that could lead to a surge in claims from home owners seeking to overturn seizures.
The justices are deciding whether to uphold a lower court ruling that gave a Boston home back to Henrietta Eaton after Sam Levine, a 25-year-old Harvard Law School student, argued in front of the nation’s oldest appellate court that the loan servicer made mistakes when it foreclosed because it didn’t hold the note proving she was obliged to pay the mortgage.
“If the Massachusetts court says this defense works, that would have a huge ripple effect across the country,” said Kurt Eggert, a professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California.
What are we to make of the servicing settlementannounced today with much hoopla? The short answer is not much. The settlement is the large consumer fraud settlement ever, but it accomplishes remarkably little in terms of either alleviating the foreclosure crisis of holding to account those responsible for the housing bubble and subsequent foreclosure abuses. As my Texas relatives say, it’s “All sizzle, no steak.”
Instead, I think the settlement needs be seen as the conclusion to round one of an on-going struggle for accountability and reparations for the enormous damage the housing bubble did to the United States. Whether we will ultimately see meaningful accountability and reparations in the end is very much in question. Round two, featuring the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Fraud taskforce, could well be stillborn; the taskforce combines more motivated and more capable agencies, but it isn’t clear of the motivated can leverage the more capable or will be bogged down by them. But as for this settlement, if this is all that we get, it’s a big nothing.
There are two big issues to parse in the settlement: what does it cover and what sort of relief does it provide. Not surprisingly, both are quite limited; the banks wouldn’t pay big dollars for a small release.
If you want to know where the bodies are buried, look no further. Here are a few snips from Marie’s brief:
In what has become common parlance among those investigating these securitization failures (including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice), we refer to this type of transfer as an “A to D” assignment because it skips over parties “B” and “C” and creates a “wild deed” (especially in title theory states such as Massachusetts).
The assignment of mortgage is the “breeder document” from which all other paperwork necessary to bring the foreclosure action; notice the sale; obtain judgment; and transfer title depends.
“The Eaton Defect” as described in our amicus brief occurs when an entity, such as Green Tree Servicing LLC takes the mortgage by assignment and prosecutes a foreclosure in itsown name when it neither owns nor holds the note.
“The Ibanez Defect” as described in this amicus brief occurs when an entity, such as OptionOne Mortgage Corporation, sells the loan for securitization purposes and later, after the loan has been sold multiple times, assigns the Note and Mortgage (or just the Mortgage) directlyto the Trustee of the Issuing Entity (securitized trust).
Supreme Judicial Court FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS NO. SJC-11041 SUFFOLK COUNTY
HENRIETTA EATON, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE,
v.
FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION & ANOTHER, DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS.
ON APPEAL FROM AN INTERLOCUTORY ORDER OF THE SUFFOLK SUPERIOR COURT
SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE MARIE MCDONNELL, CFE
What we do know for certain is… there was massive fraud and massive cover-ups from the inception.
Credit Slips-
Bill Black has an interesting new take on the role of Fannie and Freddie in the housing bubble. He sees their investment in non-prime mortgages as being driven by executive compensation, rather than a fight for market share against investment bank securitization conduits or govt affordable housing policy. The government affordable housing policy point has been repeatedly debunked (and Susan Wachter and I have a new paper that adds to this debunking via an examination of the commercial real estate bubble, where there was no government involvement whatsoever). Black is not, however, able to disprove the market share theory. What he does point to is that the GSE’s involvement with nonprime mortgages was as whole loans kept in portfolio, rather than securitized (and also via purchases of MBS), which he says was a move to increase the short-term yield for the GSEs and thus maximize short-term executive compensation.
Michael Olenick, Gretchen Morgenson, and Yves Smith have all written pretty damning things about the foreclosure reviews persuant to the OCC consent orders with major mortgage servicers. (For my own previous thoughts, see here and here.) I’ve just started to peruse some of the engagement letters with the firms conducting the reviews, and the rot is even worse that these other critics portray.
What follows is in no way a comprehensive cataloging of the problems in the OCC foreclosure review process–this is just what I spotted from the briefest of perusals. Yet it is clear that there are two types of serious problems: conflicts of interest and flawed substance of the review process. I’ll lay both out below and then give some thoughts as to what could and should be done to remedy this farcical process in order to ensure some accountability to the public and justice for homeowners. The post concludes with some thoughts about the core problem–the OCC–and what can be done to remedy it.
“Obama may talk of the “99 percent” but his administration is engaged in an aggressive coverup of bank crimes.”
Politico-
Bubbling under the surface of politics is the foreclosure crisis — where the power of big finance is brushing up against the rule of law. The party leaders seem to have decided it is essentially a giant — but unavoidable — tragedy. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said foreclosures have to clear for the housing market to reset. The Obama administration, meanwhile, has spent only about $2 billion of the $75 billion authorized for the Home Affordable Modification Program.
But the foreclosure crisis is not only a few million personal tragedies. It is a few million crime scenes.
I write regarding the ongoing settlement talks between state attorneys general, federal fraud regulators, the White House, and large financial institutions over alleged illegal foreclosure and mortgage servicing practices and abuses.
I am concerned that recently reported settlement proposals will effectively absolve these financial institutions of substantial civil and criminal liability in one of the largest alleged fraud schemes during the financial crisis. Specifically, I am concerned that the proposed settlement includes a release from liability that may be far too sweeping, does not adequately compensate victims, does not require enough of banks to reform the system that led to the crisis in the first place, and is being made before all the facts are known and without the backing of a full inquiry into the size and scope of the alleged fraud.
Large financial institutions helped inflate the housing bubble through tranching and securitizing mortgages at a frenetic pace while disregarding mortgage and foreclosure laws. Collecting fees from issuing mortgages then selling to investors securities backed by these mortgages allowed the largest financial institutions to pump up profits and home prices, while dumping any potential losses on homeowners, taxpayers, and investors. When the housing bubble burst taxpayers were forced to bail out the largest financial institutions. It is estimated that the federal government disbursed over $4.7 trillion to financial institutions, and guaranteed an additional $13.87 trillion, during the financial crisis.
Without a thorough investigation, it is impossible to truly estimate just how pervasive the defects in the foreclosure and securitization process are. Continued reports of wrongful foreclosures, forged documents, and an inability of servicers and banks to prove chain of title and the legal right to foreclosure, raises the very alarming possibility that these defects were endemic to the mortgage servicing industry across the country. The sheer magnitude of the potential fallout from these defects demands that we undertake a full investigation to uncover the true scope of wrongdoing before providing blanket immunity to the perpetrators.
I am also concerned that reports of a settlement in the range of $20 billion, as recently reported, may not adequately compensate the victims of the foreclosure crisis. As a result of the pump-and-dump scheme perpetrated by the nation’s largest banks that inflated – and burst – the housing bubble, an estimated 14 million Americans are underwater, owing $700 billion more on their homes than those homes are worth. A $20 billion settlement is woefully inadequate to compensate the wrongfully evicted or homeowners struggling to stay in their homes. Much more should be required of banks to provide meaningful help underwater homeowners and compensate foreclosure fraud victims.
A settlement with mortgage servicers must also require reforms to ensure such abuses do not happen again. The goal of servicing mortgages must be accuracy and adherence to the law, not expediency and corner-cutting. Confidence must be restored that proper transference of notes and mortgages was followed and clear chains of titles are available for all mortgages. Until then, the burden of proof must be on financial institutions to prove that they have the legal authority to foreclose. The Mortgage Electronic Registration System should be dissolved and shut down, and the shortcut that allowed banks to avoid hundreds of millions, if not billions, in local fees to local registrars of deeds be closed off. It is critical that large banks not be allowed to shirk their tax obligations to local governments. A settlement in this case must compensate state and local governments for taxes and fees which were owed but not collected.
The crisis in our housing and financial markets has shaken the confidence of the American people in our financial system and in government. Holding banks accountable for abusive and fraudulent practices, while compensating damaged homeowners, wrongfully evicted, local governments, and defrauded investors is vital to restoring that confidence. I urge you to ensure that any settlement with mortgage servicers over alleged foreclosure abuses does not absolve liability for crimes and wrongdoing that has yet to be fully investigated, and ensures just compensation for victims.
Little by little they are working their way up to freedom.
All their eggs are almost in the basket…
WSJ-
Banks are demanding that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau relinquish the right to sue over certain flawed mortgage originations, in exchange for their participation in a proposed multibillion-dollar settlement of alleged foreclosure abuses.
The banks say their inability to secure a sufficiently broad release from the new bureau, which was sidelined in earlier discussions as it launched, would be a deal breaker. The five biggest U.S. mortgage banks, state attorneys general and Obama administration officials are pushing to finalize a deal before the end of the year that would be worth $19 billion or more.
We already knew this and if you expect any real restitution, you’re in for a surprise!
HW-
A mortgage servicer will be granted a waiver from future claims depending on what sort of remediation a borrower gets from the foreclosure reviews conducted under federal consent orders.
Independent consultants, approved by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve, will review nearly 4.5 million foreclosure files over the next several months. They will be looking for any harm caused by improper practices uncovered last year.
Planned…just in time for the Holidays around the corner!
Here’s hoping you forget when you get back from celebrating!
WSJ-
Five large lenders could be forced to make concessions worth roughly $19 billion as bank representatives and government officials push to put the finishing touches on a settlement of most state and federal investigations of alleged foreclosure improprieties.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan and state officials hope to reach a deal as soon as this week, though any agreement could be delayed by unresolved issues including the naming of a monitor to oversee the agreement.
The settlement would end months-long negotiations among federal officials, state attorneys general and the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers: Ally Financial Inc., Bank …
For some background information on Sheila Bair please read Joe Nocera’s great article: Sheila Bair’s Bank Shot
Bloomberg-
Sheila Bair, the former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman, is a leading candidate among state officials to ensure banks comply with any settlement of a nationwide foreclosure probe, a person familiar with the matter said.
Bair, who led the agency from 2006 until stepping down this year, is supported by some state officials as a third-party monitor of any settlement with mortgage servicers, including Bank of America Corp. (BAC), the person said. At least one bank in the talks, Citigroup Inc. (C), opposes her selection, said the person, who didn’t want to be named because the talks are private.
Doing something — anything — quickly but poorly is no substitute for taking the time to do what needs to be done well.
American Banker-
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) is fearful that the quick-and-poor may prevail with mortgage servicer reviews, based on what she sees planned in response to last April’s consent orders from federal regulators.
“The only thing worse than no accountability for the banks,” according to Waters, “is for regulators to create the illusion of accountability, while putting no enforcement power behind their efforts.”
Pretty amazing opinion in Culhane v Aurora Loan Services of Nebraska byJudge Young of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Judge Young breaks out a fresh can of whoop-ass on MERS, which wasn’t even a litigant. How are these choice lines: “MERS is the Wikipedia of Land Registration Systems.” Now I like Wikipedia, but property title isn’t do-it-yourself. Or this gem: “a MERS certifying officer is more akin to an Admiral in the Georgia navy or a Kentucky Colonel with benefits than he is to any genuine financial officer.” Well, at least he didn’t call them an “Admiral in the Great Navy of the State of Nebraska”. You gotta love a landlocked navy.
That said, for all of his misgivings about MERS supplying “the thinnest possible veneer of formality and legality to the wholesale marketing of home mortgages to large institutional investors,” Judge Young still says that it’s kosher, if unseemly.
Washington, DC (Nov. 22, 2011)—Ranking Member Elijah E. Cummings released the following statement today regarding the public release of highly redacted “engagement letters” between mortgage servicing companies and independent consultants they hired to review past foreclosure abuses:
“Although I am encouraged that some information is being made public today, our Committee should issue subpoenas to obtain full, unredacted copies of these documents so we can ensure that homeowners are being fully and appropriately compensated. Six months is too long to wait to conduct oversight of mortgage servicing companies that illegally foreclosed against homeowners.”
Today, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released copies of the engagement letters with significant redactions, including the removal of sections regarding past work, actual and potential conflicts of interest, and the procedures available to homeowners to file claims and complaints due to errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies in a foreclosure process.
Cummings first asked for full copies of these engagement letters on May 31, 2011, following a report issued by federal regulators finding “critical weaknesses” and “widespread risk” with 14 of the nation’s largest mortgage servicing companies’ foreclosure practices.
The regulators ordered the mortgage servicing companies to hire private consultants to conduct more comprehensive reviews of their foreclosure actions, but the regulators allowed them to propose the terms of the reviews, including the methodology of the reviews, the criteria guiding the selection of cases to be reviewed, and any proposed sampling techniques. Some have criticized this approach for providing insufficient oversight of the banks’ actions.
In their responses to Cummings, the regulators explained that, by law, they cannot produce the full engagement letters until they are legally compelled to do so.
As a result, on October 27, Cummings wrote to Committee Chairman Darrell Issa requesting that he either issue subpoenas for the engagement letters or schedule a subpoena vote for the Committee’s business meeting on November 17, 2011. Issa declined to take either step, stating at the business meeting that he preferred to wait until Thanksgiving to determine whether the engagement letters would be released voluntarily.
OCC Releases Status Report on Fixing Deficient Foreclosure Practices
WASHINGTON — The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a report today on the actions by 12 national bank and federal savings association mortgage servicers to comply with consent orders issued in April 2011 to correct deficient and unsafe or unsound foreclosure practices.
The report, “Interim Status Report: Foreclosure-Related Consent Orders,” summarizes progress on activities related to the independent foreclosure review announced November 1, 2011, as well as other activities to enhance mortgage servicing operations, strengthen oversight of third-party service providers and activities related to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), improve management information systems, assess and manage risk, and ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
While much of the work to correct identified weaknesses in policies, operating procedures, control functions, and audit processes will be substantially complete in the first part of 2012, other longer term initiatives will continue through the balance of 2012.
In addition to the interim report, the OCC also released engagement letters that describe how the independent consultants, retained by the servicers, will conduct their file reviews and claims processes to identify borrowers who suffered financial injury as a result of deficiencies identified in the OCC’s consent orders. The letters identify the names of the independent consultants conducting the reviews and include language stipulating that consultants would take direction from the OCC throughout the reviews. This language specifically prohibits servicers from overseeing, directing, or supervising any of the reviews. Limited proprietary and personal information has been redacted. The review process being implemented at some companies may differ from that described in the engagement letters because of subsequent coordination with the OCC to ensure a consistent process among the servicers.
Foreclosure Review Services (FRS) has not been contracted by any of the independent consultants conducting independent foreclosure reviews required by the consent orders issued by the OCC in April. The OCC and Federal Reserve reviewed independent consultant and subcontractors for conflicts of interest prior to approval. FRS was neither proposed nor reviewed.
Bryan Hubbard
Director, Public Affairs Operations
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
And remember what Prof. Levitin was saying, watch out for Robo-Signing 2.0!
Lets not forget about a famous deposition from a former Stern paralegal where she mentions Miriam knew about the documents and was a controlling attorney for the firm!
Foreclosure industry veterans offer foreclosure review services in response to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s “Independent Foreclosure Review” program.
Foreclosure Review Services (FRS) provides contract attorneys who diligently review cases to determine whether a homeowner may have suffered financial injury as a result of errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies in the foreclosure process.
FRS’s Director of Operations and Training, Miriam Mendieta, Esq.,is a nationally recognized industry expert with over 15 years of hands-on experience. Miriam served as the managing attorney for one of the largest creditor’s rights firms in the country where she was responsible for the oversight of all the aspects of foreclosure and bankruptcy related services.
FRS’s team of contract attorneys are extensively trained to properly review and analyze each case. FRS will review each foreclosure case to determine if the homeowner suffered financial injury as a result of errors made during the foreclosure process.
The reviews are part of a series of compliance actions initiated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
FRS has facilities in Dallas and South Florida and also provides consultants onsite.
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