Richard M. Bowen, former chief underwriter for Citigroup’s consumer-lending group, said he warned his superiors of concerns that some types of loans in securities didn’t conform with representations and warranties in 2006 and 2007.
“In mid-2006, I discovered that over 60 percent of these mortgages purchased and sold were defective,” Bowen testified on April 7 before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission created by Congress. “Defective mortgages increased during 2007 to over 80 percent of production.”
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“The potential for owners to challenge lenders on foreclosure improprieties certainly is there,” Pallotta said. “Even if it turns out that the banks were right in 99 percent of these foreclosures, the additional diligence on their part, going forward, is going to cost them more money.”
The litigation over buybacks, also known as putbacks, can also pit big banks against each other. Last month, Deutsche Bank AG, acting as a trustee, refiled a lawsuit over misrepresented mortgages in $34 billion of Washington Mutual Inc. mortgage securities, with $165 billion in original balances.
The new suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia included JPMorgan as a defendant, after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said that JPMorgan was wrongly claiming its insurance fund had agreed to cover the liabilities, according to the amended complaint.
Pacific Investment Management Co., BlackRock Inc. and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are seeking to force Bank of America Corp. to repurchase soured mortgages packaged into $47 billion of bonds by its Countrywide Financial Corp. unit, people familiar with the matter said.
A group of bondholders wrote a letter to Bank of America and Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the debt’s trustee, citing alleged failures by Countrywide to service loans properly, their lawyer said yesterday in a statement that didn’t name the firms. The New York Fed acquired mortgage debt through its 2008 rescues of Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc.
Investors are stepping up efforts to recoup losses on mortgage bonds, which plummeted in value amid the worst slump in home prices since the 1930s. Last month, BNY Mellon declined to investigate mortgage files in response to a demand from the bondholder group, which has since expanded. Countrywide’s servicing failures, including insufficient record keeping, may open the door for investors to seek repurchases by bypassing the trustee, said Kathy Patrick, their lawyer at Gibbs & Bruns LLP.
“We now are in a position where we have to start a clock ticking,” Patrick, who is based in Houston, said today in a telephone interview.
If the issues aren’t fixed within 60 days, BNY Mellon should declare Countrywide in default on its servicing contracts, Patrick said.
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