Ingham County officials expect to see tens of thousands of dollars in new revenue as they begin collecting taxes from two of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders.
Ingham County Register of Deeds Cutris Hertel Jr. said he will begin requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to pay full transfer taxes on all property transfers in which they are the seller.
The two companies had claimed to be exempt from paying taxes upon filing new deeds, saying they were government entities.
“We’ve been telling them along the way they need to pay on these, but we haven’t had the legal backing until the Oakland County case was decided,” Hertel said.
The county could be in line for a half-million-dollar payout from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if a U.S. District Court decision Friday stands up to a likely appeal.
County Treasurer Deb Cherry said today that Friday’s decision by Judge Victoria A. Roberts could provide an unexpected revenue boost to the county and immediately urged that the payout be used to help fix problems that have been created by mortgage and tax foreclosures.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN SOUTHERN DIVISION
OAKLAND COUNTY, ET AL., Plaintiffs,
vs
FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY AS CONSERVATOR FOR FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION AND FEDERAL HOME LOAN MORTGAGE COMPANY; FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION; AND FEDERAL HOME LOAN MORTGAGE COMPANY, Defendants. ________________________________/
ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND DENYING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
EXCERPT:
IV. CONCLUSION
In the end, this case turns on a single question: whether a statutory exemption from “all taxation” includes excise taxes such as the Michigan Transfer Taxes. Wells Fargo dictates that it does not. Accordingly, the Enterprises are liable for the Transfer Taxes.
Plaintiffs’ and State Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment is GRANTED. Defendants’ motion is DENIED. The issue of damages remains.
IT IS ORDERED.
S/Victoria A. Roberts Victoria A. Roberts United States District Judge Dated: March 23, 2012
Just breaking and will report when the ruling is released…
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on 6/20/2011, alleged that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed to pay the real estate transfer tax.
Oakland County Treasurer Andy Meisner stated in twitterverse “Just got word Oakland County has won our lawsuit against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, one step in fighting to make our taxpayers whole!”
I’ve been down to “Occupy Wall Street” twice now, and I love it. The protests building at Liberty Square and spreading over Lower Manhattan are a great thing, the logical answer to the Tea Party and a long-overdue middle finger to the financial elite. The protesters picked the right target and, through their refusal to disband after just one day, the right tactic, showing the public at large that the movement against Wall Street has stamina, resolve and growing popular appeal.
1. Did the borrower have a choice or was he/she coerced into accepting MERS, who they really had no idea of what or who it was?
2. Was it ever disclosed that many of the lenders are shareholders of MERS, also who may own the first or second position… this includes Fannie Mae who is a shareholder?
3. Since Fannie (GSE) is owned by “taxpayers” why is she acting 100% private – 100% of the time?
4. One may have been coerced into having MERS in their documents but one would never accept forgery or robo-signing because everyone knows this would be fraud and therefore void the transaction…like a check.
With mounting evidence of robo-signing and other alleged fraud perpetrated by banks, foreclosure law firms and others, Fannie Mae and Flagstar Bank have filed a new defense of such actions in Ingham County Circuit Court — and Ingham County Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel, Jr. is crying foul.
“What they are basically saying is they can forge an assignment and there is nothing the citizen or court can do about it. It is a brazen attempt to legalize robosigning,” says Hertel. “It’s just another example of Fannie Mae thumbing its nose at the American people, and unfortunately while they are under federal bailout we are paying for it.”
This is happening in the case of a Haslett man who suffered a stroke and fell behind on his mortgage payments. As a result, Flagstar Bank and Fannie Mae foreclosed on him and are now in the final stages of evicting him from his Haslett home, says Hertel.
gave the (…eviction post foreclosure) process only to a `person entitled to the premises,’ which required him to prove that he was entitled to this possession, and which said that the defendant should have judgment if the plaintiff failed to prove his right to possession.” Id. at 37. In 1879, legislation was enacted specifically directed at those attempting to gain possession who had acquired property pursuant to foreclosure of the mortgage by sale. See id., citing St. 1879, c. 237.
That came from a case from the Massachusetts State Supreme Court and it really brought home the magnitude of the chaos upon which we are on the precipice. The case was on appeal from the land court springing out of an unlawful detainer action. The bank was trying to tell the homeowner to get out and the homeowner appealed saying the bank didn’t have a lawful foreclosure and hence, not the true landlord.
The court agreed and sent the case back to district for further proceedings.
If this is the case, then it calls into question every land relationship we have. If title turns out to be irretrievably broken (as in – proven in court by a preponderance of evidence – even though we all know it to be true), then why does a renter pay the landlord? At all? The landlord doesn’t own the building; his title has been blown to smithereens. The guy just says he owns it, the record which he says makes it his is totally blown. He ain’t the landlord. He ain’t nobody. He’s just a schmoe. Right now there are people being arrested and thrown in jail for renting foreclosed and empty houses just by saying they are the landlord. It’s crazy.
We’ve got a real problem…this is a mathematical fact. Tens of trillions of dollars are being extracted from the United States of America. Democrats aren’t doing it, republicans aren’t doing it, an entire integrated system, banking, trade and taxation, created by both parties over a period of two decades is at work on our entire country right now.
STATE OF MICHIGAN
30th CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE COUNTY OF INGHAM
CURTIS HERTEL, JR. individually and as
Register of Feeds for Ingham County,
V
BANK OF AMERICA N.A.;
BAC HOME LOANS SERVICING, LP;
WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A.;
COUNTRYWIDE HOME LOANS SERVICING, LP;
ORLAN ASSOCIATES, PC;
TROTT & TROTT, PC;
FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION
d/b/a FANNIE MAE;
FEDERAL HOME LOAN MORTGAGE CORPORATION
d/b/a FREDDIE MAC
CONTACT: Curtis Hertel Jr. Ingham County Register of Deeds Ph 517 281 3574
Ingham County Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel, Jr. Files Lawsuit Against Mortgage Lenders For Unpaid Taxes
Ingham County Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel Jr. has filed a lawsuit today in the 30th Circuit Court, to recover millions in alleged unpaid transfer taxes from mortgage servicers and their attorneys.
“This is money that should have been applied to the county’s general funds, which could have been used for public safety, health programs, or countless other public services,” said Hertel. “Additionally, the state taxes collected would have gone straight to the school aid fund. It’s time for some of the banks responsible for the foreclosure mess to pay their fair share, instead of allowing our county’s taxpayers to bear all of the burden.”
Transfer taxes are the monies paid when a new deed is recorded in the county’s Register of Deeds office. The taxes apply to the sale price of the property being transferred, unless it falls under $100. Many large-scale banks have used Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to claim an exemption to the taxes by identifying themselves as government entities, which Hertel contests.
”Depending on the amount of the judgment, this could provide a needed boost to our county’s constrained budget,” said Ingham County Treasurer Eric Schertzing. “The foreclosure crisis has drained county tax dollars in many ways – not merely in uncollected property taxes, but also because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were claiming these federal exemptions while re-selling foreclosed homes.”
The official transfer tax rate for counties in Michigan is $1.10 for every $1,000 of value being transferred. So the sale of a $100,000 home would typically carry a $110.00 tax. State taxes on the same transactions stretch even further – $7.50 for every $1,000 of value being transferred. It is estimated that the lawsuit could fetch a judgment in the millions of dollars.
“MFI-Miami, an internationally recognized mortgage fraud investigation firm based in Florida, has been instrumental in assisting in our investigation of this,” said Hertel. William Maxwell, Dan Marsh and Brian Parker from the Home Defense League, PLC, working in conjunction with MFI-Miami discovered a pattern of unpaid transfer taxes on foreclosure sales across Michigan. “The fact is banks and mortgage servicers, in concert with their foreclosure firms, failed to pay state and county transfer taxes,” said Steve Dibert of MFI-Miami, who has been part of the document examination.
Hertel is also working with other members of the Michigan Association of Registers of Deeds. “We are cooperating with other municipalities to join us in this fight, because this not just an Ingham County problem, it a problem that affects all 83 counties in the state.”
“Currently, the Michigan Association of Registers of Deeds, Inc. is compiling data from documents representing taxable transfers from these and other entities to determine the potential amount owed Michigan counties,” said president Bambi Somerlott. “Accordingly, each county will, in its discretion, use the information and proceed as they deem appropriate.”
Hertel has received the support of the Ingham County Board of Commissioners, and will announce the lawsuit at a press conference at 1:00 pm today. He has chosen the site of 1117 S Grand Avenue, a home that was recently subject to tax foreclosure, to make the announcement. “The banks should bear their share of responsibility for our current housing climate, and their role in what has happened is becoming more clear as time passes,” said Hertel. “We will do everything we can to pursue financial justice.”
Public Date: 06/20/2011
Contact: Bill Mullan, Media and Communications Officer
Phone Number: 248-858-1048
Pontiac, MI. — Oakland County Treasurer Andy Meisner and the Oakland County Corporation Counsel will hold a news conference Thursday to announce the filing of a lawsuit against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that alleges the two lenders have failed to pay the county a real estate transfer tax for the privilege of recording various documents with the County Register of Deeds. The news conference will be held at 1:00 p.m. Thursday, June 23, 2011 at the Oakland County Treasurer’s Office, 1200 North Telegraph, Pontiac.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Monday, has the potential to recover more than $1 million for Oakland County based on the number of times Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed to pay the real estate transfer tax.
The Oakland County Corporation Counsel discovered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s failure to pay after reading an article titled “Bypassing county fees may cost banks” in the December 2, 2010 edition of the Oakland County Legal News. The Corporation Counsel – along with outside counsel Kenneth Robinson and William Horton – began to take a look at real estate transfer taxes on various documents filed with the Oakland County Register of Deeds. In the course of examining those documents, the Corporation Counsel discovered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s failure to pay.
Further details will be outlined at the news conference.
For media inquiries only, please contact Bill Mullan, Media and Communications Officer, at (248) 858-1048.
Bank of America said today it mistakenly sent nearly 5,000 Oregonians letters claiming they owe property taxes and might be risking foreclosure when they, in fact, don’t.
Washington County Department of Assessment and Taxationdirector Rich Hobernicht estimates his office has received 1,000 calls since Monday from homeowners who received letters from BAC Tax Services Corp, an arm of the bank’s BAC Home Loan Servicing division.
Most Americans have never heard of it, but this mortgage industry holds interests in 50 percent of all U.S. home loans.
No, not Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac either.
Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, otherwise known as MERS, is a private firm that tracks ownership in hundreds of thousands of home loans. The computerized network allows banks to buy and sell mortgages without having to record the transfers at the county level.
An added bonus for the banks is the avoidance of county fees. When MERS is used to turn a regular mortgage into an investment, financial institutions don’t pay “recording fees,” which are usually small charges of between $50 and $100, to the counties where the underlying properties are physically located.
Growing reverse-mortgage defaults put homeowners at risk of foreclosure
By Richard Burnett, Orlando Sentinel 5:15 p.m. EST, February 2, 2011
.
Thousands of older homeowners in Florida who tapped the equity in their paid-off homes to boost their income now face the possibility of foreclosure as the number of defaults on such “reverse mortgages” skyrockets.
More than 30,000 U.S. homeowners are in “technical default” on their reverse mortgages and could lose their homes because they have failed to pay their property taxes or property-insurance premiums, according to a new research report based on the latest government data.
Florida leads the country in terms of the number of defaults, with nearly 5,300, or about 18 percent of the U.S. total, according to the CredAbility Group, a nonprofit consumer-credit counseling service based in Atlanta.
Florida’s reverse-mortgage-default rate stands at about 8 percent, compared with a nationwide rate of 5 percent.
By L. Randall Wray
Benzinga Columnist
December 23, 2010 12:43 PM
As I have written, when we peel back the layers of the real estate “onion” what we find is layer after layer of fraud. From the mortgage brokers to the appraisers and lenders, from the securitizers to the ratings agencies and accountants, from the trustees to the servicers, and from MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registry System) through to the foreclosures, what we find is a massive criminal conspiracy—probably the worst in human history. I realize that is a harsh claim but I cannot find any other words that fit.
In the old days, we used to hang horse thieves. The justification was that a man’s horse was necessary to his way of life, and in some cases, to his very survival. There can be little doubt that a home is equally important to maintenance of a middle class living standard today for most Americans. There is almost no calamity worse than loss of one’s home. It is the main asset that most Americans hold—essential to the educational success of one’s children, and to a comfortable retirement of our citizens. Americans typically borrow against their home equity to put their kids through college, to ease the financial distress caused by unexpected health care expenses, and to finance other large expenditures. The accumulated equity in the home is the only significant source of wealth for the vast majority of Americans. The home is necessary to one’s continuing connection to the neighborhood, school district, and network of friends. Theft of one’s house today is certainly equivalent to theft of a horse 150 years ago.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 3, 2010; 9:01 PM
Countless homeowners in Virginia are getting a tax break for which they don’t really qualify because a mortgage documentation mess makes it hard to determine who qualifies, officials say.
The loss of tax revenue for local governments and the state is another result of the lending industry growing so fast and becoming so complex during its go-go years that it outstripped its paper trail.
Because the problem involves blind spots in official records, no one can say how much revenue is being lost. But the amount could be significant.
“I’m trying to do my best to follow Virginia law here,” said John T. Frey, clerk of the Fairfax County Circuit Court, but “people are getting the break that aren’t eligible.”
When Virginia homeowners refinance their mortgages, they are required to pay a recordation tax. On a loan of $400,000, the tax would typically total $1,333.
The state’s portion of recordation taxes soared to $669.8 million in fiscal 2006 and declined by more than half to $298.4 million in fiscal 2009. Those numbers include taxes on deeds, mortgages to buy homes, and other recorded documents, not just refinancings. Extrapolating from the state figure, in fiscal 2009, roughly $100 million more would have gone to localities.
In a refinancing, if the lender issuing the new loan is the same as the lender holding the old loan, the borrower is exempt from the tax.
The trouble is figuring out who holds the old loan.
After issuing mortgages to homeowners, banks routinely sell the IOUs to other banks or institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Huge volumes of mortgages have been packaged into securities and sold on Wall Street.
Unbeknown to the borrower, the note can change hands again and again – at least electronically – while the bank that issued the loan continues to collect the monthly payments on behalf of the new owner.
ad_icon
The buyers of the mortgages were not required to record the note assignments in county courthouses, and, as the lending business sped up, many transfers went unfiled, county clerks say.
As a result, the clerks who process claims for the tax exemption are ordinarily unable to tell whether the lender whose name appears on the paperwork owns the loan or is merely servicing it, officials say.
All these problems came about the same time MERS came to existence…now tell me something? Isn’t this a tad of a coincidence these issues became at the same time sub-prime loans hit peak?
![[VIDEO] NBC Discusses MERS, Counties Seek Millions From Mortgage Giant](https://stopforeclosurefraud.com/wp-content/themes/gazette/thumb.php?src=wp-content/uploads/2011/03/money_house1.jpg&w=100&h=57&zc=1&q=90)
Recent Comments