On February 5, 2013, the Third Circuit weighed-in on the developing Circuit Court split regarding whether notice alone is sufficient to exercise a valid right to rescind under the Truth in Lending Act.1 The Third Circuit’s decision and the Circuit Court split, along with the CFPB’s focus on this issue, create uncertainties for lenders concerning the potential invalidity of liens upon merely receiving a borrower’s notice of rescission. The Third Circuit’s decision also suggests that after receipt of a borrower’s notice of rescission, if a lender does not consent to the rescission, then the lender may need to consider filing suit to resolve the potential lien validity issues because there may be no clear deadline by which the borrower must initiate rescission litigation.
In its opinion in Sherzer v. Homestar Mortgage Services et. al.,2 the Third Circuit aligned with the Fourth Circuit, holding that “an obligor exercises the right to rescission by sending the creditor valid written notice of rescission, and need not also file suit within three years of consummation of the loan transaction.”3 In so doing, the Third Circuit adopted the position advocated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) in an amicus brief. In June 2012, the Tenth Circuit in Rosenfield v. HSBC Bank, USA, N.A.4 had rejected a similar argument advocated by the CFPB and instead followed the Ninth Circuit, concluding that “notice by itself is not sufficient to exercise (or preserve) a consumer’s right of rescission under TILA. The commencement of a lawsuit within the three-year TILA repose period [is] required.”5 The Eighth Circuit is currently considering this issue in Sobieniak v. BAC Home Loans Servicing, in which oral argument was held on October 16, 2012.6
Eventually this will bring MERS to an end, look at the hundreds of years of country records this machine has messed up…Don’t ever give up fighting.
National Mortgage News-
WE’RE HEARING…MERS is far from done spending time and money defending its right to serve as the official record of who owns mortgages and servicing rights.
Last month, the two largest counties in Minnesota—Hennepin and Ramsey—filed a lawsuit against MERS alleging that the electronic registry was depriving the counties of revenue from recording fees.
MERS has faced many legal battles in the past, most of them coming from borrowers or consumer activists who were challenging the rights of lenders to foreclose on homes that were recorded in the name of MERS. MERS has successfully defended itself against most of those claims. But with an increasing number of counties challenging MERS, the organization faces renewed legal threats that have the potential to cripple its operations.
President Obama wants to consign the financial crisis to the past and delegate the implementation of financial reform to others in his administration. But he needs to get personally involved. Why? Because Senator Carl Levin’s recent hearing on the JP Morgan Whale showed that nothing has changed at the largest banks or the bank regulatory agencies since the run up to the financial crisis. In the early months of 2012—two years after passage of the Dodd-Frank Act—JP Morgan acted deceptively, regulators remained clueless, and investors were the last to know about the true magnitude of the bank’s $6.2 billion in losses. Nevertheless, Republicans and some Democrats in Congress are today working to repeal reforms.
Yesterday, House Democrats joined with House Republicans on the Agriculture Committee to support several bills that would “fix” several Dodd-Frank provisions to regulate derivatives, effectively gutting measures designed to rein in bank abuses. Proponents of deregulation—both Democrats and Republicans—were hoping that these bills would move silently through the committee and then the Financial Services Committee, and then quietly onto the floor of the House for passage. Many Democrats, like Gwen Moore, Ann Kuster, and David Scott, support or even cosponsored these bills. And several others, most notably former Goldman Sachs executive Jim Himes, who currently serves as the Finance Chairman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, will help lead the effort when the bills come to the House Financial Services Committee.
Don’t blame Wall Street from now on, blame these corrupted insane people! They seriously need mental help. Are they fit to even be in Congress? Wow…just wow. Idiots.
HuffPO-
A House Committee approved six new bills to deregulate Wall Street derivatives on Wednesday, advancing legislation that would expand taxpayer support for derivatives and create broad new trading loopholes allowing banks to shirk risk management standards created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank bill.
The House Agriculture Committee passed all six bills with broad bipartisan support, just five days after Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) released a report detailing extensive failures to contain derivatives risks at JPMorgan Chase — troubles that lead to billions of dollars in losses from a single trade.
The legislation will next be considered by the full House of Representatives.
The most controversial bill to advance Wednesday is explicitly designed to expand taxpayer backing for derivatives. It was the only legislation that lawmakers were required to cast individual votes for or against; the others were all approved by unanimous voice votes. The bill to increase taxpayer support for bank derivatives dealing was approved by a vote of 31 to 14.
By the end of 2012, Freddie Mac owned or guaranteed over10.6 million residential mortgages with a combined unpaidprincipal balance of $1.6 trillion. It pays mortgage servicers to collect payments from and interact with the borrowers(hereinafter “consumers”) associated with its residentialmortgages. Such interaction includes handling complaints. Serious complaints, known as escalated cases, may allegeservicing fraud or regulatory violations. Freddie Mac and itseight largest servicers together received over 34,000 escalated cases between October 2011 and November 2012.
In accordance with FHFA’s Servicing Alignment Initiative (SAI), servicers are required to report on the escalated cases they receive and resolve those cases within 30 days. Additionally, Freddie Mac’s Servicing Guide specifically requires servicers to report monthly on the escalated cases they receive.
The objective of this performance audit was to assess FHFA’s oversight of Freddie Mac’s controls over servicers’ handling of escalated cases.
What OIG Found
Mortgage servicers, Freddie Mac, and FHFA have not adequately fulfilled their respective responsibilities to address and resolve escalated cases. First, evidence suggests that most of Freddie Mac’s servicers are not complying with reporting requirements for escalated cases. As of December 2012, 1,179 or 98% of Freddie Mac’s servicers had not reported on any escalated cases even though they managed 6.6 million mortgages for Freddie Mac. Of Freddie Mac’s eight largest servicers—which serviced nearly 70% of its loans—four did not report any information about escalated cases despite handling more than 20,000 such cases during the 14-month period between October 2011 and November 2012. Further, of the 25,528 escalated cases resolved by the eight largest servicers during the 14-month period between October 2011 and November 2012, 5,372 or 21% were not timely resolved within 30 days.
Second, Freddie Mac’s oversight of servicer compliance has been inadequate. It has not implemented procedures for testing servicer compliance. As a result, it had findings related to escalated cases in only 1 of 38 reviews of its largest national and regional servicers that it conducted in 2012. Freddie Mac has also neglected to establish penalties (such as fines) for servicers that do not report escalated cases.
Third, FHFA did not identify the foregoing problems through its own examination of Freddie Mac’s implementation of the SAI. Rather than independently testing servicers’ compliance with complaint reporting requirements, the FHFA examination team relied exclusively on Freddie Mac’s onsite operational review reports, which did not mention problems with servicer reporting. Additionally, FHFA lacks guidance for examination teams to use when testing the implementation of directives, such as its SAI. Further, without reports on escalated cases from servicers, FHFA will be unable to monitor servicer compliance and take appropriate action to ensure that escalated cases are timely resolved. Strengthened oversight—through actions aimed specifically at improving servicer compliance with escalated case requirements—can benefit homeowners, Freddie Mac, and taxpayers.
What OIG Recommends
We recommend, first, that FHFA ensure that Freddie Mac requires its servicers to report, timely resolve, and accurately categorize escalated cases; second, that FHFA ensure that Freddie Mac enhances its oversight of its servicers through testing servicer performance and establishing fines for noncompliance; and third, that FHFA improve its oversight of Freddie Mac by developing and implementing examination guidance related to testing the implementation of directives.
FHFA provided comments agreeing with the recommendations in this report. Overall, FHFA concurs with the importance of ensuring timely and responsive resolution of consumer complaints, particularly the more serious escalated cases. FHFA plans to implement the audit recommendations by working with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to conform consumer complaint processing under the SAI and ensure compliance with new regulatory requirements announced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Further, FHFA has made review of the implementation of the SAI a supervisory priority in 2013 and will develop detailed plans for reviewing escalated cases.
For more than five years, many homeowners who complained about mortgage industry foreclosure abuses have wondered whether anyone with a financial stake in keeping them in their home was paying attention. On Thursday, with the release of a new report from a federal watchdog, they got their answer: No.
The report, by the inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, says banks and other companies that manage more than 10 million home loans for Freddie Mac “largely failed” to alert the mortgage giant to the most serious category of homeowner complaints, despite a requirement they do so. These “escalated complaints” often include the most serious allegations of misconduct, including improper fees, misapplied mortgage payments and a frustrating cycle of lost paperwork and unreturned calls. In some instances, the mismanagement has led to a wrongful foreclosure.
“The results are shocking on a number of different levels,” said Steve Linick, the FHFA inspector general, in an interview with The Huffington Post. “It is surprising that servicers were not reporting in such large numbers, that Freddie was not on top of this, and that [the FHFA] did not catch it in its exam.”
This would make a great “Based on a True Story” movie. I’d call it The Corrupted Enablers.
HuffPO-
$16 billion.
That’s how much JPMorgan Chase has paid in fines, settlements and other litigation expenses in the last four years alone.
More than half of that amount, $8.5 billion, was paid out in fines and settlements as the result of illegal actions taken by bank executives.
$8.5 billion is almost 12 percent of the net income the mega-bank brought in during the same period.
High Overhead
These figures comes from “JPMorgan Chase: Out of Control,” an impressive analysis of the bank’s performance by Joshua Rosner, an investment analyst at GrahamFisher.And there’s more. Since Rosner published his report only last week, JPMorgan Chase has settled another dispute.
This latest agreement is with the trustee for customers of fraudulent investment firm MF Global.
Yup! at it again…wanna bet how this will end? Is this going to hurt?
HW-
Banking giant JPMorgan Chase issued its first private-label residential mortgage-backed securities deal of the year, signaling the company’s comeback to this segment of the market.
The platform J.P. Morgan Mortgage Trust, Series 2013-1 reported a total balance of $616.3 million.
The company was set to issue this deal in February, but structural issues got in the way, delaying the process.
Fitch Ratings pre-rated the deal, with the expected outlook slated as ‘stable’ with all the tranches also receiving AAA ratings.
Cleaning Up the Financial Crisis of 2008: Prosecutorial Discretion or Prosecutorial Abdication?
David J. Reiss, Brooklyn Law School Bradley T. Borden, Brooklyn Law School
Abstract
When finance professionals play fast and loose, big problems result. Indeed, the 2008 Financial Crisis resulted from people in the real estate finance industry ignoring underwriting criteria for mortgages and structural finance products. That malfeasance filled the financial markets with mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that were worth a small fraction of the amount issuers represented to investors. It also loaded borrowers with liabilities that they never had a chance to satisfy.
Despite all the wrongdoing that caused the financial crisis, prosecutors have been slow to bring charges against individuals who originated bad loans, pooled bad mortgages, and sold bad MBS. Unfortunately, the lack of individual prosecutions signals to participants of the financial industry that wrongdoing not only will go unpunished but will likely even be rewarded financially. Without criminal liability, we risk a repeat of the type of conduct that brought us to the edge of financial ruin.
David J. Reiss and Bradley T. Bordenq. “Cleaning Up the Financial Crisis of 2008: Prosecutorial Discretion or Prosecutorial Abdication?” BNA Criminal Law Reporter (2013). Available at: http://works.bepress.com/david_reiss/61
If you are reading this, you likely know I left a highly-successful, self-titled show at MSNBC last June in search of meaning and purpose in my work and life. I had lost both after 18 years in Manhattan and the chaos surrounding the hollow political debates permeating America’s media and politics.
After 780 hours of political cable news, 6000 hours of live financial television, 45 cities, 2 national jobs tours, 277,963 signatures to amend The Constitution, 245 pages of book and a promotion tour for Greedy Bastards, I was exhausted.
JP MORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A. Appellee, v. FRANCIS X. MURRAY Appellant.
No. 980 EDA 2012.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
Filed: March 18, 2013.
BEFORE: PANELLA, J., LAZARUS, J., and WECHT, J.
OPINION BY WECHT, J.
end-
For the foregoing reasons, the trial court’s March 26, 2012 order granting Appellee summary judgment must be reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings. We do not rule out the possibility that, upon further discovery or other proceedings, the trial court may find itself in a position in which it is appropriate to rule as a matter of law that Appellee is the actual holder of the Note and, as such, is the appropriate party to maintain the instant action.
However, the record presently before this Court is inadequate to justify such a ruling. Should the trial court determine that a fact question remains concerning the proper party in interest to seek to foreclose on the mortgage at issue, it must submit the issue to a fact-finder. Moreover, it is incumbent on Appellee, with the guidance of the trial court, to cure the above-identified deficiency in the verification of the Complaint.
Order reversed. Case remanded with instructions. Jurisdiction relinquished.
Footnotes
1. JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., having been substituted as plaintiff for the originally-captioned plaintiff by leave of the trial court, is identified as “Appellee” herein. JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., held itself out as agent for the originally captioned Plaintiff at the outset of this litigation. When we refer to Appellee in that capacity, we refer to it as “JPMorgan.” Back to Reference
2. An allonge is “[a] slip of paper sometimes attached to a negotiable instrument for the purpose of receiving further indorsements when the original paper is filled with indorsements.” Black’s Law Dictionary 76 (Deluxe 7th ed.). Back to Reference
3. While Murray’s statement of the questions involved conforms technically with the requirements of Pa.R.A.P. 2116(a) by squeezing the five questions into two densely packed, single-spaced pages, the statement defies the rule’s spirit, because it is not “expressed in the terms and circumstances of the case . . . without unnecessary detail.” As well, in violation of Pa.R.A.P. 2119(a), Murray fails to organize his argument into as many sections as there are questions stated. Murray is advised to prepare any future briefs fully in conformity with the requirements of these rules, on peril of waiver. See Pa.R.A.P. 2101. Back to Reference
4. In its Rule 1925 opinion, the trial court rejected Murray’s challenge to Appellee’s possession of the note as follows: “[A] mortgage foreclosure action is strictly an in rem action based on the mortgage.” Opinion, 6/12/2012, at 2. In support of this proposition, the court cited Pa.R.C.P. 1141(a) and Newtown Village Partnership v. Kimmel, 621 A.2d 1036 (Pa. Super. 1993). However, we fail to see how the in rem character of the judgment that is entered at the conclusion of a successful foreclosure action speaks to what criteria must be satisfied to establish standing to foreclose for default upon the instrument the mortgage was established to secure. The trial court’s brief response does not materially address this aspect of Murray’s argument. Back to Reference
5. A special indorsement is one made by the holder of an instrument that identifies a person to whom it makes the instrument payable. 13 Pa.C.S. § 3204. Such an indorsement renders the instrument payable to the identified person, who is the only person who may transfer that note by subsequent indorsement. Back to Reference
6. Notably, under the PUCC, it may be the case that Appellee can substantiate possession of the Note by establishing, in the alternative, the transfer of the mortgage, i.e., the security interest in the Note. 13 Pa.C.S. § 3204(c) (“For the purpose of determining whether the transferee of an instrument is a holder, an indorsement that transfers a security interest is effective as an unqualified indorsement of the instrument.”) It would be premature to address this possibility, given the state of the record. Back to Reference
7. Although the PUCC analysis set forth above may render this question moot on remand, we note that, should circumstances require the trial court to review the validity of the two assignments that preceded Appellee’s alleged succession by merger to the Note and Mortgage here at issue, the court must attend to a patent irregularity on the face of the assignments. Despite Appellee’s contentions to the contrary in its Complaint and by affidavit of its vice president, Selvin Lokmic, which inaccurately describe the documents in question, Murray is correct that the putative Assignee named in the Deutsche Bank Assignment differs in name from the putative Assignor named in the directly subsequent WaMu Assignment. Specifically, the Assignee named in the Deutsche Bank Assignment is “Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas.” However, the assignor named thereafter in the WaMu Assignment is “Deutsche Bank National Trust Company Americas, as Trustee,” with the boldfaced words reflecting differences from the listed assignee’s name in the Deutsche Bank Assignment. See Appellee’s Brief in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment, Exh. B (Lokmic Affidavit, Exhs. 4 & 5 (assignments)). Appellee repeats this error before this Court, erroneously characterizing the assignments as follows:
• An assignment dated August 15, 2000 [Deutsche Bank Assignment], which shows an assignment of the Mortgage from Washington Mutual Bank, successor by merger to Great Western, to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas. . . .
• An assignment dated March 23, 2010 [WaMu Assignment], which shows an assignment of the Mortgage from Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas to Deutsche Bank National Trust company, as Trustee for Washington Mutual Mortgage Securities Corp. 2000-1. . . .
Brief for Appellee at 11. Appellee omits the word “National” from its description of the Assignor named in the WaMu Assignment. Having admitted that the presence or absence of the word “National” connotes two different corporate entities, it appears that Appellee may not be able to establish the regularity of the WaMu Assignment as documented. Moreover, this erroneous characterization renders Appellee materially silent as to this aspect of Murray’s argument.
While it might be contended that this was a typographical error, or that the irregularity is immaterial given that both named entities appear to be Deutsche Bank entities, we cannot, and the trial court should not, overlook the fact that Appellee acknowledged that these are distinct entities in its response to Murray’s request for admissions. See Defendant’s Memorandum of Law in Support of Answer to Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment, Exh. D (“Admissions Requested”) at 7 ¶31. We need not cite legal authorities for the self-evident proposition that separately named and established corporate entities, regardless of their degree of corporate consanguinity, must be treated as such; and that a party that does not possess an instrument in the first instance cannot validly assign that instrument to another party. Back to Reference
8. Rule 1018 provides: “Every pleading shall contain a caption setting forth the name of the court, the number of the action and the name of the pleading. The caption of a complaint shall set forth the form of the action and the names of all the parties . . . .” Pa.R.C.P. 1018 (“Caption”). Back to Reference
9. In light of the questions that this inevitably raises, which might be addressed by discovery regarding Ms. Hindman’s relationship to Plaintiff and the controversy, we agree with Murray that Plaintiff’s objection to Murray’s interrogatory seeking Ms. Hindman’s contact information and a description of her role for JPMorgan is problematic, inasmuch as her relationship to JPMorgan, Plaintiff, and the instant controversy plainly bear on her competency to verify the Complaint. See Brief for Murray at 29; Plaintiff’s Response to Murray’s Interrogatories at 8-9, ¶26. This may prove to be a moot consideration on remand, depending upon the trial court’s consideration of who the proper plaintiff is in this matter, if any, and its determination of how the complaint must be amended if the case is to proceed.
United States District Court, W.D. Virginia, Charlottesville Division.
March 8, 2013
MEMORANDUM OPINION
NORMAN K. MOON, District Judge.
The Plaintiff Sarah C. Yarney (“Plaintiff”), pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 56, seeks summary judgment as to liability on all claims asserted in her complaint. Plaintiff alleges that Defendants Wells Fargo Bank N.A., as Trustee for SABR 2008-1 Trust (“Wells Fargo”), and its loan servicer, Ocwen Loan Servicing, LCC (“Ocwen”), attempted to collect on her home mortgage loan after she had settled the debt with Wells Fargo.
. . .
III. DISCUSSION
A. Plaintiff’s FDCPA Claims as a Matter of Law
In summary, mortgage servicers are considered debt collectors under the FDCPA if they became servicers after the debt they service fell into default. At the time Ocwen became the servicer on Plaintiff’s home loan, the loan was already in default. Therefore, Ocwen is a debt collector seeking to collect an alleged debt for the purposes of FDCPA liability in this case.[4]
1. Defendants’ Liability under 15 U.S.C. § 1692e(2)(A)
Given the contents of the monthly bills and notices sent to Plaintiff directly, along with the continued calls she received from collection agents, I find that the least sophisticated consumer in Plaintiff’s position could believe that she still owed a debt. Thus, Plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment on her count that Ocwen violated § 1692e(2)(A) of the FDCPA.
2. Defendants’ Liability under 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(a)(2)
Because Plaintiff continued to directly receive bills, statements and phone calls from Ocwen representatives seeking to collect on an alleged debt obligation, despite notice that she was represented by counsel, Plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment that Ocwen violated section 1692c(a)(2).
. . .
B. Plaintiff’s Breach of Contract Claim as a Matter of Law
Plaintiff contends that Wells Fargo breached its agreement with Plaintiff, through the action of its agent, Ocwen ….
. . .
Plaintiff contends, Wells Fargo failed to comply with its obligations, due to the actions of Ocwen, its servicer.
. . .
By attempting to collect payments from Plaintiff on behalf of Wells Fargo, Ocwen acted as Wells Fargo’s agent with respect to the original mortgage loan.[10] Further, the undisputed facts in this case demonstrate that Ocwen continued to behave in all respects towards Plaintiff as Wells Fargo’s agent after the March 18, 2011 settlement agreement.[11] While a party may delegate the performance of its duties under a contract, it retains the ultimate obligation to perform….
[11] While Defendants argued during the February 25, 2013 motion hearing that Wells Fargo shouldn’t be held liable for Ocwen’s conduct from now until eternity, Ocwen’s actions at the center of this case constituted collection efforts in connection with the same mortgage loan debt for which Ocwen had been assigned to service, and that Plaintiff and Wells Fargo had attempted to resolve under the March 18, 2011 settlement agreement. Thus, given the facts of this case, Ocwen continued to act as Wells Fargo’s agent with respect to Plaintiff following the settlement agreement.
. . .
Due to Ocwen’s subsequent attempts to collect mortgage loan payments from Plaintiff, Wells Fargo neither absolved Plaintiff of her possible deficiency nor properly accepted the deed in lieu of foreclosure.
. . .
“… and thus, due to the actions of its servicer, Plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment that Wells Fargo breached the March 18, 2011 contract agreement.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment is granted. This case is scheduled for a jury trial on April 9, 2013, at 9:30 a.m. in Charlottesville, VA, at which time Plaintiff will have the opportunity to testify in regards to any damages she may be entitled to in this matter.[12] An appropriate order accompanies this memorandum opinion.
What have we learned in the last few years? Where are we heading? What can be done? Why are our politicians corrupt? How much money is enough? When is enough really enough?
I subscribe to Dylan’s notifications so that anytime he publishes a post on HuffPO I get an email alert, but when I went to read it, it was redirected to HuffPO’s home page. Hmm this might be a glitch so I proceeded to let both Huffington Post and Arianna Huffington know about this and then I went to try one more time and this time the post along with the “latest blog entry” was entirely gone. Makes one think if what he said in his latest article titled Dylan Ratigan: Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is, is being censored because we all know how outspoken Mr. Ratigan is about standing up for our rights. I hope I am mistakenbecause we all miss hearing from Dylan. If HuffPO reaches out to us we’ll fix/correct/update this post.
This is the article that is now missing and redirects you to HuffPO’s home page.
Dylan’s latest blog post was also deleted. It was there on HuffPo but when I went back to capture a screen shot it was gone. But this shows it was deleted. Again, I hope I am wrong.
“Last year, some members of Congress supported watering down Dodd-Frank derivative safeguards, but abandoned those efforts after the world learned that JPMorgan Chase had lost billions of dollars on derivative trades made out of its London office,” Levin said. “It is incredible that less than a week after new JPMorgan Whale hearings detailed how the bank’s London office piled up risk, hid losses, and dodged regulatory oversight, that some House members are again supporting the weakening of derivative safeguards.”
HUFFPO-
A bipartisan cadre of House lawmakers will move on legislation to deregulate Wall Street derivatives Wednesday, less than a week after Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) released a devastating report on the multibillion-dollar derivatives debacle at JPMorgan Chase.
“The road to hell is paved with these bills,” said Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), an advocate of financial reform.
The House Agriculture Committee will mark up several derivatives bills on Wednesday despite opposition from a coalition of public interest and consumer advocacy groups known as Americans for Financial Reform. The effort to weaken regulation of these sophisticated financial instruments follows multiple in-depth autopsies of the London Whale debacle at JPMorgan, which has already cost the company $6.2 billion and tarnished its reputation as a prudent risk manager. It also comes less than three years after the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform legislation, signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010, set a host of new standards for the derivatives business, including heightened transparency and reduced taxpayer support.
With all the suits against these cartels one would think the government would revoke any and all banking privileges immediately! How much more abuse can the government stomach each day with new lawsuits popping up against these criminals?
Makes one wonder what exactly is going on here. Never mind I know.
REUTERS-
U.S. mortgage finance company Freddie Mac is suing more than a dozen banks for losses from the alleged manipulation of the benchmark interest rate known as Libor.
Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co, UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group AG are among the banks named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Freddie Mac, which invested in mortgage bonds and swaps tied to U.S. dollar Libor, claims the banks colluded to rig the benchmark from 2007 to 2010, according to the complaint, which was filed March 14 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Reading the book Clouded Titles before attending this workshop is a huge plus! Register now so you can receive your copy of Clouded Titles to read before the seminar! You will need a laptop for this course because you will be writing COTAs! On-site power and Wi-Fi supplied!
La Quinta Inn & Suites – Airport South 7160 N. Frontage Road, Orlando, FL 32812
Reading the book Clouded Titles before attending this workshop is a huge plus! Register now so you can receive your copy of Clouded Titles to read before the seminar! You will need a laptop for this course because you will be writing COTAs! On-site power and Wi-Fi supplied!
Bankruptcy Law Network- by Chip Parker, Jacksonville Bankruptcy Attorney
Foreclosure defense attorneys are becoming increasingly frustrated by the dismal foreclosure statistics and are seeking help from our nation’s criminal prosecutors to investigate the possibility of bringing “foreclosure mills” and banks to justice under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Usually, when we hear terms like “organized crime” and “RICO,” we think of Tony Soprano and John Gotti. However, when the mortgage industry conspires to defraud middle class America, it make the Sopranos look more like the Brady Bunch.
Every day, thousands of foreclosures are being illegally filed by foreclosure mills, with the full knowledge that their clients (the plaintiffs) do not have the legal standing to file the case. These banks and lawyers are not stupid. They know that 99%+ of all foreclosures in this country are never contested by the homeowner or real estate investor, but it still does not make it right.
A federal bankruptcy judge in Orlando has slapped Bank of America Corp. with a $220,000 sanction — one of the largest fines on record in the local court — for ignoring the judge’s orders and refusing an Orange County couple’s court-approved mortgage-loan modification.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Karen Jennemann sanctioned the giant bank earlier this month after it failed to appear at a series of hearings but continued trying to collect unauthorized mortgage payments from the homeowners, according to a court filing.
The judge ruled March 5 that Bank of America had 30 days in which to pay the fine — or the couple’s mortgage debt, which totals about $223,000, will be “deemed fully satisfied.”
“Sign up, Sign up” for the Magical Foreclosure Review proclaimed a one-sheet circulated by OCC through a matrix of anti-foreclosure and community groups last year. “If an error is found, you could receive a payment or other compensation that may include refunded fees, stopping of a foreclosure or payments up to $125,000 plus equity.” Frankly, it sounded like a late night TV advert for an ambulance chasing law firm.
Well, now you see it, now you don’t. Quicker than you can say Office of the Comptroller of the Currency the Obama administration’s promise to do justice for over four million foreclosed homeowners has evaporated into the could-have-been ether.
This is what happens when you slap the fraudster on the wrist…they’ll never learn their lesson.
HuffPO-
Argentina’s tax agency said on Monday it has uncovered 392 million pesos ($77 million) in fraudulent transactions by HSBC Holdings Plc and said it has asked the judicial system to probe the European bank for alleged tax evasion and money laundering.
HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, was fined $1.9 billion last year for similar irregularities in Mexico and the United States.
The AFIP tax agency filed the complaint in February over alleged irregularities detected over the last three years, Ricardo Echegaray, head of the agency, said.
The passion from real people is so powerful. And you know that there is no one on the other side of these bills who is reaching out in this way. Only the monied special interests buying their way into Florida’s law books. How can our elected leaders ignore pleas like this:
Dear Senators,
It’s my understanding that the banks filed forged documents in foreclosures and had to pay a fine to the State of Florida and now the State is going to use that money to speed up the stalled foreclosures and strip the victims of their property, dignity, labor and money investment with HB-87 and SB 1666.
The number of elderly citizens in Florida increases your liability as lawmakers when you make decisions that allow the banks to commit fraud against the elderly, a weak and vulnerable population. Won’t you be proud when your law puts Florida on the national news for dumping this vulnerable group of victims onto the streets.
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