The robosigning itself and similar lack of internal controls are the small potatoes. There are much more serious things in the SF City Assessor report.
Credit Slips-
Here’s a bombshell: the San Francisco City Assessor commissioned a serious audit of foreclosure documentation filed in the past few years. The audit examined 400 foreclosures. It found problems with 85% of them, often multiple problems. What’s more, some of the problems are pretty serious as they implicate not only borrowers’ rights, but the integrity of mortgage-backed securities and the property title system.
The San Francisco City Assessor’s audit also serves as a benchmark for evaluating the Federal-State servicing settlement. The San Francisco City Assessor managed to accomplish in a few months what the Federal government and state Attorneys General weren’t able to do in nearly a year and a half with far greater resources at their disposal: perform a credible investigation of foreclosure documentation with serious implications about the securitization process in general. That’s a lot of egg on the face of Shaun Donovan, Eric Holder, Tom Miller, et al. The SF City Assessor report shows that it really wasn’t so hard for a motivated party to undertake a serious investigation. And that raises the question of why the largest consumer fraud settlement in history proceeded with virtually no investigation.
The lack of investigation was the compelling criticism that led the NY and DE AGs to stay out of the settlement for quite a while. I’ve never heard an answer as to why no serious investigation. As the SF City Assessor’s audit shows, the documentation is all a matter of public record. It’s not that hard to do, especially if you have the resources of the federal government. So the resources were there. The capability was there. So why no investigation? The answer has to lie with lack of motivation. Were the Feds and AGs scared of what they would find if they delved too deeply into the issue?
I hope that members of Congress will question the Attorney General and HUD Secretary the next time they show up to testify on the Hill. The issue is also worthy of a GAO or IG examination.
* Report found 84 pct of San Francisco disclosures illegal
*High levels found across the country, experts say
REUTERS-
A report this week showing rampant foreclosure abuse in San Francisco reflects similar levels of lender fraud and faulty documentation across the United States, say experts and officials who have done studies in other parts of the country.
The audit of almost 400 foreclosures in San Francisco found that 84 percent of them appeared to be illegal, according to the study released by the California city on Wednesday.
“The audit in San Francisco is the most detailed and comprehensive that has been done – but it’s likely those numbers are comparable nationally,” Diane Thompson, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, told Reuters.
Across the country from California, Jeff Thingpen, register of deeds in Guildford County, North Carolina, examined 6,100 mortgage documents last year, from loan notes to foreclosure paperwork.
Think you’ll have a free pass from that under water, submerged house that will only continue to sink further.
The so called principal reductions were to be a penalty not a money making scheme!
Your title will still have issues…lots of them!
FT-
The $40bn foreclosure-abuse settlement reached last week between regulators and big US banks gave President Barack Obama another shot at resuscitating his three-year-old initiative to help troubled homeowners.
As details of the agreement dribble out, it appears the deal may also give big banks reason to celebrate and mortgage bond investors and taxpayers reason to pause.
[…]
But in allowing the banks to use taxpayer-funded Hamp to meet their obligations under the settlement, the government presented the banks with an opportunity to reduce their losses, experts said.
“If the banks are doing something under this settlement, and cash flows from taxpayers to the banks, that is fundamentally an upside-down result,” said Neil Barofsky, a former special inspector-general of the troubled asset relief programme.
The City and County of San Francisco’s Office of the Assessor-Recorder retained Aequitas Compliance Solutions, Inc. to review 382 residential mortgage loan transactions (the “subject loans”) that resulted in foreclosure sales that occurred from January 2009 through October 2011.1 Over this period, there were 2,405 foreclosure sales. The subject loans thus represent approximately 16% of the total. (See Appendix B – Methodology.)
We analyzed the subject loans to determine the mortgage industry’s compliance with applicable laws. Specifically, we focused our analysis on important topics relating to six Subject Areas:
• Assignments • Notice of Default • Substitution of Trustee • Notice of Trustee Sale • Suspicious Activities Indicative of Potential Fraud • Conflicts Relating to MERS
“Almost all involved either legal violations or suspicious documentation”
Gretchen Morgenson-
An audit by San Francisco county officials of about 400 recent foreclosures there determined that almost all involved either legal violations or suspicious documentation, according to a report released Wednesday.
Commissioned by Phil Ting, the San Francisco assessor-recorder, the report examined files of properties subject to foreclosure sales in the county from January 2009 to November 2011. About 84 percent of the files contained what appear to be clear violations of law, it said, and fully two-thirds had at least four violations or irregularities.
The report comes just days after the $26 billion settlement over foreclosure improprieties between five major banks and 49 state attorneys general, including California’s. Among other things, that settlement requires participating banks to reduce mortgage amounts outstanding on a wide array of loans and provide $1.5 billion in reparations for borrowers who were improperly removed from their homes.
WASHINGTON–People seeking a review of their mortgage foreclosures under the Federal banking agencies’ Independent Foreclosure Reviewnow have until July 31, 2012, to submit their requests.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) today announced that the deadline for submitting requests for review under the Independent Foreclosure Review has been extended. The new deadline, July 31, 2012, provides an additional three months for borrowers to request a review if they believe they suffered financial injury as a result of errors in foreclosure actions on their homes in 2009 or 2010 by one of the servicers covered by enforcement actions issued in April 2011.
The deadline extension provides more time to increase awareness of how eligible people may request a review through the Independent Foreclosure Review process and to encourage the broadest participation possible.
As part of enforcement actions issued in April 2011, the OCC, Federal Reserve, and the Office of Thrift Supervision required 14 large mortgage servicers to retain independent consultants to conduct a comprehensive review of foreclosure activity in 2009 and 2010 to identify borrowers who may have been financially injured due to errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies in the foreclosure process. If the review finds that financial injury occurred, the borrower may receive compensation or other remedy.
Borrowers are eligible for an Independent Foreclosure Review if they meet the following basic criteria:
The mortgage loan was active in the foreclosure process between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010.
The property securing the mortgage loan was the borrower’s primary residence.
Participating mortgage servicers include: America’s Servicing Company, Aurora Loan Services, BAC Home Loans Servicing, Bank of America, Beneficial, Chase, Citibank, CitiFinancial, CitiMortgage, Countrywide, EMC, Everbank/Everhome Mortgage Company, Financial Freedom, GMAC Mortgage, HFC, HSBC, IndyMac Mortgage Services, MetLife Bank, National City Mortgage, PNC Mortgage, Sovereign Bank, U.S. Bank, Wachovia Mortgage; Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo; and Wilshire Credit Corporation.
They aren’t ready…they’re still figuring out how to add the finishing touches to screw you!
HW-
The state attorneys general and federal prosecutors will likely file the actual $25 billion foreclosure settlement documents in court by the end of the month, according to a source familiar with the deal.
The top five servicers agreed to general terms in the settlement last week, which would include billions in principal reduction, refinances, and even pay outs to homeowners affected by missteps in the process.
Questions arose recently over whether the finalization of the deal would its change the scope.
Rich Andreano, who co-leads the mortgage banking group at law firm Ballard Spahr, said while it will be difficult for analysts and officials to anticipate precisely how much aid each state will get from the deal until the documents are filed, results should not vary too significantly from the announcement made last week.
“I got the sense last week that they weren’t really ready. They weren’t done. It was one of those things where they were moving so fast that they had to announce it because it was getting leaked out,” Andreano said in an interview.
The chief regulator and conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is adamantly opposed to principal forgiveness, a key element of the foreclosure settlement. But analyses show he’s wrong.
LA TIMES-
You can love or you can hate the recent $25-billion federal-state mortgage foreclosure settlement, but there’s no getting around one simple fact: There’s a huge, gaping hole right in the middle of it.
The hole is that if your home loan has been bought from your lender by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, you’re not eligible for the mortgage relief encompassed by the deal.
Since Fannie and Freddie control well more than half of all outstanding mortgages, this shortcoming looks to be what engineers would call “non-trivial.”
As Neil Barofsky asked Nick Timiraos “So perhaps that’s why the settlement was announced before even a term sheet was hammered out? To cover up FHA budget hole“?
WSJ-
The Federal Housing Administration will exhaust its reserves over the coming year, according to budget projections released Monday, which would require a Treasury infusion for the first time in its 78-year history.
But Obama administration officials said more recent developments, including fines that will go to the FHA from last week’s $25 billion mortgage settlement with five major banks, could cover any shortfall and obviate the need for taxpayer funding.
The FHA has burned through its reserves over the past three years as defaults mount on loans it guaranteed as housing markets deteriorated. FHA-backed mortgages are an attractive option for borrowers because they can make down payments as low as 3.5%. But as home prices continue to fall, many of those borrowers have fallen underwater, where they owe more than their homes are worth and are at greater risk of default if they experience income shocks.
Servicing standards: The 42-page servicing standards “term sheet” lists various requirements for banks’ documents used in foreclosure and bankruptcy proceedings; documentation of borrowers’ account balances; and ensuring integrity of the chain of title. It also includes requirements around how borrowers must be treated when they’re being evaluated for a modification or short sale, as well standards around the appropriateness of servicing fees and the use of force-placed insurance.
Borrower relief: A separate 12-page document outlines how banks have to satisfy the $20 billion portion of the deal that requires them to help homeowners. At least half of that portion must go towards writing down loan balances for homeowners that are at risk of foreclosure. Another $3 billion must be used to help homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth but are current on their loans to refinance. The remaining $7 billion can go towards anti-blight provisions, forbearance for unemployed homeowners, and short sale assistance.
Menu of “credits”: Complex formulas spell out exactly how much credit banks will receive for that aid. For example, every $1 of principal write-downs earns $1 of credit on loans that they own. However, they receive less credit for writing down second-lien mortgages that are severely delinquent.
Wells Fargo & Co. directors must face investors’ claims that largest U.S. mortgage lender failed to properly disclose details of its foreclosure practices to government investigators, a judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco rejected Wells Fargo’s request to dismiss shareholders’ allegations that directors wrongfully failed to disclose their opposition to a government probe of the bank’s mortgage lending and foreclosure policies.
“The fact that the company was allegedly stymieing the government regulators is certainly material to stockholders when considering whether to authorize a more serious internal investigation,” Illston said in Feb. 9 ruling.
Asking investors in mortgage-backed securities to trust the banks that issued them is like asking Charlie Brown to trust Lucy van Pelt. MBS noteholders are so convinced they’ve been duped by the folks that packaged and sold shoddy mortgage loans that it’s little wonder the banks’ $25 billion settlement with federal and state regulators has been greeted with a tsunami of skepticism. Sure, MBS investors understand that the settlement doesn’t preclude them or regulators from suing over deficient securitizations. But their fear, in the absence of the actual settlement documents, is that the loan modifications the deal calls for will reduce the revenue stream to MBS trusts.
It’s an understandable fear. The five banks that agreed to the settlement — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Ally Financial — carry some troubled mortgage loans on their own books. Others were bundled into MBS trusts, in which the banks transfer ownership of the mortgages and remain as servicers. MBS noteholders are supposed to receive a stream of income from the principal and interest payments on the underlying mortgage loans. So if a bank agrees to reduce the unpaid principal a homeowner owes on a mortgage that’s been securitized, less money flows to the trust and into MBS investors’ hands.
The proposed Release contains a broad release of the banks’ conduct related to mortgage loan servicing, foreclosure preparation, and mortgage loan origination services. Claims based on these areas of past conduct by the banks cannot be brought by state attorneys general or banking regulators.
The Release applies only to the named bank parties. It does not extend to third parties who may have provided default or foreclosure services for the banks. Notably, claims against MERSCORP, Inc. or Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) are not released. Securitization claims, including claims of state and local pension funds, and including investor claims related to the formation, marketing or offering of securities, are fully preserved. Other claims that are not released include violations of state fair lending laws, criminal law enforcement, claims of state agencies having independent regulatory jurisdiction, claims of county recorders for fees, and actions to quiet title to foreclosed properties. Of course, the Release does not affect the rights of any individuals or entities to pursue their own claims for relief.
The government’s deal with banks over their foreclosure practices after 16 months of investigations is cheap for the loan servicers while costly for bond investors including pension funds, according to Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Scott Simon.
In what the U.S. called the largest federal-state civil settlement in the nation’s history, five banks including Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. yesterday committed $20 billion in various forms of mortgage relief plus payments of $5 billion to state and federal governments.
“This was a relatively cheap resolution for the banks,” said Simon, the mortgage head at Pimco, which runs the world’s largest bond fund. “A lot of the principal reductions would have happened on their loans anyway, and they’re using other people’s money to pay for a ton of this. Pension funds, 401(k)s and mutual funds are going to pick up a lot of the load.”
FIVE big banks finally reached a deal with government authorities last week over dubious mortgage practices and foreclosure abuses.
After months of talks, Ally Financial, Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo agreed to pay a total of $5 billion in cash to try to remedy this fiasco. They will also help homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages by reducing the principal on their loans by a combined $17 billion over the next three years.
Borrowers who qualify will get $3 billion in refinancing arrangements. Those who were improperly foreclosed on will get a combined $1.5 billion. That probably nets out to less than $2,000 a person.
If we stole $200k from a bank can we get away from any jail time and only pay back $2K to settle the deal?
Will they still come after you for a deficiency judgment and use this to pay for the % they must pay from the $25 billion dollar settlement? Because as you know taxpayers may have to fork over the % the investors don’t pay for their Fraudulent Activities not to mention having destroyed title to millions of homes.
From the video below I am not certain if Beau knows the settlement terms will get worse because it’s yet to be signed?
I’m beginning to think that the last couple of days were April 1st in disguise. I mean, what a crazy practical joke our Federal Government and State AGs just tried to play! What a parade of press conferences, all touting a deal to trade some $25 billion in mostly more accurate accounting for some kind of release of origination, servicing and foreclosure fraud. But it turns out the deal’s not real.
More than a day after the announcement of a mammoth national mortgage servicing settlement, the actual terms of the deal still aren’t public….That’s because a fully authorized, legally binding deal has not been inked yet.
All I have to say is “Linda Green” is only one person and the missing documents will be put up as soon as MERS gets them signed and notarized!
American Banker-
More than a day after the announcement of a mammoth national mortgage servicing settlement, the actual terms of the deal still aren’t public. The website created for the national settlement lists the document as “coming soon.”
That’s because a fully authorized, legally binding deal has not been inked yet.
The implication of this is hard to say. Spokespersons for both the Iowa attorney general’s office and the Department of Justice both told American Banker that the actual settlement will not be made public until it is submitted to a court. A representative for the North Carolina attorney general downplayed the significance of the document’s non-final status, saying that the terms were already fixed.
“Once the documents are finalized, they’ll be posted to nationalmortgagesettlement.com,” the representative said in an email to American Banker.
Indeed, when the settlement was announced this morning, claims against MERS were explicitly carved out; state attorneys general can go ahead with suits against the mortgage registry. MERS is as exposed as a kid locked out of the house without a coat in a snowstorm.
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.
The sweetheart deal the feds just finished forcing down the throat of the state AGs is only the latest piece of evidence–evidence enough to reach ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’–that your federal government works for the banks and not you. Team Obama has placed the economic interests of the banks and the freedom of bankers above your economic interests, the rule of law, and any notion of good faith, fair dealing and justice. They won’t admit it; Team Obama will run hard as champions of the 99% on all things, including being Tough On Banks! and Helping Homeowners! But neither is true, and it’s critical that you not believe them when they say it.
That said, please understand; I’m not hawking the Republicans: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are no better on banking and housing. The only candidate I heard make some sense on these issues was John Huntsman, and he’s no longer in the race. On banking and housing policy, we currently have no good candidates.
My slim hope for good bank and housing policy rests on you. If Team Obama is confronted with an informed and active electorate over the next several months–confronted with enough voters demanding good policy instead ofeasily disprovable talking points–I think it’s possible to goad a-scared-we-won’t-be-reelected Team Obama into actually doing good policy.
now have until July 31, 2012, to submit their requests.
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