News related to Mortgage and Foreclosure Fraud |
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Date |
Article (Recent Additions) |
Source | Comment |
7/30/10 |
NEWEST
FORECLOSURE FRAUD AND LIES- CITIGROUP
SHOULD OUR JUDGES CONTINUE TO GRANT FORECLOSURES AND REWARD THE IMPROPER BEHAVIORS OF THOSE THAT CAUSED THE FINANCIAL COLLAPSE? |
Attorney Matt Weidner Blog | We are all acutely aware by now that the entire subprime mortgage industry and the resulting collapse was a direct result of lies and fraud being committed by most of the players who are now throwing themselves into our local courts and demanding that our courts churn out foreclosures as fast as they can. (Get ready for a very big case of, “be careful what you ask for” because once the courts get cranked up to start churning all these foreclosures out, the banks are not going to like the end product…they’re soon going to be screaming to stop all the rocket dockets, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog.) |
7/29/10** | Mass Extinction of Pools Becomes Clearer | Lane Houk |
In other words, if you have a high quality loan wherein you have a high credit score and received relatively good terms, it was in the “senior tranches.” The senior tranches were paid and closed. They were paid from the meager proceeds of the junior tranches, from insurance, credit default swaps etc. Bottom Line: If you got one of those mortgages, it has almost certainly been paid in full. So why are they still collecting your payments? Because they can. Your obligation has most likely been satisfied long ago without any rights of subrogation. If you are in foreclosure now with one of these loans, the “Trustee” is in actuality out of the picture because the “Trust” was closed out (IF IT EVER LEGALLY EXISTED). All of this leads to the politically incorrect conclusion that people gt their houses for “nothing.” But that is not true. ALL THE MONEY THAT WAS OWED ON THAT LOAN HAS BEEN PAID. WHY SHOULD ANYONE COLLECT ANYTHING FURTHER? |
7/29/10**
Press Release |
SEC Charges Citigroup and Two Executives for Misleading Investors About Exposure to Subprime Mortgage Assets Citigroup Agrees to Pay $75 Million Penalty | SEC.gov | The SEC alleges that in response to intense investor interest on the topic, Citigroup repeatedly made misleading statements in earnings calls and public filings about the extent of its holdings of assets backed by subprime mortgages. Between July and mid-October 2007, Citigroup represented that subprime exposure in its investment banking unit was $13 billion or less, when in fact it was more than $50 billion. |
7/29/10 | Fiserv Predicts Home Prices to Drop Another 4.9% in Year Ahead | Carrie Bay - DSnews | Despite recent increases in a number of the industry’s home price measurements, and even an uptick in the company’s own index of residential property prices, Fiserv Inc. says the gains will be short-lived. The Wisconsin-based information technology firm is forecasting home prices to fall by nearly 5 percent more over the next 12 months. |
7/29/10
|
Citi Charged with Misleading Investors about Subprime Exposure | Carrie Bay - DSnews |
The Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday
charged Citigroup
Inc. with misleading investors about the company’s exposure to
subprime mortgage-related assets.
Citigroup represented that subprime exposure in its investment banking unit was $13 billion or less, when in fact it was more than $50 billion. |
7/29/10** | The Banks, The Trusts, The Servicers, They’re All Lying (Again) (and Again) (and Again) | Attorney Matt Weidner Blog |
The foreclosure crisis and the economic meltdown were
not caused by unsophisticated homeowners who borrowed more than they
can afford and who want to live in a home for free….this crisis was
far too grand for that.
The crisis was a direct result of devious financial gamesmanship and outright fraud being committed by the highest levels of national and international finance. The Wall Street Fat Cats caused the collapse then they got bailed out with our money. The lies continue as they accept payments to “review” loans for modifications that they rarely give (although they do get paid for reviewing them). |
7/28/10
|
Three Ex-GE Bankers Indicted as U.S. Probe Broadens |
William Selway and Martin Z. Braun
Bloomberg |
Three former bankers with a General Electric Co. unit that sold investment contracts to state and local governments were indicted for conspiring to profit at taxpayers’ expense by rigging bids, showing the broadening scope of a Justice Department investigation of municipal finance. |
7/28/10 |
Fight The Mortgage Servicers Who Bring These Foreclosure Actions |
Attorney Matt Weidner Blog | Concealing the identity of the real party in interest allows those who made bad decisions to shirk their responsibility in the litigation, a fact that is more important when their conduct could very well make them complicit in creating the situation that led to the litigation. On a very practical level, litigation pursued by servicers probably prohibits effective settlement or mediation discussions because they lack the risk of loss that forces effective resolutions. |
7/27/10
|
BOMBSHELL- CLASS
ACTION OPEN FOR EVERY CONSUMER WHO HAS BEEN SUED BY DAVID
J. STERN
(Hopefully, more cases like this will be filed against other Foreclosure Mills.) |
Attorney Matt Weidner Blog |
The lawsuit is stunning both in the allegations made and the detail
that describes the collapse of the entire American financial markets
and widespread the destruction of property rights across this country.
More will be detailed about this lawsuit in months to come. For now, I encourage everyone to read this lawsuit carefully and share this lawsuit with judges, reporters and policy makers. |
7/27/10** | New York Superintendent of Banks Calls for More Servicer Supervision |
Amilda Dymi
Mortgage Servicing News |
He warned the industry "cannot rely solely on servicers and
hotlines to address the growing needs and concerns of
borrowers-whether it's homeowners that have just applied to the
program or those whose trial periods have ended."
In fact despite efforts to assist them, hundreds of thousands of homeowners may be left worse off after they qualify for a trial HAMP but fail to qualify for a permanent modification. Neiman sees "the ever-increasing number of homeowners being pushed out of HAMP" as a reason to raise "serious questions" about whether servicers are properly processing these loans or "continue to be plagued by the same documentation mistakes" seen in the past. |
7/26/10 | Lenders Working Hard to "Avoid" Mortgage Modifications. | Attorney Matt Weidner Blog | The reports from the federal government regarding the number of homeowners that have obtained permanent mortgage modifications under the HAMP program show once again how hopeless it is to rely upon government programs to resolve the mortgage crisis. Clients and advocates continue to ask me, “Why won’t the lender work with me on a modification?” I believe the answer is both simple and complex. |
7/25/10 |
Gretchen
“Gets It” but misses the mark
“If Wall Street’s profits went up as the quality of mortgages went down, isn’t the obvious incentive to create increasingly bad paper?” Deutsche Bank also named. |
Gretchen Morgenson - NY Times with comments by Neil Garfield |
As investigators delve deeper into the mortgage mess, they are finding in too many cases that Wall Street firms did nothing when they learned about problem loans or improprieties in lending. Rather than stopping practices of profligate originators like New Century, Fremont and Ameriquest, Wall Street financiers, which held the purse strings for these companies, apparently decided to simply look the other way. |
7/25/10 | Who’s To Blame When Mortgages Aren’t Modified or Short Sales Are Not Approved? No one Knows? | Attorney Matt Weidner Blog | Why are we allowing billions of dollars in property and capital be transferred by judicial process to corporations that cannot be identified and who engaged in fraud and potentially criminal acts? |
7/24/10** |
Are Circuit Courts Complicit in The Latest Wall Street Con Games? |
Attorney Matt Weidner Blog | I have been screaming for months now that the lenders, servicers and shadowy entities that are pushing foreclosures through are engaging in more fraud that threatens to destabilize our economy and further damage American’s already shaky trust in government and institutions. |
7/24/10** |
Foreclosure defense – finding reputable attorneys amidst a sea of lawyers |
Stopa Law Blog |
|
7/24/10** | When Denying Loan Modifications, Mortgage Servicers Often Wrongly Blame Investors | PROBULICA | Arthur and Alberta Bailey are about to lose their home near New Orleans, and their mortgage company says one thing stands in the way of relief: The investors who own their mortgage won’t allow any modifications. |
7/24/10 |
Are Circuit Courts Complicit in The Latest Wall Street Con Games? |
Attorney Matt Weidner Blog | Judges all across this state are granting billions of dollars in foreclosure judgments, but they have absolutely no idea who they are granting these judgments to. |
7/24/10 |
South Florida foreclosure mill lawyer sued over steep drop in stock price |
Susan
Taylor Martin
Tampa Bay Times |
Specifically, the suit states, Stern and DJSP were slow to disclose a "substantial decrease'' in foreclosure cases referred to Stern's firm by one of its bank clients in April and May. |
7/23/10** | Neil Garfield J.D. |
The
real reason the government can’t sell these securities is that
nobody will pay for them. Any due diligence down to the loan level
will reveal that the loans were never subject to legally required
execution, delivery and recording of transfer or assignment documents,
together with indorsements etc. In some cases, this is correctable —
at considerable legal expense. In
most cases, they are not correctable.
The bottom line is really simple: the obligation was created, the note was extinguished, and the security instrument became unenforceable, and separated from the note. The illusion that it is otherwise is what is keeping us in stagnation, preventing a solution. |
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7/23/10** |
OUT-[RAGE]-OUS! 17 Bailed-Out Banks Stealing Homes Overpaid Executives $1.6 Billion |
Associated Press |
Kenneth
Feinberg said 17 banks receiving taxpayer money from the $700 billion
financial bailout made "ill-advised" payments to their
executives. But he stopped short of calling them "contrary to the
public interest" — language
that would have signaled a fight to get the money back.
The Obama administration's pay czar said Friday that he did not try to recoup $1.6 billion in lavish compensation to top executives at bailed-out banks because he thought shaming the banks was punishment enough. Instead of receiving prison sentences, Bank executives responsible for stealing millions of homes and creating the foreclosure/financial crisis received $1.6 billion in overpaid bonuses. MSF |
7/23/10 |
Deutsche Bank Fined $7.5M for Concealing Subprime Delinquencies |
Carrie Bay - DSnews | The independent securities regulator found that Deutsche Bank, with its U.S. headquarters in New York, misstated and underreported the percentages of mortgages that were delinquent in the prospectus supplements of six subprime residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) issued in 2006, worth approximately $2.2 billion. |
7/22/10** |
TRICKED, CONNED, SCAMMED- ANOTHER HOMEOWNER’S HOME SOLD WHILE IN ACTIVE NEGOTIATIONS WITH LENDER |
Attorney Matt Weidner Blog | Actually it probably happens hundreds, perhaps thousands of times a week across the state. A hapless but hopeful homeowner is working with his lender (or someone he thinks is his lender), thinking that he is on the verge of a mortgage modification, when behind the scenes, the lender has convinced a judge to grant foreclosure and the home is sold. |
7/22/10**
|
CAPACITY IS A FORECLOSURE CASE KILLER!- OCC LETTER: TRUSTS NOT EXEMPT FROM STATE LAWS |
Attorney Matt Weidner Blog | There is a growing body of evidence that stands for the proposition that the banks and shadowy trust companies sweeping across our nation to take homes are not in fact exempt from state banking and business regulation. I have posted the Cuomo and Watters Supreme Court cases, but this post contains a very interesting letter from the Office of Comptroller and Currency which makes an even more compelling presentation of the facts and should be included in your pleadings. |
7/22/10 | The Banks Win, We All Give Up, You Can Have The Keys To The Courthouse | Attorney Matt Weidner Blog | Forget about the abuse of court process, the fraud, the mistakes the faulty titles that this mess of a foreclosure crisis has dumped in our courtrooms….just think about the very real and practical impact of all this faulty inventory flooding the real estate marketplace. |
7/21/10** | Non-Securitization Effect on Title | Neil Garfield-LivingLies | A Wild Deed in simplistic terms is a Deed from someone who is not already in the title chain. The mere filing of self-serving documents as the pretender lenders have done, is a nullity. Any act proceeding from a nullity is also a nullity including the foreclosure and the deed that was issued is a nullity. This is because of the alleged auction sale in which the alleged creditor made a credit bid, was outside of the chain of title. What chain of title? Of course the one in the public records of the county in which the property is located. Add to that the fact that the party who made the credit bid was not a creditor and you can see how messy this venture is getting. The illusion of finality of foreclosure is creating a very expensive nightmare. |
7/21/10
|
California
Court Rules: MERS Can’t Foreclose, Citibank
Can’t Collect
“Any attempt to transfer the beneficial interest of a trust deed without ownership of the underlying note is VOID under California Law.” |
Timothy McCandless Esq | “Since no evidence of MERS’ ownership of the underlying note has been offered, and other courts have concluded that MERS does not own the underlying notes, this court is convinced that MERS had no interest it could transfer to Citibank. Since MERS did not own the underlying note, it could not transfer the beneficial interest of the Deed of Trust to another. Any attempt to transfer the beneficial interest of a trust deed without ownership of the underlying note is void under California law.” |
7/21/10 | BANKS TELL HOMEOWNERS THEY OWN THE NOTES…THEN TELL INVESTORS THEY DO NOT | Mortgage Servicers feverishly fabricate documents and assignments purported to show that they ‘own the notes’ in order to foreclose, and claim that they do not ‘own the notes’ when investors in the bonds that are supposed to receive payment for the ‘notes’ want to recoup losses due to the fraud. What a circus. | |
7/21/10** |
Fannie
Mae Execs Were Showered With Countrywide
VIP Loans
In 1998, Countrywide sold $25.6 billion in loans to Fannie and $17.7 billion to Freddie. By 1999, the figures were $30.8 billion to $11.2 billion in Fannie’s favor. |
4closureFraud | In a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency – the government agency that regulates Fannie Mae and a smaller competitor, Freddie Mac – Issa said Countrywide’s 153 loans to 37 Fannie employees were part of a attempt to vastly expand business with Fannie to the detriment of Freddie. |
7/20/10**
|
FORECLOSURE FAILS: THE CASE TO FOLLOW IN FLORIDA |
4closureFraud
& Foreclosure Hamlet |
Defendants compounded their errors and failed to timely and properly advise Plaintiff of the steps to take to reclaim the excess funds. |