Loads of Bank Foreclosures Went Unchecked

[Letsbereal]

Mortgage Lenders Seeking Court Permission To Destroy 22,100 Boxes Of Original Loan Documents
24 January 2011, by Tyler Durden (MarketWatch)
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/mortgage-lenders-seeking-court-permission-destroy-22100-boxes-original-loan-documents

Excerpt:

The solution to the ongoing fraudclosure fiasco is so simply and yet so brilliant (in a way that benefits the banks naturally) is so brilliant, that it has to date evaded most... but not all.

The solution: just shred it all. That is what insolvent mortgage lenders Mortgage Lenders Network USA and American Home Mortgage are pushing hard to get permission from their respectively bankruptcy judges in their chapter 7 liquidation cases.

Says Reuters: "Federal bankruptcy judges in Delaware are due to hold separate hearings Monday on requests by two defunct subprime mortgage lenders to destroy thousands of boxes of original loan documents.

The requests, by trustees liquidating Mortgage Lenders Network USA and American Home Mortgage, come despite intense concerns that paperwork critical to foreclosures and securitized investments may be lost.

With servicer banks increasingly unable and unwilling to provide the original lender docs (since they don't have access to them) to parties curious in seeing if there is a legal case to continue paying their mortgage, what better solution than to have the banks retort that the original document was sadly destroyed in a court-appointed shredding.

In that way all the fraud canaries are killed with one stone, and the party responsible is none other than some bankruptcy judge who had given the go ahead for the wholesale destruction.

And since we are not talking peanuts, in the case of MLN it comes to 18,000 boxes of records, while in the AHOM case it is just over 4,000 boxes, we wonder just how many other originators have gotten a comparable idea from the banks, and are currently busy shredding every last detail of an original mortgage note.

Good luck trying to convince anyone that the bank is not in possession of a mortgage that was "purposefully" destroyed as part of a company's liquidation proceedings.

Soon to follow: the burning of all books and the banning of all websites that dare to claim this is nothing but pure, grade-A criminal destruction of evidence.

[Letsbereal]

Judge temporarily delays loan document shredding
24 January 2011, by Scot J. Paltrow - Wilmington, Delaware (Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70N2AA20110124

Let It Snow Enron Style[/b] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9n1x9YjjY

A U.S. bankruptcy judge temporarily blocked bankrupt subprime lender Mortgage Lenders Network USA from destroying 18,000 boxes of original loan files after federal prosecutors said documents in them may be needed as evidence in more than 50 criminal investigations.

In a hearing Monday before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Peter J. Walsh, a representative from the Delaware U.S. Attorneys' Office said she did not know details of any of the investigations.

But she said prosecutors and FBI offices around the country had requested time to access to the boxes and assess whether the contents contain needed evidence before the judge permits any destruction.

Walsh granted a 30-day delay, and said he would hold another hearing on Mortgage Lenders' request.

A series of recent court rulings have increased the importance of original loan documents, holding that they are essential for investors to prove ownership of mortgages and to have the right to foreclose.

Connecticut-based Mortgage Lenders Network closed down and filed for bankruptcy protection in February 2007, and now is being liquidated.

Dozens of subprime lenders went out of business in 2007 with the collapse of the housing market. There is increasing tension as trustees for several of these defunct lenders seek to destroy documents to save storage costs, while law enforcement officials and advocates for homeowners and investors in mortgage-backed securities argue that the documents should be preserved.

Concern about missing mortgage documents emerged beginning in October 2010, with disclosures that large numbers of original loan documents were missing and that falsified ones were being submitted in foreclosure cases.

In a separate hearing Monday in the same court, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi allowed defunct American Home Mortgage, once one of the largest subprime lenders, to destroy most of the 4,100 boxes of original loan files it still has.

But the judge granted a request by Margaret Becker, a lawyer in Staten Island for the Legal Aid Society, to require the American Home trustee to set aside and cull through a few hundred of the boxes which may contain records still relevant to possible foreclosures.

Becker said many low income homeowners were victims of deception about how much their loans actually would cost, and records from the boxes could help prove that they had been defrauded.

"These documents are critical for borrowers to demonstrate to foreclosing courts the deception and fraud that was a routine part of this mortgage industry," Becker said.

Sean Beach, a lawyer for American Home's liquidation trustee, said the company under an earlier court order already had destroyed or returned to loan servicers 50,000 boxes of "hard copy loan files."

[Kilika]

Any judge who allows these companies to destroy original documents should be brought up on charges of destroying/tampering with evidence at least.

All documents must be retained till the cases are settled legally. The whole pont of having the paperwork in the first place is to prove the legality of the deal in question. If the paperwork isn't relevant, then why even have any paperwork? This whole deal is getting crazy. It's amazing to watch the roaches scatter.

[Nailer]

it will just get worse.

US Treasury Sec Admits US Default Imminent

Timothy Geithner, U.S. Treasury Secretary, admitted in a letter to congress dated January 6th, that the United States Treasury would be forced to default on its credit obligations without clearance from Congress to raise the amount of money that the treasury is allowed to borrow.

A default would impose a substantial tax on all Americans. Because Treasuries represent the benchmark borrowing rate for all other sectors, default would raise all borrowing costs. Interest rates for state and local government, corporate and consumer borrowing, including home mortgage interest, would all rise sharply. Equity prices and home values would decline, reducing retirement savings and hurting the economic security of all Americans, leading to reductions in spending and investment, which would cause job losses and business failures on a significant scale.
Default would have prolonged and far-reaching negative consequences on the safe-haven status of Treasuries and the dollar's dominant role in the international financial system, causing further increases in interest rates and reducing the willingness of investors here and around the world to invest in the United States.
Payments on a broad range of benefits and other U.S. obligations would be discontinued, limited, or adversely affected, including:
U.S. military salaries and retirement benefits;
Social Security and Medicare benefits;
veterans' benefits;
federal civil service salaries and retirement benefits
individual and corporate tax refunds;
unemployment benefits to states;
defense vendor payments;
interest and principal payments on Treasury bonds and other securities;
student loan payments;
Medicaid payments to states; and
payments necessary to keep government facilities open.

http://www.rense.com/general92/treasss.htm

[Kilika]

Timmy is the federal reserve frontman, and he is threatening yet another strongarm robbery of the US. I just don't see why people can't see it. The Treasury Secretary is a federal reserve plant. Soon to follow will be Bernake backing Geithner up.

[Letsbereal]

Insurance Companies Sue Bank Of America Over "Massive Mortgage Fraud", Find 91% Of Securitized Loans Are Misrepresented
24 January 2011, by Tyler Durden (Zero Hedge)
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/insurance-companies-sue-countrywide-over-massive-mortgage-fraud-find-91-securitized-loans-ar

Excerpt:

The benchmark for documented mortgage originators' lies is getting higher and higher.

First it was the Allstate lawsuit, finding massive fraud in most Countrywide/Bank of America loans, then it was quantified at 70% after Wells Fargo sued JPM's EMC division, now it is all the way up to 91% after a just released lawsuit by the bulk of the world's biggest insurance companies has been made public, in a fresh lawsuit again Bank of America/Countrywide over "Massive mortgage fraud."

To wit, from the lawsuit: "In carrying out its review of the approximately 19,000 Countrywide loan files, MBIA found that 91% of the defaulted or delinquent loans in those securitizations contained material deviations from Countrywide’s underwriting guidelines.

MBIA’s report showed that the loan applications frequently:

“(i) lack key documentation, such as verification of borrower assets or income;

(ii) include an invalid or incomplete appraisal;

(iii) demonstrate fraud by the borrower on the face of the application; or

(iv) reflect that any of borrower income, FICO score, debt, DTI [debt-to-income,] or CLTV [combined loan-to-value] ratios, fails to meet stated Countrywide guidelines (without any permissible exception).


The plaintiff counsel is Bernstein Litowitz, which was made famous from the WorldCom litigation. We doubt they will settle for a few measily pennies on the dollar.

As for the list of litigants, it is a veritable who's who of the insurance industry: Dexia Holdings, FSA Asset Management, New York Life iInsurance Company, The Mainstay Funds, Teachers Insurance & Annuity, TIAA-CREF Life Insurance, and College Retirement Equities Fund.

[Letsbereal]

MAN BEATS BANK - And Creates Mortgage Banking MERS Bomb - Lost Paperwork Means Free Homes For Borrowers
17 January 2011, (The Daily Bail)
http://dailybail.com/home/man-beats-bank-and-creates-mortgage-banking-mers-bomb-lost-p.html

Excerpt:

Very interesting story, and not without ramifications for other states.

Walter Keane poses for a portrait at his office.  Keane filed and recently won a lawsuit that resulted in several homeowners in Utah getting title to their property, even if they owed the full mortgage, all because of chaos introduced into the nation's property recording system by MERS.

The attorney for another man in Draper, Utah, says he has won two other cases this way, and another attorney in Utah got a default judgment giving title to borrowers who owed $417,000 on a home.

Utah Professor Chris Peterson weighs in on the significance of the rulings.

--

In Utah, missing paperwork means a lot; Borrowers gain title for free.

[Kilika]

missing paperwork means a lot; Borrowers gain title for free.

That's what I've been saying all along. The key I believe is in not transfering the title properly when the notes are sold off by the originators. To me, that means there is no legal owner to the property other than the homeowner, to which title reverts back to since there is no other legal owner defined in proper paperwork, because they do't have proper papwerwork to prove their claims.

And it's not a redo either. They can't just go back and put the proper papwerwork in the deal and make it legal. The mistake makes the whole deal null and void. Homeowner then gets their home free and clear of any mortgage seeing there is no legal owner of a mortage. In fact, some of these deals are atually criminal by fraud, so you definately can't go back and correct something to make the crime go away. If nothing else, that's tampering with evidence.

Unfortunately, I suspect the government will step in at some point and save the mortgage holders, allowing them to continue with the illegal claims, for the sake of the economy of course.

[Letsbereal]

A Reservist in a New War, Against Foreclosure
26 January 2011, by Diana B. Henriques (New York Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/business/27foreclose.html

Excerpt:

In violation of a law intended to protect active military personnel from creditors, agents of Deutsche Bank foreclosed on his small Michigan house, forcing Sergeant Hurley’s wife, Brandie, and her two young children to move out and find shelter elsewhere.

When the sergeant returned in December 2005, he drove past the densely wooded riverfront property outside Hartford, Mich. The peaceful little home was still there — winter birds still darted over the gazebo he had built near the water’s edge — but it almost certainly would never be his again. Less than two months before his return from the war, the bank’s agents sold the property to a buyer in Chicago for $76,000.

Since then, Sergeant Hurley has been on an odyssey through the legal system, with little hope of a happy ending — indeed, the foreclosure that cost him his home may also cost him his marriage. “Brandie took this very badly,” said Sergeant Hurley, 45, a plainspoken man who was disabled in Iraq and is now unemployed. “We’re trying to piece it together.”

[Letsbereal]

Groups Say Iowa AG Retreats From Promise To Be Tough On Robo-Sign Banks
27 January 2011, by Yepoka Yeebo (The Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/27/tim-miller-soft-on-robosigning-banks_n_814491.html

Excerpt:

The attorney general leading the investigation into "robo-signing" mortgage companies may be backtracking on promises to help Americans wrongly foreclosed on stay in their homes.

Iowa Attorney General Tim Miller is no longer promising to press criminal charges against bank officials who fraudulently foreclosed on homes, according to Iowa community groups.

"In our first meeting with AG Miller we felt like we had a champion that was ready to go toe to toe with the big banks," Hugh Espey, director of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement said in a statement. "This time we left wondering if the big banks had knocked the wind out of our state's top law enforcer."

Community groups grew concerned after a meeting on Tuesday, when Attorney General Miller did not repeat promises he made last December to help families back into their homes or prosecute bank staffers if there was evidence of fraud.

Attorney General Miller did not respond to requests for comment.

[Letsbereal]

A Frightening Satellite Tour Of America's Foreclosure Wastelands
27 January 2011, by Gus Lubin (Business Insider)
http://www.businessinsider.com/satellite-tour-foreclosure-cities-2011-1?slop=1#slideshow-start#ixzz1CFjS7Vrt

Excerpt:

[Letsbereal]

Nearly 11 Percent of US Houses Empty
31 January 2011, by Diana Olick (CNBC)
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41355854

Excerpt:

America's home ownership rate, after holding steady for a while, took a pretty big plunge in Q4, from 66.9% to 66.5%. That's down from the 2004 peak of 69.2% and the lowest level since 1998.

Homeownership is falling at an alarming pace, despite the fact that home prices have fallen, affordability is much improved and inventories of new and existing homes are still running quite high.

----

More concerning than the home ownership rate is the vacancy rate. The Census tables don't tell the entire story, but they tell a lot of it. Of the nearly 131 million housing units in this country, 112.5 million are occupied. 74.8 million are owned, and that's only dropped by about 30 thousand in the past year. 38 million are rented, but that's up by over a million year over year. That means more new households are choosing to rent.

Now to vacancies. There were 18.4 million vacant homes in the U.S. in Q4 '10 (11% of all housing units vacant all year round), which is actually an improvement of 427,000 from a year ago, but not for the reasons you'd think.

The number of vacant homes for rent fell by 493 thousand, as rental demand rose. 471,000 homes are listed as "Held off Market" about half for temporary use, but the other half are likely foreclosures. And no, the shadow inventory isn't just 200,000, it's far higher than that.

So think about it. 11% of the houses in America are empty. This as builders start to get more bullish, and renting apartments becomes ever more popular. Vacancies in the apartment sector have been falling steadily and dramatically, why? Because we're still recovering emotionally from the toll of the housing crash.

----

Banks, Fannie and Freddie are holding on to hundreds of thousands of properties, and we don't know exactly when or how they'll sell them.

[infowarrior_039]

if all those dots are foreclosed homes, then that looks like a lot more then 11%

[Letsbereal]

Michigan Family Says Obama Foreclosure-Prevention Program Cost Them Their Home
1 February 2011, by Shahien Nasiripour and Arthur Delaney (The Huffington post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/01/michigan-family-says-obam_n_816684.html

Excerpt:

After nine months of dutifully making lowered mortgage payments under the Obama administration's foreclosure-prevention program, Bea and Terry Garwood of Pinckney, Mich., are all set to move out. Despite the promise of relief, they are losing to foreclosure the two-story house that has been their family home since 1994. They say the administration's initiative has effectively pushed them out the door.

The Garwoods are among nearly 800,000 American households that have managed to enroll in the program before failing to secure permanently lowered monthly payments. Their experience underscores why many housing experts and lawmakers have proclaimed the effort a failure. Though President Barack Obama promised it would help three to four million homeowners avoid foreclosure, only 522,000 had successfully secured so-called permanent loan modifications by the end of last year, according to the Treasury Department.

More homeowners have actually been bounced from the program than have been helped, the data show. Despite widespread anticipation that foreclosures will only accelerate in 2011, breaking a record set last year, the number of new borrowers entering the program has been slowing to a trickle: Most of the potential new applicants lack sufficient income to qualify for lowered payments. The program was designed to help people confronting mortgages whose low promotional interest rates give way to much more expensive terms, and not for the circumstances at hand, with holders of traditional loans losing jobs and income.

[Letsbereal]

Coming Soon: A 300-Percent Increase in Foreclosures
3 February 2011, by Tim Cavanaugh (Reason)
http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/03/coming-soon-a-300-percent-incr

Excerpt:

At Calculated Risk, Tom Lawler, a real estate economist and former risk policy veep at Fannie Mae, tries to figure out how many people have actually lost their homes to foreclosure, short sales or deed-in-lieu desertions.

The answer: Not enough. Lawler (who is now living the life of Riley on a Virginia farm) says the number of foreclosures that have been completed so far is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of loans that have gone bad:

----

Speaking of redefaults, the OCC/OTC Mortgage Metrics report [pdf] is out for the third quarter of 2010, and the results are barely less horrific than they were in the previous report:

- Just under half (47.6%) 48% of modified loans are 30 days or more overdue strong likelihood of permanent default within a year.

- More than a third (36.7%) 37% are 60 days overdue near certainty of permanent default.

- Nearly a third (29.8%) 30% are 90 days overdue (for God’s sake, get out of the house).

Just to be clear: These are mortgages that the bank – frequently with backstopping from the taxpayers – has already fixed up once.


Redefault rates are showing gradual improvement, but the numbers are still pathetic. 25% of all modified loans go bad after six months. To get even B-minus performances you have to make serious reductions in the borrower’s monthly payment.

- 33% of bad borrowers who have had their payments reduced by up to 10% still default again;

- More than 25% default after having their payment reduced between 10% and 20%.

- And (14.6%) 15% who have had their mortgage payments cut by more than 20% still manage to default within half a year. That goes beyond bad personal finance and becomes an achievement you have to respect.

Loans modified under HAMP actually have much better performance than other modifications.

But the numbers are so poor all around that you shouldn’t hold your breath waiting to hear arguments for the success of the program.

At this point the consensus that HAMP has failed seems pretty much unassailable.

Which is just as well: If HAMP actually worked as promised, it would cost us almost a trillion dollars.

[egypt]

It was a Treasonous Act of War to repeal Glass-Steagall..  All those responsible should be prosecuted as such.

Love, e

[Letsbereal]

TONIGHT: Walking Away — Underwater Homeowners Meeting Across Country
8 February 2011, by Ryan Grim (The Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/no-way-to-live_n_819935.html

Excerpt:

On Tuesday evening in Boynton Beach, Fla., underwater homeowners are gathering for happy hour at Ralph and Rosie's Restaurant, an independently owned bar and eatery involved in a dispute with the local town and being put up for auction at the end of the month. Ralph and Rosie will offer the homeowners free appetizers and soft drinks. In Portland, Ore., the meeting's at the Hopworks Urban Brewery. Denver homeowners will gather at the Village Inn on Colorado Avenue.

Los Angeles hasn't figured it out, while Austin is meeting at Texican Restaurant. New Yorkers are getting together at a Starbucks in SoHo. [UPDATE: Los Angeles now has a location. Scroll down for details.]

The gatherings are being self-organized by homeowners looking to meet others who have tried to work out modifications with their bank for their underwater mortgage. Groups big and small have gotten involved: ForeclosureHamlet.org organized the Ralph and Rosie's gathering, while the Service Employees International Union let a long list of their activists do the honors. Last week, HuffPost teamed up with MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan for a series of stories on the housing crisis, which spawned the Meetups, broken down by city here. Scroll down to see a slideshow of the MSNBC series.

Nearly a quarter of all mortgages are underwater and banks are increasingly worried that homeowners will walk away -- or, in the industry term, "strategically default." HuffPost spoke with nearly 50 people with underwater loans to find out what the emotional and financial consequences of strategic default had been for those who'd beaten that path.

"There should be support groups for people who have to deal with these banks," said Richmond Burton, 50, a soon-to-be-former resident of Long Island's East Hampton. "It can drive you crazy. I'm very good at dealing with pressure, and they made it feel like you're at their mercy." Burton will be at the SoHo gathering.

The industry is placing increasing attention on strategic defaulting. On Tuesday, Equifax announced that it had developed a unique method to measure under what circumstances homeowners would stop making mortgage payments, yet continue to pay other bills. Equifax finds, perhaps not surprisingly, that people with more expensive underwater homes are more likely to strategically default.

[Letsbereal]

January Foreclosure Activity Continues To Be Depressed Due To Robofraud, Judicial State REOs Plunge
10 February 2011, by Tyler Durden (Zero Hedge)
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/january-foreclosure-activity-continues-be-depressed-due-robosigning-gate-judicial-state-reos

Excerpt:

RealtyTrac's January foreclosure update shows that banks are once again starting to flex their muscles.

Total foreclosure events (defined by the firm as default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions or REOs) came at 261,333, a decline of 17% from a year earlier, but a 1% increase from December (one in every 497 houses received a foreclosure notice).

“We’ve now seen three straight months with fewer than 300,000 properties receiving foreclosure filings, following 20 straight months where the total exceeded 300,000,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac.

“We’ve now seen three straight months with fewer than 300,000 properties receiving foreclosure filings, following 20 straight months where the total exceeded 300,000,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac.

“Unfortunately this is less a sign of a robust housing recovery and more a sign that lenders have become bogged down in reviewing procedures, resubmitting paperwork and formulating legal arguments related to accusations of improper foreclosure processing.”

What is interesting is the growing distinction between judicial and non-judicial state REO activity.

Readers will recall that Bank of America (partially) stopped foreclosure activity in non-judicial states in January.

"Lenders foreclosed on 78,133 U.S. properties in January, up 12% from the previous month but still down 11% from January 2010.

Bank repossessions (REO) in non-judicial foreclosure states increased 23% from December but were still down 9% from January 2010, while bank repossessions in judicial foreclosure states decreased 7% from the previous month and were down 16% from January 2010." In other words, look for non-judicial activity to drop off even more.

[Letsbereal]

How Allstate Used Sampling To Confirm JPMorgan/WaMu Lied About Virtually Everything When Selling Mortgages
16 February 2011, by Tyler Durden (Zero Hedge)
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/how-allstate-used-sampling-confirm-jpmorganwamu-lied-about-virtually-everything-when-selling

Excerpt:

A month ago, we wrote an article titled: "How Allstate Used Sampling To Confirm BofA/Countrywide Lied About Virtually Everything When Selling Mortgages" in which we described how the insurance company used sampling to confirm that Bank of America had misrepresented virtually every metric when selling mortgages: everything from loan LTV, to percentage of owner-occupied properties.

The differentials in some cases were as large as 50%. Today, Allstate, again under the guidance of Quinn Emmanuel, has used the same technique to determine that JPM and WaMu are guilty of precisely the same criminal misrepresentation in its prospectuses when selling tens of thousands of loans.

And once again, this will most certainly lead to absolutely nothing.

The reason? Just read Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone piece on why when it comes to crime, Wall Street has a limitless "get out of jail" card.

The alternative is a domino-like fall out that would likely see most if not all Wall Street executives actually having to lose sleep over the possibility of jail time (which would also take down every single externally regulating and SRO organization created to "police" the greatest scam in history).

And that, as the FCIC has determined, will never happen until the market is in an uptrend.

What happens after the next (and final, unless intelligent and wealth extraterrestrial life is discovered, willing to bail out the entire world which has gone all in the ponzi recreation quest) crash is a different story.

[Letsbereal]

Foreclosures tie record high in fourth quarter - Mortgage delinquencies fall to lowest level since 2008
17 February 2011, by Amy Hoak (MarketWatch)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/foreclosures-tie-record-high-in-fourth-quarter-2011-02-17

Excerpt:

The percentage of mortgages in foreclosure tied a record high in the fourth quarter of 2010 even though mortgage delinquencies hit their lowest level since the end of 2008, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported on Thursday.

“As we had predicted last quarter, the percent of loans in the foreclosure process increased in the fourth quarter, largely due to the foreclosure paperwork issues that were being addressed in September and October. These issues caused a temporary halt in foreclosure sales, particularly in states with judicial foreclosure regimes, such as New Jersey, Florida, and Illinois,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s vice president for single family research, in a news release.

“With fewer loans exiting the foreclosure process through sales, the foreclosure inventory rate naturally increased, even as fewer foreclosure starts meant that fewer loans entered the foreclosure process in the fourth quarter,” he said.

The percentage of mortgage loans somewhere in the foreclosure process was 4.63%, up from 4.39% in the third quarter and 4.58% in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to the MBA’s quarterly national delinquency survey. That ties for the highest percentage since 1972.

But a smaller share of mortgages entered the foreclosure process in the fourth quarter: 1.27% of mortgages entered the foreclosure process, down from 1.34% in the third quarter but still up from 1.2% a year ago.

----

States with the highest combined delinquency and foreclosure rates in the country are Florida, where more than 24% of mortgages are one payment or more past due or in the process of foreclosure and Nevada, where 22% of mortgages are past due or in foreclosure, Fratantoni said.

Nationally, 13.6% of mortgages are past due or in foreclosure, he said.

[Geolibertarian]

Foreclosures tie record high in fourth quarter

Or, as the let-everything-collapse Austrian School would euphemistically put it, "corrections" tie record high in fourth quarter. 

[Letsbereal]

Philadelphia Man Forecloses On Wells Fargo
17 February 2011, by Yepoka Yeebo (The Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/17/patrick-rodgers-forecloses-on-wells-fargo_n_824765.html

Excerpt:

A Philadelphia homeowner started foreclosure proceedings on a Wells Fargo mortgage office after winning a rather strange legal judgement against the bank.

After Patrick Rodgers got no reply to three letters asking why he was being forced to pay a home insurance premium for a $1 million house when he bought his 3-story Victorian home for $180,000, he decided to force his mortgage company to pay attention, ABC News reported.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Rodgers discovered the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, which requires mortgage companies to acknowledge written requests within 20 business days or face penalties. He took Wells Fargo to court, winning a default judgement because the bank didn't show up in court.

Passed in 1974 to protect borrowers, RESPA stipulates a standard complain letter that can be sent to lenders. (For more information on RESPA, check out the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's website here: http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/ramh/res/reslettr.cfm )

[Letsbereal]

Alpert Says Banks Will Embrace Foreclosure Delays: BLAW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRRn_sceKJM

[Letsbereal]

Fed Report Finds No Wrongful Foreclosures By Banks, Consumer Advocates Slam Methodology
11 March 2011, by Shahien Nasiripour (The Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/10/fed-reports-finds-no-wron_n_834010.html

Excerpt:

A months-long internal investigation into abusive mortgage practices by the Federal Reserve found no wrongful foreclosures, members of the Fed's Consumer Advisory Council said Thursday.

During a public meeting attended by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, consumer advocates on the panel criticized the central bank's examiners for narrowly defining what constitutes a "wrongful foreclosure." At least one member of the panel, comprised of consumer finance experts not employed by the Fed, voiced concerns that the public would not take the Fed's findings of improper practices seriously, since the wide-ranging review did not find a single homeowner who was wrongfully foreclosed upon.

Members of the panel were briefed on the report's findings on Wednesday by Fed staff during a closed-door meeting. It appears the results were not supposed to have been disclosed Thursday.

[Kilika]

Fed Report Finds No Wrongful Foreclosures By Banks, Consumer Advocates Slam Methodology
11 March 2011, by Shahien Nasiripour (The Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/10/fed-reports-finds-no-wron_n_834010.html

Excerpt:

A months-long internal investigation into abusive mortgage practices by the Federal Reserve found no wrongful foreclosures, members of the Fed's Consumer Advisory Council said Thursday.

During a public meeting attended by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, consumer advocates on the panel criticized the central bank's examiners for narrowly defining what constitutes a "wrongful foreclosure." At least one member of the panel, comprised of consumer finance experts not employed by the Fed, voiced concerns that the public would not take the Fed's findings of improper practices seriously, since the wide-ranging review did not find a single homeowner who was wrongfully foreclosed upon.

Members of the panel were briefed on the report's findings on Wednesday by Fed staff during a closed-door meeting. It appears the results were not supposed to have been disclosed Thursday.

This is HUGE. It's the first step to the fed letting the banks get away with this theft they have pulled on the public. There have been thousands of fraudulant foreclosures that SHOULD send people to jail, but it's obvious that they are trying to shove it under the rug.

It's a scam by the banking industry on a MASSIVE scale, almost as big as the income tax scam itself. If the public lets the feds get away with this, the country is done for. People might as well just handcuff themselves and wait on the front step of their house for the FEMA vans to show up.

[Letsbereal]

‘Dozen’ States Don’t Back Foreclosure Proposal, Virginia’s Cuccinelli Says
12 March 2011, by David McLaughlin (Bloomberg)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-11/-dozen-states-don-t-back-foreclosure-proposal-virginia-s-cuccinelli-says.html

Excerpt:

Virginia’s attorney general said his state is among “at least a dozen” that don’t back a proposal to resolve a nationwide probe of foreclosure and mortgage-servicing practices.

There isn’t consensus among all 50 state attorneys general about the terms of the settlement proposed to U.S. banks, Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, a Republican, said yesterday in a phone interview.

He declined to name which states, aside from his own, oppose parts of the plan.

“When some attorneys general found out what was being agreed to, they had a great degree of unease over it,” Cuccinelli said.

Oklahoma also opposes the proposed federal-state settlement in its current form, Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a Republican, said in a phone interview.

Like Cuccinelli, Pruitt said he opposes requiring loan principal reductions, a move he said would force servicers to violate their contractual obligations to mortgage investors.

“I’m concerned that what started out as an effort to correct specific practices harmful to consumers has morphed into an attempt to fundamentally restructure the mortgage loan industry in the United States,” he said.


Settlement Proposal

Federal agencies and state attorneys general on March 3 delivered a 27-page settlement proposal to the country’s top mortgage-servicing companies that would set standards for how they conduct foreclosures and service loans.

Those banks include Bank of America Corp. (BAC), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC)

The terms would force procedural changes on the servicers, including banning companies from initiating foreclosure proceedings while a loan modification is pending, providing borrowers with a single point of contact, and informing borrowers of denied modifications in writing.

Borrowers who are enrolled in a trial loan modification under a federal program and make three loan payments on time would get a permanent loan modification under the proposal.

The document would give attorneys general and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau responsibility to police servicers’ compliance with any settlement.

Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, declined to comment about the criticism from Virginia and Oklahoma.

Miller, a Democrat, has taken a lead role in the investigation and settlement proposal, which will be used in further negotiations with the banks.


‘Major Problem’

The terms would impose documentation requirements on banks that go beyond Virginia law, Cuccinelli said.

A “major problem” is that government-owned mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t involved in the negotiations, he said.

“They’re going to be a factor here, and to not include them is just not acceptable to me,” he said.

[Letsbereal]

Banks near deal over mortgage bonds: WSJ
15 April 2011, Washington (MarketWatch)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/banks-near-deal-over-mortgage-bonds-wsj-2011-04-15

U.S. securities regulators are in talks with several Wall Street banks to settle fraud allegations stemming from mortgage-bond deals during the 2008 financial crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The settlements could come next week but will be a series of individual agreements rather than a big industrywide deal, the report said.

Few, if any, will involve a fine greater than the $550 million Goldman Sachs paid to settle allegations it misled investors in the Abacus collateralized debt obligation, the newspaper said.

Deals involving J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, the Merrill Lynch unit of Bank of America and UBS are under investigation.


The Cost Of Attorney General Silence: How Bank Of America Made Sure There Would Be No Surprises In The Robosigning Settlement
23 April 2011, by Tyler Durden ( Zero Hedge)
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/cost-attorney-general-silence-how-bank-america-made-sure-there-would-be-no-surprises-robosig

[Letsbereal]

Foreclosure Probe Talks Said to Yield Some Agreement Between States, Banks
18 April 2011, by David McLaughlin (Bloomberg)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-18/foreclosure-probe-talks-said-to-yield-some-agreement-between-states-banks.html

[Letsbereal]

Banks said to offer $5 bln to end mortgage suits
11 May 2011, by Ronald D. Orol - Washington (MarketWatch)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/banks-said-to-offer-5-bln-to-end-mortgage-suits-2011-05-11-104390

Faced with mortgage documentation problems and other criticism, a group of the biggest U.S. banks are proposing paying $5 billion to settle an investigation of foreclosure practices conducted by federal and state authorities, according to reports.

Bank of America Corp. BAC, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. JPM and three additional U.S. mortgage companies with servicing units made the proposal during settlement talks in Washington this week, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the situation, reported that a rift is forming between Democratic and Republican state attorney generals in settlement talks with big banks.

Eight Republican attorneys general have objected to cutting mortgage loan principals for some troubled borrowers, Bloomberg reported.

That approach is opposed by a number of state attorneys, lead by Iowa Attorney-General Tom Miller, who are seeking to have mortgage servicers cut the amounts owed by some borrowers facing foreclosure in some circumstances.

According to Bloomberg, the participating banks insist that loan principal cuts would encourage homeowners to default, something some states participating in the talks dispute.

Some states are also seeking to have second liens modified at least in the same ratio as the first, but banks are opposed to any changes.

----

Attorneys general and the banks are also battling over other measures sought by the states, including a provision seeking to give borrowers the right to appeal a denial of loan modifications.

In addition to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America, Citigroup Inc. C, Wells Fargo & Co. WFC and Ally Financial Inc. are also participating in settlement talks with the attorneys general.

Already, 14 banks have been sanctioned for their mortgage practices by federal regulators, but they haven’t as yet had to pay any penalties.

[Kilika]

No way no how should there be any kind of group "settlement". They must be forced to resolve each mortgage, case by case. They want a settlement, because they know doing that would make many loans that should be null and void if challenged individually due to fraud, now legal and clean paper.

And of course they don't want to give on the principle, but that principle is a severely inflated number that actually needs to be reduced to current market value at the time of the new mortgage. The bank gets what it gets as penalty for being a part of the fraud in the first place.

[Letsbereal]

Confidential Federal Audits Accuse Five Biggest Mortgage Firms Of Defrauding Taxpayers [EXCLUSIVE]
16 May 2011, by Shahien Nasiripour (The Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/16/foreclosure-fraud-audit-false-claims-act_n_862686.html

[Letsbereal]

From Bad To Worse For Bank Of Countrywide Lynch: Utah AG Says BofA's State Foreclosures Are Illegal, As Elijah Cummings Demands BofA Subpoena
25 May 2011, by Tyler Durden (Zero Hedge)
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bad-worse-bank-countrywide-lynch-utah-ag-says-bofas-state-foreclosures-are-illegal-elijah-cu

Excerpt:

With each passing day things are getting closer to spiralling out of control for America's largest lender.

The latest news, just out from Bloomberg, indicating that the bank may be advised to urgently increase its litigation and putback reserve, is that Utah's AG Mark Shurtleff advised Brian Moynhian that the bank's foreclosures in Utah are illegal.

A Bank of America Corp. unit conducting home foreclosures in Utah is violating the law, the attorney general said in a letter as individual states advanced their investigations of mortgage servicing.

"All real estate foreclosures conducted by ReconTrust in the state of Utah are not in compliance with Utah’s statutes, and are hence illegal,” Shurtleff wrote."

Oops. There goes another several billion in litigation fees because that beeping noise is thousands of foreclosed upon mortgageholders calling the first attorney they can find in the yellow pages in hopes (soon to be fulfilled) of unwinding completed foreclosures.

This action joins comparable pushes from Connecticut, Illinois and California, and pretty soon BofA will be unable to foreclose upon any home in the domestic US.

We estimate that the legal cost associated with foreclosure delays will cost the bank well over a billion when all is said and done.

And just to make life truly miserable for BofA, Elijah Cumming sent a letter to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform advising he is considering a broad subpoena to all mortgage servicers, chief among them, you guessed it: Bank of America.

[Letsbereal]

KABOOM | NY Appellate Division | Bank of NY v Silverberg - MERS Does NOT Have The Right to Foreclose on a Mortgage in Default or Assign That Right to Anyone Else
13 June 2011, by 4closureFraud (Zero Hedge)
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/kaboom-ny-appellate-division-bank-ny-v-silverberg-mers-does-not-have-right-foreclose-mortgag


NY: Queens man returns to home after judge overrules bank’s foreclosure
12 June 2011, by Neil Garfield (Garfield Continuum)
http://livinglies.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/ny-queens-man-returns-to-home-after-judge-overrules-bank%E2%80%99s-foreclosure/

[Kilika]

I hope things don't get ugly or violent over this, but I am glad to see some justice finally coming about in this scam of the ages. The bankers are finally caught red-handed stealing from the public AND defrauding the government, and quite frankly, somebody should answer for that.

Every person who has a mortgage in trouble needs to get on the phone with a lawyer that is versed in this mess, immediately.

The bankers have been exposed as frauds, and now is the time to call their bluff. This does't extend to just troubled homes either. ANY home that is financed should be looked into. Their actions shows justifiable reason for questioning ALL mortgages.

[Letsbereal]

Mortgage fraud reports climb 31% in first quarter
28 June 2011, by Steve Goldstein - Washington (MarketWatch)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mortgage-fraud-reports-climb-31-in-first-quarter-2011-06-28

The number of mortgage loan fraud reports climbed 31% as large mortgage lenders conducted additional reviews after receiving demands to repurchase poorly performing mortgage loans, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said Tuesday.

"A substantial majority of reports involved activities which occurred in 2006-2007, an indication that the industry is slowly making its way through the most problematic mortgages," said FinCEN Director James H. Freis, Jr. in a statement.

The analysis also found that California dominated the top mortgage fraud rankings, FinCEN said.

Miami dropped to the sixth most reported area after five years in the top two ranks, the agency added.

[Letsbereal]

Countrywide Wages Tranche Warfare on Investors
8 July 2011, by Edvard Pettersson (Bloomberg)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-08/countrywide-wages-victorious-tranche-warfare-against-mortgage-debt-holders.html

Excerpt:

Investors who sued over $351 billion in downgraded Countrywide Financial Corp. mortgage-backed securities after the 2007 subprime market collapse may have to settle for less than 1% of what they initially sought.

U.S. District Senior Judge Mariana Pfaelzer in Los Angeles, who narrowed the case to $2.6 billion in bonds and dropped Countrywide parent Bank of America Corp. (BAC) as a defendant, has gone further than other judges in scaling back such claims. Her rulings in April and May show the difficulty of trying to hold banks liable for billions of dollars in debt downgraded to junk.

“The recent court rulings provide encouragement for Countrywide and Bank of America and could indicate that the courts would limit or reduce the number of claims in these cases or perhaps dismiss them in their entirety,” said Patrick McManemin, a lawyer with Patton Boggs LLP in Dallas who has worked on both sides of mortgage-securities cases and isn’t involved in the Los Angeles litigation.

Countrywide, based in Calabasas, California, was once the biggest U.S. residential home lender, originating or purchasing about $1.4 trillion in mortgages from 2005 to 2007. The bulk of them were sold to investors as mortgage-backed securities. Bank of America acquired Countrywide in 2008.

The Los Angeles lawsuit, filed last year and led by the Iowa Public Retirement System, was, at $351 billion, the largest in terms of securities at stake among dozens of cases brought against lenders and underwriters. A hearing on Countrywide’s next bid to have the claims dismissed is scheduled for Sept. 12.

[Letsbereal]

Foreclosure fraud investigators forced out at attorney general's office
12 July 2011, by Kimberly Miller (The Palm Beach Post)
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/foreclosures/foreclosure-fraud-investigators-forced-out-at-attorney-generals-1603854.html?viewAsSinglePage=true

Excerpt:

A lead foreclosure fraud investigator for the state said she and a colleague were forced to resign from the Florida attorney general's office, unexpectedly ending their nearly yearlong pursuit to hold law firms and banks accountable.

Former Assistant Attorney General Theresa Edwards and colleague June Clarkson had been investigating the state's so-called "foreclosure mills," uncovering evidence of legal malpractice that also implicated banks and loan serv­icers.

Despite positive performance evaluations, Edwards said the two were told during a meeting with their supervisor in late May to give up their jobs voluntarily or be let go. Edwards said no reason was given for the move.

"It all happened very abruptly," said Edwards, who had worked in the attorney general's office for about three years.

The foreclosure investigations were launched under former Attorney General Bill McCollum, but Edwards said she sensed changes were coming under Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

"I think they wanted to put people in there that were more in line with their thinking," Edwards said.

[Kilika]

Looks like the bankers are issuing their marching orders, or rather threats to those in charge.

The government has officially sold out to the bankers, as evidenced by the constant blocking of fair investigations into the fraud committed by banks, and the blanket deal Washington is trying to give the banks in a big settlement that actually should be addressed each forclosure one at a time.

But they don't want that because that would reveal just how corrupt and how much fraud the bankers have committed against the govenhment and the public. They know good and well many of the foreclosures are illegal and a fraud, so that 's why they are doing everyting they can to dump the notes as fast as possible so they don't get caught holding illegal paper they have no legal claim to. Wipe it off the books, and the fraud goes away apparently! Clearly the fix is in.

[Jacob Law]

Looks like the bankers are issuing their marching orders, or rather threats to those in charge.

The government has officially sold out to the bankers, as evidenced by the constant blocking of fair investigations into the fraud committed by banks, and the blanket deal Washington is trying to give the banks in a big settlement that actually should be addressed each forclosure one at a time.

But they don't want that because that would reveal just how corrupt and how much fraud the bankers have committed against the govenhment and the public. They know good and well many of the foreclosures are illegal and a fraud, so that 's why they are doing everyting they can to dump the notes as fast as possible so they don't get caught holding illegal paper they have no legal claim to. Wipe it off the books, and the fraud goes away apparently! Clearly the fix is in.

Nice analysis

[Letsbereal]

Foreclosures jump 4% in June: RealtyTrac - But foreclosure activity is down 29% compared with June 2010: RealtyTrac
14 July 2011, by Amy Hoak - Chicago (MarketWatch)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/foreclosure-activity-up-4-in-june-realtytrac-2011-07-14

Foreclosure activity was down 29% in June compared with a year ago — the ninth month in a row that activity was down compared with data from a year before, RealtyTrac reported Thursday.