Matt Weidner – Fighting For The American People

Posts Tagged ‘fight foreclosure’

So there’s a little ole group of 50 Attorney Generals with fancy offices all across this country.  Now in the olden days, the AG’s were the advocates For The People. After they get elected, by The People, they were handed a badge, given a big swift horse and a gun then they were given free reign to go take down bad guys and girls and even put one or two in jail.

But then came campaign finance, abject corruption and a political system that is owned and operated not by The People, but by The Corporations which are run primarily by the very bad guys and girls that the AG’s were supposed to be investigating.  So now there ain’t so much investigating and very little imprisonating….it’s more like, well, it’s kinda like Matt Taibbi describes how things go over at the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is to say the foxes just own the henhouse….(they in fact turned the henhouse into a condo complex, then sold off the debt, then securitized the debt while at the same time trading derivatives and credit default swaps on the back end, but that’s a whole other story.)

Anywhoo, well the banksters are all pushing for a sweetheart deal that will allow them to moonwalk away for all their mortgage and fraudclosure-related crimes, and while many of the AGs seem content to ink some kind of sweetheart deal with their bankster benefactors (some even yammering on about how any help for consumers will result in some kind of apocalyptic moral hazard) one or two AGs from across the country seem to think that, well, I don’t know…that maybe that ain’t quite right and that maybe they should be holding out for a real deal for consumers….but such heresy cannot be tolerated in this country.

We cannot possibly enforce any penalty against the ruling criminal oligarchy in this country…after all, Wall Street is our Main Street, Right?  Well when New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman started speaking out, his reward is getting kicked out of the AG’s club…..

So sticking up for the Rule of Law is dangerous even for the top law enforcement officer in one of this country’s most important states.  Kinda scary, huh?  But read the Bloomberg report below:

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was removed from a state group working on a nationwide foreclosure settlement with U.S. banks because his office “actively worked to undermine” its efforts, the Iowa official leading the talks for the states said.

Schneiderman, who doesn’t want a settlement to block state investigations, was removed from the executive committee of state officials working on the deal, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said today in a statement.

“New York has actively worked to undermine the very same multistate group that it had spent the previous nine months working very closely with,” Miller said. For a member of the executive committee, that “simply doesn’t make sense, is unprecedented and is unacceptable,” Miller said.  (Same Miller that is taking bajillions in campaign contributions from the banksters.) Full Story Here

Bloomberg

The report attached below is a very well-researched and well-documented blueprint that details many of the current problems and practices we see all across the country in foreclosure proceedings.

While the report was submitted to the New Jersey Supreme Court, judges, attorneys, reporters around the world should be reading the report carefully and understanding that these issues are not particular to one state…this is an epidemic in the industry.

I hope that in 2011 we will all start focusing on the practices and procedures of this industry and consider the impact on our entire court system and country….

LSNJReport

JEDTI= Jurists Engaged in Defense of Title Integrity

The first JEDTI group was formed by Clearwater, Florida attorney and title insurance expert Greg Clark. It’s a cohesive group of att0rney members with vast and varied legal backgrounds and areas of expertise, including appellate law, trial work, corporate and business transactional and litigation experience.  The members are committed to defending judges and our courts and to sounding the alarm that today’s sloppy and improper foreclosure practices are going to have catastrophic consequences on property ownership in this country for decades to come.  JEDTI presents both a warning and a solution.

During the last quarter of 2010, the rest of the world woke up to the dark storm clouds that cover our country, dark foreboding storm clouds full of rain and lighting that are soaking through and destroying the record title ownership system that is one of the foundations of this country.  The existing mess will take years to clear up, but we can prevent the situation from getting worse by not moving forward on cases where real questions exist.

As we all dust off the dirt, the slop, the filth that was 2010, it’s time to clear the decks, flush out the toxic slop that clogs our courts and start fresh.  We cannot continue the practice of foreclosure business as usual in 2011.  We cannot continue the reckless race to summary judgment that caused so much uproar during the last half of 2010.  Instead, it’s time for our courts to find legitimate, fair and rule-based reasons to dismiss many of the cases that clog the backlogged foreclosure docket.  Failure to Prosecute, Failure to Serve Defendants, Failure to Verify, Failure to State a Cause of Action, Improper Plaintiff.  All of these offer legitimate and appropriate reasons to dismiss the cases that are filed (and many forgotten) but which continue to choke our court systems.

Rather than ignore or dismiss Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss, our courts must respond to the arguments and recognize that granting motions to dismiss is an appropriate way to mete out judicial efficiency and be responsive to taxpayer demands that our courts do equity and manage taxpayer resources.  The fact of the matter is that our courts and every single taxpayer in this state are subsidizing the improper practices of the foreclosure mills.  The foreclosure mills made business decisions to cut corners and turn profits.  They make millions while our courts struggle to keep up with their toxic deluge.

There are jurists across this state who are engaged in the battle not just the defense of title integrity but also the defense of our judges and court system in general.  There are judges and private practice attorneys and attorneys that work with law enforcement and regulatory agencies who are battling every day to set all of this right and turn this around.  We can never be certain what this new year will bring, but we all know the current state of affairs cannot continue.

We’ve all got to work together to usher in a new era of solutions to this problem that continues to grip our country.  We need to show the general public the critical function that attorneys serve in the midst of this crisis by continuing the tireless service to  our clients, our courts and our country.  Let’s hope 2011 ushers in a new era and that real resolution can be reached.

Jesus and the Cleansing of The Temple- And Why We Need A Cleansing Today

My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.—Isaiah 56:7 , But you have made it a den of thieves—Jeremiah 7:11

On of the first and most important events in the New Testament, and in the new movement called Christianity was the so-called cleansing of the temple.  Remember that Jesus was a Jew and that Christianity is essentially a Jewish reformation movement.  One of Jesus’ principle disputes was that the Jewish leadership was abusing her people.  Nowhere was this more evident than in the temple where the money changers were chiseling the illiterate followers then selling them products they couldn’t afford and that they should not have been led to purchase.  It is important to note that as much as Christianity was a religious movement, it was also an economic and social movement.  It is also terribly interesting to note that the events described in four gospels are the only time when Christ shows real anger. Of all the persecutions and wars and conflict described in the Bible, it was the abuses of the money changers in the temple that sent Christ over the edge and propelled him into fits of anger.  Click on this link Cleansing of The Temple for a detailed explanation of the first cleansing.  Like the real event as described in the Bible, what you’re witnessing today playing out in our foreclosure courtrooms and in the streets is the beginning of a revolution…a radical challenge to the existing societal, political and economic norms….I believe what is coming is a modern day Cleansing of The Temple.

2010 Wall Street’s 4th Most Profitable Year!

Now let’s look at what’s happening in this country today.  I am just seething with rage and anger at the dramatic divide between Main Street and Wall Street.   I am angered enough by the suffering I see on Main Street.  I am also angered by the absurdly irrational, dark and sinister forces I see playing out every day while the banks and institutions toy with and taunt the American people.  But what has just pushed me absolutely over the edge and what propels me into fits of anger is knowing just how obscene the profits on Wall Street have been in the midst of this crisis and knowing these profits are paid for by the very people–the taxpayers–that are suffering such misery in order to make these obscene profits possible.  Take a look here , here and here for some insight on Wall Street’s record profits, but don’t just read the articles, do your own research and consider the gross inequities that they represent.  Now back to the Temple analogy.  It is true that most of the people who are in foreclosure are behind in their mortgages and let’s ignore for a moment the legal issues about standing and ownership.  The fact of the matter is that most of these people had no business closing these loans in the first place.  Like the Jewish followers who were poor and had no business buying anything to sacrifice, much less the doves that were sold in the Temple, today’s Defendants were largely poor and financially illiterate and they had no business buying these loans that are now being foreclosed on….but no one is talking about that.  If Ford were selling millions of cars that it knew, and that our leadership knew, were destined to blow up, there would be outrage.  And that is exactly what happened with millions of loans….they absolutely knew that these poor illiterate people could not repay these loans….but they closed them anyway…..just so our business elders could continue to profit.

Boiling Anger and Resentment In The Streets

I keep my eyes and ears focused squarely only the American people and what I see scares me very much.  People are seething with anger and resentment. They don’t like the emerging stories of fraud and waste and corruption.  They’re mad at elected officials at all levels, they despise the bankers and the global cabals that have siphoned away the American dream.  Take the time to read the comments that are posted on the major newspaper stories on Wall Street or foreclosure or banks.  These comments are your jury pool and they tell a chilling tale.  There are still a decent percentage of  “screw the deadbeat homeowner” comments, but read the anger in those comments and sense the mis-direction.  Just wait until they find out that they too are being suckered…just wait until they figure out that the deadbeats were right and that we’ve all been taken…then they’re going to be burning too.  And what about all the people who’ve suffered the hard way when a bank or foreclosure mill cut corners and didn’t play by the rules when they used the court to throw them out of their home.  Most people can take losing a fair fight when both sides played by the rules but when one side ignores the rules again and again and again…that’s a recipe for real trouble.  I’m not stirring up this trouble, I’m just one small voice who is reporting on what is occurring on the street.  There is real justification for the anger that is boiling…and I’m certain we’re going to find far many more things to be angry about as the full specter of this collasal crisis is reported.

My Beloved Courts

My real fear and greatest concern is the impact all of this is having upon our entire judicial system.  Again, I urge you to read the comments that are posted under any foreclosure story.  Our entire system of government depends on the electorate having respect for our system of laws and our courts and they are losing respect for both the more they see first hand and hear about what’s happening in their courtrooms.  The stories are only now starting to be told and the public does not at all like what they are hearing….and my very real fear is that the stories that are going to continue to roll out are only going to get much, much worse.  If that happens, the simmering crisis of confidence that is bubbling will boil over.  I have developed a basic proposition that is beyond doubt or question anymore.  The same shoddy documentation and shady business practices that caused the collapse of the mortgage and real estate markets have been allowed to infect our courtrooms.  Not all the files are bad, but we’re way beyond talking about individual files…entire processes and procedures are now rightly under question and scrutiny.  The responses from our leadership are absolutely off base and they miss the larger point.  Yes people borrowed, and no they are not paying, but we cannot just throw them into the streets without examining how we all got here what is continuing to occur.  First, there are just too many people to throw into the streets, but what is far more damming are the billions of dollars that are sloshing around behind the scenes and the repetitively egregious conduct of the evil banks on the other side.  Until we all stop and take a hard look at those factors, we should not send one more family into the street.  And for all you who wonder why the homeowner is entitled to a modification…..because he’s already paid for it.  His kids have paid for it.  His grandchildren have paid for it.  If it were possible to calculate all the billions paid to the money changers and divide that figure by all the foreclosures, then we could arrive at the real number that loans should be reduced to….after all…the money changers are reporting obscene profits….profits that come on the backs of the people they’re trying to throw in to the street…..

We all need to be asking ourselves just how these thieves were permitted to set up shop in our temples of justice, equality, freedom and integrity.  Then we must determine what is required to turn the tables and cleanse our temples.

(Many thanks to Nye Lavalle for sharing this thought.  Click on the link and especially this link which will take you to a report he wrote long ago on the abuses of the mortgage industries.  Nye has been sounding the alarms for a lot longer than most anyone else…what if someone had listened way back when?)

Look back at how long I’ve been screaming about “Capacity“.  CAPACITY, CAPACITY, CAPACITY.  No one has any idea who many of the entities are that brought suits to foreclose over the last several years, especially when they were plaintiffs of the alphabet soup variation, “the XSIS 2206- Alt Trust”.  What is that?  Where is that? Who is that?  Those are all questions judges should have been asking for years…especially before they granted that alphabet soup zombie trust the right to throw their neighbor out into the street.  Instead, the oft repeated judicial phrase was, “You haven’t paid your mortgage so I’m granting Summary Judgment.”  Far worse in my mind than a homeowner not paying a $1,000/month mortgage is a judge granting a $200,000 judgment to a zombie alphabet soup plaintiff.  Who owns those homes that you granted foreclosure to now your honor?  Who was that judgment assigned to after the fact?  Who or what took title to that property?  Why did no one care to think about all of this?

We screamed CAPACITY!  We screamed STANDING!  We screamed FRAUD!

Like Alice in Wonderland or the Twilight Zone, some judges claimed they couldn’t see anything.  Now it turns out that in many cases not only did they not have CAPACITY, not only did they not have STANDING, not only were the committing FRAUD.  They also had NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH.

The minions of this profound evil will turn this around on the judges that I hold such profound respect for.  They will shrug their shoulders and say, “We were just the proponents of our client’s case, it was the judge’s job to review the files and make sure we were not committing fraud.”  What about that retired couple that got thrown out into the street two years ago but their home still stands vacant?  What about that latino couple with a poor grasp of the language and our legal system, the husband defeated and destroyed because he could not keep the home he had bought for his family?  The single mom that did her best but just couldn’t keep her head above water?

All of them defeated by zombie trusts and a legal system too concerned with doing the bidding of the banks and institutions that were bailed out with our money.  The question is not how bad all this is or how deep it will go.  That sinking, sickening pit in all of our stomachs answers those questions. The real question is how will we work to make it right to all those people that were wronged?

We must all start with the perspective that our economy, our neighborhoods, our homeowner’s and condo associations are far better off with homeowners in those homes.  We must understand there is a powerful American ethic that homeowners want to pay a mortgage, they want to be bought into the system.  I’ve done hundreds of homeowner refinances and purchases.  When a homeowner signs those documents, there is fear, but there is pride.  Pride that I have a mortgage.  A sense of purpose that now I’m going to work and pay this mortgage for this home I own.  That was all tossed out the window in this brief flicker of time that was the securitization frenzy.

It’s now time to provide homeowners with a track to stay in their homes and support their communities.  We put our realtors, our appraisers, our contractors, our people back to work in our communities.  We collect mortgage payments from homeowners who are in these homes then we wait for the Wall Street Fat Cats to come on down and prove up their claim to the money and the mortgages that our elected circuit court judges are supervising.  The process is self-funding.  The infastructure and administrative capacity are already in place through the existing mediation programs that are up and running in circuits across the state.  The funding is in place once our courts turn away from the unfairness of the $9.6 million rocket dockets and focus on Stability for Florida Families.  The program is detailed below:

Florida Statute 69.021.

Across this state, our judges–both elected and retired, who are now presiding over foreclosure cases are dealing with enormous pressure to clear the dockets.  They’re receiving it from our own Supreme Court and especially from the legislature that holds the court’s purse strings.

This pressure, especially from the legislative branch is an unprecedented and improper intrusion onto our judicial branch and the long term implications of this pressure are very disturbing.  Having said that, there is a real problem in our courts caused by these foreclosure cases that are stalled, forgotten, stagnant.

What is missing from most of this debate over clogged up and bogged down courtrooms is the fact that the clog and bog is caused not because our judges or their staff are not doing their job or because pro se defendants or defense attorneys are delaying the process.

I BELIEVE THE GREATEST SOURCE OF DELAY IN THESE CASES IS THE FORECLOSURE MILLS AND LENDERS EITHER AFFIRMATIVELY DECIDING NOT TO PURSUE THE CASES EITHER BECAUSE THE LACK THE EVIDENCE OR AUTHORITY TO PURSUE THE CASES OR BECAUSE THE ALLEGED PLAINTIFF DOES NOT WANT TO PROCEED WITH THE CASES.

Many of our judges are intently focused on trying to fulfill the mandates to clear the docket by granting summary judgment, what we need to be doing, and what we need to encourage our judges to consider that the other alternative to clearing the foreclosure docket is to dismiss those cases that do not meet the requirements to proceed for any number of reasons, because they do not meet the basic evidentiary or pleading burdens, because the cases have languished, because the documents or evidence submitted are facially questionable or for any number or other legitimate reasons to dismiss these cases.

A key factor to consider in all this discussion is the fact that literally millions of dollars in taxpayer revenue is being spent by judges, judicial assistance, clerk of court staff checking and double checking the files and work of the foreclosure mills.  The work of these mills and “attorneys” has proven time and time again to be substandard, illegitimate, sloppy and frankly not worthy of consideration by our courts.

AS A TAXPAYER AND A STRONG PROPONENT OF OUR COURTS AND JUDGES, I RESENT THAT MY TAXPAYER DOLLARS IS BEING USED TO DOUBLE AND TRIPLE CHECK THE WORK OF MILLIONAIRE FORECLOSURE MILLS- IF I WERE A JUDGE A FIRM WOULD GET ABOUT SIX TRIES TO GET THEIR WORK CORRECT AND ACCURATE, THEN IF THEY COULDN’T DO IT CORRECTLY, THE FILES WOULD BE DISMISSED.

The firms of course would be free to re-file, paying the new filing fee which would properly fund the work that goes into processing a file.  Now doing this once or twice for each firm would certainly encourage accuracy, timeliness and respect for all the good work the judiciary does.

Importantly, these millionaire foreclosure mills and the lying lenders that have created such chaos in our courtrooms will be forced to bear some small fraction of the costs they have burdened our judges and courtrooms with.

Another key fact that supports this important new strategy is that refiling these cases will force the millionaire foreclosure mills to get their documents correct and will give our judges the time they need to review the cases properly!

For all these other cases, let’s do our part to move the cases along and move for dismissals…..see examples of how I’m doing this below and keep up the good fight!

Ltr to Judge Williams; D’s Motion to Effectuate Dismissal; Agreed Order; Order of Dismissal; Final Disposition

orderdismissal