Matt Weidner – Fighting For The American People

Posts Tagged ‘lawyers for homeowner rights’

LINK HERE

From Abigail Field:

A shocking aspect of the proposed foreclosure fraud settlement among Bailed-Out Banks, the state attorneys general, and the Feds has rightly gotten a lot of attention, namely the Bailed-Out Banks’ ability to use other people’s money to pay their “penalty.” I confess, when I first heard about it, I figured it was a testament to the federal government’s craven capitulation to the Bailed Out Banks. (Let’s call them the B.O.B.s, rhymes with S.O.Bs.) But now I know it’s much worse than that, thanks to excellent reporting by David Dayen. The federal government really wants the B.O.Bs to use pension fund money to pay their “penalty.”

Now, readers know I’m not exactly a Pollyanna, but I feel like one now. See, I thought our federal government understood that the right way to penalize someone with a fine was to actually make them pay the bill. I thought the feds realized the best way to punish the banks was to have them cough up cash into a BP spill-type fund, and have 50 special masters (one per state) use it to pay down mortgages, thereby punishing banks and helping homeowners. I just figured the Feds had rushed things so much, doing essentially no investigation, that they didn’t have the goods to leverage a better deal. But no. The Feds see the banks’ ability to spend firefighters’, teachers’ and cops’ money as a design feature, not a flaw.

ABIGALE FIELD

It looks like the Florida House of Representatives will move on Wednesday, February 8 to hear the Florida (un)Fair Foreclosure Act.

The bill number currently under consideration is Committee Substitute for House Bill 213.  Please take the time to read the bill in full here.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE CLICK HERE AND CALL THESE LEGISLATORS

It is expecially important to call the chairperson Dorothy Hukill and make sure she knows this is a bad, bad bill:

Capitol Office
204 House Office Building
402 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1300
Phone: (850) 488-6653

But make sure you hit all the legislators on the committee.  They need to know that this bill it toxic and will be very, very controversial. It is still being amended and more bad news is being thrown into this every day.  The bottom line is it is a reward to the banksters that caused all this mess, paid for by the little guy.

Among the most disturbing aspects is that it would turn some foreclosures into “show cause” proceedings that could deprive a homeowner of the right to raise defenses and could result in a sale in as little as 90 days!

The bill would require some Defendants to make payments to the pretender lender as a condition of having their voice heard in court.

The bill would apply to all foreclosures currently pending

DO IT CALL THE MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE BEFORE WEDNESDAY

Attorneys General from all across the country have been under intense pressure by the Obama Administration to accept the terms of the Very Bad Bank Bailout by tomorrow, February 6, 2012.

Word on the street is that there was a conference call scheduled this weekend between all of them to hammer out the details, twist arms, make promises, blackmail and extort.

It is also confirmed that the Obama Administration’s key man i the deal Shawn Donovan, aka Napolean Dynamite had a conference call with activist groups where he explained that the money to pay for the bank bailout bill would come not from the banks but from the investors in the mortgages, which means the 401ks, retirement and investment accounts of little folks like me and you.

HUH? Come again?

Wait just a cotton pickin’ minute here. How can ReTHUGliCON attorney generals like Florida’s Pam Bondi be screaming at other attorney generals like California’s Kamela Harris a Democrat to take a deal that amounts to nothing more than a federal taking of private property with no compensation?

Huh?  Come again?

I checked my “Being a Republican For Dummies” book and being opposed to things like that were covered in the first chapter.  Well, go ahead and read along here folks, cause this is really, really ugly….

In case you had any doubts about what the mortgage settlement was really about and why banks that were so keenly opposed to it are now willing to go ahead, the news of the last two days should settle any doubts.

As we had indicated earlier, one of the many leaks about the settlement showed that there had been a major shift its parameters. Of the $25 billion that has been bandied about as a settlement total for the biggest banks, comparatively little (less than $5 billion) is in cash. The rest comes in the form of credits for principal modifications of mortgages.

Originally, that was originally to come only from mortgages held by banks, meaning they would bear the costs. The fact that this meant that whether a homeowner might benefit would be random (were you one of the lucky ones whose mortgage had not been securitized?) was apparently used as an excuse to morph the deal into a huge win for them: allowing the banks to get credit for modifying mortgages that they don’t own.

The first rule of finance (well, maybe second, “fees are not negotiable” might be number one) is always use other people’s money before your own. So giving the banks permission to modify loans they don’t own guarantees that that is where the overwhelming majority of mortgage modifications will take place, ex those the banks would have done anyhow on their own loans. And the design of the program, that securitized loans will be given only half the credit towards the total, versus 100% for loans the banks own, merely assures that even more damage will be done to investors to pay for the servicers’ misdeeds.

Let me stress: this is a huge bailout for the banks. The settlement amounts to a transfer from retirement accounts (pension funds, 401 (k)s) and insurers to the banks. And without this subsidy, the biggest banks would be in serious trouble

Why? As leading mortgage analyst Laurie Goodman pointed out in a late 2010 presentation, just over half of the private label (non Fannie/Freddie) securitizations have second liens behind them (overwhelmingly home equity lines of credit). Moreover, homes with first liens only have far lower delinquency rates than homes with both first and second liens. Separately, various studies have found that defaults are also correlated with how far underwater a borrower is. If a borrower is too far in negative equity territory, it makes less sense for them to struggle to stay current, no matter how much they love their home.

FROM NAKED CAPITALISM

robo and this is why….

If we are a nation where justice is blind, should we not investigate this possibility before we give the offending financialinstitutions another free pass?

The essence of an effective capitalist system is rules and accountability. For markets, and our larger economy to work, important players cannot be permitted to make up their own rules. In all likelihood, a settlement next week means these serious questions will never be answered.

This weekend, attorney generals from across the country are being blackmailed, extorted, pressured into signing onto off of the settlements with the banksters.

Keep in mind folks, that we’re not talking about teensy weensy violations of itty bitty parts of the law that don’t matter like jaywalking.  These are crime scenes….

But while they sit on their secret phone call hammering out the details on how Americans are gonna get hosed once again, let’s just review some of the details that are part of existing lawsuits:

(Now there’s a real gem down there at the bottom. Let’s see who can pick it out.)

The lawsuit specifically charges that the defendants have engaged in the following fraudulent and deceptive practices:

• MERS has filed over 13,000 foreclosure actions against New York homeowners listing itself as the plaintiff, but in many instances, MERS lacked the legal authority to foreclose and did not own or hold the promissory note, despite saying otherwise in court submissions.
• MERS certifying officers, including employees and agents of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, have repeatedly executed and submitted in court legal documents purporting to assign the mortgage and/or note to the foreclosing party. These documents contain numerous defects, including affirmative misrepresentations of fact, which render them false, deceptive, and/or invalid. These assignments were often automatically generated and “robosigned” by individuals who did not review the underlying property ownership records, confirm the documents’ accuracy, or even read the documents. These false and defective assignments often masked gaps in the chain of title and the foreclosing party’s inability to establish its authority to foreclose, and as a result have misled homeowners and the courts.
• MERS’ indiscriminate use of non-employee “certifying officers” to execute vital legal documents has confused, misled, and deceived homeowners and the courts and made it difficult to ascertain whether a party actually has the right to foreclose. MERS certifying officers have regularly executed and submitted in court mortgage assignments and other legal documents on behalf of MERS without disclosing that they are not MERS employees, but instead are employed by other entities, such as the mortgage servicer filing the case or its counsel. The signature line just indicates that the individual is an “Assistant Secretary,” “Vice President,” or other officer of MERS. Indeed, these documents often purport to assign the mortgage to the certifying officer’s own employer. Moreover, as a result of the defendants’ failure to track the designation of certifying officers and the scope of their authority to act, individuals have executed legal documents on behalf of MERS, such as mortgage assignments and loan modifications, when they were either not designated as a MERS certifying officer at the time or were not authorized to execute documents on behalf of MERS with respect to the subject loan.
• MERS and its members have deceived and misled borrowers about the importance and ramifications of MERS’ role with respect to their loan by providing inadequate disclosures.
• The MERS System is riddled with inaccuracies which make it difficult to verify the chain of title for a loan or the current note-holder, and creates confusion among stakeholders who rely on the information. In addition, as a result of these inaccuracies, MERS has filed mortgage satisfactions against the wrong property.

NY AG Lawsuit

This piece here is the GEM…..let’s see how many people pick up on how big this is.

And here’s the whole lawsuit

THE QUESTION NOW IS, HOW CAN ATTORNEY GENERALS SIGN ONTO DEALS WITH THE DEVILS?