Posted by kevin on August 30, 2011 under Foreclosure Blog | 
Lenders are licensed in New Jersey. That means that doing business- mortgage business- is not a right but a privilege. Yes, you can make money as a lender or mortgage broker. But you have an obligation to the public, an obligation to the State.
People, even it appears sometimes judges, forget this simple fact when they are confronted with with continuing mortgage crisis. They pay lip service to the idea that there is enough blame to go around; but when it is time to pony up, only the borrower is left to face the music.
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Posted by kevin on August 21, 2011 under Foreclosure Blog |
The second shoe fell on August 9 when the Appellate Division case of Deutsche Bank, as Trustee v. Mitchell was published. This involved a mortgage foreclosure rescue scam but the decision rested on standing issues. The appellate panel followed Ford and Raftogianis and found that DB did not have standing. DB filed the complaint on May 13, 2008 in which it asserted that it was the owner of the note and mortgage but it was not until May 14, 2008 that WAMU assigned the mortgage to DB. DB then filed an amended complaint which listed the assignment.
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Posted by kevin on under Foreclosure Blog |
Lenders in foreclosure actions had a bad couple of days (August 8 & 9) in NJ. On the 8th, an appellate panel came down with a published opinion in BONY, as Trustee v. Laks. This is a Fair Foreclosure Act case. We use the FFA as a procedural defense to dismiss cases without prejudice. It is important because it is a published opinion right out of the blocks and it involves a pro se plaintiff (someone who is not represented by a lawyer)
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Posted by kevin on August 13, 2011 under Foreclosure Blog |
Previously, we discussed the $8B settlement proposed by Bank of America to certain investors. The Walnut Group filed papers in Court to block the settlement. Well, add to the dissenters, the Attorney General of New York, Eric Schneiderman. This man appears to be a real carnivore. Not only has he jumped in on the BOA settlement (which may be sell out of investors by the trustee), but he has voiced his opinion that the global settlements proposed by the federal regulators are not strong enough.
What caught my eye was an article in the WSJ where Schneiderman said that he is investigating whether the vast majority of the private securitized trusts are valid. It has been our contention that many of the mortgage loans sold to securitized trusts from 2003-2007 never made it properly into the trust. The reason is that the paperwork did not follow the instructions set forth in the pooling and servicing agreements. The ramifications of a such a finding are huge. It means that the trustees do not have standing to sue and, more importantly, the trusts are not REMICS which means that trillions of dollars of taxes could be due State and federal governments. If that is the case, all I can do is echo the immortal words of the late Warren Zevon, ” send lawyers, guns and money, the s*it has hit the fan!”
We have been adding the “trust failure” arguments to our moving papers for the last six months. No traction yet with the Judges but we feel that this will be the ultimate battleground on the standing issue in NJ and around the country. Stay tuned.
Posted by kevin on August 3, 2011 under Foreclosure Blog |
The WSJ had an article yesterday about foreclosed homes in NYC with thousands of violations. It said that tenants are living in horrible conditions. The Pres of the NY Banker’s Association said that homes were actually owned by “lenders, not banks”
What up?
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Posted by kevin on August 1, 2011 under Foreclosure Blog |
Settlements have been all over the lot in the last 12 months. About a year ago, we were starting to see reduction in principal in cases that were open for long periods of time because they were aggressively fought. It reinforced our position that the best way to stop foreclosure was to fight foreclosure. Then, the AG’s and federal regulators started pushing principal reductions. Some of the “too big to fail” banks balked, and then we stopped seeing “reduce principal” offers.
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