Unsealed court-settlement documents reveal banks stole $trillions' worth of houses

[Coyotl]

Unsealed court-settlement documents reveal banks stole $trillions' worth of houses
Cory Doctorow at 8:46 am Mon, Aug 12, 2013 - http://boingboing.net/2013/08/12/unsealed-court-settlement-docu.html

Back in 2012, the major US banks settled a federal mortgage-fraud lawsuit for $95,000,000. The suit was filed by Lynn Szymoniak, a white-collar fraud specialist, whose own house had been fraudulently foreclosed-upon. When the feds settled with the banks, the evidence detailing the scope of their fraud was sealed, but as of last week, those docs are unsealed, and Szymoniak is shouting them from the hills. The banks precipitated the subprime crash by "securitizing" mortgages -- turning mortgages into bonds that could be sold to people looking for investment income -- and the securitization process involved transferring title for homes several times over. This title-transfer has a formal legal procedure, and in the absence of that procedure, no sale had taken place. See where this is going?

The banks screwed up the title transfers. A lot. They sold bonds backed by houses they didn't own. When it came time to foreclose on those homes, they realized that they didn't actually own them, and so they committed felony after felony, forging the necessary documentation. They stole houses, by the neighborhood-load, and got away with it. The $1B settlement sounded like a big deal, back when the evidence was sealed. Now that Szymoniak's gotten it into the public eye, it's clear that $1B was a tiny slap on the wrist: the banks stole trillions of dollars' worth of houses from you and people like you, paid less than one percent in fines, and got to keep the homes.

........

[Scuba]

1. Thank you President Obama! This is exactly why I made hundreds of calls on your behalf ...

... and voted for you twice! I sure like being fucked.

[Coyotl]

3. It is so easy to figure out whose fault it is these days.

[Scuba]

4. I'm pretty sure the DOJ reports to the President.

[truedelphi]

75. You know something? When people first started getting nervous about

How only the Biggest Financial Firms were getting any real help from this Administration, Obama went on the record, April 2009, to state that while campaigning, he focused mainly on the pressing matters of the two wars.

And that he was not at all an expert on the economy, and doesn't have any sort of economic grasp of the issuers.

So I fully expect that should it occur to him that the tide is turning against him, that he might come out and say he just didn't know that Justice reported to him!

[Ian David]

27. I dropped my bagel this morning. Thanks, Obama! n/t

[Pretzel_Warrior]

33. Your post is disgusting

Go do some yoga or something. You are seriously deranged.

[Scuba]

34. Deranged? Really? I'd call it more along the lines of "bitterly disappointed".

The Barack Obama who campaigned on progressive ideals was either a fraud, or has been co-opted.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

37. Maybe your problem is he doesn't ram things through illegally

The DOJ didn't have the ability to do everything you want and still stay within the law.

[Scuba]

39. That's not Elizabeth Warren says.

[TheMadMonk]

47. Oh BULLSHIT. The problem is the privileged operating entirely OUTSIDE...

...the law.

The problem is a near total failure to enforce EXISTING LAW.

The problem is the manner in which the DOJ has been regularly used to CIRCUMVENT THE LAW.

The problem is the DOJ not doing what it's fucking well supposed to do.

The problem IS NOT the DOJ's failure to fulfill a laundry list of progressive wishes.

The problem is the DOJ's failure to recognise the self evident fact that the first element on virtually all of those lists, shouldn't fucking have to be there at all. ONE LAW FOR ALL.

[Enthusiast]

94. They recognize it.

It was a well planned conspiracy. What part? All of it, starting with the 2,000 election, 911 - everything. There is no better explanation for a shit storm of this severity.

[nebenaube]

106. What? Oh, that's not pot... move along now... n/t

[Enthusiast]

111. Maybe if we had all been united in our outrage,

something would have been done about the overt criminality.

Instead the fraud continues. And millionaire miscreants flaunt their ill gotten wealth while many families are being foreclosed on.

[truedelphi]

76. One other possibility - he was and is aware all the time that all he is

Is the public face for the Big Corporations. An actor, paid not only by monetary agreements, but also with the prestige of getting to live in the WH, and to be the center of the political world.

I have seen him give a speech that is a full on rebuttal and exact opposite of a speech he gave six months earlier, and there is not a single facial expression that indicates that he realizes that he said the exact opposite just a short while earlier.

Very much the way a soap opera actor can be in love with someone for one TV season, and then due to a major plot and character change by the writers, out to get that woman the next season.

Anyway, whenever I try to sort this out - I get a headache. So I couldn't say whether I think he is a fraud, or co-opted, or merely a paid for actor reciting a script.

All this is making me nervous, because the last time a President was losing as much momentum was back in August of 2001, and we all know what happened to boost that guy's popularity on September 11th 2001.

[Enthusiast]

95. After the success of Saint Ronnie

they probably searched high and low for such an actor.

[Coyotl]

175. Talk about out of touch with the real world

Obama is enjoying very high Dem approval ratings and they continue to rise.

Take off the tin-foil for a minute and realize your view is conspiracy based.

[truedelphi]

177. You do know that Democratic voters are only

34 to 38 percent of the population, don't you?

The largest block of voters in the USA right now are the undeclared, Greens, Libertarians, Peace and Justice and others. They amount to 40% of the vote.

Should those voters get together on some major issues and put together a platform they all can vote for, it will be over for both of the Big One Money Party candidates.

And don't think people won't do this. For instance, my closest neighbor here, who could be described as an Aaron Russo, Ron Paul End The Fed style libertarian voted for Obama in 2008, as he believed that Obama would indeed regulate the Big Banks, as he was saying he would do while canvassing WI in ct 2008.

Anyway given the numbers that the Pew Research folks keep coming up with, I wouldn't venture that it is me who is out of touch...

[Coyotl]

179. Obama's approval rating with liberal dems is still over 80%

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023463537

[truedelphi]

181. 80% of 36% is how much of the overall voting

Population. You tell me.

[Coyotl]

182. Less approval was enough to get re-elected by a landslide.

Enough of the population. You tell me.

[snooper2]

53. This dude knows EXACTLY how you feel

[Egalitarian Thug]

59. When he came in with this "looking forward" bullshit it was clear that all of the crimes

would go unaddressed. ShrubCo and the banksters will never, ever pay for their past crimes and have been given license to continue robbing and killing however much and for however long they want to.

Just go back to sleep, and don't forget to go shopping, 'cause that's what real patriots do!

[liberal N proud]

151. Yep - I woke up this morning and the sun was coming up -must be Obama's fault

[Scuba]

153. Nope. But allowing Justice to settle for a small civil penalty is his call.

[Xyzse]

178. Can't fully blame him

However, I can see where you're coming from. I still feel like we didn't have a better choice. I actively worked against him in the Democratic primaries but as soon as he won the candidacy, he's still the only logical choice with Sarah(yes, I still think Obama saved McCain's life by winning the Presidency) and Mitty being the alternatives, so I worked towards getting him elected.
---

Where I can find fault in him, in this regards deals with the fact that he didn't push for cabinet appointments better, nor did he push for accountability harder.

Saying that, there were other priorities that has been going on that took precedence.

The other problem was that instead of framing the debate in his terms, he discussed and negotiated under the Republican terms.

I was frustrated with how the bail outs were structured and how there was a lack of oversight in regards to the mortgage lending industry, where many loans were packaged outside the purview of Fannie and Freddie. The bundling created a huge mess.

Then, add to the fact that he now wants to get rid of Fannie and Freddie(Government Sponsored Enterprises), just makes me a bit more concerned.
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/15/133777142/End-Of-Fannie-Mae-Freddie-Mac-Will-Affect-Minorities
---
Still, the laws and regulations that allowed this to go through was enacted before he became President.
I must admit though that he was unable to put a handle on matters and of course, the method of dealing with it was finding what would be best for the banks rather than the people.
Some of those methods were here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130109996
---

[Squinch]

2. Kick

[Dustlawyer]

5. There are no Republicans and Democrats in Washington, they are all Robber Barons.

When will enough of us wake up to the fact that everything in D.C. is theater for us to watch while the thieves make off with everything?

Publicly Funded Elections - Let's get the bribe money out of the picture!

[abelenkpe]

19. Need to get rid of corporate lobbyists too. Nt

[Dustlawyer]

51. Absofreakinlutely!

[Egalitarian Thug]

61. When? Seriously?

Even the ersatz liberals can't bring themselves to look at reality. The opportunity is lost and the future is going to be even more interesting.

[Dustlawyer]

74. I may be tilting at windmills, going for the extreme long shot, I understand that.

All I can do is keep pointing out in the various posts how those issues would be solved if the politicians were not bought off by the Special Interests. Our election process invites corruption and these corporations have so much money, it's almost unimaginable! Publicly funded elections and some other campaign finance reforms would cause a transfer of power back to the people. A transfer that would be fought by the 1% in a "take all prisoners" approach! To get enough support to achieve this goal is the long shot I speak of.
At some point i think there will be an incident that touches off widespread protests, but with a slowly growing economy it's not likely anytime soon. I believe they are inching us downward, chipping away at our rights, but occasionally, they go to far to fast.

[Egalitarian Thug]

90. I'm completely on your side and hope every day that I'm proven to be completely wrong.

My cynicism is the result of too many years seeing too much, please ignore it and keep fighting the good fight.

[reformist2]

6. I don't think 'stole' is the right word - it's just not clear who the rightful owners are anymore.

By this I don't mean to underestimate the extent of the damage here to property rights - by not keeping track of the title transfers, the big banks have literally destroyed the legitimacy of ownership of millions of homeowners. What they did is reckless and insane. To make it more vivid, it's the equivalent of burning all the official records.

The government is letting this huge sleeping dog lie for now, but the truth is something will have to be done legislatively to re-establish valid ownership of all these homes in the eyes of the law.

[sabrina 1]

31. They forged documents to cover the fact that there were none. If YOU did that, where would you be

even if, and this is the best case scenario, it was because you couldn't find the papers? Multiply it by millions, the loss of fees to local town registration entitites, the breaking of the historical chain of ownership.

My friend is one of the people whose home was taken illegally, the home mortgage transferred four times over nine years, like a poker chip, two of those transfers by MERS, an entity set up by the banks to bypass the usual process and get it all done quickly, this gambling game.

If these are not crimes, then I don't know what is.

To add insult to injury, my friend was offered $800.00 as compensation for the theft of her home. She turned it down, they went up to $3,000, not at her request, she simply ignored their offers and will let an attorney deal with them. So they have acknowledged the theft, but the government gave them a slap on the wrist and the victims are offered a pittance of that settlement to try to 'pay them off'.

The Mafia would be envious.

[reformist2]

35. Please read my post, not just the title.

[GiaGiovanni]

88. Amazing how much criminality banks can get away with

and no one stops them

[SomethingFishy]

102. The government has made it very very clear who's side they are on..

When the bank comes to take your house, own it or not, no one is going to stop them.

[csziggy]

7. And by not going through the proper channels, transfer fees were not paid

To local governments, costing them an unknown amount of money that could have been used to fund community services.

A very few counties sued the banks for those fees, but they lost:

Counties Lose Transfer Tax Suit against MERS, Banks, Fannie and Freddie
Slade Smith
5/8/2013

A federal district court judge has dismissed a county recorder lawsuit against MERS and several MERS member financial institutions, calling the claims "far-fetched" and based on "inaccurate statements of the law." The lawsuit, which was filed by Curtis Hertel and Nancy Hutchins, the county recorders in Ingham County and Branch County, Michigan on behalf of all Michigan counties, alleged that MERS and its member banks were improperly claiming exemptions from the state's county real estate transfer tax.

<SNIP>

The judge found that the county recorders did not have standing to bring the lawsuit on behalf of their county-- under Michigan law, only the county board of supervisors has authority to bring a lawsuit on behalf of a county. The judge said that ordinarily, he might be inclined to allow the county recorders to amend their complaint to include the proper parties as plaintiff; however, in this case, he declined to do so, because he determined that the case should also be dismissed because the claims lacked merit, and would fail even if the proper plaintiffs were included.

On the case's merits, the judge ruled that MERS and its member banks did not owe transfer taxes on any of the more than twenty transactions in which MERS allegedly claimed an improper exemption from the transfer tax. The judge declined to allow the counties to continue "fishing" for additional examples of alleged improperly claimed exemptions by combing their counties' land records.

The judge grouped the allegations against MERS and the banks into three general categories, and found that for each category, MERS and the banks did not owe transfer tax.

More: http://www.sourceoftitle.com/article.aspx?uniq=7569

[ThoughtCriminal]

97. NOT a Bush appointee!

United States District Court Judge Robert Holmes Bell was appointed by Reagan.

[mindwalker_i]

8. We need to look forward

Every time you look back, Obama kills a kitten (and sends it to KFC).

[zeemike]

30. Moving forward then....

That's a good one...

[Enthusiast]

65. The President makes kitteh smoothies.

Fur and all.

[DJ13]

82. That explains why that chicken had whiskers

[mindwalker_i]

87. Arrrrggggghhhhh

[Whiskeytide]

9. This OP misses the point...

... I'm afraid. And I don't mean to be snarky. The banks didn't steal all of these homes. Some, certainly, were improper foreclosures. But in most of these cases, the owner of the home did default, and they were going to lose the home one way or another. What you're describing here is simply that the banking industry didn't bother to dot their i's and cross their t's in the foreclosure process. That actually makes things more difficult for the people who later buy the foreclosed property from the bank. They have a hard time getting good title.

But what I mean by misses the point, is that the real crime here is what the banks did to get to that clusterf*ck to start with. The mass securitization and multiple re-packaging of mortgages, sold many times over to retirement funds, municipalities and money market vehicles, all with knowledge that they were destined to collapse ----- that should have resulted in very public prosecutions followed by "first class hangin's" for a lot of Armani wearing assholes. Its because of them that homeowner defaulted in the first place.

[AllyCat]

13. It appears that even if you PAY on time every time...you may not get the title

Since there is no clear way to know who legally owns the home, even those who pay on time every month may not get to keep the title when they are done. Interesting thread, especially the posts by ms.smiler

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014563255

[Whiskeytide]

18. That's true...

... but if I'm not mistaken, the issue you're talking about is who owns the mortgage rights after defective transfers occurred, not who owns the actual house. If a homeowner buys a home and pays for it per the terms of his mortgage, he owns it. Sure, there are a lot of instances where this gets screwed up, and innocent homeowners get caught in the grinder, but I don't think that is the issue here.

You get a mortgage from XYZ Mortgage Co. They then sell the mortgage to someone else for its investment value. Such mortgages were bundled and re-sold countless times, sort of in a pyramid scheme. It was these resales where the banks dropped the ball and cut corners. When a default occurred, and foreclosure proceedings began, they suddenly realized they didn't know who had the right to foreclose. That's when they started just going forward anyway, taking a risk that they'd get away with it. They got caught, and paid a fine.

But again, the real problem was how they got there. If you - or your retirement fund - invested in a CDO with an expected rate of return of 7%, and then 8% of the mortgages in that CDO defaulted, you're underwater. If 22% failed, you're wiped out. The crazy mortgage schemes, like no money down, variable rates, etc... virtually guaranteed default rates at a much higher clip than home mortgages had seen historically. They sold these things touting them as super safe because historically people don't default on their home loans. But people did. A lot. And that was because of the types of mortgages they let people get.

But its ok. We bailed them out. No one's going to lose their yacht or their second home in the Hamptons.

[reformist2]

38. What should be done - anyone involved in MBS not backed by titles should be barred from banking.

If they aren't criminal, they are surely incompetent.

[ms.smiler]

21. Whiskeytide, I do not share your view.

With a securitized mortgage, a homeowner is only one party who by contract is obligated to make payments upon the loan. Should the homeowner cease making payments that alone does not mean the loan is in default.

Those dotted i’s and crossed t’s you mentioned actually translate into forged invalid and fraudulent Assignments of Mortgage, forged invalid and fraudulent Affidavits, Breach of Contract, fraud upon the court, wrongful foreclosure, etc.

Only the holder and owner in due course of the mortgage Note has standing to foreclosure on a homeowner. A party who is using forged documents and committing fraud upon the court, has no standing in court nor any right to foreclose upon property.

Would it be your position that such wrongdoing and fraud was acceptable and excusable because a homeowner ceased making payments?

At the time a mortgage is signed, the homeowner creates a debt which they intend to be a secured debt. Given the way loan securitization is improperly and illegally handled, the debt legally becomes unsecured and there is harm done to the homeowner and their property Title which amounts to damages greater than the mortgage loan. Bogus documents are used to create the illusion that the debt remains secured by property.

Once a homeowner like me understands these issues they tend to hire counsel and file lawsuits. Why should I worry about what might remain due on the loan when there are parties who owe me multiple times that amount in damages?

That securities fraud that took place on Wall Street is directly connected to mortgage & foreclosure fraud here on Main Street. The banksters defrauded both investors and homeowners.

[Whiskeytide]

25. I agree with everything you say here...

... Especially the fact that the banks defrauded everyone, homeowners and investors alike. And I see what you're talking about (someone referred me to your posts in another thread). The innocent homeowner may get clouded title because no one knows who needs to sign the satisfaction after a loan is paid off. That's real damage, and I'm glad you got a lawyer. Sue the Hell outta them!!!

However, when a homeowner defaults, they do lose some standing to sue. Its hard for me to sue the bank for improperly selling my paper when I have stopped paying on the mortgage myself. Its just an equitable analysis. Gotta go work a while, but I'll get back to this. It interests me. "The Big Short" is one of the best reads I have accomplished in the last few years. This is right up that alley! Thanks for your posts!

[dixiegrrrrl]

44. Be aware that Countrywide ADMITTED to destroying mortgages.

The big banks, esp. BOA, knew all along they did not have legitimate mortgages from Countrywide, so they set up robo signing to create fraudulent copies of the mortgages.
And the problem with that is the forgeries contained errors, including they did not contain a legal truthful signature by the homeowner. There are affadvits by former robo signers who admitted to forgery, to signing as a bank official when they were not officials, admitted to signing hundres of forgeries using different names and titles, etc.
This is where the legal terms enter the picture.
By law the mortgage and title/deed of the house has to be kept together, intact. But the original paperwork by Countrywide was missing entirely. At one point, BOA claimed the original deeds were in a warehouse in India!

That is why MERS was invented, to give cover to the lack of original legal documentation.

The banks went to court to foreclose, and swore they had the legal papers to foreclose, but in truth they did not.
Some judges blocked the foreclosures because of this, some rubber stamped the foreclosures.
And in non-judicial states, where the banks did not have to go to court to foreclose, the illegal legal paperwork was not an issue.
Banks foreclosed on houses where their were NO mortgages at all. foreclosed on homeowners who had never missed a payment.
So it does not matter if some home owners 'deserved" to be foreclosed on.
What matters is the banks practiced pervasive repeated fraud on homeowners, and stole the houses by illegal means.

[Whiskeytide]

136. I don't for a minute doubt that...

... The banks committed all manner of fraud in the course of this mess, and I am not apologizing for them. And I am not blaming homeowners for it either. I blame the rampant predatory lending practices that took place in the run up to the meltdown. And the absurd, greed driven investment frenzy on Wall Street.

But, when you say that the banks "stole houses by illegal means", the question becomes "from whom" - or from "who" - i never get that right. If the homeowner stopped paying for the home, "someone" had the right to foreclose on it. If a bank did so when they didn't have the legal right to do it, then they stole it from the entity that did have that right. They didn't steal it from the homeowner.

Now, if there are homeowners who were foreclosed on when they had not missed a payment, there is no justification for that, and the bank should be (and usually is) held accountable - maybe after a legal battle, but I'm confident homes are not being given to banks by judges when homeowners can prove they made payments. There might be a few instances where it's gone down like that, but not many, and there is usually an explanation for it buried somewhere below the headline.

But what the OP is talking about is not that scenario. It speaks of a situation where the homeowner gets into default, and then defends themselves in a foreclosure proceeding on the charge that the foreclosing bank doesn't have it's paperwork in order. I.e. "some bank somewhere might be able to legally foreclose on me, but its not YOU!".

Now, again, if you want to vilify the banks for getting the homeowner in the position of default, or for stealing billions from the treasury, I'm with you 100%. But I have a hard time getting outraged when I see the banks stealing from each other because of their sloppy practices. I say let the phiranas eat each other to the bone.

[dixiegrrrrl]

145. "the banks stealing from each other because of their sloppy practices."

1. These were not "sloppy practices"
These were blantantly illegal fraudulent proactices.

2. the issue of clouded title because of these illegal practices affects every single present and future homeowner, because the question remains..who actually owns the original mortgages that were destroyed and later forged?

[Whiskeytide]

172. You're right...

It WAS fraudulent, not sloppy. Poor choice of a word by me.

And I agree that it creates a nightmare for all subsequent purchasers because getting clear title to these properties will be difficult at best, and often impossible. I suspect the courts wil have to adopt some sort if publication based quiet title proceeding, and even that would be risky.

[ms.smiler]

164. Whiskeytide, you are so close to the light, I’ll give it a try and see if I can get you

to step one foot to the left.

There is argument to be made about loan origination of MERS mortgages, but let’s both pretend homeowners sat down, signed documents and created a secured debt. The debt moves forward in a chain of transactions for securitization.

Here’s the problem:

In the article by R. K. Arnold, former Chief Executive Officer of Mortgage Electronic Registrations Systems, Inc. (MERS), SPRING 1998 - VOLUME 2, NUMBER 1 REAL ESTATE LAW “Yes, There Is Life on MERS®”, Mr. Arnold admitted: “For these servicing companies to perform their duties satisfactorily, the note and mortgage were bifurcated..”

Bifurcated – the mortgage was split from the Note. In case law, such action nullifies the mortgage.

I doubt it but this might work on the securities side of the loan, but when it comes back around on the real estate side, property no longer legally secures the debt.

And you know what? No amount of wishing & hoping & longing & praying & piles of fraudulent robosigned documents can legally convert that unsecured debt back into secured debt.

Federal bankruptcy judges are expert at determining the difference between unsecured and secured debt. Those homeowners who file bankruptcy and wisely list the mortgage as unsecured debt get to see these companies fail to establish that the debt is secured by property.

I keep thinking there must be some legal means to mesh both securities law and real estate law, but I read a law Professor who determined it’s impossible. After the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act though, the banksters had the opportunity to develop trillions of dollars of mortgage loans and securities and didn’t concern themselves with the real estate laws of our 50 states. Their one size fits all MERS system went into operation and the scheme was unleashed.

[Blue_In_AK]

161. Countrywide destroyed our retirement account, as well,

or at least seriously depleted it. Our stockbroker didn't see it coming. Arrgghh...

[dixiegrrrrl]

162. If you don't mind

could you expound on that a little bit more?
How was Countrywide involved with your retirement account???

[Blue_In_AK]

166. Stocks

Our stockbroker had invested a bunch of my husband's retirement account money into Countrywide stock.

[dixiegrrrrl]

167. My company had my retirement funds in ...AIG.

An annuity.
Could not touch it for at least 8 years.
One of the worst kinds of retirement funds, but it made the local insurance man happy.

Fortunately, I took early retirement and was able to get it out before AIG went belly up.

[Blue_In_AK]

170. We converted all our stocks to bonds or something

in 2008 when we started hemorrhaging $$.

Money is really not my forte...I let my husband deal with it. I just don't have the mindset for investment decisions.

[ms.smiler]

49. Whiskeytide, you may be mistaken. To the best of my knowledge an alleged

loan default does nothing to prevent or eliminate any cause of action in a lawsuit.

Homeowners can file a lawsuit, regardless of whether or not they are making payments. I think a homeowner should have a plan, understand their situation and have capable counsel before making a move though, just my view. There isn’t much I do based on a whim.

Like most homeowners, Fannie owns my loan. In keeping with Fannie’s Servicing Guidelines, my servicer filed two bogus Assignments/Liens on my property falsely claiming they own my loan.

If Fannie wants to step out of the shadows to claim and prove they own my loan, they will also prove fraud on the part of my servicer who falsely claims to own my loan. Fannie is certainly welcome to come to court and help prove my case. What do you think they would do?

If no party can prove a valid debt, I walk with all of my damages. If a party is able to prove a valid debt, it would be deducted from my damages and I walk with the balance.

What’s important to me is that I expect to obtain a valid Deed, clear Title and relieve the land records of two invalid Assignments and one invalid mortgage. They’ll be lots of money in my pocket and I’ll strain my ear in hopes of hearing a bankster cry. And if I'm really lucky, I'll get a ruling and set a precedent that will help other homeowners.

A few years ago it was a few DU members who helped enlighten me about securitized mortgages; otherwise I would be like most homeowners, clueless about what happened to my mortgage loan.

[Coyotl]

98. Interesting how DU educates and impacts lives as a consequence.

That's a very concrete example.

[Squinch]

113. I'll ask you this because you seem to be, unfortunately, steeped in it,

(and best of luck to you in your fight. Please keep us posted!)

But...don't the botched transfers of title take place regardless of whether the home is in any kind of default? Weren't the title transfers part of the packaging of mortgages to make CDOs? And as such, aren't they unrelated to the payment status of the loan?

This stuff about, "yeah but they didn't pay the mortgage and deserved to have their homes taken" strikes me as bullshit. Am I correct in that?

[ms.smiler]

137. Squinch, I’ve been researching mortgage/foreclosure/securities fraud on a daily basis

for over 4 years and it appears that my posts must betray those activities.

You asked a very good question, “don't the botched transfers of title take place regardless of whether the home is in any kind of default?”

Yes, that’s why this is a Title crisis not simply a foreclosure crisis. These are homeowners’ issues.

Within 90 days of the signing of the mortgage contract, there should have been an Assignment of Mortgage filed in the land records in the name of some strange sounding Trust. In 4 years of research, I have yet to uncover a single instance where securities law was followed. I’ve seen no evidence to indicate that the banksters lawfully created any mortgage backed securities, only unlawful non-mortgage backed securities.

That securities fraud is directly connected to the property Titles of millions of homeowners here on Main Street.

In a securitized mortgage, there are other parties in addition to the homeowner, who by contract are obligated to pay against the loan. The homeowner is not provided a full accounting of the loan, and outside of a lawsuit, has no means to determine the actual status and balance of the loan.

Yes, you are correct in that by simply looking at the homeowner payment history, it can’t be determined that the home should be taken from a homeowner.

Only the owner and holder of the Note in due course, has standing to foreclosure on a property. That party rarely appears in a foreclosure lawsuit as a Plaintiff. And when they do appear in court, all law should have been followed. Depending upon the law that was violated, even then they may not be able to successfully foreclosure. Law dictates the right way to collect a debt.

Most people have only an understanding of traditional mortgages and lack an understanding of complex securitized mortgages which are extremely different. Homeowners know they sat down, signed documents and created a debt, but they have no idea what happened to the debt they created or what happened to their property Titles.

Whenever I research in the land records, I am sickened. The banksters have despoiled our land records system and we are a nation of clouded Titles. It will take generations to restore the system.

I appreciate your good wishes. I really hope my lawsuit can help other homeowners. In a month or two I hope to post an update, once I get the “okay.” The banksters ignored so many laws, which are actually on the side of homeowners in this fight.

[rdking647]

121. in reality the chances of your mortgage being invalidated

are almost zero

[ms.smiler]

130. rdking647, a Federal court has already ruled that MERS is not a Mortgagee

is a valid cause of action.

If you are familiar with MERS you should understand how they do not meet the lawful definition of Mortgagee and that my mortgage lacks a lawful Mortgagee and is thus void under Pennsylvania law.

21 P. S. §711 “Mortgagee” includes any person, partnership, association, corporation, society, organization or fiduciary, holding a mortgage against real estate in a city or county of the first class, and entitled to payment of the mortgage debt, or the heir, legal representative, successor or assignee of any of the foregoing.”

[rdking647]

139. if you lose you lose your house

just remember that

[ms.smiler]

140. rdking647, you are assuming I lack the means to pay a valid debt. n/t

[rdking647]

143. but have you been paying it up to now?

if not then the bank can accelerate the mortgage,making you pay it off all at once.

[ms.smiler]

144. rdking647, I ceased making my "shakedown" payments as I came to think of them after

my attorney said the payments were "unnecessary." This actually makes sense to me. I'll be before the court alleging that my mortgage contract was invalid. Why in the world would I continue making payments on an invalid mortgage? My action does not conflict with my allegation.

I am aware of the difference between the amount necessary to bring a loan current and the amount necessary to pay off a loan.

[rdking647]

163. most mortgages have an acceleration clause

lets say you lose your lawsuit.
under an acceleration clause the lender can demand the repayment of the entire loan,not just the past due amount immediately.unless you can pay of the entire note you could be at a real risk of losing your home if you lose.
id verify whether the mortgage note has an acceleration clause no matter what my attorney said.
hes not the one who would lose their home

[ms.smiler]

165. rdking647, I’m well aware of the clauses in my mortgage contract, especially the ones

MERS breached. While difficult to imagine, let’s say I lose every single Cause of Action in my lawsuit. And out of all the Defendants, not one owes me a single penny in damages. We would also have to imagine there was a party who proved they owned a valid debt and had a valid lien upon my property. If such a party can be found, they alone would have standing to file a foreclosure action against me. That is the only party I would pay on the loan.

I honor valid debts. Valid debts should be paid, if at all possible.

I know and understand the particulars of my case and there is no party who owns my Note that has a valid lien upon my property.

There is a DU member in this discussion that appears to believe that I should pack my bags and abandon my home of 33 years. I find that an imprudent course of action. That’s simply no way to treat a valuable asset in which I have a great deal of equity.

It’s sad but I sort of view homeowners who are dutifully making their mortgage payments as those in pre-foreclosure. As many people have learned, their payment history is no guarantee against foreclosure. Part of me truly wonders why someone would make their payments when they can still be foreclosed. Heck, Bank of America seems to specialize in foreclosing on properties that don’t even have a mortgage! This securitization of mortgages, has fouled everyone's business records, our land records, our property Titles and our mortgages.

[rdking647]

171. the court wont agree

in all likelyhood they will find that even if Mers techinically violated the law it doesnt invalidate the mortgage.
they will order you to pay the bank that thinks its owns your loan.
if you fail to make those payment they will take your home.

that is a simple fact.

the overwhelming odds are you will lose and the bank will be allowed to foreclose.

[ms.smiler]

173. rdking647, you appear to be unfamiliar with Pennsylvania mortgage contracts.

There are 7 necessary elements of a valid Pennsylvania mortgage. If any one of those elements are missing or invalid, the contract is invalid.

MERS fails in not one but several ways to qualify as a valid Mortgagee, one of those 7 necessary elements. I have not yet disclosed the other ways in which the contract can be invalidated.

You are likely unaware that mortgages are invalidated on a daily basis in bankruptcy courts and the debt is discharged as unsecured debt.

In your opinion “if Mers techinically violated the law it doesnt invalidate the mortgage.”

Please review this Pennsylvania statute:

21 P.S. § 444 “All deeds and conveyances, … or whereby the title to the same may be in any way affected in law or equity, ……shall be recorded in the office for the recording of deeds where such lands, ….. are lying and being, within ninety days after the execution of such deeds or conveyance, and every such deed and conveyance that shall at any time after the passage of this act be made and executed in this commonwealth, and which shall not be proved and recorded as aforesaid, shall be adjudged fraudulent and void…..”

Elsewhere in my state, in Montgomery County, the Recorder of Deeds filed a lawsuit against MERS to compel them to file the missing Assignments, (conveyances) in the land records and pay the associated recording fees. MERS argued that it need not file all conveyances. The court examined PA law and ruled that the law requires the recordation of ALL conveyances. MERS has a problem in my state.

No court is going to rule that I should pay the bank that “thinks” it owns my loan. It is for the parties who come to court to PROVE to the court that they own my loan and have a valid lien upon my property.

I’ve been researching these issues on a daily basis for over 4 years now. I’ve been gearing up for this particular lawsuit for the past two years. I am a cautious, deliberate person. As a private and business person, I am risk avoidant. I would not make a move of which I was not certain.

I think it’s the last line in your post that helps me better understand our discussion. My actions are based upon the facts in my case, state and Federal law, case law, numerous legal professionals, and my own research and assessment of my situation and my best course of action.

I think you hold the unfortunate opinion that no one can fight the banksters and actually win. I appreciate your opinions, but I’m basing my decisions upon the law, and it’s supportive of me, not the banksters.

[rdking647]

174. i really hope your successful

but i doubt you will be. and if your not i just hope your prepared for the consequences of losing your home

[ms.smiler]

176. rdking647, thank you. Given your expectation, I expect to surprise you.

In 2006, I thought I purchased a mortgage, but like millions of other homeowners, all I got was a scam. I well understand the scam and my adversaries now, their relationship to each other and their vulnerabilities. I know the laws they violated and the reasons for that law breaking. The law firm representing me specializes in real estate law.

I know two other homeowners in my county who are quieting their Titles. Like me, they were not satisfied with the prospect of receiving invalid, forged, robosigned documents upon completion of their payments. They too realized that the parties on the creditor side can’t deliver that for which we were paying.

The only place for us to fix our Titles and obtain valid documents is in a court.

Just for fun, rather than worrying about me losing my home, imagine the ramifications of MERS inability to prove they are a valid & lawful Mortgagee under Pennsylvania law.

[brush]

32. Good points

And all those toxic investment vehicles ended up, like you said, in state and city retirement funds which resulted in huge losses for those entities who then had to lay off thousands of cops, firemen, teachers and many other state, county and city workers, which, on top of the housing collapse, further eroded the economy.

And it still hasn't recovered. And you're right, a lot of a-holes should have went to jail.

[Enthusiast]

67. After a century of doing foreclosures why did the banks

suddenly find themselves incapable of doing them correctly?

[dixiegrrrrl]

159. When Glass Stegal act was "erased"

which let the banks become investment traders as well as normal banks.
Which led a lot of ignoring of the rules about how they could make money, and one way was to package mortgages
into bonds, to sell to pensions funds and other groups.
The"rules" for mortgage groups, called trusts, is that the original mortgage has to be in that trust that holds the bonds.
But there have been admissions that the SAME mortgages have been sold to more than one trust, which of course means the originals could not be in more than one trust.
PLUS Countrywide, after it collapsed and was bought out by BOA, admitted all the original paperwork behind its loans was "gone"..BOA did not get the original mortgages.
So, in order to foreclose or to accept a payout of the mortgage, it had to have the paperwork.
So MERS was created, by the banks, which claimed it could foreclose FOR all the banks, and thus forgery of the paperwork was done, and was discovered during teh robosigning scandal.

Shorter version....one lie led to another lie, etc. And there was no oversight by the various agencies that were supposed to be auditing the banks and the market.

[Enthusiast]

160. Thanks, dixiegrrrrl.......nt

[Half-Century Man]

10. The damage to society caused by crime is directly linked to the monies involved.

And punishments for crime should reflect that fact.
I still favor a mandatory sentencing addition by monetary values involved. For every $100,000.00, a years be added to any sentence. If you steal $400,000.00 in an armored cars robbery, you get an additional 4 years added to whatever sentence you get for the armed robbery itself. If you get caught smuggling a million dollars worth of cocaine across the border, you get an additional 10 years added to your sentence for trafficking. If you embezzle 500 million dollars from hedge funds, you get an additional 5000 years added to your sentence. If you conceal 5 million in assets to avoid paying taxes, you get 50 years added to your sentence of tax fraud.

In fact, basing any sentencing on the actual damage caused might be the best solution. Because charging the guy with 5 joints in his cigarette pack with "intent to deliver" because maybe he might sell one, is itself over the top.

[JayhawkSD]

11. But was the homeowner entitled to keep the house?

"... Lynn Szymoniak, a white-collar fraud specialist, whose own house had been fraudulently foreclosed-upon."

Were Mr./Ms. Szymoniak fully paid and up to date on the mortgage at the time the foreclosure was made? I will assume the answer is no, because in every similar case the answer has been no. In most cases mort age payments had not been made for a year or more, and yet the homeowner sought to prevent foreclosure based on "flaws in the documentation." The paperwork doesn't clearly establish who owns it? Who cares? For damn sure the person who isn't paying the mortgage doesn't own it.

Huge amounts of outrage are being raised over this improper documentation, but no one comments about homeowner living in elaborate homes without paying anything. not paying what they agreed to pay, and not paying any sort of housing cost. Freeloading for months and sometimes years and then playing victim.

I pay hundreds of dollars a month to keep a modest roof over my head. It would never occur to me that I should live in a house without paying to occupy it. Or that I should eat dinner in a restaurant without paying for it. Nor that I should ride on public transit without paying the fee. I'm old fashioned, I guess, because freeloading by finding loopholes in laws is not my way of life.

[AllyCat]

14. See #13 above. Read this thread (currently on greatest page)

People can be deemed to have no clear path to their titles, even if they pay on time and pay off the mortgage. Under this system, they can say, "too bad, so sad, thanks for paying on time!"

[loudsue]

15. That is not the way many stories went. Many people were thrown out and had shown

documentation that they had never missed a payment.

What the banks did was warehouse mass defaults. 60-Minutes showed a literal warehouse where tables were set up, and minimum wage workers with no training were setting up mortgages for default. There were many people reporting they were being foreclosed on, and had never missed a payment.

The banks were extremely criminal in what they did all through the process.

[JayhawkSD]

58. Then the loan documentation remains irrelevant.

If payments were current than contest the foreclosure, or criticise it, based on the currency of payment, not on some irrelevant argument about loan documentation. If payments are up to date and current it doesn't matter what docomentation exists, the foreclosure is easily thrown out of court.

[Lordquinton]

72. So because one hypothetical person missed a payment

Documented fraud on a massive scale should be completely ignored and unpunished?

[JayhawkSD]

86. So, because documentation was not done properly

people who do not pay the mortgage on their homes should get to keep them without paying for them?

I have an idea, how about we just drive these these evil banks and mortgage companies that everyone thinks are so heinous out of business so they just can't make home loans any more. None at all. Then we won';t have to worry about the validity of documents: there won't ba any. Of course no one will own homes, and their won't be any jobs building homes, but who cares about that? We will have punished those awful mortgage companies.

[Lordquinton]

107. Real mature responce there

And really pants on fire too.

What part of "Banks are forging documents and stealing homes that they have no right to because no one had a loan taken out for it" do you not understand. Yea, any loan or mortgage that has no papers held by the bank is actually, legally, null and void. No matter the payments, if the bank screwed up the paperwork, then they broke their end of the contract.

Maybe you should be more concerned about telling banks to run a functional business, instead of stealing from people and this would not even be a thing.

[fasttense]

112. Because a bank committed fraud and forged documents

then it should be punished. If part of that punishment means a home owner gets to keep their home despite being in the rears. Then so be it.

NOT all banks were involved in this scam. I have a mortgage with a credit union and they have been very up front about everything. My original mortgage was with a bank that decided to sell my loan to Country Wide. I about had a fit, knowing how crooked these people were. So I went loan shopping and moved my mortgage to a credit union I trusted.

Yes, we should punish the bad banks and if a home owner makes out so what? Many bad banks and executives of those banks made out when Bush and Obama bailed them out. No one seems to mind that they got to keep their stolen loot. It just the home owners that better NOT make out like the banksters did.

[JayhawkSD]

125. I'm going to try this one more time

Mortgage company A bought the mortgage from mortgage company B. The homeonwer was not party to that transaction. The homeowner needs to be foreclosed on but the documentation of the sale from A to B is not complete, so B forges said ducumentation. Their was no fraud perprtrated on the homeowner, because the mortgage as it affects the homeowner was not changed. The termes and conditions imposed on the homeowner were not changed. The homeowner's title was not damaged because the chain of ownership of the home itself was not affected.

The lein was clouded, but that can be cleared by getting a court to force both mortgage holders to release the lein.

Fraud was perpetrated by B against A, but the homeowner is not affected by that. He shoul still be foreclosed if he does not pay the loan. Any "triple damages" would be paid by B, who perpetrated the fraud, to A , who was the victim of the forgery. Or vice versa if the damage consists of lack of documentation. The guilty party should be punished and, to the degree that he was harmed, the victim compensated. But the homeowner is not damaged by and does not need to be compensated for documentation issues between financial companies.

If the homeowner is uncomfortable with what is happening and decides not to be part of it they can walk away, but they need to walk away from the whole thing, not just part of it. That means walking away from the house, not just payments on the house. That's a financial decision and I have no problem with people who make that decision. What I have a problem with is people who wlak away with paying for the house, inventing all sorts of self-justifying reasons for doing so, and keep the house.

It is absolutely ridiculous to say that because mortgage holders are playing games with paperwork that a homeowner should wind up with a free home.

[Squinch]

147. If B buys the mortgage from A, but A does not transfer the mortgage documentation to B, and

the homeowner pays off B in good faith, there is nothing to prevent A from then going to the homeowner and demanding payment again.

The homeowner is right, in my opinion, to escrow the money somewhere and not pay a penny until A and B get their shit together.

If A and/or B in the meantime insist that the homeowner pay someone with a murky entitlement to the payments, and then levy damages for nonpayment, the homeowner should be able to say, "go scratch, I'm not paying anyone till you get your shit together, and I'm not paying any damages for nonpayment."

Otherwise, the homeowner doesn't have any recourse if it all blows up in his or her face.

This seems perfectly reasonable to me. And it isn't anything like the freeloading you are portraying it to be.

[ms.smiler]

148. JayhawkSD, I think you need acquaint yourself with lawful conduct and business practices.

You stated: “It is absolutely ridiculous to say that because mortgage holders are playing games with paperwork that a homeowner should wind up with a free home.”

Those “games with paperwork” you mentioned translate into fraudulent Assignments of Mortgage filed in our land records slandering property Titles, recordation fraud, fraudulent affidavits, notary fraud, forgery, fraud upon the court, Unjust Enrichment, Breach of Contract, and Wrongful Foreclosure under Federal law just off the top of my head.

Is it your position, that regardless of how many laws are violated and Felonies committed, parties who have no standing to sue homeowners, nor any legal right to foreclose upon property, should still be permitted by courts to take property from law abiding homeowners?

A simple check must be properly indorsed as well as a Promissory Note. If these companies can’t be responsible for their handling of important & valuable documents, they have NO business handling them.

It appears to greatly disturb you that homeowners have received a "free" house. Not only have homeowners received those "free" houses but they've been awarded damages as great as 12 million dollars.

Paying damages is how companies are held accountable for law breaking. It is how they are punished for wrongdoing. If you don't want to see homeowners with "free" houses and millions of dollars, how about you start demanding that those in the mortgage industry CEASE BREAKING THE LAW! If they didn't violate the law, there would be no "free" houses and damage awards.

[MrNJ]

16. Exactly this.

There's plenty to fault the banks for.

But there are "homeowners" (heavy emphasis on quotes) who are just as abusive and cheating as the worst banks. One of them is my co-worker who proudly told me that he stopped paying for his house (including insurance and property taxes) several years ago because he found some loophole.

He is more senior (and presumably makes more money) than me. Yet I am paying thousands and he is abusing the system.
I feel no sympathy for him and others like him who eventually get foreclosed. Even if the paperwork is not perfect.

[CubicleGuy]

57. Following the laws do not constitute abuse of the system.

If the system needs changing, then somebody better get it changed.

[Enthusiast]

68. Those people are VERY few in number.

Geeze.

[ms.smiler]

36. JayhawkSD, once you obtain an understanding of securitized mortgages

and how the banks have collected multiple times upon the same loans which they did not fund nor owned, you may start complaining about the banksters rather than homeowners.

Are you a homeowner? Do you have a MERS mortgage? Any idea if the banksters have clouded and/or Slandered your property Title?

Do you think only homeowners are obligated to abide by the mortgage contract? Isn’t the creditor also obligated in the contract? Would you be upset to learn that the contract was Breached on the creditor side long before any homeowner supposedly defaulted on their mortgage loan?

Your “loopholes” are actually serious violations of law. What laws did homeowners violate?

I’ve always been a law abiding person. I’m following the law. The law prescribes the remedy and damages for what was done to me and my property Title. The damages far exceed the amount that supposedly remains due on my mortgage loan.

I never wanted any involvement in fraud, yet my loan was used to defraud MBS investors. My property Title is clouded and Slandered, twice now, and the mortgage is not valid.

Those “freeloading” homeowners you appear to despise, I realize are most likely like me, owed much more in damages than whatever remains on the mortgage loan.

Do you think I should ignore the law? Do you think I should continue making payments when my Title is clouded? What would I be paying for if not a valid Deed and clear Title upon completion of my payments?

[JayhawkSD]

56. do you think you should keep that for which you are not paying?

The sale of your mortgage to another party may have been fraud, but you did not participate in fraud because you did not particiapate in that sale, and those who are claiming you are party to that fraud merely by being a signatory to the mortgage which was sold are spouting nonsense. You did not sell your mortgage, fraudulently or otherwise.

Claiming you should not make payments because doing so would be fraud is sophistry. If you are worried about the legitimacy of the sale of the mortgage then you should either make the payments into an escrow account pending resolution of the mortgage sale or quit making the payments and abandon the house. Keeping the house and not making payments is theft.

If you have unclear title than sue the people who clouded your title. That is your recourse and your only recourse.

You are using a lot of glib words that boil down to "I plan to keep the house without paying for it." I don't care how you gild that piece of horse crap, it does not become a lily, it remains horse crap.

[ms.smiler]

70. JayhawkSD, I’ll do my best to reason with you.

You asked if I should keep that for which I am not paying. Please understand that I am the owner of this property. I purchased this property 33 years ago and have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars on a mortgage loan over the past decades.

I own my property! In 2006 I refinanced my mortgage. In 2009, I discovered over $54,000 in fraud in my mortgage loan subject to Treble damages. That alone wipes out the mortgage debt.

But wait, there’s more. For a time I thought my Title was clouded and the mortgage became invalid about 90 days after I signed the documents because MERS failed to file the conveyances as required by Pennsylvania law. But now I know that MERS is not a lawful mortgagee in my mortgage contract and the mortgage is invalid.

So please read the following sentence twice, thrice if necessary. The lien on my property is not valid!

Would it be your position, that I should have ignored the original fraud in the mortgage, and the cloud upon my Title in favor of continuing to make payments on an invalid mortgage? After making all payments, the best I could hope for is a forged, robosigned, fraudulent Satisfaction of Mortgage and no clear Title to my property.

Would such a document be good enough for 30 years of your honestly and hard earned money?

But wait, there’s even more to my story. After asking some really pertinent questions I think of my mortgage servicer, they filed their first forged, invalid and fraudulent Assignment/Lien on my property. An Assignment which states they purchased a Note payable to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems and of course I never signed such a Note. After I filed my Quiet Title action, my servicer filed a second invalid, robosigned and fraudulent Assignment, Slandering my Title a second time.

My attorney told me that my payments were unnecessary so I ceased making what I came to think of as shakedown payments. You though have a delightful notion about an escrow account. I’ll now explain what my attorney explained to me.

If there is a party that comes to court and proves ownership of a valid debt, that debt will be deducted from my damages and I’ll receive the balance. If no party can prove ownership of a valid debt, nothing will be deducted from my damages.

I am a business person managing a successful family owned business which is now third generation and my dear person; I am unfamiliar with “horse crap.”

You are certainly correct that I plan to keep MY property. I also plan to deposit sizeable checks.

Please be sure and let me know if you ever become concerned about securities fraud, origination fraud, invalid mortgages, mortgage servicing fraud, forged documents in our land records, recordation fraud, fraud upon the court, Breach of Contract, Slander of Title, Unjust Enrichment, etc.

[JayhawkSD]

84. Fine, keep the, stiff the lender, feel good about it.

Some fraud, yours for instance, is quasi-legal.

[ms.smiler]

89. JayhawkSD, yes, I feel good about following the law and I feel good about holding accountable those

who violated law.

No lender will be “stiffed.” If there is a party who can prove they own a valid debt, it will be paid.

I will also be paid the damages owed to me. And if the Defendants hadn’t engaged in any wrongdoing, law breaking or fraud, there would be no grounds for me to file a lawsuit.

All those Defendants had to do was engage in actual legitimate business, not fraud; and I would be sitting here making mortgage payments on a property with a clear Title. But fraud was much more profitable for them.

I am baffled how your sympathies lie with those who committed fraud and not the victim of that fraud.

Boy, we got a big tent…

[JayhawkSD]

100. I am baffled by people who borrow money

and feel good about not repaying it, so that makes us even.

The great American way: win a lawsuit or the lottery; borrow money and get a court to say I don't have to repay it; windfalls are the way of life.

[ms.smiler]

105. JayhawkSD, again, if there is a party who can prove they own a valid debt they will be paid.

Now tell me, is what bothers you the fact that the money won’t come from my own pocket, but that it will come from damages? Is that what troubles you?

The law prescribes remedies and the damages for specific wrongdoing. That is to discourage law breaking. We all know there are consequences for violating the law.

Why do you not want banksters to face the consequences of their law breaking?

[rdking647]

119. how do you know it will come from damages

you still owe x amount. until you actually recover damages and use that to pay the mortgage you still owe the money. and i find it highly unlikely that a court will award damages exceeding the mortgage balance.
in teh mean time you have to make mortgage payments. if not to a bank to an escrow account at least.
failure to do so wil result in losing your homel. and it will be right for them to take it

[ms.smiler]

134. rdking647, not only do damages exceed the amount of the mortgage, but some damages

are multiples of the value of the home. I have a small mortgage and plenty of equity.

We all understand that there are consequences for breaking the law. Pennsylvania law requires the prompt recording of conveyances in the county lands within 90 days. If conveyances are not timely filed, the mortgage is left null and void. That’s the consequences for violating that law.

Federal law dictates that fraud in a mortgage is subject to treble, (triple) the amount of the fraud. That is to discourage fraudulent mortgages and it’s the consequences of defrauding consumers and it's regardless of the amount of the mortgage.

I thought Slander of Title was double the value of the property but my attorney says that’s Treble damages. Those are the consequences for Slandering someone’s Title. The laws are designed to discourage wrongdoing.

And Punitive damages are 9 times actual damages. As an honest business person who honestly EARNS my money, I am certainly interested in punishing the parties who defrauded me.

This is why I had a three month period where I walked around my house shaking my head. I avoid liability with my business and personally. I couldn’t understand how the banksters exposed themselves to so much liability with so much fraud. I finally concluded their greed exceeded their business sensibilities.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

184. Because Rs don't want that.

Not saying JayhawkSD doesn't belong here or anything. That would be s̶t̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶b̶v̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ wrong.

[rdking647]

122. in 200 you refinanced

you still owe that money. until a court decides otherwise you stil owe the money and are obligated to make payments on it.
if there is a question of who the payments are owed to then you need to pay into an escrow account.

simply claiming the banks owe you x and that is enough to wipe out your mortgage isnt enough. until a court orders the banks to pay you they dont owe you squat

[ms.smiler]

128. rdking647, I realize that MERS & mortgage securitization broke my chain of Title.

I have plenty of equity in my property. At this point, the number on a mortgage statement is an alleged debt. I recognize that it is an alleged debt. I realize the number is most likely incorrect.

Unlike a traditional mortgage a securitized mortgage has two sets of books. There is a Pooling & Servicing Agreement that governs how payments are applied within the Trust. There are Credit Enhancements and Credit Default Swaps that impact the accounting of the loan. Without a full accounting of the loan, I have no way to determine the actual balance of my loan. I have only a partial accounting in the mortgage statement mailed to me.

There are numerous things that I can allege and will. If I wasn’t certain I was right, I wouldn’t file a lawsuit. If the law firm representing me wasn’t certain that I would win and be awarded attorneys fees, they would expect money from me.

So, there is an alleged debt balanced against my many allegations. A court is the appropriate place to determine the validity of these claims.

By the way, the debt in a securitized mortgage is technically and legally unsecured debt. The forged and robosigned documents are manufactured to create the illusion that the debt is secured by property.

[rdking647]

138. just remember is you lose

the bank gets to foreclose and take your house..

[ms.smiler]

142. rdking647, as I stated previously, you are assuming I lack the means to pay a valid debt.

[CubicleGuy]

55. I guess that crossed Ts and dotted Is...

... (otherwise referred to as "loopholes&quot only matter when it favors the bank. If the bank screws up (or worse, breaks the law), then I guess we're just supposed to look the other way and ignore any laws the bank may have broken.

[Squinch]

114. Don't look now, Jayhawk, but this very well could be happening to you

right now and you don't know it. You might not find out about it until you go to sell your house, or until some third party that you have never heard of sends you a letter and tells you to get out of your house because you haven't been paying them for it, because they now own the title and they don't want to hear about the regular payments you have made to the bank you know about.

You will then spend tens of thousands of dollars in lawyer and court fees and endure years of stress, and possibly an eviction.

And some guy just like you will come along and say, "It's your own fault because you didn't make the payments and shouldn't have bought a house you couldn't afford. Now you're trying to freeload off loopholes."

Enjoy!

[Moral Compass]

12. Missing the Point

The real issue here is not that the banks got away with this. That is a significant issue and people should be going to jail for committing "felony after felony".

There is an even bigger crime here--our justice system is fundamentally corrupt.

If you or I had stolen people's property with blatant forgeries and had defrauded state and local governments of the fees rightfully owed them we would have been convicted and jailed. Our wealth and possessions would have been confiscated. Any corporations we had founded would have ceased to exist.

Yet these banks and mortgage servicers have their cases dismissed even when the evidence of blatant, malicious wrongdoing is overwhelming.

Instead, tiny fines are levied and the cases are closed. This requires corruption throughout our legal system--all the way to the highest levels. If the corruption was not virtually universal then some judge somewhere would have applied the law and people would have gone to jail and corporations would have been disbanded.

Even when the counties went after the fees--the cases were stopped at the earliest possible point. That highlights almost complete corruption. The judge that dismissed those cases was told to make his rulings about merit and about standing without regard to the law. The law is now tailored to those involved in the case not applied impartially.

That is the scandal. We can no longer trust or rely on our own DOJ. It is all in plain sight, but I think we all tend to try and forget the ugly reality. It is not just the Republicans that are corrupt, but our very own Democrats.

[loudsue]

17. THAT is exactly the point. Even disgraced senator John Edwards spoke about the Two Americas.

There is literally one set of rules for the average person, and an entirely different set of rules for the wealthy or the ones who protect the wealthy.

So much for "all men are created equal". Our justice department is as corrupt as anything in a third world country could dream of.

[marions ghost]

23. THIS ^^^^^^^^ is the problem

We cannot trust or rely on the DOJ. Our justice system is fundamentally corrupt. What you say,

Until people really wrap their heads around the fact that the entire system is geared to exploitation, we will not make progress. The 1% has no understanding or consideration of what has been done to the average American financially by their avarice. There are no penalties, no repercussions for them. They're grabbing as much as they can...

What gets me is that so many people are involved in this Mother of all Scams. So many think it's OK. They are complicit.

[forestpath]

43. +1000

[Rex]

50. Indeed.

nt.

[bvar22]

83. Oh Well....Too Big to Fail.

Too big to prosecute.
Too RICH to bother with details like laws.
Like it, or lump it.
Voting for somebody else won't "change" a thing.

Move along now like good citizens.
We're watching you!

[bhikkhu]

20. The "fraud" was robo-signing, which is a letter-of-the-law technicality

Not that they should be let off the hook for it, but I think the penalty fit the crime, and the judgement was just...but the article is a piece of massively misleading hyperbole. Its designed to make you think that a whole segment of the economy is ridden with the worst sort of criminals, and that they were given a slap on the wrist and sent on their way with trillions in ill-gotten gains. Not the case.

[marions ghost]

24. "Fraud" in quotes?

This is the kind of thinking that allows this to go on....

[bhikkhu]

28. Robo-signing is a technical flaw in the signature, which is central to contract law

and would technically invalidate claims to ownership. All claims of fraud begin there, as it was ruled that robo-signing didn't constitute a valid signature in many cases. On the bank's side it was a matter of relying on a bit of technology as a time and labor saving procedure which most didn't realize there was any issue with, until they were up to their elbows in it.

At which point, the practical consequences of going back and unwinding all the buying and selling would have been a nightmare. It wouldn't mean that people suddenly didn't have to pay back their mortgages, or that they could legally just have a house a bank had financed with faulty paperwork for them; rather, it would mean that people all over were living in houses they didn't own, paying on loans to banks that didn't own them either, and that ownership would revert to whatever prior entity (usually another bank) had the last "valid" title before the robo-signing. It would have been a mess benefitting very few people, and causing harm to most homeowners, and the housing market (housing which, after all, is the primary asset of 65% of the population) would have been a disaster for even more years.

On the whole, I think the assessment of a large penalty was the best choice.

This is a different thing from the marketing of CDO's, where fraud was certainly involved but prosecution has been problematic.

[marions ghost]

41. "Most didn't realize there was any issue with robo-signing..."

Sure. They just thought they'd get by with it. They knew it was part of the giant fraud.

Who got a large penalty for doing this & is it a deterrent? Is it clearly illegal now? I'm not up-to-date on it.

[bhikkhu]

80. Here's an article from February on the $25 billion dollar fine

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/February/12-ag-186.html

I don't know of the actual wording or exact legal issues, but I imagine its pretty well worked out by now.

[druidity33]

141. people who lost their homes...

are now getting checks for a couple thousand dollars, that's how it has "worked out". While the banks/servicers are paying themselves to distribute that money. The 25 Billion you're referring to was an AGREEMENT made between the Fed and the Banks/Servicers. They committed FRAUD on a massive scale. They forged HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of documents. They literally stole 1.4 TRILLION dollars in value from homeowners. And they were fined $95 million (though the case is still active). The folks on this thread defending the banks are unbelievable...

[ms.smiler]

169. marions ghost, robosigning is the repetitive act of forgery. To the best of my knowledge

forgery has always been illegal. Robosigners forge signatures on documents at rates of perhaps hundreds per hour. What is less well known is that robosigning was not just involved in foreclosures. The very same robosigners signed Satisfactions of Mortgages when homeowners refinanced or paid off their loans. Such documents are not valid and cloud the property Title.

Unfortunately, the robosigning scandal and the fine paid has done nothing to discourage or limit acts of forgery and they continue to this day. Affidavits are also robosigned and presented in foreclosure lawsuits. Robosigning also involves Notary fraud.

Robosigned documents filed in the land records is recording fraud and robosigned documents presented in lawsuits is fraud upon the court.

All this fraud is committed because mortgage securitization actually converts secured debt into unsecured debt and the banksters are using forged documents to create the illusion of debt that is once again secured by property.

[Heywood J]

168. "Labor saving procedure"

You mean the passing around of notary stamps and the use of light tables, or something else?

[Safetykitten]

22. Of course they did. Eric Holder did nothing.

[HooptieWagon]

26. Look! Over there! Pot Smoking Grannies! nt

[Coyotl]

42. Would you edit this for me?

We really need one for Holder too

[hughee99]

46. Exactly! I want my pony.

Frankly it's unbelievable to me that people think the President and Attorney General have the power to investigate and charge corporations who have committed fraud and then prosecute them without cutting some sweetheart deal that results in the company paying pennies on the dollar and hiding findings from the public for a few years.

I blame Bush for all this confusion people have about what a president actually has the ability to control.

[Vinnie From Indy]

29. Anyone other than a banker would be in jail for such activities!

eom

[dixiegrrrrl]

40. Most excellent summary. And here is what the banks are doing with the homes they stole:

They are selling off huge groups of homes to their cronies to use as rentals AND securitizing the rents, jsut like they securitized the mortgages they did not own.
It has also been revealed that the banks sold the mortgages they did not own to more than one trust..
thus all the lawsuits by trusts, who found they did not have the legal mortages that were supposed to be IN the trusts.
And not having the mortgages at the time the trusts were created created a very very large tax liability.

One day when the book comes out, it will be a fascinating read.

[FreakinDJ]

45. And where were you Mr President

[Coyotl]

48. I know, reading the other comments is just too much work compared to a hit-and-run shot

So here it is again:

[Rex]

52. Hold them responsible for each title the screwed up on.

For every bond they sold that had no backing. For every house they stole. Make the banks pay for their crimes...nobody else committed them but the owners and managers.

THANK YOU for this finally getting exposure! Banks have had it way too easy for way too long.

[Waiting For Everyman]

54. They stole $100K in equity from me, and I got $2K settlement check

from the government's Foreclosure Review Board. So yes, I have no doubt it runs to trillions easily.

It was well known all during the time this gigantic theft was happening that this was all fraudulent on a massive scale, but our highest levels of government insisted on letting the banks do it anyway. There is no surprise here, they knew it all.

[CubicleGuy]

60. My settlement check from HSBC was $6K

I was expecting far less, so I can't help but wonder now, if I had attempted to fight my foreclosure (and had I been able to afford the representation), whether or not I'd still have a home at this point instead of a lousy 6 grand.

[Waiting For Everyman]

66. It's very likely, I probably would too.

I tried up to a point, but couldn't afford it either. I got to a state appeals' court, and that's when I ran out of money and couldn't continue. I talked to all the legal assistance groups but they were completely taken up with immigration, criminal, and family court cases. No others being done at all.

There had been a bill in Congress to give us legal help at one point, but of course it was voted down. The banks saw to that.

[avaistheone1]

62. Wow!

Last edited Tue Aug 13, 2013, 07:16 PM - Edit history (1)

I believe you. I know it is true. And it's plain sickening.


I hope something can be done to make things right for you and people like yourself.

[Waiting For Everyman]

63. Thanks for that, it is really shocking.

I'd like to think something would be done, but I really doubt it. We're forgotton already now, and the new programs seem geared to those who have good credit scores, which of course we don't anymore having gone through this.

At least I have a rented roof over my head, so I'm more fortunate than many, and I'm very aware of that. But we shafted homeowners won't be recovering any time soon. It took me 15 years to buy my home and I was in it paying payments for 15 more, so at 60-something that won't be re-done in my lifetime. We're just the "fish" that slipped over the dam and are now in the pool below. We all add up to permanent damage to the buying power of our economy though. It didn't have to be this way, it was a choice. They picked "winners and losers" and the banks were the winners, even though they had no legal right.

I never thought I'd see the day that property rights were voided out because that is so basic to our law, but here it is.

[truedelphi]

81. I am so sorry that this happened to you.

For us Baby Boomers to have lived to see our society flipped on its head, and to become the very dim and dire society we were warned would happen if the Soviets ever air dropped their army on us (confiscation of property, etc.)

It is really such a shock.

And it is not something a person can make right. I am watching the banks,and it seems like in short order, we will have a very inflationary period upon us, with prices going through the roof. So us renters will be feeling the bite yet again.

[Waiting For Everyman]

135. Thanks, truedelphi.

It reminds me of this metaphor: we're like sponges that the system is designed to let us soak up water in the good cycles, or get ahead and build something for ourselves; and then every so often, it wrings us out, making sure that it all goes to the pockets at the top. From what I've seen the cycles are planned, they don't just happen.

So yes, I expect that the wrung out sponges will be allowed to absorb "water" again in the coming years (younger ones than me though, I'm done building things to have them taken by vultures), with the same result afterwards. Us Boomers have been watching this now since the early 70's, with the first gas crisis and interest rate explosion, and it's been repeated several times in our lifetime. That is how the 1% came to be the 1%. Earned, my ass, it's all theft. We used to have laws to mitigate that, but they have all been repealed. It's "of, by and for" the predators now.

We're not alone though, we know each other is out there and going through the same things. That is why I'm not hopeless. Things can change, and maybe they will.

[rdking647]

120. if you bought a house theres one simple questions to ask

did you make all he payments you agreed to make at the time you took out the mortgage?

if the answer is yes and you were foreclosed on you have a case
if the answer is no then you really dont have a reason to not pay your mortgage

[Waiting For Everyman]

132. The law is the law from both sides, not one side.

The independent review board figured I had a case, I don't think they paid me $2K for nothing.

[truedelphi]

149. How is your question coming up now?

There were dozens if not hundreds of topics discussing this during the time it happened.

You have a mortgage. You make the payments on that mortgage.

Meanwhile the economy goes belly up, circa Autumn 2008. The banks have taken those mortgages - even your mortgage that you are paying off and on time - and sliced and diced them, so that .001 percent of each aspect of your mortgage is held by some other entity, and then the banks are gambling on all those various entities. That is what caused the collapse - the fact that the value of outstanding mortgages was wagered on to the tune of one to ten millions of times the values of those mortgages.

Yes there were people who bought more house than they should have. And who couldn't keep up with their payments, and who were then put into foreclosure. But this topic is clearly not about them. This is about the fact that once the banks went after the mortgages-that-were-under-water, they used the MERS system to enable them to quickly process the mortgages.
[h2][font color=red]
All of this WAS NOT NECESSARY!!!
[h2][font color=red]

The banks have received over fifteen to sixteen trillions of dollars of monies from the Federal reserve. In Ireland, as the government there is actually afraid of the citizens, knowing full well what they did when angry from the late sixties on, the people were told that the Bailouts would be given to the banks, but in return, the bankers had to realize that the mortgages were paid off!

In Iceland a similar thing occurred - but was even more brutally judicious than what occurred in Ireland. In Iceland the people like Geithner, and the heads of the various Entities that had collapsed the Iceland economy are now in prison wearing their damn jump suits!

Here however, Barack Obama installed the very people who had helped set the country up for this collapse. And they have lied to Congress, (which should have resulted in the impeachment of each individual who told the lies!) and they have plundered our Treasury and in the case of Bernanke, allowed for the digital creation of 15 to 16 trillions of dollars that were offered up as "loans" to the various Largest Financial Players across the globe.

Some 4.7 trillions of these "loan" dollars will not ever be paid back, which is why there is talk of austerity and the "need" to raid Social Security and cut back on Social Programs.

Here is one very good article about MERS by a story Matt Taibi was working on:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6605962

[rdking647]

117. how did they steal 100k in equity from you?

[Waiting For Everyman]

127. The review board found that by law, I should've gotten a modification, but

was repeatedly denied for no reason.

There was no enforcement mechanism in the mod law to require the banks to follow the law, so the bank refused properties which had equity -- often those of widows or retirees who were "land rich but cash poor", like me. (The news wasn't saying a word about the high-equity situations at the time.) We had enough income and an 8% fixed rate loan, a good rate when we bought the house, which numerous banks had refused for years to refi because our credit was lowered by my disabled vet husband's uncovered and unpayable medical bills. He died just as the crash started in '08, and it took me 6 months to find a job (having been a 24/7 caretaker for a long time during his illness). It also took 6 months for the VA to process my survivors' benefits, so bills came out of the meager savings I had until it was gone. (There was no insurance, his private policy was voided without cause soon before his death to avoid paying out, not enough money to sue; he wasn't told about the disabled vets' insurance until after the sign up deadline.)

After that, I could've been fine -- if I had gotten a refi or the mod. That was amply proven in the docs I submitted dozens of times, without ever getting a yes or no answer, each time after waiting a couple of months to hear, I'd just be told submit it again (this amounted to 20 pages of docs which all had to be re-done each time). Many thousands of people have the same story basically (the land-rich, cash-poor, equity grab story), I know that by reading that stats at the time. Of course millions were denied mods wrongfully altogether, that was in the stats too.

The short answer to your question: the bank simply stonewalled me, and ran up their fees to match my equity. That's how they stole it. They used documents that were fraudulent to do it, if I had unlimited funds for legal fees (which they knew I did not), they would never have gotten away with it because it was illegal. So they broke the law from two different directions to do it. They knew nobody in the system was going to stop them, that simple, and I couldn't afford to..

The official review found it so too, and compensated me 2% of my equity (which didn't even cover my losses in costs incurred of course). The bank got a windfall of 98% -- which took me and my late husband 15 years to build, under some very difficult circumstances.

[DallasNE]

64. Under What Authority Were Banks Able To

Convert mortgages into bonds? Did this happen as a result of a wink and nod by the regulators or did Congress pass a bill authorizing this form of fraud. And how has this problem been fixed, or has it?

The next problem is there is no disincentive to the banks repeating this scam. None. That is because the stockholders paid the fines while the crooked bankers kept their jobs when they should have been thrown in jail. Obviously there is no consumer protection because people that had never missed a house payment lost their homes. That is capitalism run amok.

[truedelphi]

78. The banks were able to convert these mortgages into "bonds"

Through the absence of authority - specifically once the Glass Steagall provisions were taken away by Congress signing off on the Graham Leach Bank Modernization and Reform Act.

Pres Clinton signed it, and some people believe the whole reason his "retirement" has consisted of offering up speeches in front of Big Corporate Podiums for $ 100,000 per speech is on account of him signing it. Quid pro Quo!

In the Senate, only one Senator, the Democrat from Nebraska, spoke out against signing the bill.

And as you say, ther e is nothing that has happened since our economy melted down in Aug/Sept 2008 to prevent these exotic instruments to collapse again! Both Geithner and Obama were selected by the One Percent to see that nothing would occur that would prevent "derivatives" from, existing, in the wildest form of gambling that has ever existed.

[DallasNE]

92. That Is Only A Partial Answer

What Glass-Steagall did was to prevent banks from owning insurance companies so the banks could tap the insurance reserves for collateral for loans. The Travelers-City Group merger depended on repeal of Glass-Steagall. While not smart to let the banks put their hand in that cookie jar it still doesn't explain how mortgages could be converted to bonds.

Was it Nelson or Kerrey that spoke out against the bill. I'm guessing it was Nelson since his background is insurance and he wouldn't want all of the insurance companies gobbled up by big banks.

[Squinch]

115. I think the repeal of Glass Steagall also

allowed for consumer loans to be converted to CDOs where previously only commercial loans could be.

[truedelphi]

154. You are right as far as it being a partial answer.

I don't know who or what allows banks to sell mortgages loans off to other players.

I know way back in late Eighties, my dad noticed the check he sent in for the housing payment never cleared. And when he researched, he found that his mortgage loan had been offered over to some other financial entity. He was able to make good on everything - this was back in the days when they looked to see how many other times you had "defaulted" and his record was so clean, they didn't even assign the usual $ 50 late penalty.

He complained at the time that if such a thing happened to him (He was at that time a senor tax accountant for huge real estate firms) then it could happen to anyone. He also complained that it scared him - if it happened once, could it happen a second time? Why had his notice of the event not been more significant?!? He didn't remember even receiving such a a notice.

[truedelphi]

155. Sen Byron Dorgan was the only person in the Seante to vote against that

Bank Modernization and Reform act. He's not in office now. Small wonder, there: if you have the cajones to go up against the Biggest Financial Firms, you aren't gonna get in for another term.

[Enthusiast]

69. And they made up the phony story about the Community Reinvestment Act and poor people causing this.

This "story" was repeated on all the networks and was seldom challenged.

[truedelphi]

79. Yes, the people at the very top know exactly what Goebbels was saying

About proceeding with a Big Lie. Tell it often enough, and most people end up believing it.

[Qutzupalotl]

71. This happened to a friend of mine.

She owned the house free and clear, but Deutsche Bank stole it out from under her. I wrote about it here a couple of years ago, while it was all going down. I still can't believe it, but it happened.

[silvershadow]

73. I posted a related thread, yesterday...from Salon. Your Mortgage Documents Are Fake! if

anyone is interested:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014563255

[pinboy3niner]

77. The David Dayen (Salon) article is the one quoted by boingboing

I was surprised that this thread had no comments about the math (which is explained by an update/correction by Dayen at the Salon link.

Thanks for posting the link to the other thread.

[Coyotl]

93. K 'n R that

[DirkGently]

85. The lawsuit was actually about banks lying to the government.

This, and the recent Salon article, freely mixed and matched their facts.

From the Salon article.

The federal government, states and cities joined the lawsuit under 25 counts of the federal False Claims Act and state-based versions of the law. All of them bought mortgage-backed securities from banks that never conveyed the mortgages or notes to the trusts. The plaintiffs argued that, considering that trustees and servicers had to spend lots of money forging and fabricating documents to establish ownership, they were materially harmed by the subsequent impaired value of the securities. Also, these investors (which includes the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve) paid for the transfer of mortgages to the trusts, yet they were never actually transferred.

Finally, the lawsuit argues that the federal government was harmed by “payments made on mortgage guarantees to Defendants lacking valid notes and assignments of mortgages who were not entitled to demand or receive said payments.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/12/your_mortgage_documents_are_fake/

It doesn't go with the headline at all. This isn't "robo-signing" of Assignments of Mortgage in the context of a home foreclosure. This is about the banks manufacturing OTHER proofs of transfer to pretend to have complied with a limited timeframe lenders have to transfer mortgages into the security instruments before claiming a loss under federal insurance programs.

The other stuff people have and are talking about -- all-out mistakes as to which property is being foreclosed on, for example, or the faked Assignments where banks were foreclosing -- is tangetinally related, but is not the same thing at all.

Which is why home borrowers will not benefit one iota from any of this.

[Baitball Blogger]

91. And no one went to jail?

[blackspade]

96. Disgusting

Time to put these corporate 'people' to the sword.

[rdking647]

99. how did they steal trillions of dollars in homes?

between 2007 and 2011 they foreclosed on 9M homes.
lets assume 1/4 of them were bad foreclosures ( the actual percentage is probably closer to 1-2%)
thats 2.25m bad foreclosures
if each one was for a home wiorth the us average home value of 150k thats stil only 337B,hardly trillions of dollars worth homes

[SomethingFishy]

101. The details are here:

apparently there are still 10's of millions of homes who's mortgage is is question. Sounds like half the goddamn houses in the country have fake paperwork...

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/12/your_mortgage_documents_are_fake/

[rdking647]

116. that doesnt mean the banks "stole" them

[Coyotl]

124. Semantics, shemantics. "tens of millions of mortgages in America ..."

The "occupants" of those "tens of millions of mortgages in America still lack a legitimate chain of ownership" who already paid for them but who cannot get unencumbered title might disagree.

[4Q2u2]

133. Lost Equity

First your numbers do not account for the lost equity due to the fact they destroyed the market. Secondly it does not account for the real gain on investment that comes with long term home ownership. That assett growth will not be realized by these people.

In an earlier post you had a simple question forum. Did you make payments or not. Some people did make payments to whom they thought was the owner of the loan, but thru the mulitple mortgage transfers and sha(o)dy paperwork, some of those mortgage holders were not valid or known. So home owners were paying one company that did not hold the loan, and another came looking for their money or the house. It was up to the home owner to prove they were making the payments even though the banks were the ones who made all the errors. Others had contacted their banks to work out payment plans that the bank agreed to only to have an illegal foreclosure set apon them. That is the major crux of all of this fiasco and land grab.

http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/region_s_palm_beach_county/law-firm-says-it-has-proof-of-illegal-foreclosure-system

http://therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/75-william-black/1692-why-are-appraisers-furious-at-fraud-by-their-peers-while-corporate-lawyers-are-complacent

[Chisox08]

103. Who's going to jail for this?

Instead of locking people up who was caught with a little weed. They need to focusing on the people who defrauded people out of their homes and billions of dollars.

[Lint Head]

104. You know what? Fuck this shit! I damn sick and tired of apologists and blah, blah blah.

There are bankers and Wall Street assholes who need to go to fucking prison. The last time I looked Barack Obama was President. He CAN do something about this. Number one is making it a priority to explain "to the People" what the hell happened. Then he can actually pressure "powerful" people to DO something about it. It can be done. Not next year but now. Otherwise why do we even have a frigging President. Is he just a mouth piece who spouts whatever bull shit the people who voted for him want to hear. I voted for him. I am to the point of not giving a rats ass about voting at all. Is this another issue he is just "evolving" on or is it that the bankers own him and everybody who answers to him? Why does he and the DOJ not have the moral and ethical stomach to change this despicable crap? Soldiers, including the ones in my family, are willing to give their damn lives for the country and to protect the people. What is the President really willing to do to protect the people? This meme I hear "He can only do so much." is a damn out, and excuse to do nothing but talk. I wish my friends and relatives could have just talked to the enemy instead of stepping on land mines. Must be nice to be powerful and rich. It means you really don't have to give a good damn about people who are not so endowed with money and power.
Arrogance and greed go hand in hand and they are having a grand old time at the expense of the People.

[AZ Progressive]

109. TARP Inspector General: Obama cared more about "foaming the runway" for banks than help homeowners

[Lint Head]

123. When I heard about this I thought I was gonna pop my cork. How obvious. We are nothing but

pawns to be moved around and out of the way so the greedy can screw us every which way they can. We are foam.
Nothing but foam.

[Safetykitten]

131. Yup.

[TBF]

118. It won't happen -

the president can do a lot but only if his wealthy backers allow him to.

The problem is the capitalism - until we get rid of this economic system this is what we're dealing with.

[truedelphi]

150. The person in the Oval Office is merely the

Top PR guy for the Big Corporations. Nothing more; nothing less.

Cheney ran George Dubya's WH - and the very small nice thing about Geroge Dubya is he would sometimes step in and help people who got through to him. For instance, he personally saw to it that a unit in Iraq got clean drinking and bathing water, after someone in the unit called him at the WH. And you could get through to him. I personally talked to Andrew Card several times.

There is no way in hell an average citizen can get through to this President though. He is process oriented, and although he supposedly read the book on Abraham Lincoln, he doesn't care to open up the WH to deal with people who have been screwed over by his economic advisers and their criminal policies.

[AZ Progressive]

108. I figured this out a long time ago. Banks basically stole houses from people

Banks didn't own the houses and in many cases could not track the investors who did own the house, nevertheless act on their behalf, so they took the liberty to pretend that they owned the houses so they could foreclose on them, essentially stealing the houses. Thees banks make the mafia look amateur.

[blkmusclmachine]

110. Savvy!

[Coyotl]

126. A comment on the posts in this thread, about all the blame game stuff.

There seems to be one very active tendency on DU, bash Obama over everything, bash Holder over everything, never mind that the world is complex, that laws are complex, that there are procedures and burdens of proof in the judicial system, never mind the facts and truth, ....

just throw poo like a wild monkey and hope it sticks.

The housing boom and bust happened on Bush's watch. How many mentions of that here? How many rants against Obama?

One more time:



It is really easy to be an anonymous internet armchair legal scholar and criticize a Harvard Law Professor's actions. It is far more difficult to do something about it.

Where are all the kudos to Lynn Szymoniak for doing something about it?

[Octafish]

146. Great. So, why doesn't Obama prosecute the Banksters?

We know the "What" and the "Why." The "Who" and "How" require investigation. And there are plenty of people expert and qualified in forensic economics call upon to lead the prosecution. The trouble is, he'd have to take on the wealthiest and most powerful people and corporations in the world, the same people Bush called his base, the Have-Mores.

[Coyotl]

152. If you have a specific crime, just report it to the proper authority.

Or are you just fling poo? Present your evidence, name the person to be indicted, let's get it on. Or, do you have nothing but generalities and no real evidence to submit to a grand jury or prosecutor?

[Octafish]

156. "Fling poo." Thanks for the kind rejoinder. Let's hear from William K. Black...

The FBI’s 2010 Mortgage Fraud Report Reveals Why the Banksters Love Holder

William K. Black
The Real News, WEDNESDAY, 14 AUGUST 2013 08:31

The Obama administration’s continuation of the Bush administration’s refusal to prosecute the elite banksters (or even the vastly lower status CEOs of the fraudulent mortgage bank) that drove the crisis has made it clear that the rule of law no longer applies to wide ranges of life and that crony capitalism will continue to reign.

One of the difficulties we have is that because the last two administrations have fanatical devotees of the cult of the Virgin Crisis – the myth that the ongoing crisis was the first in modern times conceived without sin (control fraud) – that it is exceptionally difficult to know what their creed is. DOJ has refused to prosecute any elite banker for mortgage loan origination fraud. The rare prosecutions it has brought against senior officials of fraudulent loan originator (a large, but obscure regional mortgage bank: Taylor Bean) did not prosecute the officials for their fraudulent origination (or sale) of loans. They Taylor Bean officials were only prosecuted for their fraud against the TARP program – and only because Neil Barofsky (SIGTARP) made the criminal referral about that fraud and pushed relentlessly to force the Department of Justice to prosecute. With zero prosecutions of the massively fraudulent home lenders that drove the crisis to we are left with no information on why committing hundreds of thousands of frauds via the twin epidemics of loan origination fraud (inflating appraisals and making endemically fraudulent “liar’s” loans) is no longer a crime that the FBI investigates and DOJ prosecutes. No senior DOJ or FBI official, of course, is stupid enough to state openly why we no longer prosecute even the CEOs of long-bankrupt mortgage banks that led these accounting control frauds. The U.S. Attorney for Sacramento, one of the epicenters of accounting control fraud, was foolish enough to attempt to explain why he did not investigated or prosecute the banksters:

Benjamin Wagner, a U.S. Attorney who is actively prosecuting mortgage fraud cases in Sacramento, Calif., points out that banks lose money when a loan turns out to be fraudulent. “It doesn’t make any sense to me that they would be deliberately defrauding themselves,” Wagner said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/03/too-big-to-jail-executive_n_561961.html

Wagner’s inability to keep his pronouns straight even when they were in the same sentence – “they” refers to the CEO, “themselves” refers to the bank the CEO is looting – was so embarrassing that he did not even try to respond to his critics. With no indictments of the bank CEOs for loan origination fraud and no statements by senior DOJ leaders about why they refuse to prosecute the leaders of the accounting control frauds that drove our last three major crises we are forced to guess at what went wrong at the FBI and DOJ.

CONTINUED...

http://therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/75-william-black/1692-why-are-appraisers-furious-at-fraud-by-their-peers-while-corporate-lawyers-are-complacent#.UguyGNIp92A

PS: Dr. Black investigated the S&Ls as a forensic economist and helped put a lot of crooks behind bars. He says we could do the same for the Banksters, if only we wanted. GOOGLE him to learn what he thinks about Geithner, Paulson and Co.

PPS: Here's a nice example of the kind of poo I fling from 2008, when the Banksters weren't yet protected by the statute of limitations. Odd, I don't see your handle contributing anywhere on that thread.

[polynomial]

129. The heart of conservative corruption

From my view this banking fraud stuff is the heart of conservative corruption of what many call dirty tricks. It’s important for me to generalize this concept of conservative because it applies to all parties, Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, or Green Party, and others. We all think in this variable mental flux with conservative and liberal thoughts which swing like a pendulum in public debate. This is a wonderful debating subject, one of my favorites. Especially to build a strong natural reason that will change centuries old land ownership laws moving away from the old European way.

We all work within that natural physics that is tied close to nature. Some technical mathematics needs discussion because it is important to help make a solution by being transparent. The money portion which is the mathematic part usually exploited by MBA’s of the inner circle business person is done with contract language that is tied directly to the laws we are governed with. The mathematics part is derived through the Gaussian Euler (pronounced oiler) theorem symbolized by the letter ‘e’ taken to a power.

From my view this is the center stage complex derivative Timothy Franz Geithner the previous Treasury Secretary talked about in various television interviews. This is one of the key component mathematical tools least known by millions of Americans besides having no clue about how it works. We all merrily move through life trusting every sole that applies it. Now we know many abused it with intentional deceitful evil mean ways.

Especially those who are rich Al Qaeda, maneuvering in our usury banking system to foil, or destroy, or creates chaos in the American way of life. America we have in your face Hollywood exampled by Kiefer Sutherland 24 series as Jack Bauer. Stories like this will scare you as to who has the courage to be a real patriot to the country. Season Four of the story has an exciting drama as a nuclear missile is set off by terrorist flies toward Los Angelis then is found through an advanced technical process by special technical people, here a young girl expert in Fourier and Matrix math feverishly work through computer algorithms to find the flight path of the missile so the air force can track it and shoot it down before it reaches its target.

These kinds of typical corrupted mathematic applications besides home ownership are in charge cards. Some charge cards have gone way out of control shipping preapproved contracts just as a young person reaches puberty. Also notice the very little words advertised in commercials the cable operations specifically designed by one percenters, our FCC.

Legal terms or disclaimers printed at the bottom or across the whole screen flashed within a few seconds fills the legal law for the individual to know what is happening in these commercials. Specifying whether applied to a particular state tells us the entire struggle by perhaps honest state legislators are having a battle to either prevent dishonesty, or hold the door open to being swindled.

An interesting time line offered by WileEcoyote Donating Member to me is one such a person, the Jack Bauer type that wants the system to work.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7388026


Looking at the time line shows an effort of concentration to accumulate by one person interesting data that likely is filtered by mainstream media. Because it condemns with exposure to corruption basic in the American Justice System. We the people have the right to compare our criminal justice system in whatever approach that might be necessary. Especially by placing one’s own life in jeopardy like Snowden. That does look like a combination of treason and courage but the results in making a better system outweighs initial laws.

[JPZenger]

157. Now, thousands of houses are deteriorating because the banks refuse to foreclose

The trend right now in many cities is that there are thousands of zombie houses. The owners walked away, but the bank refuses to take possession of them, because they don't want to maintain them. So, they sit empty and are prime locations for scrap metal thieves and other criminals.

If a house is sold quickly, it is often habitable, but if it is left unattended, it can quickly deteriorate past the point of being able to be rehabbed.

The situation would have been much much better if the banks had cooperated on short sales, and gotten the houses quickly into the hands of responsible homeowners. However, some of the third party companies that handled the paperwork realized they made much more profit on a foreclosure than a short sale.

[truedelphi]

183. Yet again another failure on the part of the man who

Told us that if the banks did not behave in a reasonable fashion, they would be regulated.

So much for that campaign promise!

[lpbk2713]

158. Meanwhile, Katie Barnett still wants the few thousand $$ the bank stole from her.

Link: http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/07/30/woman-trying-to-get-belongings-back-after-bank-forecloses-on-wrong-house/


This is the recent story about the Ohio bank that foreclosed on the wrong house whie the owner was out of town and took all the owner's possessions and won't make good on what they took. Katie is still waiting for justice but the future doesn't look too bright.

[gopiscrap]

180. Fucking bankers

anyother country and they would be in jail.