I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE HOW WELLS FARGO RESPONDS TO ALL THE LAWSUITS FILED AGAINST THEM AFTER EMC REVEALS ITS LOAN FILES, WELLS FARGO YOU WILL NOT BE IN THE CLEAR, AND WILL YOU THEN START RESPONDING TO YOUR OWN PLAINTIFF'S REQUESTS TO SEE YOUR LOAN FILES?

Did Bear Stearns Know Its Mortgage Securities Were a House of Cards?
By ABIGAIL FIELD
Posted 9:15 AM 01/28/11 Company News, Columns, Economy, Investing, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo & Co, Real Estate, Credit, Investment
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This week, a lawsuit filed against Bank of America detailed the worst mortgage practices at Countrywide -- which BofA acquired in 2008. The suit charged that Countrywide had, as a policy, disregarded borrowers' ability to repay their loans because fraudulently securitizing the mortgages was the bank's sole purpose in making them. But Bank of America (BAC) isn't the only major financial institution now facing a legal battle over the past behavior of a company acquired during the financial meltdown.

A lawsuit filed by Wells Fargo against JPMorgan Chase (JPM) unit EMC Mortgage Corp. last week should force Chase to reveal if the conduct of the bank it purchased -- Bear Stearns -- was as bad as or worse than Countrywide's, as another lawsuit alleges. Based on the filings, Bear and its EMC subsidiary behaved remarkably like Countrywide, ignoring the quality of loans in order to create an ever-larger quantity of toxic mortgaged-backed securities.

Wells Fargo (WFC) is the trustee for a trust that issued mortgaged-backed securities built from loans it bought from EMC. That give Wells the right to look at the documents for each of the 2,049 mortgages backing the securities. But after a year of requests to see the loan files, EMC has yet to turn over a single one, which begs the question: Does EMC have something to hide?

Show Us the Documents

A lawyer for a major investor in the securities has already looked at about 1,300 of the 2,049 mortgages, and found 938 of them appeared to violate the representations and warranties made about them. In other words, the mortgages were worse than promised. If that's the case, Wells should be able to force EMC to buy them back -- hence, its requests, and now its lawsuit, demanding to review the files.

How could it be that 70% of the mortgages reviewed so far allegedly violate the securitization contracts' promises regarding mortgage loan quality? An earlier lawsuit filed by securities insurer Ambac (ABK) gives some insight into that question. According to that suit, and the myriad documents it cites in support, EMC/Bear knowingly purchased risky loans made to borrowers who couldn't repay them and packaged those loans into securities while lying about their quality.

Here are some of the highlights of Ambac's charges.

Bear Stearns Knew Loans Didn't Pass Muster

Ambac charges that Bear knew the loans were bad, pointing out that Bear knowingly hired inept firms to review and monitor loan quality. Then, when the "due diligence" companies did flag loans as bad, Bear overrode their decisions more than half of the time. Still worse, the suit says:
Bear Stearns ignored the proposals made by the head of its due diligence department in May 2005 to track the override decisions and instead took the opposite tack, adopting an internal policy that directed its due diligence managers to delete the communications with its due diligence firms leading to its final loan purchase decisions, thereby eliminating the audit trail.
Note that this isn't just a bare allegation by Ambac. Its complaint includes a footnote explaining that this information comes from two sworn depositions.

The suit also notes that by 2007 Bear still hadn't implemented a due-diligence overhaul designed to improve loan quality that was first proposed in 2005. In fact, it moved in the other direction. The suit explains, Bear "issued a directive in early 2005 to reduce the due diligence 'in order to make us more competitive on bids with larger sub-prime sellers.'"

The suit sums up Bear's motive this way: "Bear Stearns disregarded loan quality to appease its trading desk's ever increasing demand for loans to securitize."

One telling sign, according to the suit, that Bear knew how bad the loans were: Without telling investors or bond insurers like Ambac, Bear deviated from its policies on holding onto loans before selling them. Depending on the deal or underlying loan type, Bear had a policy of holding onto the loans for a period ranging from 30 to 90 days. But once it realized how poor the loans were, it kept the policy in place on paper but violated it routinely by securitizing them earlier.

Loans So Bad Bear Didn't Want to Know

In fact, the suit claims Bear would not only securitize those loans but would also go after the companies that sold the loans to Bear in the first place, settling with them in secret. Bear apparently had two departments dedicated to getting paid back for the bad loans, despite the fact that it had already securitized them. And the volume of bad loans grew so much that the departments became overwhelmed. "By mid-2006," the suit notes, "Bear Stearns' repurchase claims against the suppliers had risen to alarming levels, prompting warnings from its external auditors and counsel" that Bear was breaching its contracts.

Indeed, the deal manager for one 2006 securitization was clear about the incredibly poor quality of the underlying loans, referring to the deal when emailing Bear's trading desk as a "shit breather" and "a SACK OF SHIT."

Things got so bad that in 2007 Bear stopped wanting to know about loan quality, the suit says. Citing a deposition, Ambac charges that Bear told its employees to simply stop reviewing certain loan files and just securitize them. And not just any loan flies -- the instruction to stop reviewing applied specifically to mortgages Bear had already purchased from lenders whose standards were so poor that Bear wouldn't buy any more from them.

You read that right: Bear knew some lenders were making such risky mortgages that it would no longer buy from them, but rather than risk getting stuck holding the loans it had already bought from them, it securitized those loans while purposely not reviewing their quality -- or so the evidence cited by the lawsuit says.

Threatening Ratings Agencies

The lawsuit also makes charges regarding Bear's efforts to keep the crappy quality of the loans hidden. One claim is that in 2007, the company threatened the ratings agencies that were downgrading Bear's mortgage-backed securities, saying it would withhold "every fee" owed to the agencies because of downgrades. Ambac also provides details of how Bear finally started reviewing its files and found that many of the mortgages in its securities violated the promised quality standards -- but didn't tell anyone about it.


When Ambac was able to review 695 loan files across several deals it insured, it discovered that 80% of the loans were bad. (To date, the suit later notes, Ambac has reviewed 6,309 loans and found that 5,724 of them violated one or more of Bear's promises about loan quality: an even worse 91% rate.)

Bear rejected Ambac's requests that it repurchase the bad loans and instead implemented a trading strategy of betting against Ambac. Think about that. According to Ambac, Bear knowingly securitized bad loans, conned Ambac into insuring the deals, refused to buy back the bad loans when Ambac discovered them, and then bet against Ambac's survival. Pretty cold.

Ambac contends JPMorgan Chase kept up these tactics of concealing bad loans and refusing to buy back ones that were discovered in order to keep its balance sheet pretty, saying JP Morgan "effectively engaged in accounting fraud."

All About Executive Pay?

Why did Bear deliberately purchase and securitize such horrible loans according to the complaint? Because its executives' pay depended on it. The securitization machine was led by 10 executives -- also defendants in the suit -- the top four of whom made a combined $1 billion in the years preceding Bear's 2008 collapse.

The 162-page complaint goes into great detail about the particular lies Bear and then JPMorgan allegedly told, and how investors -- and Ambac, as the insurer -- have been hurt by them. Reading the filing clearly illuminates how much of a threat to the big banks their mortgage-backed securities may be.

It also underscores exactly why EMC is apparently stonewalling Wells Fargo's efforts to look at its loan files. I can't wait to see how EMC responds to the Wells Fargo suit.

Related articles

• Did Bear Stearns Know Its Mortgage Securities Were a House of Cards? (dailyfinance.com)
• A very messy Ambac lawsuit for JPMorgan (ftalphaville.ft.com)
• The Ambac Suit: Bear Stearns Execs Double-Dipped, Committed Criminal Fraud on Investors (news.firedoglake.com)
• Bear Stearns Emails Suggest Bank Sold Clients 'Sack Of Sh--' (huffingtonpost.com)
• JPMorgan Refused Mortgage Repurchases It Also Sought, Ambac Says (businessweek.com)
• 7 Ways Bear Stearns Called Securities "Sh*t" Before Selling Them To Clients And Insuring Them With Ambac (JPM) (businessinsider.com)
• Emails Show Bear Stearns Was Selling Its Investors "A Sack Of Sh*t", And Now JPMorgan May Be Forced To Pay Up (JPM, GS, BAC) (businessinsider.com)
• Sack of Shit (eschatonblog.com)
• Bad behavior at Bear Stearns (politico.com)
• Bank of America Sued for Countrywide's Mortgage Sins, Again (dailyfinance.com)

LIVINGLIES GARFIELD CONTINUUM "SECURITIZERS LOOKING FOR JUDICIAL BAILOUT; BANKS WALKING AWAY FROM HOMES?"

Image via WikipediaMortgage Lenders Committed 
Massive Fraud and Now 
Wall St. Wants to Escape the Law
Here they come looking for an out-clause and a way to keep their coffers full. We need to repeat a simple mantra: No more bailouts for Wall Street.
By Joshua Holland
January 27, 2011 |

They committed widespread fraud – largely whitewashed by the corporate media – and, in the process, threw the economy into a tailspin. They’ve broken into and stolen people’s homes, and, in the name of “efficiency,” bilked state governments out of billions of dollars in real estate transfer fees. They’ve even admitted to ripping off – and foreclosing on – soldiers deployed overseas, in violation of the law.

And they shredded a bedrock principle of capitalism, throwing hundreds of years of settled property law into doubt and in turn creating a massive drag on Main Street’s economic “recovery.”

They got rich in the process. The mortgage industry did all of that for a fat stream of profits while the going was good, but now that they face the prospect of being held accountable by the justice system — as would you or I had we routinely broken the laws — analysts expect the “banksters” to lobby hard for another bailout.

They won’t be looking for the Fed to shower them with free money or buy up trillions worth of “toxic assets” weighing down their books – they already got that sort of bailout once, the voters detested it and with the Tea Party ascendant in the GOP, the political atmosphere precludes a repeat performance.
No, the mortgage industry – with the help of its political lackeys in Washington– is reportedly looking for a judicial bailout that would retroactively allow loan servicers to foreclose on properties without running up the costs of getting their paperwork in order, and limit investors’ – and possibly the states’ – ability to sue them for the mess they created in the housing market.

Third Way, the financial industry’s Trojan Horse in Democratic policy circles (which is very well represented in the White House), released a policy memo last week urging Congress to step into the chaos caused by the banks’ “robo-signing” scandal and immunize the banks from liability from the robo-signing mess (PDF).

As economics writer Yves Smith noted, the proposal “advocates Congressional intervention into well established, well functioning state law.”

This proposal guts state control of their own real estate law when the Supreme Court has repeatedly found that “dirt law” is not a Federal matter. It strips homeowners of their right to their day in court to preserve their contractual rights, namely, that only the proven mortgagee, and not a gangster, or in this case, bankster, can take possession of their home.

This sort of protection is fundamental to the operation of capitalism, so it’s astonishing to see neoliberals so willing to throw it under the bus to preserve the balance sheets of the TBTF banks. Readers may recall how we came to have this sort of legal protection in the first place. England learned the hard way in the 17th century what happens with low documentation requirements: abuse of court procedures, perjury and corruption become the norm.

Lenders are playing down the mess they created, suggesting they’re simply dealing with some isolated “paperwork” issues. But the Third Way memo comes in the wake of a series of judicial setbacks for the banks that indicate their legal problems are likely to be anything but “minor.”

Last year, the New York Times reported that “in numerous opinions, judges have accused lawyers of processing shoddy or even fabricated paperwork in foreclosure actions when representing the banks.” In both New York and Florida, courts “have begun requiring that lawyers in foreclosure cases vouch for the accuracy of the documents they present,” which “could open lawyers to disciplinary actions that could harm or even end careers.” Stephen Gillers, an expert in legal ethics at New York University, told the Times, “when … it turns out there are documents being given to the courts that have no basis in reality, the profession gets a very big black eye.” The bar association is, understandably, up in arms over the requirement.

Last week, in response to a class action suit, GMAC Mortgage thew out approximately 1,000 foreclosure filings in Maryland that had been “verified” – at a rate of as many as 10,000 per week – by infamous robo-signer Jeffrey Stephan. Anthony Depastina, an attorney for Civil Justice, Inc., a public interest law-firm representing the mortgage-holders, explained to AlterNet that in an affidavit, “the signer is supposed to attest that they verified the numbers … they’re attesting under the penalties of perjury that the information contained in the affidavit …are true and accurate. Plus they’re supposed to sign it in the presence of a notary.” But in the robosigning scandal, “none of this happened.”

In fact, the Associated Press reported that “financial institutions and their mortgage servicing departments hired hair stylists, Walmart floor workers and people who had worked on assembly lines and installed them in ‘foreclosure expert’ jobs with no formal training.” In depositions reviewed by the AP, “many of those workers testified that they barely knew what a mortgage was. Some couldn’t define the word ‘affidavit.’”

The Maryland case was the first ever “defensive” class action suit filed. GMAC responded by offering to dismiss the foreclosure proceedings against the homeowner whose case sparked the suit. “We argued that was just an attempt to get around what was right,” said Depastina. “At the end of the day we would have to file on behalf of some other Maryland homeowner after we found there was a falsified affidavit.” GMAC can refile the foreclosures, but they have to start at square one.

Depastina said he expects these issues to extend far beyond the home mortgage industry. It’s “only symptomatic of a greater attempt by lending institutions of all types to circumvent the processes set up by the courts, the judiciary and legislatures in an effort just to increase their bottom line,” he said. “And I don’t think the foreclosure industry is the only problem – you’re going to see it in credit cards, in debt buying, in assignment of debt, in the auto industry… You know, the same individuals signed off on billions of dollars of debt every year. They’re supposed to verify all that debt information. Do they verify it? I have my doubts.”

The case came only weeks after the Massachusetts Supreme Court dealt the banks a serious blow in US Bank National Association (as trustee) vs. Antonio Ibanez. The case hinged on whether the banks (the case combined two separate foreclosure proceedings) actually had clear titles for properties they claimed to own.

At the heart of the case was the practice of slicing up and bundling hundreds of loans into investment vehicles – “securitizing” the debt. In the process, loans change hands a lot – they were assigned and reassigned from investor to investor, and a servicer dealt with the homeowners. But along the way, paperwork was required by law each time the mortgage changed hands. When the banks showed up to to foreclose, they didn’t have the required chain of title – the court found they were essentially trying to foreclose on properties they didn’t own.

The ruling only applied to Massachusetts, but it sent shockwaves across the mortgage industry. According to Harvard legal scholar Adam Levitin, “there are lots of securitization deals where the mortgages might not be enforceable in title theory states like Massachusetts … and that could well be fatal to enforcement of these trusts’ mortgages in Massachusetts at the very least, and possibly in” many more states.
Then there is the banks’ potentially massive liability stemming from the MERS mess. MERS is a private company established by the banking industry to allow investors to instantly trade debt back and forth. The idea was simple: instead of assigning and reassigning loans and filing the required paperwork with the states, MERS would oversee a database of all of the securitized mortgages in the US – about half of the total number of loans. It would theoretically “own” all the securitized loans, and transfer them within its network instantaneously. The problem is that when a deed changes hands, a recording fee has to be paid to the state or locality where the property is located, and MERS allowed investors to skirt these fees, costing communities untold billions.

Creating a privately operated registry of deeds in order to skirt local filing requirements was a remarkable act of hubris. “Fees are paid for a service performed, and if a document is eliminated because it is no longer necessary, no fee is due because there is nothing to record,’’ reads a statement on the MERS Web site. But that’s nonsense; when a state charges a $50 filing fee, it doesn’t represent the cost of the piece of paper. Those fees make up the revenues that finance state and local government and all the services they provide.

But the key point is that they’re required to file those documents by law, a law the home loan industry believes doesn’t apply to mortgage-lenders. Now they face not only investigations by all 50 state attorneys general, but potentially a wave of lawsuits from investors who may claim that the losses they took on these mortgage backed securities weren’t just the product of the market’s ups and downs, but a consequence of widespread misrepresentation on the part of Big Finance.

But the damage is, unfortunately, in no way being contained on Wall Street. According to data compiled by Housing Wire, the robo-signing boondoggle is largely responsible for a 50 percent drop in the number of foreclosures being completed over the past few months, shifting 250,000 from 2010 to 2011. It’s good for those homeowners to stay in their places for another year, but potentially disastrous for the economy to have a large overhang of distressed properties weighing down the market. According to an analysis by Barclay’s Capital, cited by Housing Wire, “If the worst happens… [if] widespread issues are found throughout the process and foreclosures are not allowed to be carried out, the damage could mean frozen home sales and new lending nationwide.”

In other words, the uncertainty around these chains of ownership may add to the “shadow inventory” of distressed properties that will come onto the market at some point down the road, a number estimated to be as high as seven million homes.
There are also untold numbers of homes that the banks are simply walking away from. Just as many homeowners have seen the value of “strategically defaulting” on their loans, these are properties so far under water that lenders have no financial incentive to take possession of and maintain them until they can be sold. A study conducted in Chicago by the Woodstock Institute, an advocacy group, found 1,896 “red flag” homes in the city that appeared to have been abandoned by loan servicers. The properties were disproportionally located in already distressed low-income communities.

Woodstock Institute VP Geoff Smith told AlterNet that the abandoned properties “add to the destabilization of these neighborhoods. They further effect surrounding property values.” He added that from the city’s perspective, “a lot of times they have to step in and secure these properties because nobody else will. That’s a cost to the city there. If there’s criminal activity, the city has to respond, adding to the cost. They have to demolish these properties in many cases, again adding to the cost for the city. All of this is an extra layer of impact for communities that are already experiencing some distress.”

According to Smith, the issue “raises questions about servicer accountability. How are [they] accountable for the decisions they make and the impact those decisions have on communities? If it’s not in their economic interests to take possession of the properties, then how does that effect the community” as a whole?”

The answer is that the consequences are disastrous, which may in turn provide the argument that the mortgage industry will use to seek judicial relief from the mess it created. It’s a good bet that they will once again claim they are “too big to fail” – or too big to bear the brunt of widespread litigation on the part of struggling homeowners, investors and state governments.

It would be scandalous to reward the lending industry with an effective pardon for its wanton, fraudulent practices. The good news is that the banksters face a much steeper climb this time around. In October, only 26 percent of the public said that George W. Bush’s Wall Street bailout was “good for the country, and disapproval spanned the political spectrum.

So defeating a judicial bailout for the loan industry should be a winnable fight against an opponent that the public views as a toxic influence on the economy. Back in November, rumors floated around about a potential “MERs whitewash bill” that would immunize the firm from lawsuits, but such a bill never materialized in Congress. Reaction to the trial balloon was swift and angry, and nobody on Capitol Hill has dared to introduce such a measure.

If a judicial fix ends up being debated, the outcome will likely be determined by which side wins the battle of narratives. The lending industry will say that it’s necessary to keep the Main Street economy afloat. In order to defeat that message, opponents need to repeat a simple mantra: No more bailouts for Wall Street.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy (and Everything else the Right Doesn’t Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America). Drop him an email or follow him on Twitter.
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Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud
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5 Responses

E. Tolle, on January 31, 2011 at 7:31 pm said:

Louise, there’s an in your face problem with the Third Way wanting to legitimize all of the fraud, which, when understood for what it truly is, is an attempt at handing over to the bankers the keys to the realm.

If that occurs, when it sinks in as another 12-15 million houses are lost, it’ll be time to get fitted for a civil war uniform. Only this time, it will be three piece suits against Joe6pack flannel, and it won’t be pretty. I’d place a wager on Joe against the suits, just like our 1700′s militia against the powdered wigs in bright easy to shoot at red uniforms marching slowly in file.

I love this country, when it works. And it’s not doing that right now. Working meaning as in functioning properly, but also as in people working…. at jobs….it’s all broken.

When enough Americans feel the heat, or the growl of an empty belly, I have no doubt that Wall Street, the Treasury, the Central Banks, the Capitol, all will wish that they’d done things a little differently. Egypt is a precursor.

Step on the states at your own peril feds. And Wall Streeters.

Louise, on January 31, 2011 at 6:57 pm said:

E. Tolle, I am sure many people are starting to think like you. The President is in the middle of this as well. How long is he going to look the other way? It is not going to be good for reelection. I wonder if any of his cabinet and advisers realizes that. Time to boycott mega banks and just put them out of business. Burmese8@yahoo.com

TW, on January 31, 2011 at 6:26 pm said:

AIG $70 Billion
Asset Guarantee Program $12.5 Billion
Bear Stearns $29 Billion
Capital Purchase Program $218 Billion
Commercial Paper Facility $1.8 Trillion
Fannie/Freddie bailout $400 Billion
FHA rescue $320 BIllion
GSE debt purchases $200 Billion
GSE Mtg Backed purchases $1.25 Trillion
Making Home Affordable $50 Billion
PPIP $100 Billion
TALF $70 Billion
TARP $70 Billion
TIP $40 Billion

*owning Congress…. “priceless”

usedkarguy, on January 31, 2011 at 5:41 pm said:

Had a banker friend today tell me the FDIC “dumped” 300 houses on them after taking over “other” assets from a failed bank.

E. Tolle, on January 31, 2011 at 4:53 pm said:

If they judicialize the fraud by tramping over state’s rights, they’ll attempt to take my house at a very high risk of bodily harm. Extremely high.

Related articles

• The Stakes Are Huge: There's Another Bank Crash Looming, and We Must Prevent Another Bailout (alternet.org)
• Massachusetts Ruling Slams Bank Foreclosure Practices (dailyfinance.com)
• Groups Say Iowa AG Retreats From Promise To Be Tough On Robo-Sign Banks (huffingtonpost.com)
• GMAC Tells Court It Will Dismiss, Re-File Certain Foreclosures (blogs.wsj.com)
• Who's to Blame for the Mortgage Mess? Banks, Not Homeowners (dailyfinance.com)

ATKINS, ATKINS, ATKINS. DID YOU AND R.K. ARNOLD SIGN UP FOR THAT TRIP TO MARS?

Image via Wikipedia
Wells Fargo Won’t Settle Fannie/Freddie Put-Back Cases
By: David Dayen Wednesday January 19, 2011 2:01 pm
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Bank of America wound up with what many observers found to be a favorable settlement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over repurchase claims on mortgage backed securities where the bank violated clear representations of the product. But Wells Fargo continues to maintain that they’re the “good” bank in all of this. Despite clear evidence that Xee Moua, a Wells employee, robo-signed thousands of foreclosure affidavits, they have yet to acknowledge the error or suspend foreclosure operations. And despite clear evidence that they engaged in the same poor securitization processes as BofA and others, which led to the repurchase demands from the GSEs, they won’t settle the claims.

Wells Fargo & Co. won’t seek a settlement with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac on disputed mortgages, and terms offered to rival banks may not have been as generous as some portrayed, Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins said.

“The quality of our securitizations was of a much higher caliber than all of the other large bank peers,” Atkins said today in an interview. “It doesn’t make sense for us to pay up to get rid of the remaining small amount of problems we have.”

This is just a falsehood. Wells has exactly the same problems as the other large banks, and virtually the same exposure. And ironically, Wells’ adamant stance may lead to an actual court case from the GSEs, which would expose them MORE than banks who took the settlement, and lead to a host of private claims from investors.

Incidentally, Wells Fargo was the servicer in the case of the family whose home I visited yesterday in North Portland. Connie and Michael Umphress sought a private modification from Wells as they were struggling to meet payments on their mortgage (though they remained current on the loan). Wells told them to skip a payment to qualify for a modification (not true), then strung the family along for 10 months with a trial modification, ruining their credit along the way, before rejecting them and demanding payment on the balance, or foreclosure. After the Wall Street Journal jumped on the story, all of a sudden Wells Fargo got very accommodating to the family, and helped negotiate a legitimate modification.

This activity mirrors pretty much every other servicer-driven default I’ve heard about. This notion that Wells is immune from all this is just laughable. Before long you’ll hear about Wells Fargo in cases like these:

Banks in recent weeks have been dropping hundreds of their Southwest Florida foreclosure lawsuits instead of facing defendants at trial, according to local attorneys and court records.

Opinions varied sharply on whether that means banks are just taking a breather before refiling with stronger evidence – or giving up for good on hopelessly flawed cases [...]

But eight voluntary dismissals were filed Tuesday alone by seven different banks including Bank of America, one of the largest filers of foreclosures in this area. Bank of America did not reply to a request for comment Tuesday.

At one court hearing alone, attorney Kevin Jursinski said, one of his associates watched as “50 in a row” were withdrawn.

“Can they re-litigate?” Fort Myers-based attorney Carmen Dellutri asked. “I don’t think so.”

This is highly unusual, by the way, and evidence that the banks have run into a brick wall with their fraudulent foreclosures and need to reassess their options.

And that includes Wells Fargo. This public front that they’re immune is just that, a front.
 
Tags: foreclosures, foreclosure fraud, loan modifications, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, repurchases, GSEs,

Wells Fargo Exec Admits Faulty Document Review, as Borrowers Get Wise to Foreclosure Fraud October 4, 2010


Connecticut Suspends All Foreclosures; BofA Close to Doing the Same October 1, 2010
Foreclosure Fraud Updates: Fannie and Freddie Plan to Penalize Banks, BofA Becomes Title Insurer October 12, 2010


Answering Marcy’s Question on Principal Reductions October 29, 2010
Foreclosure Fraud Issue Sizzles: Regulator Calls for Internal Review, Ohio SoS Refers Cases to Federal Prosecutor October 1, 2010

I think they’re paying a lot of money for bad legal advice. There is still a lot of information to come out in the open, the price of settlement will never be lower.

Boxturtle (Mr. Atkins, there’s a Mr. Reality here with some paperwork for you)
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lawgrace January 19th, 2011 at 10:31 pm
2

Since Wells Fargo (WF) is a PREDATOR, it has no greater function than to forge forward until its Titanic sinks with everyone aboard. According to the Super Future Equities lawsuit, LITIGATION –at the expense of Investors, associated with foreclosure frauds is exactly what Wells Fargo relishes. Mortgage-default insurance, as well as IRS credits after submitting fraudulent “acquisition” form 1099-A’s are standard methods of operation for this brazen company. The mere audacity of an entity attempting to challenge Wells Fargo seems to embolden WF to proudly flex its (for now) untouchable muscles. *Wells Fargo is so brazen that WF put WF’s name on 1099′s and falsifies that “acquisition” for homes that were NOT foreclosed on by Wells Fargo! To this date, it appears that no one has even bothered to look at the false 1099-A’s that WF has filed with the IRS.

****a few links:

*SUPER FUTURE EQUITIES v WELLS FARGO
@ http://www.bankruptcylawnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/super-future-v-wells-fargo-et-al-complaint.pdf*Foreclosure Frauds, Wells Fargo-the Fox in Charge @ http://bit.ly/bWpQCj

*LEHMAN BROTHERS; Foreclosure Fraud, Conspiracy, Wells Fargo; Deceptive Judicial Filings @ http://bit.ly/e2fYoE

*Open Letter to President Obama on Foreclosure Crisis (re: Wells Fargo) @ http://bit.ly/cyGXs0
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lawgrace January 19th, 2011 at 11:43 pm
3

ADDITIONALLY, see the story of Wells Fargo’s despicable foreclosure fraud, criminal participation involving a non-enforceable debt due to Wells Fargo –under pretext of being the mortgage servicer– deliberately preparing a NULL home loan modification contract in the name of a SHAM LENDER:

Foreclosure Fraud Assault -A Cry For Help by Alan Gray http://bit.ly/9KVcNw
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eCAHNomics January 20th, 2011 at 6:09 pm
4

Of course Wells Fargo, nor any other MOTU will settle. They know if the laughingly-referred-to-as-U.S.-legal-system comes close to ‘getting’ them, the prez will bail them out.
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SueDe January 20th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
5

The Justice Department needs to start initiating fraud suits before congress starts passing laws that legalize every fraudulent act banks have engaged in. Because when congress does that – and you know they will – the defrauded homeowners will be flat out of recourse. Get those lawsuits filed soon boys, whether civil or criminal, individual or class action, and hope congress’s “get out of jail free” act won’t be retroactive.
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oldtree January 20th, 2011 at 8:26 pm
6

If you aren’t aware, Wells Fargo creates their own rules for securitization. They do not correspond with REMIC or NY trust law, and they can not be shown in the light of day. They don’t even bother to go through half the motions that the other companies claim they comply with, and now we know they don’t comply either.
If you look closely at your documents from Wells Fargo generated from 2000 to 2008, you may find fundamental problems with several things. They do direct to securitization believing that if they say it is ok, it is. By doing so, there is some reason to believe that the parties they sell the paper to are aware and complicit, as they appear to be involved with the creation of a deed of trust that is known to all to be void.
Look closely at your Deed of Trust. Wells Fargo has a habit that is going to bite them very soon. They made up fictitious trustees that were recorded. In many states this will make same deed of trust void.
LOAN MODIFICATIONS: a criminal act if the party has no ownership. Please realize loan mods are acts of crime. If you still feel you must make a deal before the housing market has collapsed and your value will again be 20% less than what it was when you modified, AT LEAST, take an attorney with you. When you realize they won’t deal with you if you have an attorney, does that tell you anything at long last?
disclosure, I work in dirt law and am not an attorney. The shit being fed to us is GMO shit. It is vaporshit, fantasylandshit.

Please do not believe anything the people and banks say? Why would they tell anyone the truth when they are insolvent, being propped up daily by government infusions of money, and more and more people are challenging them by filing quiet title to make them prove their claims. They can not prove their claims. Your best defense is a QT offense, use it. It is a hundreds of years old property standard to prevent what they are trying to do to you. It is a form that you can get at your county. Bring them to court to explain the dots they can’t connect. They have to prove their claims. You don’t.
Don’t be surprised if the banks believe you have the plague after you file to quiet title. They don’t want the plague that you can give them, and spread, disseminate, vaporize and go viral to every middlesex village and town. You can crush them and stop this, one by one.
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Cynthia Kouril January 21st, 2011 at 6:09 am

According to comments made by judes at frums I have attended Wells has the WORST documentation of all the banks.

So, they are just bluffing. However, Fannie and Freddie usually have their hands tied by Treasury which of course is completely in the tank for the worst of the worst in banking, so……

Related articles

• Wells Fargo Mortgage Foreclosures (themortgagepot.com)
• "Wells Fargo Admits 55,000 Foreclosures Had Errors" and related posts (thinkglink.com)
• Wells Fargo 'Robo Signers' Apparently Used In Foreclosures (huffingtonpost.com)
• Wells Fargo Foregoes Foreclosure Moratorium (forbes.com)
• Wells Fargo Won't 'Pay Up' to Settle Mortgage Buybacks (businessweek.com)
• Wells Fargo profit up, aided by lower reserves (chron.com)
• You: Wells Fargo: Mortgage repurchase demands are 'very manageable' (menafn.com)

Huh. I wonder if Wells Fargo told Karen Michaels to stop making her payments for three months so she would "qualify" for a mortgage modification. Her credit was probably perfect, she probably made all her mortgage payments on time, then life got in the way as it sometimes does, and she was put in the precarious position of having to ask the Godfather for a little help. At least that is usually the way it happens.

Her mod was most likely denied by Wells Fargo’s old tried and true reason for denying all modifications: oops, yes, we are foreclosing against you since you've missed three payments, even though we are the ones who told you to stop making your payments; it’s not our fault we've suddenly realized we don't own your note, thus we can’t modify your loan. Sorry we've ruined your credit. Say goodbye to your home.

Note: If Wells can’t modify without permission from their investors, they certainly can't legally foreclose without permission from their investors. So if they try to take your home, ask them to prove they have permission from their investors to take your home from you. Tell them you want to see the MASTER POOLING AND SERVICING AGREEMENT FOR THE TRUST THAT HOLDS YOUR MORTGAGE LOAN.  Ask for it in the "Discovery" stage of your lawsuit.

 

Foreclosed home granted reprieve

Saturday, January 22, 2011

By JACK FLYNN

jflynn@repub.com

SPRINGFIELD - Karen Michaels' home in Sunderland is safe for two more months.

That much was clear after a 90-minute hearing in U.S. District Court Friday, when U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor declined to dismiss Michaels' lawsuit against Wells Fargo mortgage company to block foreclosure on her home.

But Ponsor also urged Michaels' lawyer, Francis K. Morse, of Springfield, to cooperate with requests by Wells Fargo for more detailed financial information from Michaels, and urged both sides to continue working for a solution to the foreclosure case.

He set a March 28 date for the next hearing, and told lawyers he had a preferred outcome in the case.

"Let's try one more chance to get there," the judge said, referring to a solution that will satisfy Wells Fargo and keep Michaels in her home.

Michaels, 54, a massage therapist and ballet instructor, struggled to hang on to her Cape-style home at 240 S. Silver Lane for more than a year by appealing to the Wells Fargo mortgage company for a loan modification in 2009. In November, Ponsor issued a preliminary injunction blocking the foreclosure planned for the day after Thanksgiving.

On Friday, the judge heard reports from Morse and Wells Fargo's lawyer, Patrick J. Clendenen, who said his client was seeking basic financial documents to determine whether Michaels qualifies for a federal program designed to aid financially distressed mortgage holders.

At the same time, Michaels' lawyer has been seeking documents relating to whether Wells Fargo miscalculated her eligibility for loan modification assistance.

The judge cautioned Morse that even if a mistake was found in previous calculations, it would not guarantee that his client could keep her home. Turning over basic financial documents involving Michaels' income to Wells Fargo would be helpful to both sides in clarifying the issue, Ponsor said.

Morse agreed to turn over the financial records by the next hearing.

Neither Morse, Clendenen nor Michaels would comment after the hearing.

Related articles

• Wells Fargo Won't 'Pay Up' to Settle Mortgage Buybacks (businessweek.com)
• Wells Fargo: No plans for foreclosure moratorium (marketwatch.com)
• Massachusetts court voids foreclosures by Wells Fargo and US Bancorp (dailykos.com)
• Wells Fargo 4Q profit up, aided by lower reserves (usatoday.com)
• Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (themortgagepot.com)
• Judge Rejects Wells Fargo Foreclosure Documents Again (dailyfinance.com)
• A Foreclosure Fiasco: The Case of Tandala Mims v. Wells Fargo (dailyfinance.com)
• With loans up, Wells Fargo hits record profit (sfgate.com)
• Wells Fargo Mortgage Foreclosures (themortgagepot.com)

VIDEO TAPE ALL FORECLOSURE SALES: I'M RECEIVING REPORTS THAT BANKS ARE HIRING INDIVIDUALS TO BID AT AUCTIONS PRETENDING TO BE A REPRESENTATIVE OF THEIR BANK. THEY THEN PAY THAT HIRED HAND FOR THEIR SERVICE. I HAVE WITNESSES WILLING TO TESTIFY. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS POINT MORE. MOST FORECLOSURE SALES ARE ILLEGAL. VIDEO TAPE EVERY SINGLE ONE.

Image by Adam Crowe via FlickrANOTHER PAGE FROM BANKERS PLAYBOOK: THE SHADOW KNOWS
Posted on January 25, 2011 by Neil Garfield
ONE ON ONE WITH NEIL GARFIELD

COMBO ANALYSIS TITLE AND SECURITIZATION

QUOTE FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON…

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.


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SHADOW BANKING WHERE THE BIG AND LONG LASTING DECISIONS ARE MADE
Presidential Pardon Equivalent at the Local Level

Here is a rule of thumb that is 100% reliable — whenever the people are going to get screwed it is happening in the shadows. In finance we even have an institutional name for it — SHADOW BANKING. That is where most of the transactions occur that the largest impact on world commerce and world finance. They call it SHADOW BANKING because it is unregulated and unknown to the general public. It is home to the great recession and the great mortgage meltdown. This is where the economy was trashed but the banks made money on transactions that never happened and nobody cares because it is the appearance of normalcy that we are after not the reality.

So for those of you who want to play detective and be able to predict with accuracy how we are going to get screwed in the future, look for the shadows — the places where the media coverage is slight and where the details are apparently boring. Lawyers know it as Administrative Law. Administrative actions are where the rubber hits the road and nobody looks there. Guess who is paying close attention to administrative actions? The banks, because it is in the rules and regulations, appointments and actions of the administrative agencies that will decide whether the banks can contain any disaster.

LAW 101: Our system of government is set up in an interactive and counterbalancing manner that provides at least the opportunity for adverse interests to be heard. It STARTS with the Constitution. The Constitution is the enabling document that allows the congress and state and local government to make laws. The Constitution is the enabling document that allows the Federal government to enforce those laws.

The second step are the laws themselves. The Congress, State legislatures, County and City governments may pass laws, statutes, ordinances, as long as they don’t violate the principles and restrictions of the Constitution. Those laws, statutes and ordinances enable the creation of agencies (Sheriff, zoning, education, police etc.) and enable those agencies to pass rules and regulations. This where the specifics of the Constitutional principles and restrictions are carried out. The rules and regulations are valid only if they don’t violate the enabling law, statute or ordinance that created them, and only if they don’t violate — in words or in practice — the principles an restrictions of the Constitution.

The third step are rules and regulations of the executive branch of government that will enforce those laws. Those rules and regulations are made in hotel convention rooms where board members hold “public hearings” and in which they accept the arguments of all sides and all people who have something to say. It is here, where the devil is in the details. It is here that the grand principles and restrictions of the Constitution are carried out through implementation of the laws, statutes and ordinances that were validly passed. And it is here that the Banks carry the ultimate sway because they know what you don’t — that showing up, money in hand, is 80% of success in the battle and where the laws, statutes and ordinances can be effectively nullified by creating a maze of rules and regulations that favor special interests.

Not surprisingly, having lost the bulk of the fight at the congressional level the banks are concentrating their efforts first at the State legislative level, second at the executive enforcement level and third in the tiny meetings of unknown Boards with unknown members meeting in hotel rooms that will determine whether the laws will ever go into effect. Off topic example: the Board of Chiropractic in Florida won the right to prohibit Chiropractors from administering injections of vitamins. They can insert a needle into a vein and withdraw blood, they can inject insulin but they can’t inject vitamins. Only MD’s and DO’s can do that. The statute didn’t say anything like that but the Board decided that anyway and the presumption is that the Board is right unless you can prove that they acted improperly.

So don’t be surprised if you find Banks screwing you for even more money (hidden fees) accessing your own account money in your own account even though there are now Federal laws and federal agencies that prohibit such activities. And it is here that the small community banker is failing. Their trade associations are usually controlled directly or indirectly by larger banks whose interests align with the mega banks. And so instead of leveling the playing field they give the large banks greater opportunity to raise barriers to growth of the community bank or credit union.

And don’t be surprised if at the local level, despite all laws and Constitutional restrictions to the contrary, that the foreclosure process allows a non-creditor to submit a credit bid but only if they are a member of the “club.” Don’t be surprised if at the local level they pass surprisingly obtuse recording rules that enable a non-titled owner of a document to record a title instrument naming himself as the owner even if the law says otherwise. Be careful here, warriors, this battle is not done. If you don’t show up and shine a light on what is happening at state and local levels you will have succeeded these last three years in proving you are right but ending up losing anyway.

Show up, bring the press and if they won’t come take your own videos. Nobody likes that when they know they are doing something wrong. Keep track of the schedule of local agencies and don’t be fooled by agenda items that don’t look like they are important. It’s up to you now. There are more of you than there are of them. If you show up in numbers, the game is over for them, and we can take back our society from the death grips of big banks and big business.

Related articles

• Bank Of America Dives, As Foreclosure Freeze Is Worse Than Thought (businessinsider.com)
• In States Where Foreclosures Bypass Judges, New Evidence of Robo-Signers (propublica.org)
• Roy Oppenheim Sizes up Foreclosure Crisis with Asset Protection Attorney (southfloridalawblog.com)
• Inside a Florida Robo-Signing Document Assembly Line (dailyfinance.com)
• Mitchell J. Stein, Esq.: Trend of Bank of America Loan Modification and Consumer Abuses Needs Exposure (prweb.com)
• Military foreclosure debacle roughs up Dimon (finance.fortune.cnn.com)

THIS IS ONE OF THE MANY REASONS YOU SHOULD ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, FIGHT AGAINST FORECLOSURE (It looks like U.S. Bank failed to properly document securitization of the homeowners mortgage loan, as in the IBANEZ case.)

One house, two banks:
The property that sums up
America's mortgage nightmareBy Daniel Bates
Last updated at 6:51 AM on 24th January 2011

Two banks lay claim to Staten Island house
Homeowner caught in middle of foreclosure row

It is the one house owned by two banks that sums up the unintelligible mess that America's mortgage system is in.

This detached suburban home on Staten Island in New York is at the centre of a bitter legal row between lenders Home123 Corporation and U.S. Bank.

Both have launched separate legal bids to take over the property and foreclose it, leaving the homeowner caught in the middle of a row which sums up the mess the mortgage system is in.


Paperwork nightmare: Two banks are laying claim this house in Staten Island, according to a foreclosure filing

Whilst Home123 claims it has its name on the county tax rolls, U.S. Bank has said in court papers that it is responsible for the property.

But in a farcical twist, the bank was forced to admit that the original mortgage documents have been lost by its staff and are nowhere to be seen.

The case highlights the problems that banks face identifying who owns which properties after the global financial meltdown in which dozens of financial institutions closed down, taking their paperwork and records with them.

In some cases banks have foreclosed homes when they had no right to do so and left families to come home and find all their personal possessions have been illegally taken from the property.

On top of all that, in New York there was the scandal of ‘robo-signers’ - workers for financial companies who processed large volumes of foreclosure documents but did not verify them, making errors even more likely.

The Staten Island home was to be put up for foreclosure by U.S. Banks servicing company Ocwen Loan Servicing after the unnamed owner fell behind on the mortgage payments.

All was clear enough until Home123, the original lender, pitched in and said it owned the property.

U.S. Bank has fought back but did admit in court documents that ‘due to unforeseen circumstances, the original Assignment of Mortgage and Endorsement Note were lost before they could be recorded’.

Joseph Sant, the lawyer representing the homeowner said that U.S. Bank wanted to foreclose on a home ‘without proof that it owns the mortgage’.

‘That should not surprise anyone after the revelations of widespread robo-signing and document falsification in foreclosures,’ he said.

‘What does surprise me is that the bank admits that it lacks key evidence needed to foreclose, yet is trying to bulldoze through the legal process anyways’.

Across the U.S. there have been countless cases of banks wrongly targeting homeowners for foreclosure.

In one of the most shocking instances, Bank of America was accused of unlawfully seizing the ashes of a dead husband from his grieving widow’s home.

Bailiffs working for the company are said to have broken into the Mimi Ash’s house during a foreclosure before ransacking the place.

According to a lawsuit they cleaned out the entire property in Truckee, California - including a wooden box, its top inscribed with the words ‘Together Forever,’ that contained the ashes of the 45-year-old’s late husband Robert.

U.S. Bank spokesman said it did not bring the action but was named as a plaintiff to send paperwork to.

Related articles

• L. Randall Wray: Requiem for MERS (and the Banks That Created the Frankenstein Monster) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Why the Massachusetts Supreme Court Voided Two Foreclosures and What It Could Mean for Banks (propublica.org)
• Who's to Blame for the Mortgage Mess? Banks, Not Homeowners (dailyfinance.com)
• Buyer May Not Own in Faulty Foreclosure (businessweek.com)
• Judges to weigh mortgage document destruction (reuters.com)
• Banks lose important ruling on foreclosures (msnbc.msn.com)
• What the Massachusetts Decision Means for the Major Banks (fool.com)

CHINK IN THE ARMOR

 Welcome to the Machine

So many things happening it is hard to describe. 2011 will be the year of the counter attack.

Two essays, well, one really. The other is a piece I call: The View. It covers some rather serendipitous over the transom type stumblings over the last week. It's two pieces really, and some mitigating factoids. Presented individually, they are interesting. One right after the other, quite enlightening.

You can find it here. You may have to scroll down a bit.

It will take you about two hours dedicated time to go through it all. I realize asking to dedicate two hours is asking a lot. It took me three days to watch the VDO. It will take you 20 - 30 minutes to go through the other two links.

Now more than ever I encourage you to pass this information along. The site has had over two million visitors in the 8 months it's been up. They have come from interesting places like Beijing (last count 480 visits) Riyadh, Frankfurt, Paris, London. What is really interesting is how long they stay on the site. Why would 400+ people in Beijing come to the site and spend 3-4 hours at a whack?

Keep a log of all the weird stories between now and this time next year. It will be interesting to see what your idea of weird is after 12 months.

Stay tuned.

V
info@chinkinthearmor.net
www.chinkinthearmor.net
 
A Workingman’s Guide to MERS and the Shadow Banking System

You will hear the name MERS a lot in the news over the next few periods of time. It’s the biggest screw up the Bangstas have laid on the country yet. MERS was brought to the Mortgage Banking Industry as a way to solve all of their problems regarding the high cost of securitization. In the process, the Wizzards overlooked a few crucial concepts in Western Jurisprudence and as a result, have destroyed over 400 years of property records meticulously kept in county courthouses all over the country.

What happened?
How did it happen?
What happens next?

All very good questions.

“Welcome to the Machine: A Workingman’s Guide to MERS & the Shadow Banking System” answers those first two questions and draws attention to possibilities on the last. This book will show you the truth of how MERS & the Shadow Banking System destroyed the country. You owe it to your self to know if for no other reason than to be informed in the debate over “what comes next?”

This is the first of a two part story. The working title for the second story is “The Machine on Meth” which will explore the real happenings on how this monster created by MERS and debt securitization have pushed America to Her most critical crisis in her 200+ years of existence.

The first is necessary to understand the second.

Go here to buy this book ($6.99) and go here to read the first chapter.

If you are looking for the blog … keep scrolling down.


The View

It was an interesting week on the reading front this past week. I had several things pass my desk which individually are interesting and insightful, together they present a powerful look at what we have in front of us.

If you have been reading these musings over the past year, you are further ahead than 95% of all the other residents of this country. As my friend PacMan says, the view from 50,000 ft. What he likes to do from there is drill down to the detail to understand what happened.

I am starting out with the assumption you understand the view from 50,000 ft. What I am offering here is what I consider the view from 75,000 ft:

http://www.realecontv.com/videos/post-collapse/re-wiring-the-financial-system.html

It’s a one hour VDO with Catherine Austin Fitts. Fitts was a political appointment w/ HUD in the GHWBush administation who when pointing out corruption was politely asked to leave. Since then she has had an interesting career. I realize it is asking a lot for you to dedicate an hour to this. It took me three days. If you break it up in small chunks it is easier.

Then there is the view from 100,000 ft.

****************************************************************************


The Bad Guys Take One

Today, the Massachusetts Supreme Court exploded a large round into the camp of the bad guys.

Some Very Bad News For The “Sweep Fraudclosure Under The Rug” Brigade

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/07/2011 10:35 -0500

Related articles

• MERS' R.K. Abandons Sinking Ship (news.firedoglake.com)
• Top Corporate Lawyer Claims Mortgage Rates Will Skyrocket Without MERS (news.firedoglake.com)
• Fixing Massachusetts Foreclosures Won't Be So Easy (dailyfinance.com)
• Yes, MERS Lobbyists Want to Whitewash MERS; But Is It Legal? (news.firedoglake.com)
• MERS: The Mortgage Database That's Clouding Millions of Titles (dailyfinance.com)
• Richard Zombeck: Massachusetts Courts to Banks on Foreclosures: The Law Matters (huffingtonpost.com)
• What, Exactly, is the Problem With Foreclosures? (theatlantic.com)
• Shadow banking needs more transparency: CD Howe (financialpost.com)
• Bank Of America Slides After Suffering A Big Loss At The Massachusetts Supreme Court (BAC, WFC) (businessinsider.com)
• Catherine Austin Fitts: The Looting Of America (disquietreservations.blogspot.com)
• The Truth About Fraudclosure (lewrockwell.com)
• And the financials all went down on Massachusetts (ftalphaville.ft.com)
• 5 Signs the End is Near for the Criminal Banks (musicians4freedom.com)
• Former President George H.W. Bush Marks 20th Anniversary of Desert Storm With National Security Team (blogs.abcnews.com)
• How-to Embed The New YouTube Video Player Skin And Why (reelseo.com)
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NEIL GARFIELD RESPONDS TO A COMMENT PLANTED BY A WELLS FARGO PAID OFFICER WHO FAILS IN AN ATTEMPT TO MAKE HOMEOWNERS FEEL GUILTY!! GOD BLESS YOU NEIL FOR CONSTANTLY STAYING ON TOP OF THEM!

TEACHING MOMENT
Posted on January 18, 2011 by Neil Garfield

Thanks to Karl Denninger, we now know that the email came from the Wells block of IP addresses. Special message to the idiot calling himself or herself FEDup, you have denigrated a perfectly valid web site www.fedupusa.com. So if you are truly FEDup you musst be referring to what you put in your mouth.

FROM KARL DENNINGER

This is a plant from Wells Fargo (the post came from their IP block) and has ZERO affiliation with FedupUSA, which posts over on my forum as well as on their own blog.

Needless to say I’m in contact with them on this and I suspect the owners of FedUp (I’m not an officer, but they are!) will be dealing with this shortly.

THIS IS PROBABLY ANOTHER “PLANT” PIECE TO MAKE PEOPLE FEEL GUILTY ABOUT DEFENDING THEIR PROPERTY AND THEIR LIFE STYLE SO DON’T TAKE IT ALL TOO SERIOUSLY. 

But it does present a teaching moment for virtually all homeowners who secretly harbor the idea that this whole mortgage mess and their own mortgage mess is their own fault. We have all developed a sense of being moral persons and paying our bills is one of the ways we demonstrate our morality. So if we don’t pay our morals are low and if we DO pay then our morals are high. Right?

BUT WHAT IF THE BILL IS WRONG? ARE WE IMMORAL IF WE CONTEST IT? What is it about the Banks that because they say something it is presumed true? I find the same people who are angry about the bank bailout in 20028 (Bush)-2009 (Obama) are the ones talking about the morality of paying your bills and presuming the bill for these scrambled mortgages is correct. They are the same people who vote for candidates who keep the bankruptcy code as is — if you own an apartment building you can force the amount due to the value of the property — but if you own just one apartment, you can’t. Both seem to be moral in their eyes. You would think that if it is immoral to seek relief or defend a foreclosure action against one living unit that the immorality would be multiplied by doing for multiple living units. 

Apparently not since Chapter 11 allows the owner to cram down the “bill” to a lower amount than the amount he borrowed but Chapter 13 doesn’t allow the “bill” to be corrected by falling market conditions or even fraud.

So my answers are shown below in bold, and your comments are invited.

Here is the data on the person who submitted this comment on this blog. Go to work folks!

FedUp
ykadafi96@hotmail.com
151.151.16.13
Submitted by FEDup on 2011/01/17 at 9:46 am
I’m fed up too. It is obvious that the rug was pulled out from our economy by these banks who kept getting paid for the same thing over and over again. Sorry to introduce actual facts as opposed to random ideology.

I have done my very best to try and understand where borrowers are coming from in this day and time, but it’s getting so out of control, I can’t take it anymore. If you really studied what actually happened instead of just reading ideological blogs and media, then you would have no trouble understanding where these people were coming from. You might disagree but you would be able to see their point. They were given fraudulent appraisals by an entity posing as a lender when the real lender was hidden from view. They were given the fraudulent misimpression that underwriting standards were being applied to their loans and the “experts” had approved their loan on the basis that yes there is a high likelihood this transaction would work.

We live in a country full of “entitlement”. Everyone wants to point the finger at someone else and NO ONE wants to take responsibility for their own actions. Yes like you and whoever hired you to write this piece. Misdirection is the hallmark of the bank strategy. They want us to look at these terrible borrowers who all woke up one morning, all 20 million of them, and had a secret meeting to bring down the finance world using sophisticated “innovative” financial products which Alan Greenspan even admitted he didn’t understand. The Banks point the finger away from their own fraud and negligence and refuse to take responsibility for the mayhem they created.

Did it ever occur to you people even once, that the reason your homes are getting foreclosed on is because YOU DIDN’T PAY YOUR BILL? But people attitude now a days is that they shouldn’t have to pay their mortgage to remain in their home. Well, isn’t that a sweet deal! Actually yes it did occur to all of us that we weren’t paying a bill and we suffered over the decision that we couldn’t do it, since the information we had was faulty and the assumptions were wrong, all of which was known to everyone except the borrower. And NO people are not out to get a free house, they are out to clean house — straighten out the title that got messed up by the expert bankers, and find out how much is really due UNDER LAW and the identity of the person(s) to whom they owe an obligation UNDER LAW. But it seems you don’t have any respect for the law, you want these people to pay anybody who asks for money whether they are the creditor or not. If you like that system, in the future, please send your car payments to your next door neighbor, he needs the money more than the finance company.

let me let you in a little secret…YOU sat down at the attorneys office for closing and read over your mortgage, outlining the loan amount, terms of the note, and YOUR OBLIGATION to repay the loan. If you chose not to repay the loan, you SIGNED an agreement the mortgage company could take possession of the property to secure their interest against the note. Oh now I see the light. What a secret! Except that first, even if they read and understood every word of what was presented to them, they would not have known the deal — the rest was being hidden. Second, nobody reads every word of the documents and nobody understands them. I have facts — actual surveys of hundreds of people including lawyers who closed on their own homes and for clients. Out of more than 500 people surveyed exactly one person, a mortgage broker had read his documents, and no, he didn’t understand them. Third the LEGAL obligation of the LENDER who was not disclosed to present all the facts in a good faith estimate (GFE) and Settlement Statement is a condition PRECEDENT (i.e., before) the obligation arises. Gibberish you say? OK next time you go to a car dealer and they say they have a car for you and that the charge will be $40,000 see how you feel about it when they refuse to tell you anything about the car until AFTER you paid the $40,000.

What likely happened is you took out a loan far too large for your income, based on what you anticipated happening in the future, i.e. raises, new job, increased income, increase in property value, etc…and when it didn’t work out the way you planned, you are not grown up enough to accept YOU made a mistake, NOT the lender or anyone else. That’s the problem with this country, no one owns up to their mistakes. Instead they start crying “the lender loaned me too much money, it’s not my fault they loaned me more than I could afford.” Here’s a wild thought, TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS. Instead of crying that the lender is in the wrong for allowing you to borrower too much money, how about owning up to the fact that YOU took out a loan that YOU couldn’t afford. nice try! Now try some truth and facts.

Or another of my favorites, i see this mostly in bankruptcy cases, ” Motion to value collateral – my property isn’t worth as much as I owe on my loan, therefore i don’t believe i should have to pay the entire loan, and i want the court to make my lender reduce my balance to the current market value.” Are you **** kidding me? Please try to call the NYSE and tell them that your current shares of XYZ Corp are less than what you bought them for, and you don’t believe you should lose money, so you want them to either raise the price of the shares so you can get your money back. PLEASE so that, and then tell me how fast you get laughed off the phone. Purchasing a home is an investment just like a stock, it may go up or down in value, thats the risk you take when you sign the mortgage. You do not have the right to cry about your investment decreasing in value and now you want your lender to reduce your obligation so that you’re even again. Wow, I;m at a loss for words, thats all I can really say without sounding obscene. Well then you ought to go march on Washington because anyone who owns a multi-unit apartment building can do exactly what find so disgusting UNDER LAW. Single family homeowners want the same rights but can’t get it. Which do YOU think is more disgusting?

And finally, the article above…Wells Fargo “duped” me into a loan mod to stop foreclosure. You are so correct on this one. Your lender cared enough about the American homeowner that they doubled, and sometimes tripled or more their loss mitigation staff in order to try to save borrowers homes. I’m sorry if it offends anyone, but you people make me sick physically. Your lender has NO OBLIGATION to offer you any type of loan modification. In my personal opinion, if this is the thanks they’re going to receive I wish all lenders would simply stop offering mods, and start foreclosing on all you deadbeats who don’t want to take responsibility for your own actions. This part is what clearly identifies you as a paid heckler for the banks. First Wells Fargo never owned the mortgage so their attempt to distract everyone from that fact and the fact that the mortgage, note and obligation are hopelessly obscured by the action of who? Wells Fargo, that’s who! The longer they strong out the borrower, the more money they make at the expense of anyone who has a pension and anyone who could afford that house if the appraisal had not been fudged and if the loan terms were not so tricky. You now how many types of mortgages there were in the 1970′s? 4-5. You know how many types of mortgages were offered by an army of sellers (thousands of whom were convicted felons for economic crimes) in the time leading up to the mortgage “crisis”? Over 400.

Just a little fun fact for you who think that your mortgage companies are evil and only want to take the poor american’s home away and laugh while doing so: The average delinquency of a property foreclosed on by Wells Fargo was 16 months behind in payments. That means, on average, Wells Fargo gave homeowners 1 year, and 4 months to either complete a loan mod, pay their mortgage current, or sell the property before foreclosure. Let’s look at it another way, Wells allowed the average borrower who lost their home to live in their property free for 1 year, and 4 months before FINALLY giving up and foreclosing. I’m sure you wacko’s will find a way to spin that to the negative as well, so whatever. This also identifies who is paying you and who probably wrote this for you. Wells Fargo posed as the LENDER when they never had a nickle in the deal. They posed as the creditor at auction and “bought” the property with a note payable to someone else. And the reason for the time delays was sheer volume — the decision to take the house and the homeowner think they were in modification or settlement process was merely a ruse to get large payments that would have otherwise brought the mortgage current but for the ridiculous and fictitious fees, interests and costs attached. Why? Because of someone actually paid every nickle, and many did try to do just that, there was nobody who could sign a satisfaction of mortgage. Why? Because nobody on Wall Street knows or cares who has any rights, if any, under the obligation, note or mortgage.

Last fun fact…your mortgage company does NOT want your house back. banks are in the business of lending money, not flipping real estate. This is exactly why Wells Fargo gives the avg foreclosure 1 year, 4 months to work something out before taking the house. THEY DON”T WANT YOUR HOUSE! What they do want….is for your to take responsibility as an adult and PAY YOUR BILLS. But that’s clearly too much to ask of the average american homeowner now a days. AGAIN, I SAY YOU ARE A SHILL FOR THE BANKS! “your mortgage company” is neither identified nor consistent. The note and mortgage were passed around amongst a dozen people feeding out of the trough, including the taxpayer trough where more money was given to them than any default or collection of defaults. The entity you identify as a mortgage company is a sham entity without any authority, ownership or anything at risk. THEY DO WANT THE HOUSE but your right, they don’t want the house BACK because they never had any right to it in the first place.

instead, you look for every single little random detail and try to pick it apart an exploit it to your benefit. Guess what Pick-a-payment customers, you knew that choosing the least amount you could pay was not going to satisfy your mortgage, that option was meant to HELP YOU OUT IN A BIND if you came up short one month, (again bad, bad, evil lender for offering borrowers some help in a bind) but instead of using it the way it was designed, YOU chose to pay the lowest you could every month, likely because you took out a mortgage that was too much for you, and based your ability to pay it back on what the lowest amount you could pay every month without going into default. And then when you noticed you’re property value going down, and your payment going up (because you haven’t even been paying the interest amount each month), you start crying unfair lending practices. Boohoo. How about you take responsibility for the fact that you took out a loan too big to handle, and made a bad decision. BOO-HOO? You trivialize the fall of Wall Street as though we don’t have an effective unemployment rate of 20% like a Banana Republic. The ones who over-leveraged, as it is agreed by every economist financier, finance pundit and expert in trading exotic instruments were the banks far more than any homeowner. THAT is what caused these problems. And the way they they used leverage was by taking a piece of property worth $100,000, jacking up the appraised value to $200,000 and then selling it 5 times in different ways for $1,000,000. You can if you want to, you would cry to if it happened to you. If borrowers knew that 12 people were feeding off their transaction and it was disclosed what figures were being exchanged, they would have assumed correctly that they could get a better deal elsewhere. If investors knew the true facts and had not depended upon their appraisers (rating agencies) they would never have parted with a cent — so there would have been no money to fund mortgages.

Just wait for the day when lenders stop loaning money to anyone without an 800 credit score and never missed a single payment, and the mortgage payment not to exceed 20% of their income. That’ll just give you cry babies something else to cry and sue about. Good Luck.

When all else fails, scare the shit out of them. When lending standards tighten up, make sure it is the borrowers who are blamed not the banks. Ah FEDup, if you really want people to take responsibility for their actions, the risks they take etc. I suggest you start with yourself, selling out to the highest bidder so that your country can continue to suffer. Come clean, and we’ll back you up. Don’t come clean and we’ll expose you.

Related articles

• mass supreme court & the mortgage mess (orgtheory.wordpress.com)
• State details proposals for foreclosure proceedings (boston.com)
• New mortgage design would minimize home foreclosures (scienceblog.com)
• It Takes a Community to Repay a Loan: The Lessons of Prosper.com (dailyfinance.com)
• The Making of a 'Liar's Loan,' With Help From the Loan Officer (dailyfinance.com)