Thursday, October 21, 2010

Regulator for Fannie Set to Get Litigious

Regulator for Fannie Set to Get Litigious
By NICK TIMIRAOS

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which in July issued 64 subpoenas to issuers of mortgage securities, bank servicing companies and other entities, is working with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, a Los Angeles-based firm that specializes in business litigation, to coordinate its investigations.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304011604575564631414300418.html

Why All The Affidavits?

Open Question: Why are banks submitting Lost Note Affidavits (LNA) as their primary way of claiming right to foreclose? Why not submit the original property note? Filing a LNA is supposed to be a "back-up" mechanism in the law. However, banks appear to be using it as their primary means of claiming right to foreclose.

This article states Bank of America will file 102,000 new affidavits. [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303496104575560432631814848.html]. Why aren't they instead submitting 102,000 original notes?

Does anyone know: Why has the procedure of foreclosure in the business model of mortgage securitization come to rely primarily on the backup legal method of filing Lost Note Affidavits?

Chris Whalen on How MBS Investors Are Lawyering-Up



Uncollateralized RMBS?

Monday, October 18, 2010

Banks to Restart Foreclosures

Banks Restart Foreclosures
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG, ROBBIE WHELAN and DAN FITZPATRICK

Bank of America Corp. reopened more than 100,000 foreclosure actions, declaring that it had found no significant problems in its procedures for seizing homes. GMAC Mortgage, a lender and loan servicer, said that it also is pushing ahead with an unspecified number of foreclosures that came under intense pressure.

Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, who last week filed a lawsuit against GMAC alleging hundreds of counts of fraud related to foreclosure documents, said he is suspicious of efforts to replace paperwork. "Substituting new evidence in [cases] where there's been fraud won't help prevent the court from sanctioning them for the fraud that has already been committed," he said. "It doesn't unring the bell."


We'll see if they submit the paperwork next Monday.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304410504575560634267416838.html

Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago sues Bank of America, others

Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago sues B of A, others
By: Steve Daniels

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago has sued several of the nation’s largest banks, including its biggest shareholder, Bank of America Corp., alleging that their failure to disclose lax mortgage underwriting standards led the Home Loan Bank to suffer losses after purchasing poor-quality mortgage-backed securities from them.


http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20101015/NEWS01/101019921/federal-home-loan-bank-of-chicago-sues-b-of-a-others

Institutional Holders of Countrywide-Issued RMBS Issue Notice of Non-Performance Identifying Alleged Failures by Master Servicer to Perform Covenants

Institutional Holders of Countrywide-Issued RMBS Issue Notice of Non-Performance Identifying Alleged Failures by Master Servicer to Perform Covenants and Agreements in More Than $47 Billion of Countrywide-Issued RMBS

Today, the holders of over 25% of the Voting Rights in more than $47 billion of Countrywide-issued RMBS sent a Notice of Non-Performance (Notice) to Countrywide Home Loan Servicing, as Master Servicer ("Countrywide Servicing"), and to Bank of New York, as Trustee, identifying specific covenants in 115 Pooling and Servicing Agreements (PSAs) that the Holders allege Countrywide Servicing has failed to perform.


http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/institutional-holders-of-countrywide-issued-rmbs-issue-notice-of-non-performance-identifying-alleged-failures-by-master-servicer-to-perform-covenants-and-agreements-in-more-than-47-billion-of-countrywide-issued-rmbs-105221854.html
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=169575

Commentary on Fraud and Foreclosure












Foreclosure-Gate In One Sentence

Hedge Fund Manager Whitney Tilson Explains Foreclosure-Gate In One Sentence
Courtney Comstock

What has happened is, some percentage of foreclosures were probably legitimate foreclosures, but the letter of law was not followed because the system wasn't designed to handle the amount of volume of foreclosures that occured, and banks, lawfirms, etc cut corners.


http://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-fund-manager-whitney-tilson-explains-foreclosure-gate-in-one-sentence-2010-10

Friday, October 15, 2010

In Holland, Free Speech on Trial

In Holland, Free Speech on Trial
By AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Imagine if a leader within the tea party movement were able to persuade its members to establish a third political party. Imagine he succeeded—overwhelmingly—and that as their leader he stood a real chance of winning the presidency. Then imagine that in anticipation of his electoral victory, the Democrats and Republicans quickly modified an existing antidiscrimination law so that he could be convicted for statements he made on the campaign trail.

All of this seems impossible in a 21st-century liberal democracy. But it is exactly what is happening in Holland to Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704657304575539872944767984.html

The Impact of Error From Securitization to Foreclosure

The Impact of Error From Securitization to Foreclosure
Barry Ritholtz

do not misunderstand these circumstances: These are problems of the banks own making, and we should make sure that the costs of these do not fall to the taxpayers

And no, this is not about keeping deadbeats in their homes.


http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/10/the-impact-of-error-from-securitization-to-foreclosure/

Individual Property Rights (Guarded by the States) vs. Commercial Bankers (aka: Owners of the Federal Reserve)

The Coming Collapse of the Real Estate Market
Charles Hugh Smith

Either there is due process of law or you have a kleptocracy/"banana republic" oligarchy. At present, that is the decision we face as a nation. If the banking Elites and their partners in the Central State (Fed and Treasury) are allowed to "win" and gut the property laws of the states, then the U.S.A. will be revealed as a kleptocracy/"banana republic" oligarchy.

It's decision time, citizens. Either the banks/Central State "win" and we are a kleptocracy/ "banana republic," or they lose and the U.S. mortgage/ banking sector implodes and is either formally socialized (i.e. owned lock, stock and barrel by the Central State) or rebuilt from scratch without big banks, Federal guarantees and the Fed's incestuous interventions. ("We create the credit that enables the mortgage, you issue the mortgage, and then we buy the mortgage.")

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct10/foreclosure-collapse10-10.html

---
The Rot Within: Our Culture of Financial Fraud and the Anger of the Honest
Charles Hugh Smith


To tell the truth is to bring down the entire status quo.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct10/fraud-anger10-10.html

From a Maine House, a National Foreclosure Freeze

From a Maine House, a National Foreclosure Freeze
By DAVID STREITFELD, NYT

“When Stephan [the limited signing officer] says in an affidavit that he has personal knowledge of the facts stated in his affidavits, he doesn’t. When he says that he has custody and control of the loan documents, he doesn’t. When he says that he is attaching ‘a true and accurate’ copy of a note or a mortgage, he has no idea if that is so, because he does not look at the exhibits. When he makes any other statement of fact, he has no idea if it is true. When the notary says that Stephan appeared before him or her, he didn’t.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/business/15maine.html?_r=1

Did GM "Lie" About The Electric Car?

How GM "Lied" About The Electric Car

We were told the Volt would achieve 230 MPG fuel economy and would always use the electric drivetrain to motivate the wheels — only using the onboard gasoline engine as a "range extender" for charging the batteries. It now turns out that not only were those fuel economy claims misleading, but the gasoline engine is actually used to motivate the wheels — making the Volt potentially nothing more than a very advanced hybrid car and pushing some automotive journalists like Scott Oldham at Edmunds.com to claim "GM lied to the world" about it.


http://jalopnik.com/5661051/how-gm-lied-about-the-electric-car

---

No, GM Didn't 'Lie' About The Volt, The Press Got It Wrong
Nelson Ireson, The Car Connection

The "GM lied" fanatics can build their semantic sand castles and kick down GM's own all day long, but at the end of the day, this "lie" means the Volt is more capable than any other vehicle in its class. Is a flashy headline really worth dragging what may be the best EV/hybrid/futuremobile/whatever through the mud over a case of dubitable nomenclature? Apparently, to some, it is.


http://www.businessinsider.com/no-gm-didnt-lie-about-the-volt-the-press-got-it-wrong-2010-10

Not to be outdone, FDIC joins the robo-signing club, too

Not to be outdone, FDIC joins the robo-signing club, too

That’s right – while IndyMac was under FDIC “control”, bank officers were robo-signing affidavits

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/10/not-to-be-outdone-fdic-joins-the-robo-signing-club-too.html

Let There be Lightbulbs - End the Nanny State

Let There be Lightbulbs
The perfect symbol of the Pelosi Congress.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703860104575508130552891248.html

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