This interview was taped earlier in the month and I didn’t know it had been edited and released until I saw it on Angry Bear!
A serious topic, but I nevertheless hope you enjoy the discussion.
Read more...We’ve mentioned that the FDIC has been pushing to reform the securitization process, including imposing standards on servicers. That has put it at odds with the bank-friendly Treasury and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the SEC has proposed securtization reforms but of a much more modest nature than the FDIC’s). This behind the scenes battle is heating up further because Dodd Frank calls on bank regulators to draft new rules to improve the operation of the mortgage securitization market. The FDIC intends to include mortgage servicer behavior in those provisions and want the rules ready in January.
Read more...Even though banks piously insist that every one of their foreclosure actions is fully justified, evidence in the court system continues to prove that claim to be false. We pointed out this sorry development in October, that of banks entering and changing the locks on homes they had not foreclosed upon. This sorry trend continues, and some wronged homeowners are suing.
Read more...To further the effort to curb servicer abuses, please visit the website, StopServicerScams, and sign the petition.
Read more...Tucked away in the EC’s press release on aid for Irish banks, we find this little gem: Anglo Irish Bank will furthermore receive a guarantee covering certain off-balance sheet liabilities (derivatives, clearing transactions and transactional arrangements) that will ensure that Anglo Irish Bank can continue its daily activities as a going concern. There’s nothing here […]
Read more...Today, a letter urging fundamental changes in the mortgage securitization markets, signed by 50 individuals with expertise in this arena, was sent to the Chairmen of the FDIC, the Fed, and the SEC, and the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency.
Despite widespread evidence of failings, abuses, and outright fraud in the securitization process, reform measures have been halting at best.
Read more...We had questioned the cheery assumption of the major banks regarding their robo signing abuses, namely, that they could simply resubmit their improper court documents and proceed as if nothing had happened.
Improper affidavits are a fraud on the court, and robo signing is the mass, deliberate production of fraudulent submissions. Some jurisdictions, like New York and Florida, are requiring that attorneys certify the accuracy of documents presented in foreclosure. New Jersey is going one step further by having a Supreme Court justice demand an appearance by six major servicers to explain why their foreclosure operations should not be suspended. I suspect the sort of sanctimonious explanations we’ve seen in Congressional hearings, “We act to correct mistakes as soon as they come to our attention,” would not go over well.
Read more...We’ve discussed Lender Processing Services, which serves as an outsourcer to the mortgage servicing industry, primarily via a software platform, as well as other companies with similar business models.
One of LPS’s major activities is acting as a middleman in the foreclosure process, reportedly hiring and firing foreclosure mills in the name of servicers. LPS is under fire in two national class action lawsuits for alleged impermissible fee splitting with foreclosure firms. A recent story in Reuters confirmed details we supplied in late October as to how LPS works with foreclosure mills, in particular, the very tight control it exercises over them.
Fannie Mae issued a directive today which effectively eliminates the payment of certain types of fees to firms like LPS.
Read more...By Thomas Adams, an attorney and former monoline executive, and Yves Smith Joseph Mason, the Hermann Moyse, Jr./Louisiana Bankers Association Professor of Finance, Louisiana State University, has a post up at Housing Wire that not only struck both of us as more than a tad off beam, but even elicited critical e-mails from real estate […]
Read more...Per the order below (hat tip Matt Weidner) a judge in Broward County appears to have cancelled all foreclosure sales in one of the foreclosure division from December 20 to December 31: Broward County Judicial Order Canceling Foreclosure Sales One might think this has something to with the Fannie and Freddie foreclosure halts, with run […]
Read more...I got this report from an attorney who is doing work in one of the top five foreclosure states. I’m relying this account in a somewhat sanitized form; he provided far more in the way of specifics.
One of his colleagues has a monthly mortgage payment considerably above $20,000 a month. He has not made a single payment in over 18 months. He has also not received a foreclosure notice or even as much as a call from his servicer.
Read more...The Administration’s po-faced insincerity on the mortgage crisis front is wearing thin now that other authorities are taking action against the worst abuses.
Read more...hhm, despite the breezy assurances of the American Securitization Forum that everything was handled properly when residential mortgage backed securitizations were created, the SEC does not seem completely convinced. Reuters reports it has expanded its ongoing probe into foreclosure practices
Read more...As much as a whole bunch of bank executives and securitization industry types have given Congressional testimony in which they maintained that they were duly concerned about “technical” errors like robo signing and would clean up their act, it appears that follow-through has been less than stellar.
Read more...f you thought that the rating agencies had cleaned up their act in the wake of the crisis, think again. Our Richard Smith reported on a couple of black eyes by Moody’s, one a rather implausible 180 degree turn on its take on the US tax deal, the other a suspiciously flattering take on whether Countrywide had indeed transferred notes (retaining them, as an executive testified they did on a routine basis, would confirm our suspicions about widespread problems in the securitization industry.
Now we have a big blooper by S&P, this one in the form of mass rerating, based on an admitted faulty analysis. That is code for “big error in the model that everyone missed.”
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