Some readers may have been unhappy with my failure to comment on a Washington Post article late last week about a push by the mortgage registry service, MERS, to “legalize” its activities. Even though the article indicates that dollars are being thrown at lobbyists to sell the MERS version of reality in DC, their approach […]
Read more...By Tom Adams, an attorney and former monoline executive On Sunday, the New York Times reported on a recent case known as Kemp vs. Countrywide. In it, the judge in his decision states that for the mortgage loan in question in the case, a Countrywide employee testified that the mortgage note had never been delivered […]
Read more...Testimony in a New Jersey bankruptcy court case provides proof of the scenario we’ve depicted on this blog since September, namely, that subprime originators, starting sometime in the 2004-2005 timeframe, if not earlier, stopped conveying note (the borrower IOU) to mortgage securitization trust as stipulated in the pooling and servicing agreement. Professor Adam Levitin in […]
Read more...I’ve taken a particular interest in GMAC because in the one consumer foreclosure case I ‘ve attended, back in May, I had the dubious pleasure of seeing a GMAC employee and an attorney for the local foreclosure mill, who was also put on the stand, perjure themselves. And this isn’t my interpretation; documentary evidence was […]
Read more...One of the many themes being used to cultivate class warfare in foreclosure-land is the idea that people who are losing their homes are getting an unfair break. Many of them have learned that banks are moving very slowly on foreclosures and so they stay put until the sheriff evicts them. One culprit is crowded […]
Read more...On Thursday, the housing subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee held hearings on robo signing, documentation, and servicing issues. This session wasa companion to the Senate Banking Committee hearings on the same topic earlier in the week. There were some notable differences between the two forums. The House group overall was less well prepared; […]
Read more...By Matt Stoller, a blogger-turned Congressional staffer. He was a policy advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson on financial policy issues. Cross posted from New Deal 2.0. A lot of people forget that having debt you can’t pay back really sucks. Debt is not just a credit instrument, it is an instrument of political and economic […]
Read more...The MSNBC show Last Word had a segment on servicer abuses in foreclosures. It’s good to see this issue start to get traction in the MSM. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Read more...The Wall Street Journal real estate blog reports that Federal banking regulators will conduct an examination of MERS, the electronic mortgage and servicing rights data service (hat tip ForeclosureHamlet). As much as scrutiny of MERS is very much in order, it remains an open question as to whether this effort is serious. One impetus for […]
Read more...Given the ability of banks to muscle through all sorts of favorable legislation, there was good reason to be concerned about the sudden reappearance of HR 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarization Act. While this measure has been long sought by trial lawyers, many observers were understandibly concerned that this measure might serve to be […]
Read more...As mentioned here earlier, there was a wee bit of excitement in the Senate Banking Committee on the foreclosure crisis yesterday. Enjoy!
Read more...The spectacle of Senators in Tuesday’s banking committee hearings on the mortgage largely siding with articulate, fact-driven critics of the mortgage securitization is a sign that financial services industry misdirection and lame excuses are wearing thin. But far more devastating is the contrast between the long-promised American Securitization Forum paper on mortgage transfers, versus the […]
Read more...It’s become conventional wisdom to denounce Congressmen as know-nothings who routinely harass businessmen by hauling them before investigations and asking them uninformed questions. Tuesday, we saw a refreshing and badly needed contrast to that stereotype in the form of a comparatively short (less than three hour) hearing by the Senate Banking Committee on the foreclosure/securitization […]
Read more...It’s more than a bit puzzling when readers get upset when once in a great while, we point out how the case against banks on a particular issue is overstated. The reaction seems to be that we’ve suddenly gone soft on financial firm miscreants, which is about as wide of the mark as you can […]
Read more...Two media outlets tonight, Reuters and a Washington Post blog post, discussed the idea of a relatively quick settlement of the probe by 50 state attorneys general into robo signing and other foreclosure-related abuses. What is interesting is the timing of these sightings, which came the same day of the release of the Congressional Oversight […]
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