Mortgage cops taking tough stance

In the "world of weird" this has to be in contention for the weirdest thing I've ever read, but it's definitely par for the course.
How does one define "strategic defaulter" from the advice of " the bank made me do it" in order to lower the interest rate, which the bank ended up not doing anyway?
The Banks are embedded to the hilt with their "own" burdens of financial fraud ( that "We" continue to bail them out of, to no avail) that they intentionally created out of their lust and need for greed, and yet  not one has, or will be, prosecuted for the crimes committed.

Read the comments for advice on understanding your legal own legal position.
You'll sleep better if you do, I promise.

Strategic defaulters, beware. The feds are coming for you. And they are not happy.

Not the FBI. The Office of the Inspector General at the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The OIG may not have the same fearsome "G-man" reputation as its better-known counterparts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but it is every bit as much a law enforcement agency, with the same powers to search, seize and arrest. Special OIG agents are even authorized to carry firearms.

The OIG's mission is to seek administrative sanctions, civil recoveries and criminal prosecutions against anyone who abuses the FHFA's programs. And it is pursuing its calling with passion, if not vengeance

.

Fannie, Freddie Pressed on Mortgages .

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703963704576005990436624546.html?mod=yahoo_free_middle

This means, Congress is wasting money by checking it out now, when the conflict of interest was obvious before the start.
But they passed it anyway.
Another fine example of Joke exposure.

The ongoing discussions underscore the sometimes awkward relationship between the Obama administration and FHFA, which has overseen Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since their takeover in September 2008 and is charged with stemming taxpayer losses. An FHFA spokeswoman said participation in the FHA and Treasury loan-modification efforts is under review.

I wouldn't give up my rights either if I was Freddie or Fanny, or the home owner.
Especially not with the mortgage securities fraud situation.
If Justice actually does still serve the rule of law
The banks are going to have to eat most of those loans back if not all, and all of the people involved arrested.

In addition, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with other mortgage investors, are reluctant to approve principal reductions if banks that own second mortgages on the same properties also don't take losses.

Unlike most loan-modification efforts, the FHA program is open only to borrowers who aren't behind on their payments

.

Oh and look who's involved
Little Timmy
Giving more money to the banks as an incentive, and absoluely jack shit to you.
Home values have fallen more than 15% already, so this is a joke.
Mark to market would be a better deal if they were actually going to give you something, because the market is flooded and your home is worth squat.
There is a 9 year ready supply on the market right now, and that's not even counting those held up or pending foreclosures.

The Treasury Department initiative to reduce loan balances builds on HAMP, in which

banks reduce monthly payments for distressed borrowers by lowering interest rates and extending loan terms.

Starting in October, banks were able to receive additional subsidies if they first write down loan balances for borrowers owing at least 15% more than their home's current value. Fannie Mae has said it won't participate in the Treasury program. Freddie Mac says it is still reviewing whether to join.

Barney Frank: The Mortgage fraud enabler

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/550868/201010191811/The-Cynically-Ruthless-Barney-Frank-Enabler-Of-The-Mortgage-Meltdown.htm


Having been a key figure in promoting the risky mortgage lending practices imposed by the federal government on lenders, and on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy these risky mortgages from the lenders, Frank blamed the resulting collapse of financial markets and the economy on everybody except Barney Frank

When federal regulators uncovered irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting, and in 2004 issued what Barron's magazine called "a blistering 211-page report," Frank lashed out — not at Fannie Mae, but at the regulators who uncovered Fannie Mae's misdeeds. He said "a leadership change" in the regulatory agency was "overdue."

Why is Obama putting a lobyist as the NSA?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/why-is-obama-putting-a-fannie-maegoldman-sachs-lobbyistconsultant-as-nsa-105059764.html#ixzz12uHYvfat


Well damn it's obvious isn't it?
Donilon can negotiate the best deal in paying off the terrorist!
Remember 9/11 America? You know, that security breech that changed all of our lives and made us all aware of the fear of terrorism?
Well now that the military can command operation in the US, this man can lead their way.
It kind of reminds me of Dick Cheney at the helm of NORAD, and we know what a great job he did.
And must I remind you one more time? Corporate America does not run the United States.
It only just looks like it.
No really Houston, there is no problem



Obama last week tapped Tom Donilon as National Security Advisor. What’s Donilon’s resume? I summarized it when folks floated his name as potential White House chief of staff:

He was a top lobbyist at Fannie Mae during the housing bubble, when Fannie fought — with Democratic help — to avoid any restrictions or curbs on its work to inflate home values and get more people under mortgage. Before that, Donilon was a lobbyist at O’Melveny and Myers, where Fannie was a client.

In 2008, according to his financial disclosure forms, Donilon was a paid consultant for Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Apollo Investments

CNBS And FHFA: Bone-Smokers

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=169741

Karl's being to nice.
He should have called them the "cock suckers" that they are.
Paid propaganda pontificators pureeing the puke,
So that you can swallow it more easily.


Absolute nonsense.

There are several issues related to Foreclosuregate that are absolutely NOT "paperwork issues."

The problem with these guys is that Fannie and Freddie have every incentive to screw homeowners if they can get away with it. But Donovan continues to ignore the fact that there are thousands of people who have tried to get modifications via HAMP and have been intentionally frustrated, with banks claiming they didn't get paperwork that was submitted two, three, four or even more times, phone trees that are impossible to navigate and other similar issues.

Document Mess Hits Fannie, Freddie .

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704763904575550472268902454.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

Do you really think that this situation can be fixed Ben?


Ms. Kapusta handled files for Fannie and Freddie, according to her deposition.

When Fannie came to the Stern law firm to check on the processing, "We would all have to be under strict dress code and emails would go out that Fannie was in the office," Ms. Kapusta said. Fannie and Freddie have guidelines that require, for example, that documents reflecting the transfer of ownership be dated on the exact day of the transfer.

But Ms. Kapusta said that to meet those guidelines, documents were backdated. "They'd come in and audit," Ms. Kapusta said, "so we're just typing in what they want to see. It's not necessarily what actually occurred. That's what we were told to do."

Fannie and Freddie declined to comment on the deposition

BREAKING: Fannie to Servicers: Don't Mention Mers

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/12/909766/-BREAKING:-Fannie-to-Servicers:-Dont-Mention-Mers

So Fannie and Freddie were purchasing loan knowingly without a county location or a loan number.
And they are now going to clearly track track these titles how?
The simple answer is, is that they're not, it's virtually impossible.
They left no crumbs to follow
What's even more amazing that none of this information was tracked is when you look at the Board of Directors.
Tell me that they didn't know better, no Walmart excuse there

Here's an example of what you will find at the MERS own document historical, on line record:

To: All MERS Members December 15, 1999

Relaxation of County Code Edit for Registrations

It is currently a requirement to include a valid Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) county name or FIPS county code in the County Description field to successfully pre-register or register a loan on the MERS System.......

Effective December 17, 1999, if county information is omitted or does not match the FIPS table, the MERS System will process the transaction and insert “County Unknown” in the County Description field. This edit change applies to pre-registrations, registrations and MIN updates submitted through both the MERS Desktop Application and batch transmissions........

Although we are making this enhancement to make it an easier process to register loans on the MERS System, we strongly encourage you to provide the correct county code at the time of pre-registration or registration. As part of our Quality Assurance Standards, MERS will require members to provide the correct county information on MERS within 12 months of the registration date. In a future release, we will provide you with a new report that will list all of the MINs that have “County Unknown” in the County Description field.

There might be some good news, if MERS followed the system carefully, every mortgage transaction performed that used the MERS system produced a Mortgage Identification Number!

Somewhere buried in the 60,000,000 mortgages processed via MERS, every mortgage should have been assigned a Mortgage Identification Number (MIN). Was this done prior to this 2003 MERS bulletin? That would be for MERS to answer.

However, in order to have a Mortgage Identification number on the Purchaser's docs, the Purchaser had to request it. If you have a mortgage that shows MERS on any paperwork, do you have your MIN #? If not, get it ASAP.

You will find this at the link above in the 2003 Re: MERS 1-2-3 Redesign:

You also have the option of including a loan number, if required by the Intended Purchaser.

Government had been warned for months about troubles in mortgage servicer industry

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/09/AR2010100904125.html

They were aware of the flaws, but they couldn't do anything about it, because they needed help with Fannie and Freddie.
So if they know about the flaws, which are created entirely due to MERS, what do they actually need help with regarding Freddie or Fannie?
MERS cannot foreclose on people and the service providers have not right to.
The MERS problem is not going to go away, just because the White House refuses to acknowledge it.
What the "People" want to know is, Is the White House going to force the Banks to eat all of those mortgages that Fannie and Freddie now can't trace a clean title to?
The way this article reads, government officials still have no idea that Fannie and Freddie are stuck permanently with all of those home loans, because the act of foreclosure does not belong to them and they have no legal recourse in furthering their ability to do it.


In recent days, amid reports that major lenders have used improper procedures and fraudulent paperwork to seize properties, some Obama administration officials have acknowledged they had been aware of flaws in how the mortgage industry pursues foreclosures.

But the officials said they could take only limited action to address the danger. In part, this was because they wanted lenders' help carrying out federal programs to modify mortgages that had fallen into default or were poised to do so.

New concerns about improper practices - such as those involving faked documents or "robo-signers" who signed tens of thousands of documents without reviewing them - have prompted the mortgage servicing arms of the country's largest banks to freeze millions of foreclosures. As momentum builds for a national moratorium, the administration has begun assessing the potential impact, examining the threat it could pose for the ailing housing market and the wider financial system.

There is no evidence so far that the specific abuses made public in the past few weeks were known to government officials. Nor is it clear whether they were aware that the process of the selling and reselling of mortgages among financial firms - which became extremely common and highly profitable during the housing boom - was raising legal questions about who actually owned the loans and had the right to foreclose if they went bad.

But government officials

MERS taxpayer nightmare concerning Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

http://foreclosuredefensenationwide.com/?p=289

It's time to figure out just who created this nightmare, because they were a sleep at the switch when they signed on for this scam!
How is it that MERS can't transfer a promissory note but they are capable of a transferable audit trail?
And who the hell has the wet copies for 3/4's of the mortgages in the United States?

On September 30, 2010 in a Federal court in Oregon it was testified to in court that MERS could not transfer a *promissory note.

According to wikipedia both Fannie and Freddie require the registry of enotes on MERS before they are eligible for purchase.
According to MERS product division EVP Dan Mclaughlin's presentation of the MERS system page 5, the registry does not store the **enotes.
and the system is fully capable of a transferable audit trail.

*A promissory note, referred to as a note payable in accounting, or commonly as just a "note", is a negotiable instrument, wherein one party (the maker or issuer) makes an unconditional promise in writing to pay a sum of money to the other (the payee), either at a fixed or determinable future time or on demand of the payee, under specific terms. They differ from IOUs in that they contain a specific promise to pay, rather than simply acknowledging that a debt exists.

**Original Note (wet signature)Authoritative Copy of eNote

http://www.spers.org/EFSCconference/documents/McLaughlin-TheMERSeRegistry-PavingthewayforeNotesandeMortgages.pdf

Wikipedia

The MERS eRegistry is a system of record that identifies the owner (Controller) and custodian (Location) for registered eNotes.[7] Built by MERS with the endorsement of the Mortgage Bankers Association and launched in 2004, the MERS eRegistry satisfies the "safe harbor" requirements of E-SIGN and UETA legislation.[8] Both Fannie Mae[9] and Freddie Mac[10] require the registration of eNotes on the MERS eRegistry before they are eligible for purchase

During the course of the hearing, the Court repeatedly raised the “MERS as nominee” issues to counsel for the Defendants, with said counsel finally admitting, upon repeated inquiry by the Court, that MERS cannot transfer promissory notes. The Court denied the Motions to Dismiss and has, by Order, commanded the injunction against the sale to remain in place through the duration of the borrowers’ lawsuit.

The questions posed to the Defendants’ counsel by the Court on the record demonstrate, again (as with the concerns of the Michigan court highlighted in our other post today), that courts are really starting to examine the inconsistent claims made by MERS (e.g. that it is “solely a nominee” yet purports to have authority to further foreclosures by, among other things, transferring promissory notes and appointing successor trustees). As those of you who follow this website know, what the case law is consistently holding is that MERS cannot do what it has purported to do (and has done in what appears to be over sixty (60) million mortgage transactions nationally).

UPDATE 2-Congress OKs higher mortgage loan limit extension

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2928021020100930?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a49:g43:r4:c0.100000:b38040102:z0

The collusion of Congress with the mortgage banking industry.
The bloat of Fannie and Freddie is already on the backs of the taxpayer and Congress votes in favor of the mortgage banks to ensure the taxpayer is burdened even more

WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress on Thursday voted to extend higher loan limits for government-backed mortgages, a move that should help keep borrowing costs low and support the shaky housing sector.

At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, the government raised the ceiling on the size of loans Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) and Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) could buy. At the time, the private market for so-called jumbo loans had all but dried up.

The legislation approved by the House of Representatives and Senate, which President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law, would keep in place until October 2011 the higher $729,750 ceiling for single-family home mortgages in high cost areas other than Hawaii and Alaska.

The cap was scheduled to shrink to $625,500 at the start of 2011

A bombshell has dropped in mortgage land.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/10/4closurefraud-posts-docx-mortgage-document-fabrication-price-sheet.html

4closure fraud post Lender processing services Mortgage documentation frabrication price sheet.
Guess who one of the biggest customers of it was?

The story that banks have been trying to sell has been that document problems like improper affidavits are mere technicalities. We’ve said from the get go that they were the tip of the iceberg of widespread document forgeries and fraud. This price sheet provides concrete proof that the practices we pointed to not only existed, but are a routine way of doing business in servicer and trustee land. LPS is the major platform used by all the large servicers; it oversees the work of foreclosure mills in every state.

And this means document forgeries and fraud are not just a servicer problem or a borrower problem but a mortgage industry and ultimately a policy problem. These dishonest practices are so widespread that they raise serious questions about the residential mortgage backed securities market, the major trustees (such as JP Morgan, US Bank, Bank of New York) who repeatedly provided affirmations as required by the pooling and servicing agreement that all the tasks necessary for the trust to own the securitization assets had been completed, and the inattention of the various government bodies (in particular Fannie and Freddie) that are major clients of LPS.

Fannie, Freddie ire over payments to Treasury

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/96053-payments-burden-fannie-freddie

Really does this even make sense?

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac see the billions in dividends they must pay annually to the Treasury Department as a significant burden that cripples any hope they have of returning to profitability.

A strict lobbying ban prevents Fannie and Freddie from airing much of a critique of the agreement, but it is clear from their annual reports that they think the dividend payments are unfair.


The $7.6 billion Fannie will pay in dividends “exceeds our reported annual net income for all but one of the last eight years, in most cases by a significant margin,” Fannie Mae said in its 10K report issued in February.

“The amounts we are obligated to pay in dividends on the senior preferred stock are substantial and will have an adverse impact on our financial position and net worth and could substantially delay our return to long-term profitability or make long-term profitability unlikely,” Freddie’s annual report says.

That either company would even be thinking about profitability might come as a surprise to some.

The two government-sponsored mortgage enterprises at the center of the housing and financial crisis are in conservatorship and heavily indebted to the government. People still hold publicly traded stock in the companies, but the shares are worth little. Both were trading at a little more than $1 on Tuesday.

The dividend payments were set up in 2008 when the George W. Bush administration’s Treasury provided a $100 billion backstop to ensure the companies remained solvent. The backstop was increased to $200 billion by the Obama administration in 2009.

In exchange, the administration received senior preferred stock from the two companies that pays an annual 10 percent dividend in cash, or 12 percent in stock.

The two companies have drawn down a total of $126.9 billion from the Treasury.

The dividend payments add to Fannie and Freddie’s debt, giving the exchanges a peculiar circular nature. Fannie and Freddie are essentially paying money to the government from money the government loans to the two companies.

Freddie Mac asks U.S. for $10 billion as losses pile up

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/05/AR2010050505227.html?wprss=rss_business

10 billion more and that's just right now after the FED unloads the rest of the crap it's holding on to Freddie, that 10 billion is going to look like CHUMP CHANGE.
Audit the FED NOW,
Ask yourself does it really make sense for the White House or the Senate to be using every trick in the book to make sure the FED remains unaudited?
No it doesn't, the question is WHY?
What's on the FED's books that they don't want the public to see?

Freddie Mac, the bailed-out mortgage-finance giant, reported Wednesday that it continues to lose money and needs an additional $10.6 billion in assistance from U.S. taxpayers.

The most recent earnings report follows three straight quarters in which the McLean-based company did not need infusions from the Treasury. Still, the firm is struggling to recover from the mortgage-market meltdown; it reported a net loss of $6.7 billion in the first quarter of 2010, compared with a loss of $9.9 billion a year ago.

Freddie Mac is turning to the Treasury again mostly because of a change in accounting. Revised rules that took effect this year require companies such as Freddie to move all mortgages they guarantee -- but don't own -- onto their books. This shift alone caused the company's equity to drop by $11.7 billion, helping to plunge its net worth into the red.

Under the terms of Freddie's September 2008 bailout, taxpayers make up the shortfall in any quarter when the firm's net worth is negative. The accounting change, along with the firm's loss and a $1.3 billion dividend payment to the Treasury, pushed Freddie's net worth to a negative $10.5 billion, down from a positive $4.4 billion last year.

Fannie, Freddie Ask Banks to Eat Soured Mortgages

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-05/fannie-freddie-may-ask-banks-to-eat-21-billion-of-sour-loans.html

There's more than one way to skin a fat cat

Banks that sell mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have to provide “representations and warranties” assuring that the loans conformed to the agencies’ standards. With more loans going bad, the agencies are demanding that banks turn over loan files, so they can scour the records for missing documentation, inaccurate data and fraud.

Providing Proof

The most common include inflated appraisals or falsely stated incomes in the loan applications, said Larry Platt, a Washington-based partner at law firm K&L Gates LLP who specializes in mortgage-purchase agreements. The government agencies hire their own reviewers who go back and compare the appraisals with prices from historical home sales, he said.

“They may do a drive-by for a visual inspection,” he said