State court ruling deals blow to U.S. bank mortgage system

My my, that changes the ballgame now doesn't it.

The highest court in the state of Washington recently ruled that a company that has foreclosed on millions of mortgages nationwide can be sued for fraud, a decision that could cause a new round of trouble for the nation's banks.
The ruling is one of the first to allow consumers to seek damages from Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, a company set up by the nation's major banks, if they can prove they were harmed.
Legal experts said last month's decision from the Washington Supreme Court could become a precedent for courts in other states. The case also endorsed the view of other state courts that MERS does not have the legal authority to foreclose on a home.
"This is a body blow," said consumer law attorney Ira Rheingold. "Ultimately the MERS business

Arizona accuses major bank of defrauding mortgage customers

http://azstarnet.com/article_d385fb20-0a12-11e0-8afb-001cc4c03286.html

Filed suit at the Maricopa County Superior Court?
Now what exactly does that mean?
Criminal charges?
Because anything less makes the AZ Attorney General look inept, since he was the one, that actually termed the banks action as defrauding.



The Arizona Attorney General's Office filed suit today

against Bank of America, accusing it of defrauding its mortgage

customers.

The state contends the bank, the largest servicer of home loans in

Arizona, engaged in practices which led to hundreds of

people being ousted from their homes even as they were being told

their mortgages were being modified. That even included at least

one instance where the homeowner was current on her mortgage and

had never been late with a payment, prosecutors said in a 35-page complaint filed in Maricopa County Superior Court.

AP IMPACT: Lawsuits target bank system that bypassed perhaps billions in mortgage fees

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AP-IMPACT-Bypassing-county-apf-2154143184.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode=

Ah, a new chapter in the never ending saga of the Mortgage Investment Banking Industry.
As if it wasn't enough for the Investment Banks to have to deal with regarding fraudulent foreclosures as well as Mortgage Securities fraud, they are now being sued in 17 States for MERS failure to pay County Recording Fees.

Counties complained about the lost revenue after MERS was implemented, but they rarely tried to challenge the new way of doing business. Now, three years after the housing crash and two months after allegations that some banks submitted fraudulent documents to foreclosure courts, every aspect of the nation's mortgage machine is under scrutiny.

Two lawyers in Reno, Nev., have filed suit in 17 states alleging that banks cheated counties out of billions of dollars. In Virginia, a lawmaker has asked the state's attorney general to investigate MERS over its failure to pay recording fees. And everywhere elected officials and class-action lawyers turn, the back-office procedures of MERS are being called into question.

The suits were filed in California, Nevada and Tennessee and 14 undisclosed states where the cases are still under court seal. Hager and Hearne chose the states because their laws allow what are called false claims suits, in which citizens can take legal action against companies that may have cheated the government.

The suits allege that by privatizing public records, MERS enabled banks to circumvent American property law and bypass the counties' fee and paperwork requirements, costing billions of dollars in lost revenue over more than a decade. MERS says its process is legal, and that the fees are not required under its system.

The FBI presents: Everything you ever wanted to know about Mortgage fraud but were afraid to as

http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-mortgage-fraud-2010-11?slop=1#slideshow-start

They say part 2 of a movie is never as good as the first, but in this case I do believe part 2 of the FBI mortgage fraud investigation with included in depth looks into the government collusion as well as the mortgage backed securities fraud will have people lining up at the door for a ticket to see the final outcome of the "END GAME" in all of it's tech-know covered glory.
The cast of villains will be the unprecedented event of "OUR" life times.
The FBI will be up for the nomination of Super Hero as the righteous defender of this country, against the enemies within, thus rightfully displacing the office of Homeland Security back to where it came from, right back up the ass of Corporate America and being realised for what it truly is, just another well to be drawn from by the Wall Street opportunists!!


Besides crushing owner's equity and hitting home prices nationwide, the housing bubble saw an unbelievable amount of mortgage related crime than ever seen before.

The FBI has been warning of a mortgage fraud uptick since 2004, and have outlined the various ways that fraud can be committed in a presentation (via Public Intelligence).

From former Wall Street executives, to the low level house flipper, the FBI has it out for all of the potential criminals in the subprime crisis.

While this presentation was made in November 2008, it provides a look into the FBI's thinking in terms of the mortgage fraud issue and was somewhat prescient in the days before subprime became national nomenclature.

Ackermann's Deutsche Bank Follies:Chickens Come Home To Roost By F. William Engdahl

http://www.rense.com/general92/bankc.htm


Oh My God!
A massive load of shit just hit the fan.
And just when you thought the Investment Banking World got boring, the bag of shit that it is just split wide open. Oh My God what a mess.
They not only eat their own, they set them up for dinner!
I hear the chain gang calling out on this one kids.
Investment Banks busted dead to rights

The earlier filing of fraud charges against Wall Street banking titan Goldman Sachs by the US Government Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was only the tip of a huge fraud iceberg. Now a US mortgage insurer has charged one of the most aggressive banks involved in the US subprime mortgage scam of fraud. The bank is none other than Deutsche Bank. This case is also likely to be just the "tip of a very big iceberg."

Since he left his post as president of the Swiss-US Credit Suisse bank to go to Deutsche Bank, Swiss banker Josef Ackermann has focused on making the premier German bank into an imitation of the major Wall Street banks. It seems he has succeeded only too well.

Assured Guaranty Ltd., owner of Assured Guaranty Mortgage Insurance Company of New York has sued affiliates of Deutsche Bank AG over $312 million of mortgage-backed securities (MBS), the controversial bonds that the bond insurer guaranteed and says were "plagued by rampant fraud and misrepresentations." Assured Guaranty is asking a judge to force Deutsche Bank to repurchase the loans, on which the insurer has already paid almost $60 million in loss claims with potential for tens of millions of dollars more. The suit was filed in New York State Supreme Court against DB Structured Products Inc. and ACE Securities Corp. The bond insurer, backed by billionaire Wilbur Ross, is also seeking reimbursement for the claims paid and for future losses. This is major.

Homeowner get the boot while banks get the bucks

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/29/money-first-questions-later_n_776135.html

Hey, it looks as if someone finally followed a thought all the way through.
Why are we bailing the banks when they don't hold the Mortgage!
Ding Ding Ding!
Damon Silvers has just asked Phyllis Caldwell the 64 thousand dollar question.
And Naturally she couldn't answer it truthfully, so she gave the standard answer of WE don't know!
But really shouldn't she know by now, the banks have actually publicly admitted it.
Did she choose to ignore it, or was Treasury just not listening again, choosing instead to carry on with their own agenda and bailing out their buddies?


During an oversight hearing, Phyllis Caldwell, Treasury's housing rescue chief, acknowledged during questioning that Treasury doesn't know whether mortgage companies and the owners of mortgages are receiving public money under "false pretenses." Treasury is investigating, she said.

The contradiction highlights what many critics of the past two administrations' policies have claimed for some time: they exert overwhelming force when it comes to saving financial institutions, but merely modest assistance when it comes to distressed homeowners.

More than $535 billion in taxpayer money went to firms and toxic assets as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to the latest quarterly figures from two federal auditors. About $992 million has gone to homeowners, the same data show.

So taxpayer funds may be going to companies that have no right to it, admitted Caldwell, Treasury's chief homeownership preservation officer.

"How do we know that people who don't have good liens aren't getting public money essentially under the false pretense that they have a good lien?" Silvers asked Caldwell.

"Again, we don't," was her reply. "Our focus at this point has been on..."

Silvers quickly stopped her. "Hold it," he said. "That's the issue." He added that he hoped Treasury "would be diligent" in trying to answer "what's potentially at play -- are servicers and banks getting public money under false pretenses? We ought to try to figure out whether that's true or not," Silvers added.

Caldwell agreed.

Those companies continue to get the money, though. Meanwhile, borrowers are tossed from the program for the same reason -- faulty paperwork.

Insurers Ease on Amnesty .

Insurers Ease on Amnesty .
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304316404575580752988987296.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_personalfinance

There is an immunity smell blowing in the wind for the banks kids.
Now the title insurers seem to think that people won't pursue the quest of repossessing the houses back that were fraudulently taken from them by the banks that used the less than legal make believe (forged) documents that the foreclosure mills were making up on demand.
They also seem to think that the judges will not remand the homes back to those that they were taken from using the forged documents.
Have the Attorneys General sold out the legal process and cut a deal to overlook the fraudulent improprieties that the mortgage financial investment industry blanketed the nation with?
Better yet will "WE" as a nation be willing to forgive the fraud as well as the embezzlement by allowing the excuse of it was all just a mistake and that the banks won't do it again in the future?
There is a marked difference between "flawed" and "Fraud" and I personally choose to refuse to look the other way.
The banks committed the crime of the century,, not only against the property owners but against the investors as well.
It was a well thought out calculated plan, no different than Bernie Madoffs or Alan Stanford’s was.
The one slight difference was the magnitude of the size of the duped, that the banks ponzi scheme ensnared.
While Bernie and Alan preyed mostly upon the rich, the banks accepted anyone and everyone and then proceeded to bleed them dry.

Title insurers have decided not to require lenders to provide a blanket shield from claims caused by flawed foreclosures after discussions around crafting an industry-wide agreement fell apart.

First American Financial Corp. said Thursday that the Santa Ana, Calif., company had concluded that requiring banks to indemnify the title insurer from foreclosure errors resulting in questions about who owns clear title to a property was unnecessary "given the actions taken by lenders to remediate deficiencies and to improve their processes going forward," said Dennis Gilmore, First American's chief executive.

The company, which does business in all 50 U.S. states, said it might still ask banks to provide indemnification on a case-by-case basis. But First American said it believed there is a "low probability" borrowers will ask courts to invalidate foreclosures or that judges will forcibly return foreclosed property to borrowers who default.

Home Lenders May Meet States Over Foreclosures Soon

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-27/mortgage-lenders-may-meet-with-states-over-foreclosure-probes-this-week.html

A deal for loan modifications.
I'm not hearing criminal procecution here at all.
The question is:
Why not?



A 50-state task force investigating U.S. foreclosure practices may meet with lenders as early as this week, less than a month after JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. suspended some home seizures.

“We’ve had several conference calls with major lenders,” Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said in an interview, declining to specify which ones. “The banks want to sit down with the attorneys general. These meetings are being set up,” said Suthers, whose office is a member of the executive committee of the task force

William K. Black: Foreclose on the foreclosure fraudsters

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/foreclose-on-the-foreclos_b_772434.html

Damn this was explosive. A total must read!
I don't know about using the FDIC though, it seems to me that they have their hand in this cookie jar to, as well as the SEC.
I trust none of the supposed regulating institutions at this point.
They didn't bother to do their jobs before or chose to disregard what those jobs actually were, why should they be trusted now to fulfill those duties?

Note that the Justice Department is not investigating foreclosure fraud. HUD Secretary Donovan's statement shows why:

"We will not tolerate business as usual in the mortgage market," he said. "Where there have been mistakes made or errors, we will hold those entities, those institutions, accountable to stop those processes, review them and fix them as quickly as possible."

Note the language: "mistakes", "errors", "processes" (following the initial use of "paperwork"). No mention of "fraud", "felony", "criminal investigations", or "prosecutions" for the tens of thousands of felonies that representatives of the entities foreclosing on homes have admitted that they committed. Note that Donovan does not even demand that the felons remedy the harm caused by their past fraudulent foreclosures. Donovan wants them to "fix" "processes" -- not repair the harm their frauds caused to their victims.





President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, Donovan, and Barr cannot even bring themselves to use the "f" word -- fraud. They substitute euphemisms designed to trivialize elite criminality. The administration officials do not call for Bank of America to be the subject of a criminal investigation. They do not demand that Fannie, Freddie, Ambac, the FHFA, and Pimco file criminal referrals about Countrywide's frauds. They do not demand that Fannie, Freddie, and the Fed refuse to purchase or take as collateral any mortgage instrument from Bank of America. No one at the Harvard Club in New York moves to kick Bank of America's officers out of their club! The financial media treats Bank of America as if it were a legitimate bank rather than a "vector" spreading the mortgage fraud epidemic throughout much of the Western world.

Foreclosure expert confirms Mortagages sold numerous times

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/

Push button fraud, the standard practice.
If this was you or me the FBI would have nailed our ass long ago.
So why are these bankers still in operation?
After knowing all of this would you even seriously think of buying a house?
Oh Hell NO
So why are the "Talking Heads" still trying to sell the idea that a foreclosure moratorium would hurt housing even more?
This is how stupid the "talking heads" are, after reading all of this, do they actually think there is a real estate market left to hurt?
Lol apparently they do, it must be all those new housing starts.....NOT!

From Washington's blog
Today, foreclosure expert Neil Garfield (former investment banker, trial lawyer and board member of several financial institutions) confirms this, explains that the loans were not actually securitized, and the whole "sloppy paperwork" excuse is really an attempt to explain away a system of push-button fraud:

The game was to move money under a scheme of deceit and fraud. First sell the bonds and collect the money into a pool. Second take your fees, third take what’s left and get it committed into “loans” (which were in actuality securities) sold to homeowners under the same false pretenses as the bonds were sold to investors. By controlling the flow of funds and documentation, the middlemen were able to sell, pledge and otherwise trade off the flow of receivables several times over — a necessary complexity not only for the profit it generated, but to make it far more difficult for anyone to track the footprints in the sand.

If the loans had actually been securitized, the issue would not arise. They were not securitized. This was a mass illusion or hallucination induced by Wall Street spiking the punch bowl. The gap (second tier yield spread premium) created between the amount of money funded by investors and the amount of money actually deployed into “loans” was so large that it could not be justified as fees. It was profit on sale from the aggregator to the “trust” (special purpose vehicle). It was undisclosed, deceitful and fraudulent.

Thus the “credit enhancement” scenario with tranches, credit default swaps and insurance had to be

The Mortgage Morass

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/opinion/15krugman.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=NytimesKrugman

And where there is no clear property rights it's the governments job to create them.

But is it really the governments right to create property rights when contract law already exits?
Does contract law mean nothing in the United States?
The banks have no problem forcing you to hold your legal commitment to them.
They won't bargain with you if you need a better deal, they throw you out when you violate the terms of the agreement.
Does contract enforcement only count if your rich?
I don't think so.
The bank has violated the contract with the MBS investors, as well as the proper procedure for the documentation of it's legalities.
This time they have to clean up their own mess.
If it breaks them so be it.
It's called owning up to their own corporate responsibility.
They don't just get to run the world and change the laws retroactively that they choose to violate.

The accounting scandals at Enron and WorldCom dispelled the myth of effective corporate governance. These days, the idea that our banks were well capitalized and supervised sounds like a sick joke. And now the mortgage mess is making nonsense of claims that we have effective contract enforcement — in fact, the question is whether our economy is governed by any kind of rule of law.

Now an awful truth is becoming apparent: In many cases, the documentation doesn’t exist. In the frenzy of the bubble, much home lending was undertaken by fly-by-night companies trying to generate as much volume as possible. These loans were sold off to mortgage “trusts,” which, in turn, sliced and diced them into mortgage-backed securities. The trusts were legally required to obtain and hold the mortgage notes that specified the borrowers’ obligations. But it’s now apparent that such niceties were frequently neglected. And this means that many of the foreclosures now taking place are, in fact, illegal.

This is very, very bad. For one thing, it’s a near certainty that significant numbers of borrowers are being defrauded — charged fees they don’t actually owe, declared in default when, by the terms of their loan agreements, they aren’t.

Beyond that, if trusts can’t produce proof that they actually own the mortgages against which they have been selling claims, the sponsors of these trusts will face lawsuits from investors who bought these claims — claims that are now, in many cases, worth only a small fraction of their face value.

And who are these sponsors? Major financial institutions — the same institutions supposedly rescued by government programs last year. So the mortgage mess threatens to produce another financial crisis.

The excesses of the bubble years have created a legal morass, in which property rights are ill defined because nobody has proper documentation. And where no clear property rights exist, it’s the government’s job to create them.

Foreclosure Fiasco Trail Leads to Washington: Jonathan Weil

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-14/foreclosure-fiasco-s-trail-leads-to-washington-jonathan-weil.html

See why Ben wants to make this go away?
Because his ass was continuously lying through his teeth about it, as well as covering it up.
And since JP Morgan as well as Goldman Sach's turned into a depository in 2008, only the FED was supposed to be auditing the accounting practices, so it's not like Ben can actually say we didn't know what they were doing, because BEN KNEW and is now caught in the cover up.
He needs to be fired ....now
AS WELL AS LITTLE TRANSPARENT TIMMY
I'm pretty sure the constitution of the United States calls what they have been doing
A high act of Treason.

Regulators’ Role

Now let’s look at the bigger picture. Where were the banking regulators while all this mischief was going down? For years the leaders of the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, among others, have been assuring the public they have onsite examiners and supervisors at all of the country’s largest banks. Before IndyMac was seized, its primary regulator had been the Office of Thrift Supervision.

Yet there’s no sign these agencies did anything to stop any of these institutions from treating the country’s courts so contemptuously. Perhaps the regulators were clueless. Or maybe they knew there was a problem and decided to let the banks run wild in the interest of keeping their foreclosure mills humming.

Whatever the case, they let the banking industry deal another huge, self-inflicted blow to its reputation. That’s the sort of damage regulators are charged with preventing, as part of their mission to preserve public confidence in the financial system. And to think Congress just gave the banking regulators, including the FDIC, even more authority under the Dodd-Frank Act. The more they fail, the more power they get.

Shady Tactics

Assigning Blame in Foreclosure Drama: Incompetence, Greed?.

http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2010/10/14/assigning-blame-in-foreclosure-drama-incompetence-greed/

If they don't own the loan, how on earth can they modify it?
And if all the loans were modified, who has to make up the difference in payment to the MBS investors?
One can only assume that would be the bank that sold it to them.
And that ain't gonna happen.
That's why we have Fannie and Freddie now, so the taxpayer can make up the difference for them.
And you better believe we do.
You can Thank Hank Paulson for that slick move!

That has put major stress on the banks’ back-office mortgage servicing operations, which were never designed to deal with hundreds of thousands of borrowers that need help.

The warning signs have been there all along: While they’ve been adding staff, the big banks have struggled mightily to modify loans, approve short sales, and manage foreclosures effectively.

It’s not unusual to hear about frantic borrowers

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

Alan Grayson To FBI: Handcuff Time

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=169161

Yes it's high time for a criminal investigation into the banks for racketeering as well as criminal intent to defraud!
America don't accept anything less, what the banks have done to the MBS investors is no different than what Bernie Madoff was doing and in all actuality, it was 100 times worse.
Fraud is fraud no matter who commits it!


October 14, 2010

Robert S. Mueller III
Director Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20535

Robert O'Neill
US Attorney
Central District of Florida
400 North Tampa Street, Suite 3200
Tampa, FL 33602


Dear US Attorney Robert O'Neill and Director Mueller,

When it comes to foreclosures, there is mounting evidence of a state of rampant lawlessness in Central Florida. There are increasing signs that big banks routinely evade laws meant to protect homeowners, in many well-documented cases of ‘foreclosure fraud’. Despite the demonstrated existence, for instance, of ‘robosigners’ signing affidavits attesting to documents that they have never seen, the parties engaging in such misconduct are not being brought to justice. Big banks are mischaracterizing this as mere “technical problems,” and apologizing only where there is clear and very public evidence of harm.

It is not enough for big banks only to apologize for fraud, perjury, and even breaking and entering – when they are caught. It is time for handcuffs. Fraud does not become legal just because a big bank does it.

On September 20, 2010, after my office found evidence of systemic foreclosure fraud perpetrated by big banks and foreclosure mills, I called for a halt to illegal foreclosures.

Since then, big banks such as Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, GMAC, PNC and others have suspended foreclosures or foreclosure sales. These banks are still claiming that the massive fraud they have perpetrated amounts to nothing more than a series of technical mistakes. This is absurd. This is deliberate, systemic fraud, and it is a crime.

To give but two of the many available examples, attached is a deposition from an ex-employee of one of the largest ‘foreclosure mills’ in the state, the Law Offices of David Stern. In it, this employee testifies under oath that it was routine for that office to falsify documents regarding military records, in order to move foreclosure cases along more quickly.

The local media has reported on the case of Nancy Jacobini; a contractor for JP Morgan Chase broke into her home after the bank mistakenly foreclosed on it. JP Morgan Chase ‘apologized’ for terrifying her. But we do not have an apology-based legal system; we have a system of laws. I am writing to ask you to enforce them.

The organized and systematic manufacturing of falsified documents to deprive people of their homes is not only a threat to the integrity of the legal system. It also aggravates and extends the weakness in the

FHFA: Watch The Misdirection

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=169155


What's that mean?
We're going to fix it by overlooking the criminal actions that made the mess?
You don't think your government is actually going to prosecute their buddies do you?
Who the hell would pay for their campaigns?
And the FHFA is part of the federal government so it's OK to over look the damning testimony given under oath, that hey, even they couldn't get the
the file documentation.
So we're just going to overlook that fact.
No one in America is going to accept this anymore.
More collusion in the cover up

Today, I am directing the Enterprises to implement a four-point policy framework detailing FHFA’s plan, including guidance for consistent remediation of identified foreclosure process deficiencies. This framework envisions an orderly and expeditious resolution of foreclosure process issues that will provide greater certainty to homeowners, lenders, investors, and communities alike.

In developing this framework, FHFA has benefitted from close consultation with the Administration and other federal financial regulators.

The country’s housing finance system remains fragile and I intend to maintain our focus on addressing this issue in a manner that is fair to delinquent households, but also fair to servicers, mortgage investors, neighborhoods and most of all, is in the best interest of taxpayers and housing markets."

One word: BULLF&#KING%$IT.

FHFA testified under oath before the FCIC that the GSEs do not have the loan files when they examine for fraud - that is, breaches of representations and warranties. (Yes, selling someone something you claim is a gallon of gasoline when it's really a gallon of water is fraud folks, not "a mistake.")

They further testified that they are being stiff-armed by the banks in obtaining those files, to the point they have had to file subpoenas.

But Fannie and Freddie should have those files if the REMICs - the securities they've offered to investors including the public - complied with their Prospectuses and Pooling and Servicing agreements. If the certifications that were made are accurate, the files are in Fannie and Freddie's possession.

But FHFA has testified - under oath - that those files are not in their possession.

Bankers Ignored Signs of Trouble on Foreclosures

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bankers-Ignored-Signs-of-nytimes-2833356369.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=7&asset=&ccode=

So federal regulators knew to and never chose to question the legality of what the banks were doing?

But interviews with bank employees, executives and federal regulators suggest that this mess was years in the making and came as little surprise to industry insiders and government officials. The issue gained new urgency on Wednesday, when all 50 state attorneys general announced that they would investigate foreclosure practices. That news came on the same day that JPMorgan Chase acknowledged that it had not used the nation’s largest electronic mortgage tracking system, MERS, since 2008.

That system has been faulted for losing documents and other sloppy practices.

The root of today’s problems goes back to the boom years, when home prices were soaring and banks pursued profit while paying less attention to the business of mortgage servicing, or collecting and processing monthly payments from homeowners.

Banks spent billions of dollars in the good times to build vast mortgage machines

JPMorgan exits electronic mortgage tracking system

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101013/ap_on_bi_ge/us_jpmorgan_mortgages

MERS authenticity of legal title transfer.....case closed.
Now the shit just legally hit the fan.


JPMorgan Chase's CEO says the bank has stopped using the electronic mortgage tracking system used by major financial institutions.

Lawyers have argued in court proceedings that the system is unable to accurately prove ownership of mortgages.

Here Is Your Chance To Check If You Are The Victim Of Mortgage Fraud

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/here-your-chance-check-if-you-are-victim-mortgage-fraud


Wondering if you are one of those suckers paying a mortgage in limbo, with all the payments due to some non-existent mortgage noteholder getting retained at the servicer banks? Well, if you can spare 3 minutes then "Where's the Note" is for you. The website, which is on the verge of a viral break out, has a simple message: "Whether you are facing foreclosure, have an underwater mortgage, or are just a concerned homeowner, it’s important that you contact your bank and demand to see the original note on your mortgage. It only takes a few minutes using our free online tool." Quick, simple and easy. And in a few days your mortgage bank will have no choice but to tell you if they do in fact have your original mortgage note. And if not - welcome to cost-free living, courtesy of MERS and millions of rushed and fraudulent mortgage note assignments. Yes, it will mean the end of the GSEs, but it will also mean the accelerated write downs on thousands of MBS tranches which will rapidly collapse into insolvency (there is only so much Mark to Unicorn can cover up) and eventually take the insolvent TBTFs banks with them.

From Where's the Note's mission statement:

Citigroup Call On Implications On Foreclosure Crisis: "Just The Tip Of The Iceberg"

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/citigroup-call-implications-foreclosure-crisis-just-tip-iceberg

Looks like Citigroup is actually addressing the real issues with it's shareholders about the devastation they're facing.
All of them need to start doing it
Now I want to see crime prosecution.
No hand slap fines, it's time to demand jail time.
These people knew what they were doing.
And just like I said only newly built homes will be a safe bet.
They will record that title at the county court house like they were supposed to have been doing, rather than to have used MERS

Yesterday, Citigroup's homebuilding team hosted a call with investors in which the guest speaker was Adam Levitin, an associate professor of law at Georgetown University. Far from providing the "all green" call participants had desired, Levitin said that what we have recently seen and heard in the news is “just the tip of the iceberg” and that the foreclosure halt may well cause a "systemic problem", as was suggested on Zero Hedge when the news of the Florida's court involvement was first made public (here and here) a month ago. And since by now everyone knows what the key tension points in this potentially massive development are, we will cut straight to Levitin's somewhat unpleasant conclusions:

"Our speaker predicted that more and more lenders are likely to stop their foreclosure processes in both judicial and non-judicial states. He also expects more states’ attorney generals to get involved. At the federal level, it is possible than banking regulators might step in as there is legal and reputational risk for the banks involved. Ultimately, if these issues do in fact escalate, the Administration may try to broker some sort of settlement. If such deal brokering does take place, Levitin believes that “some payment” will be exacted from the lenders and servicers. As for Citi's official take on Fraudclosure here are the key issues:

Issues Concerning Affidavits
Issues Concerning Tax and Trust Laws
Issues Concerning Title Insurers
Issues Concerning MERS

MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems) functions as a centralized electronic registry of mortgages and tracks ownership of mortgages. MERS allows mortgage ownership to change hands efficiently and relatively quickly since it is electronic and allows all parties to forgo making a filing in local land records. Indeed, MERS was designed to function as a substitute for local land records.

Although MERS was designed to enhance efficiency in the mortgage assignment process, Levitin argued it may not conform with the law. “Slowly but surely” courts are issuing decisions which “cast validity on the MERS process.” Although ~60% of mortgages list MERS as the “nominee” which owns the mortgage, a handful of recent court cases have ruled that MERS has no standing in foreclosure actions either because (1) physical paperwork must be transferred when a mortgage is assigned by one party to another or (2) MERS has no true economic interest in the mortgage in question since it collects no payments from the borrowers.