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.

Fannie Will Hold Servicers Responsible for Robo-gate REO Losses

http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/dailybriefing/2010_210/fannie-will-hold-servicers-1021905-1.html?ET=nationalmortgage:e451:11255a:&st=email&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NMN_Daily_Briefing_102910

Fannie is publicly stating they're going to eat the cost, the banks are going to.

Fannie Mae, which has temporarily suspended certain REO sales because of the foreclosure-gate scandal, plans to hold its servicers responsible for increased carrying costs on these properties, industry sources told
Moreover, the GSE has already come up with a loss estimate on what that cost might be: upwards of $150 million, said one REO manager close the situation.

As National Mortgage News went to press, a company spokeswoman had not returned two telephone calls about the matter.

"Over the past 45 days, there's been a lot of fall-out from this scandal," said a source close to Fannie. "When a property gets pulled off the market, that results in the carrying cost becoming greater. Lawns need to be cut and houses need to be cleaned. It can add up."

The low estimate on what Fannie might lose is $50 million, sources said.

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

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

Excessively delaying Fannie Mae foreclosures will now cost servicers

http://www.housingwire.com/2010/09/02/excessively-delaying-fannie-mae-foreclosures-will-now-cost-servicers

Wanna good laugh?

Fannie Mae will now review the compensatory fees due to servicers in cases where the government sponsored entity feel servicers are unnecessarily delaying foreclosure.

In a letter sent to servicers, Fannie Mae said it plans to review compensation when it deems applicable, stating that loans "must not be put on hold on a blanket basis."

Fannie Mae is clear that servicers must not jump the gun either,

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.

Oh, Protective Orders Now Eh? (Denied)

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=168143

Oh lord you have to look at this.
Page 5 GMAC busted by the Judge
in live technicolor
Isn't going against a court order a crime all by itself?
The risk was worth the reward I guess

Now we have Fannie trying to prevent you from knowing that GMAC, another government company, has apparently engaged in "careless" affidavit processing despite being under court order not to at the time.

What?

Yep, they asked for a protective order to prevent you from reading this.

Since it was denied, I'm going to make damn sure you can read it, and you should read it.

Since when is fraud upon the court not a matter of public interest?

Fannie Mae asks for $1.5B more in aid after 2Q loss

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2010-08-05-fannie-mae-aid_N.htm

Fannie needs luch money again.

Government-controlled mortgage company Fannie Mae is asking for $1.5 billion in additional taxpayer aid after posting a smaller loss in the second quarter.
Fannie Mae (FNMA) said Thursday that it lost $3.13 billion, or 55 cents a share, in the April-to-June period. The results were the best since the company was put under federal control in September 2008.

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.

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

Fannie Mae to Rent Foreclosed Homes Back to Borrowers

Fannie Mae to Rent Foreclosed Homes Back to Borrowers

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1257...DLTopStor ies

How to hide the evidence of an over saturated housing market and make the lie to the people that things are turning for the better seem credible in easy lesson. Hey there might be a bright side to this though. Fannie will generate a little income and might not have to have that taxpayer handout it so desperately needs.

Fannie Mae plans to allow homeowners facing foreclosure to stay in their homes and rent them for up to one year as part of the latest effort to help troubled borrowers while keeping a glut of foreclosed properties from hitting the housing market.

The Deed for Lease Program, which Fannie plans to roll out on Thursday, will offer borrowers who fail to complete or don't qualify for a loan modification or other workout to deed their property to the lender in exchange for a lease. Borrowers-turned-tenants will be able to sign leases of up to 12 months and will pay market rents, which in most cases are lower than the cost of mortgage payments.

Fannie Mae wouldn't say how many homeowners it expects will take advantage of the program. The company acquired 57,000 properties through foreclosure during the first half of the year, bringing its total real-estate owned inventory to 63,000 properties valued at $6 billion. The rental program will allow Fannie to hold inventory off of already saturated housing markets and makes a bet that the housing market will be stronger one year from now.