Social Apocalypse

Video: Arguments; Washington Supreme Court, Bain v. MERS

Here it is!  It's a MUST WATCH! This is a HUGE case.

 

Let’s be clear: the bailout of AIG was not a bailout of AIG...

It was a bailout of Goldman Sachs, to whom AIG were a counter-party. AIG’s failure would have meant Goldman’s balance sheet — already stuffed with derivatives dynamite — blew up. Goldman — along with a whole slew of other firms who created and invested in these dynamite products — would have been bankrupt.

And so the real problem is not Goldman’s rapaciousness. It’s the fact that systemic rapacity is being subsidised and protected by the government. Malpractice and malinvestment — such as the current global derivatives mesh which spreads risk around balance sheets like a pandemic — will in nature always eventually be punished by failure. That’s precisely what we saw in 2008, and that’s precisely what governments around the world crystallised and condoned through their bailout programs. Goldman have no incentive to change their business practices under the present conditions, and they won’t.

What’s the point of running a good business when you can run a rapacious and badly-run one and continue to thrive on government welfare? Bailouts destroy the market mechanism, and allow immoral and stupid firms (and systems) to prosper at the expense of better-run ones.

I wish Smith had the moral courage to approach the real problem — the arrogant and deluded central planners who allow the vampire squid to thrive and prosper.

via www.zerohedge.com

Another great blog post over at Zero Hedge. Click through to read the whole thing.

I Signed This Petition: Department of Corporations and the CFPA: Investigate PennyMac For Fraud

Why This Is Important

Countrywide is profitting from the same toxic loans they created by forming a new company called PennyMac, headed up by the same executives that helped create our economic downfall...when they ran Countrywide.

They buy back your loans for pennies on the dollar, then they collect the maximum they can from the homeowner, rarely modifying.  They are unregulated so they buy loans from banks that are regulated so they can hide their assests in the private sector.

If this is not stopped, it will be the next great economic disaster in a few years and we will all be asking why we didn't see it coming.

Click to Sign: www.change.org

I URGE everyone to sign this petition, it takes only seconds. Pennymac is comprised mostly of the former executives of COUNTRYWIDE MORTGAGE. For years, they even had the same ADDRESS as Countrywide, but finally changed it, probably because too many people were noticing.

THEY ARE MAKING A MOCKERY OF THE MORTGAGE CRIMES COMMITTED BY COUNTRYWIDE! They buy up the very same loans that THEY MADE at Countrywide for literlly pennies on the dollar, putting insurance on them, and then foreclosing on as many borrowers as they can.

It's a national tragedy, and is going on RIGHT IN THE FACE of our regulators.

PLEASE sign this petition. MORE companies like this are going to open up shop, creating a MARKET for these toxic mortgages. I signed it. I wish I could sign it a thousand times.

Washington Supreme Court to Decide MERS’s Legality in Washington-Great Article

MERS, the mortgage industry’s self-serving creation launched without due regard for all 50 states’ laws, faces a big test in Washington state. The Washington Supreme Court will decide whether MERS’s business model of being named beneficiary on deeds of trust (mortgages) is legal. If the Court decides MERS doesn’t work under Washington law, the Court may also address the consequences of MERS’s illegality on foreclosures, and consider whether homeowners have the right to sue MERS.

Last June, but not much noticed at the time, a federal trial court in Washington State asked the Washington Supreme Court to answer these questions. Under Washington law, it appears the Supreme Court must answer, though as the federal court notes, the Washington Supreme Court can reframe the issues however it chooses. That is, it can choose to answer some or all the questions and it can answer more general or more narrow versions of the questions. But, the Court can’t dodge the basic issue of MERS’s unknown legality unless it declares that Washington law is already clear on the issues.

via abigailcfield.com

Washington Supreme Court to weigh legality of MERS foreclosures

Washington state's highest court is set to determine whether thousands of pending foreclosures can proceed out of court, potentially averting months of conflicting and murky rulings.

The court will hear arguments over whether lenders can file foreclosures in the name of MERS, a private company that owns a computerized mortgage registry system. Big lenders, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and several large U.S. banks, created MERS in 1995 to get around cumbersome laws that required paperwork to be filed with county clerks when a mortgage changed hands.

But in the midst of a foreclosure crisis, the company is facing investigations over whether it can legally initiate foreclosure proceedings.

If the court rules against MERS, it could force thousands of foreclosures into court that would otherwise have been handled without ever going before a judge.

And any decision could bring some order to a hodgepodge of state and federal rulings in wrongful foreclosure complaints -- at least, in Washington. Elsewhere, including Oregon, similar cases continue their long slog toward Supreme Court resolution, a legislative fix or a different tack by lenders.

via www.oregonlive.com

This is a BIG DEAL!! Everyone keep your fingers crossed!

McKenna returns $14K from foreclosure trustee firm

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Republican gubernatorial candidate and state Attorney General Rob McKenna has returned nearly $14,000 in donations from people tied to a firm that helps mediate foreclosures.

McKenna's office had put the company, Northwest Trustee Services, Inc., on notice in 2010 that they could face investigation, but his campaign accepted donations from the donors on Sept. 30. He has since returned the money, according to an amended financial disclosure form that was submitted on Feb. 9, the same day McKenna announced Washington state's share of a $25 billion settlement with the nation's biggest mortgage lenders over foreclosure abuses.

McKenna campaign spokesman Charles McCray said that the timing was a coincidence, and noted that the refund was made on Feb. 2, and that the Feb. 9 filing was in advance of a Feb. 10 filing deadline.

"The mortgage settlement is unrelated to the refunds," he said. "The important part to focus on is that we made the refund."

The $13,800 in donations was made by three attorneys, and two wives, associated with either the law firm Routh, Crabtree, Olsen, or Bellevue-based Northwest Trustee Services Inc. The law firm is an affiliate of the trustee.

via www.seattlepi.com

DO read the entire article. These guys are IN NINE STATES! They are by far ONE OF THE LARGEST PERPETRATORS OF FRAUD IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES IN MY OPINION.

Huge KUDOS for Attorney General Rob McKenna for PUTTING HIS MONEY WHERE HIS MOUTH IS. I don't see anything odd about the timing, it was found and it was rectified. I am greatly encouraged to see this kind of courageous leadership in our state. I can only hope it continues. I HOPE ROB IS OUR NEXT GOVERNOR!!

Discussion Please! Ninth Circuit Upholds Dismissal of TILA Claim Despite Timely Rescission Notice - McOmie-Gray v. Bank of America

From Howard Law PC:

Ninth Circuit Upholds Dismissal of TILA Claim Despite Timely Rescission Notice - McOmie-Gray v. Bank of America

A recent case in which the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals took on the statute of repose in Truth in Lending Act cases. This is a perennial issue in TILA cases, because the lender stands to lose so much and the borrower to gain so much if the borrower can prove he or she met all of the deadlines: TILA allows outright cancellation of predatory loans. That was what Kathryn McOmie-Gray sought in McOmie-Gray v. Bank of America Home Loans, originating out of the Eastern District of California. McOmie-Gray alleged that her original lender did not meet TILA's disclosure requirements and that because her notice of rescission was timely, she was not required to bring suit within the three-year statute of repose. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, in a case of first impression.

McOmie-Gray took out a mortgage from Paramount Equity Mortgage in April of 2006. At closing, she signed two TILA notice of right to cancel forms, but she alleges that neither specified when her right to cancel would expire. The loan was soon assigned to Countrywide, which was acquired by BofA after its collapse. In January of 2008, through an attorney, McOmie-Gray notified the bank of her intention to rescind the loan on the basis that there was no specified cancellation date. She alleges that the bank then negotiated with her for more than a year, expressly agreeing to toll the statute of limitations on her TILA claim until Aug. 30, 2009. She filed suit on Aug. 28, 2009. When the court ultimately ruled on her amended complaint, it found that the TILA statute of repose had expired after the statutory three years, in April of 2009, and thus the lawsuit was time-barred. It did not mention the alleged tolling agreement. McOmie-Gray appealed.

Ultimately, her luck was no better in the Ninth Circuit. Federal regulations on TILA permit a borrower to notify the lender in writing of her intention to rescind within three years, if there was a deficiency in the notice. Though McOmie-Gray's notice met that burden, the Ninth said, rescission is not automatic upon the giving of notice. Instead, it found that borrowers must file suit to determine whether rescission is proper (if the lender does not comply). The statute is silent on when such a suit should be filed. But under caselaw from both the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, the majority wrote, suits must be brought within the three years. The plaintiff in that case and McOmie-Gray both argued that the notice triggers an additional one-year deadline for filing suit, under a provision for TILA litigation, but the Ninth rejected this as contrary to the plain language calling for the three-year repose period. Thus, it affirmed dismissal of the case.

Vincent Howard would be pleased to see this case in an en banc rehearing. The cases cited by the Ninth Circuit to support its position are not precisely on point; one involved no notice to the lender at all, and the other involved timely notice, but to the wrong party. Thus, it's not unreasonable to say that the issue of when suit must be filed is not settled. This is particularly important in cases like McOmie-Gray's, in which she apparently reasonably relied on a promise to toll the statute of limitations that was broken as soon as she filed suit.

via www.californiabankruptcyattorneyblog.com

Social Apocalypse Here. This is the first of what I am sure will be MANY blog posts on this important case.  The two cases referred to in the arguments by the banks attorney are not on point with regard to the closing of the statute of repose... As they commented in the blog post above, they were flawed for different reasons, reasons that caused the court to rule against the 3 year deadline.  In MIGUEL, the notice of rescission was sent TO THE WRONG ENTITY! This is clearly an easy fail on the part of the borrower, and would be a no-brainer. They didn't reject the rescission because of the timeliness of the rescission notice but BECAUSE THE BORROWER DID NOT CORRECT THE NOTICE BEFORE THE THREE YEAR STATUTE EXPIRED! The court commented that they have NO jurisdiction to allow her to correct the notice AFTER the three years have expired. I agree with this.

What this case is saying is that IF a borrower files a timely rescission before the three year statute has expired and the lender FAILS TO RESPOND, then the lender is taking away the borrowers right to rescind by default, and this CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO STAND.

You can read the actual opinion, CLICK HERE

You can actually LISTEN to it here, and you'll see how the Plaintiff's attorney failed to point out the flaws in the arguments of the defendant's attorney (Made me ill!!) CLICK HERE

Let's hope for a rehearing on this!  Stay tuned!

PUTTING AN END TO MERS « Fraud Digest

What has changed in the world of mortgage assignments since the FDIC/OCC/Treasury Consent Orders?

When is a mortgage assignment actually an Affidavit posing as a mortgage assignment?

When will all Recorders of Deeds file Declaratory Judgment actions seeking to enjoin the filing of mortgage assignments by document preparers:

1. that falsely state the employer and/or address of the preparer or signer (or that only use the MERS title when the signer is not directly employed by MERS);

2. that fail to plainly set forth the date the mortgage was assigned to the assignee; or

3. that contain language about the holder of the note, such language being extraneous to an Assignment of Mortgage.

Why are such Declaratory Judgment actions needed?

This is the new language appearing on many mortgage assignments where Deutsche Bank National Trust Company is the Trustee the Trust is the Assignee and MERS is the Assignor:

This loan was held by the Assignee prior to the Assignee filing a foreclosure action on May 21, 2008. The date of the execution of this Assignment of Mortgage by the Assignor is not reflective of the date the loan was transferred to the Assignee. The execution of this document is a ministerial act to comply with the state law as to how the transfer is to be documented and is not reflective of the transfer date itself.

(Instrument #2011383648, Official Records, Hillsborough County, Florida.)

This is signed by Srbui Muradyan who is identified as Assistant Secretary, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., as Nominee for WMC Mortgage Corp. This document was notarized in Ventura County, CA, on October 25, 2011.

According to a statement in the upper left-hand corner of the document, the preparer was Tanya D. Simpson, Esq., of the law firm Smith, Hiatt & Diaz, P.A., a foreclosure mill in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

The receiving trust is Soundview Home Loan Trust 2007-WMC1.

When was the mortgage assigned to the trust? That essential question is not addressed by the Mortgage Assignment.

Read More: www.frauddigest.com

Largest Foreclosure Mill in the West gets hit with ethics complaint due to premiums

A lawyer representing The Bulletin of Bend and the Redmond Spokesman
newspapers has filed an ethics complaint with the Oregon State Bar against an executive of the Northwest's largest foreclosure trustee, accusing the company of secretly marking up the cost of foreclosure legal ads to its lender clients.

Michael Dillard, of the Karnopp Petersen law firm in Bend, filed the complaint last week against David Fennell, a lawyer and a principal owner of Northwest Trustee Services, which by its own account has handled more than 250,000 foreclosures.

Dillard alleges that Northwest Trustee and its advertising operation, FEI, charged its clients an undisclosed 18 percent premium over the actual price. These "deceptive and dishonest" tactics, Dillard said, allowed FEI to collect from its clients about $360,000 more than it actually paid for the foreclosure notices published in the Redmond newspaper just since 2009.

Those costs were then presumably passed on by banks to homeowners and others, Dillard said.

Stephen Routh, CEO of Northwest Trustee Services, denied that FEI was charging a secret premium. "The markup was fully disclosed to it customers," Routh said. "It's how they make a profit."

The complaint is intriguing on several levels. Since the economic crash of 2008 let loose a tidal wave of home foreclosures, the financial industry has been accused many times over by homeowners of improperly and fraudulently repossessing homes. But in this case, one of Northwest Trustee's own vendors alleges wrongdoing, with 26 pages of painstaking detail backing up the claim.

The complaint puts Western Communications, owner of the Redmond Spokesman, The Bulletin and a handful of other newspapers, in a delicate position. It is accusing one of its largest advertisers of underhanded billing practices even as the newspapers' parent company struggles through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Bulletin published a lengthy story Tuesday about Northwest Trustee's alleged overcharging.

The Oregonian published a story about Northwest Trustee Jan. 14, which focused on the company's emergence during the foreclosure boom as one of the region's largest newspaper advertisers and its decision to begin buying newspapers outright.

via www.oregonlive.com

Now if a Washington Bar complaint could be filed, we might make some progress... these guys need to have their arrogance checked. It's a slam-dunk, for any attorneys who want to be a national hero out there!

THANK YOU Paul G Allen For Helping Families Save their Homes

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation has joined the Washington State Bar Association in the fight against home foreclosure. A grant of $100,000 to the Washington State Bar Foundation will support a two-year expansion of the Bar Association’s Home Foreclosure Legal Aid Project.

“The foreclosure crisis is far from over,” said William Vesneski of the Allen Foundation. “Families are still struggling and many face significant barriers to retaining their home, which is their primary asset. We felt it was important to stand beside the State Bar, its partners, and the hundreds of volunteer attorneys working to protect homeowners’ economic security.”

Experts say the housing crisis continues with nearly 2,000 new foreclosure filings in Washington in December. 
The Bar Association launched the Home Foreclosure Legal Aid Project in 2009 as housing counselors and civil legal aid offices around the state were inundated with more cases than they could handle.

“Looking at the data, it was clear the crisis had strained every available resource and left low- to moderate-income homeowners without the expertise and advocacy they desperately needed when they faced losing their homes,” said Bar Association President Steve Crossland, of Cashmere. “Commitment to service is a hallmark of Washington’s legal profession, so with some focused training and support, we were able to deploy hundreds of additional volunteer attorneys.  The response has been incredible.”

That response was also compelling to the Allen Foundation. “There are many lawyers doing great work to support communities,” said Vesneski. “But seeing the Bar Association put up its resources and reputation to help vulnerable homeowners – we thought that was impressive.”

The Bar Association partnered with statewide housing counselors and Northwest Justice Project, the state’s largest legal aid law firm, on the Project. It began a two-year expansion last year with a nearly $1.1 million cy pres award from the Washington State Office of the Attorney General from settlement funds involving one bank’s lending practices. The Project is helping enforce the state’s 2011- enacted Foreclosure Fairness Act, which provides homeowners the right to mediation in foreclosure proceedings. The addition of private dollars allows the Bar Association to provide more support for volunteers.
“There’s high leverage here,” said President Crossland. “For every one staff attorney we put on the ground, there are more than 100 volunteer attorneys available to work with homeowners.”

That means there is a high return for every philanthropic dollar invested, too. At the end of the two-year expansion, the Bar Association’s Home Foreclosure Legal Aid Project will have saved an additional $80,000,000 in Fair Market Value (FMV) of property from foreclosure and preserved at least $8,150,000 more in homeowner equity for low to moderate income homeowners. 

The Washington State Bar Association’s mission is to serve the public and the members of the Bar, ensure the integrity of the legal profession, and to champion justice. The Washington State Bar Foundation’s mission is to help the Bar Association advance diversity in the profession, and increase the public’s access to, and understanding of, the justice system.

Read the press release. 

via www.wsba.org

{{{APPLAUSE}}}
Now if we can celebrate the LONG OVERDUE justice of a Washington State Attorney to write a bar complaint against Routh Crabtree & Olsen, something might change around here. Please see this: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/01/portland_foreclosure_attorney.html and this: http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/01/northwest_trustee_squeezes_mor.html