Per a Wall Street Journal article by Robbie Whelan and Ruth Simon, a group of 40 state attorneys general is going to announce a joint investigation into mortgage servicers and their foreclosure processes to try and get to the bottom of the foreclosure fiasco. In the event you are somehow unaware, there are allegations that there are widespread and systemic defects in foreclosure and securitization processes across the nation including fraud and possible forgery of documentation necessary for foreclosure. A fairly straightforward explanation of this very complicated issue can be found here.
As a result of these issues, GMAC/Ally and JP Morgan Chase suspended foreclosures in 23 states. Bank of America went one step further and suspended foreclosures nationwide.
Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray* was quoted as saying:
“I think the mortgage-servicing firms need to understand that they face real exposure now, and they would be well advised to take this very seriously, to clean this up by doing loan workouts to keep people in their homes, which up till now they’ve just paid lip-service to”.
*This morning’s New York Times has a pretty good profile of Cordray, who has a track record of successful prosecution in similar cases.
The ramifications of these investigations remains unclear. The Obama Administration has come out against blanket foreclosures, claiming that it would hurt the economy and the housing market. Many lawmakers, including those within Obama’s own party, such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have called for a foreclosure suspension until the issue is sorted out. As with all matters, this one is as much political as legal heading into the November elections. Some speculate that an investigation into foreclosure practices could force many lenders to the bargaining table, prompting large scale mortgage modifications or principal forgiveness. We shall see, stay tuned…
Loading ...
margie
October 12, 2010 @ 1:57 pm
Hi, I find myself in the middle of this caos since October of last year I was served by bank of ny stating that they are forclosing on my property I entered an affirmative defenses stating why I believe this was incorrect the atorney for this case went ahead and filed an assignment of mortgage created in florida by their law firm with a clause stating that it was valid since sept. 09 it was stamped dated 10.20.09 signed by a vice president of mers which in fact is a vice president of bank of america and notarized by someone in texas. They filed this assignment if November, if I am not mistaken I believe this alone breaks our constitution laws. they also filed a stamped copy of original note that falsified my initials, and i have repeatedly filed stating these things but the court has ignored me and continues with a summary judgement. And not to say the least I gave $100,000.00 down on this property that is now worth about 60,000.00. Where is “We the People” justice.
Reply
LaShonda Williams
October 12, 2010 @ 5:13 pm
I am looking for others out there who have suffered at the hands of IndyMac Bank.
A few years ago, we purchased an income property to hold as rental located in another part of our neighborhood in San Lorenzo, CA. When we bought it, it was advertised as a mulitple family property with a main house and an in law unit. When we inspected it, we met the owner and the renter and ended up purchasing it at $660k, well over the single family home price of approximately $450k. Long story short…after taking possession of the property, the HOA disagreed with our rental advertisement as the CCRs advertise on title page only, “Single Family Home Community.” We tried to sue both realtors and the former owner, but the arbitrator was only allowed to award us certain out of pocket damages to date and stated that the real damages would only occur after we attempted to sell the property and couldn’t due to the single family home disclosure. As such we hired another realtor and attempted a short sale on the property with IndyMac and Ocwen Banks. We had several, at least 6, offers on the table and were assured by our new realtor that IndyMac, the primary, was looking into them. This went on for months on end, with periodic requests for our financials. We did our part and kept them in the loop. On a random Wednesday, I received a call from the HOA that neighbors had seen teenagers accessing the vacant property. I immediately went by there and called the realtor to let him know that the sliding glass door had been shattered and there was evidence of teenagers using the property as a hangout. I then call our handyman and had him secure the property. The realtor told us NOT to fix anything because Ocwen had accepted the offer and we were waiting on Indymac to accept the deal. However, that same week on a sunny Saturday, we drove by the property while performing errands. Low and behold…another realtor’s sign was on the property. I called our realtor, no answer. I called the new realtor and was rudely told that he had bought the property from IndyMac, unbeknowst to us or Ocwen. To date, we have not talked to IndyMac or our “realtor” and Ocwen is still sending us bills for their loan.
Please help us get from under this negative attempt at becoming landlords. We want recourse from IndyMac and our disappearing realtor.
Reply
Fred Smith
October 14, 2010 @ 1:28 pm
Nobody has brought up the distinct possibility that the loan servicers may well have bundled and sold each of these loans MORE THAN ONCE to differernt investors via the securitization process. THIS COULD BE THE REAL REASON THAT THERE IS NO DOCUMENTATION / PAPER TRAIL. The non-existent documentation and accounting is entirely consistent with this scenario. This means that the entire plan was a true Ponzi scheme in the worst sense. In other words, rather than selling the loan once to investors, as we have all naively been assuming, there is no reason to believe that they did not double-dip or quintuple-dip and sell the exact same loan to completely new buyers. THIS IS A LEVEL OF FRAUD THAT THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HAS NOT YET CONTEMPLATED.
Reply