Faced With Scrutiny, Banks Slowing Foreclosures

nytimes.com:

PHOENIX -- An array of federal and state investigations into the way banks foreclose on delinquent homeowners has contributed to a sharp slowdown in foreclosures across the country, especially in hard-hit cities like this one.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[MarkSmithJr]

04:54 PM on 01/14/2011

This was a wonderful article,we need to review all aspects of the foreclosure complaint for any inaccurate information www.jacksonville-foreclosure-defense.com to make sure any inaccurate foreclosure is contested!
-Smith

[Chester Erickson]

03:10 PM on 01/10/2011

Mortgage servicers are slowing foreclosures, and that is very good for homeowners in default, but I don't think they are necessarily doing it simply because of fear of reprisal from government offices.

If they choose to delay foreclosure, they make more money in inspection and collection fees each month. The servicing company doesn't lose much in a foreclosure, the investor behind the mortgage does.

Unfortunately, those investors are often regular people who are investing for retirement. This could still be a win for the mortgage servicer.

[DebtNavigation]

12:00 PM on 01/10/2011

Americans caught in the gears of the foreclosure machine are going to start resisting with more than just papers from their lawyers. They're going to start banding together and resisting physical dispossession, which will lead to serious dilemmas at law enforcement agencies.

In Mexico in the mid-'90s Wall Street engineered a currency coup that tripled the debt owed by small businesses and family farms and also allowed for them to be massively ratejacked on top of it. Mexicans consequently formed the "el Barzon" movement and pushed back Wall Street and deposed their ruling party of 60+ years. In this country YouTube phenom Ann Minch has already declared the debtors' revolt and begun going after them http://www.revoltstartsnow.com

If you've been pushed under, you can read every other page of my book for free: http://www.scribd.com/doc/25443175/Debt-Hope-Down-and-Dirty-Survival-Strategies-Evaluation-Version-Complete

[bynddrvn5]

10:04 AM on 01/10/2011

Working in consulting, you get an inside view of how screwed up the foreclosure and refinancing process is at most banks. Terrifyingly lax standards all around.

At one large bank, I was a large box under one woman's desk. She mentioned that the box contained refinancing documents she hasn't had time to review. Some of the documents were more than a year old!

Time and time again, I see stacks of documents that have not been sent to the proper government agencies and stacks of rejected documents from government agencies. Which leads me to another point, it appears as though some government workers are rejecting documents and the associated fees look as though they are being doubled or even tripled.

I think some fraud is apparent in the refinancing and foreclosure process, and documents are missing.

[Main Street Blues]

08:47 AM on 01/10/2011

I know it's a radical idea....way out....far fetched.. the very concept that Banks would work with homeowners to avoid foreclosure by reducing mortgages to the new values of homes. Remember...loss of home values is a result of what the Banks did. The idea that families are forced out of their homes so investors can purchased the family home at a distressed value..but not allowing homeowners to have the same opportunity is nothing short of predatory, unethical and corrupt.

[DebtNavigation]

12:32 PM on 01/10/2011

Blame the Supreme Court's Nobelman decision ... and the Senate's serial failures to undo it. Chapter 13 cramdown would be the perfect prescription.

[funkalicious]

12:56 PM on 01/10/2011

so if you have zero equity in the home and have not been paying or maintaining the home the bank should lower the mortgage to zero so you can keep your house ? This helps the economy how?

Do you believe it is a right not a responsibility to own a home? I would like to follow your logic.
and please teach me how to screw the banks so I can get a new house I cannot afford. I want to win at your game. I have been a fool writing mortgage checks and working my ass off to make sure all of the bills get paid. Teach me how to be unethical and corrupt so I can get mine, i need to understand your logic . Hard work and thrift mean i get to pay for everyone else.

[StephenJK]

08:31 AM on 01/10/2011

We hate you banks and the people you rode in on.

[Siebenstein]

07:02 AM on 01/10/2011

We need a plan to pay homeowners the difference of their under-water mortgages on Pay-Option-Arm's

[hellboundtrain]

01:39 AM on 01/10/2011

No derivative pay-outs when they're connected to this bad-awful mess-o'-frauds!

How could they?!!

[ArabianMoney]

01:24 AM on 01/10/2011

Oh forever the postive spin on news stories! The slowing of foreclosures is a disaster for the banks whose collateral is now worth less, if not indeed worthless! They will have to make bigger provisions against bad debts and that will bring bank stocks down... See: http://www.arabianmoney.net/gold-silver/2011/01/10/precarious-financial-markets-looking-for-a-black-swan-to-sell-off/

[hellboundtrain]

12:55 AM on 01/10/2011

Per PhillipTaylor's comment at 8:20 pm, below - #3: None of the bankster SURE-FAIL mortgage derivatives' bets should pay-off for them as they were based on various frauds -
#1. fraudulent robosigning

#2. fraudulent ratings, garbage as AAA

#3. broken chain of title at securitization

NONE of the steeped-in-fraud derivative bets should pay off for the banksters! NONE!

[PhilipTaylor]

11:44 PM on 01/09/2011

HOW BANKS VIOLATED FEDERAL AND STATE REGULATIONS AND LAWS:

Pooling and Servicing Agreements (PSAs) provide rules of Derivative Building.

1. Require mortgage documents, including wet ink notes and a clean chain of title be transferred in a timely manner to the trustees. 

2. MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registry System) purposely refused the transfer requirements and destroyed notes or were held by the servicers to speed up foreclosures the END GAME of the mortgage SCAM PROCESS. 

3. This MERS action render the Securities/Derivatives Fraudulent and Violates federal tax laws governing remaining back taxes due.

4. But worse yet, MERS breaking the chain of title and destroying documents have jeopardized the entire system of property rights and making most, perhaps all, foreclosures fraudulent and so the resales of the homes are also fraudulent. 

5. Original mortgages were TRICK&TRAP Frauds as part of BUSH Ownership Society developed to default knowing the homeowner would be unable to pay with the Rate Adjustments and FEES. 

6. By purposely obscuring the chain of title, MERS made it impossible for debtors or the courts to find the TRUTH and making it easier to take the victims’ homes in a modern form of feudal foreclosures when agriculture capitalist LORDS seized peasant lands and concentrated their Ownership Society. 

7. The scale is huge with 33 Million Homes estimated at $6.4 Trillion in Frauds with destroyed or doctored documents violating the PSAs rules. MERS contaminated 65 million mortgages - decoupling mortgages from notes and destroying the chain of title.

8. 3 State Supreme Courts ruled MERS (the criminal company) cannot own mortgages and cannot foreclose. So PIMCO, Black Rock, and Fannie and Freddie who own $600 Billion of the private label securities are suing the banks to force them to take back the LOANS. Time to STOP all foreclosures immediately and audit the REMIC trustees to see if they followed PSAs requirements and laws. If they did not the securities should be put back to the banks.

http://thestarshollowgazette.com/diary/1561/more-on-title-fraud

[PhilipTaylor]

11:45 PM on 01/09/2011

9. If the banks cannot absorb the losses, they must be closed and resolved with the FDIC ending up with the securities and underlying mortgages which can then be modified and principle reset to current market values, with LOW FIXED RATE LOANS working with Freddie/Fannie. Investors will take losses that the government will have to address with $Hundreds of Billions in losses. 

10. Congress must find ways to mitigate the impacts on the Real Economy and investors. 

11. Every top official of the dozen BIGGEST BANKS and Everyone at MERS and Officers at every servicer, rater, appraiser, accounting firm, and mortgage broker must be investigated for fraud. 

12. In the aftermath of the thrift crisis, 1852 bank insiders were prosecuted and 1072 were jailed. So far in this much bigger crisis there have been only 50 criminal probes and 80 civil lawsuits authorized by FDIC. It is time to get serious about the home thieves.

Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/life/politics/10/12/729908/time-to-audit-the-remic-trusts#ixzz1AWch5Lxo

[Thanks to CarolAB for links]

[Erdgeist]

09:30 PM on 01/09/2011

One of the great ironies today is that the banks that are foreclosing are the banks who created this economic crisis in the first place.

[NessEliot1932]

11:49 PM on 01/09/2011

Odd coincidence - Except Detectives tell us there is no such thing. F & F

[vippy]

05:33 AM on 01/10/2011

And sad is that Washington knows about all of this and they did nothing.  Very telling. 

[PhilipTaylor]

08:39 PM on 01/09/2011

B of A TAXPAYER BAILOUT AGAIN!  

BofA’s Moynihan has inked a “PUTBACK” deal paying Fannie/Freddie a minor $1.28 billion deal that covers potential future claims on $127 billion in loans sold by Countrywide through 2008  -  That is 1 PENNY from BofA for 1 DOLLAR OF FRAUD burdening THE TAXPAYER - Like canceling a $500,000 mortgage for ONLY $5,000! 

The government ownership of Fannie/Freddie enabled another "back door bailout" of a MASSIVE $126 BILLION TAXPAYER BAILOUT OF B of A!

ALSO GEITHNER and FED (BERNANKE) CONTINUE THEIR GIFTING OF ZERO% LOANS TO THE BANKSTERS!

http://www.observer.com/2011/wall-street/was-fanniefreddie-putback-deal-another-bailout-bofa

[tristrixi]

10:33 PM on 01/09/2011

This is incredible! The deal is like nothing I've ever, EVER, been offered in honest business dealings.

[NessEliot1932]

10:42 PM on 01/09/2011

Our Government and WALL STREET are "ONE" MEAN CRIMINAL MACHINE!

[Paul Sta]

08:29 AM on 01/10/2011

QE2 might as well be called TARP2 as it has been nothing more than a revenue stream for big banks. The bailout never ended,

[PhilipTaylor]

08:20 PM on 01/09/2011

THE LAYER UPON LAYER OF FRAUD BY THE BIGGEST DOZEN BANKSTERS IN THE WORLD:

As we peel back the layers of the real estate “onion” we find layer after layer of conspiratorial fraud from mortgage brokers, appraisers, lenders, Big BANK securitizers, ratings agencies, accountants, trustees, servicers, MERS, forgery, and fraudclosures.  Probably the LARGEST AND WORST CONSPIRATORIAL FRAUD in human history

BofA (worth at most $250 Billion ignoring Hidden Off-Balance-Sheet $TRILLIONS in near worthless derivatives) is charged with $47 Billion in Fraudulent Mortgages by one investor alone. A suit in California seeks $60-$120 Billion in lost recording fees alone. 

The top five servicers (Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, GMAC-Ally) have 60% of the business and include the top four banks that account for 40% of the banking business.

There is almost no calamity worse than loss of one's home, the main asset most Americans hold used for education of our children and for retirement. Theft of one's home is certainly equivalent a horrible crime.

The finance sector is blaming sloppy paperwork and overburdened workers and promise to hire more employees (Robo-Signers off the street) to forge more documents.  . They promise to put things right, hiring more workers, but in reality it was all intentional and massive FRAUD - HOME THEFT was the business model. That is what the Bush administration meant when it pushed the “ownership society”—a society in which the top tenth of one percent would own everything.

1. BANKSTERS change bankruptcy laws so a first mortgage on a PRIMARY residence is the only debt a judge cannot reduce to insure the wave of foreclosures are forced to lose their homes to Ownership Class would still have to pay off the mortgage. 
 
2. BANKSTERS created TRICK&TRAP “SURE FAIL (affordability)” adjustable rate mortgages with Greenscam’spams Blessings designed to BL0W UP the Borrowers finances so the Banksters could own the homes at “ROCK BOTTOM PRICES.”

3. BANKSTERS then created “SURE FAIL” Mortgage Derivatives which are re-packaged “SURE FAIL” loans and bribed Ratings Agencies for FAKED “AAA” safe ratings that could be easily sold to bank Victims (customers).  Then the Banksters bought Massive and Repeated CASINO BETS (credit default swap “insurance”) betting the “SURE FAIL” Borrower's loans would default and their VICTIMS (Customers) would lose their INVESTMENTS.  A near 100% SURE THING!  Much of the actual paperwork was destroyed to cover the trail of FRAUD!

[PhilipTaylor]

08:24 PM on 01/09/2011

4. BANKSTERS then farmed out mortgage servicing to their own subsidiaries, purposely “misplacing” borrower payments that should have gone to Derivatives Investors while p0isoning borrower’s credit ratings and claiming they were delinquent so servicers could squeeze OUT MASSIVE LATE&DEFAULT FEES AND EXTRA INTEREST.  

Servicers LOVED the FEES and CASH FLOW - maximizing their own incomes while protecting interests of their mother banks, who often had second liens or home equity loans.  Servicers purposely made it nearly impossible to modify loans because that interfered with their MASSIVE FEES and INTEREST PENALTIES!
 
BANKSTERS created MERS to steam roll FRAUDCLOSURES for the Servicers who deputized “BANKSTER VPs” to pretend to be officers of MERS in order to scam the courts.
 
We now know “Mortgage Backed Derivatives” were not backed by MORTGAGES but were unsecured DEBTS with little or NO DOCUMENTATION!  Wet Ink Documents were purposely discarded to coverup the trail of FRAUD and so documents, like TITLES,  were NOT passed along as the SLICING and DICING and SELLING of the JUNK was done as required by Laws and Regulations (PSAs) as the BANKSTERS MERS said to violate those REGULATIONS and STATE and FEDERAL LAWS (REMICs) rendering the Derivatives fraudulent and near VALUELESS breaking the chain of title jeopardizing the entire system of property rights this country was founded upon - meaning resales of the foreclosed homes are also frauds. 

Today's foreclosure thieves have stolen more property of citizens than all previous thieves combined since the founding of our nation and without question they must be prosecuted and if found guilty incarcerated with appropriate long terms.  If terms of 10 years and $10 million for each fraudulent foreclosure were instituted these crimes would end quickly.

http://www.businessinsider.com/mortgage-fraud-scandal-2010-10#ixzz1AWp9Tz8E

[tristrixi]

08:34 PM on 01/09/2011

Philip, you're kicking @ss again!

[Arnage Tforme]

06:50 PM on 01/09/2011

The solution to this is simple and it's in the hands of the buyers of homes...you want to stop the corruption, and the stealing. Offer 3x the median income for standard homes in your area. If the median income in the area you are looking is 30k offer no more than 3x the median for it....if you want financial stability in your life offer no more than 3x your gross income for a home. The banks are getting away with raping America because folks have lost sight of the fundamentals that sustained folks in the 50, 60's and 70's....

It's not rocket science...the correction is in the hands of the American people...you're either going to continue to be hosts for leeches or you're not...it's that simple.