Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktSo NY has filed suit against a number of big banks over MERS practices. I don’t know what kind of monetary damages for affected homeowners or how much in penalties might be in the mix. Maybe one of you can enlighten me. See link from PL HH: A.G. Schneiderman Announces Major Lawsuit Against Nation’s Largest Banks.”
The OK SCt recently took the unusual step of taking original jurisdiction of a pair of appeals of summary judgments in foreclosure cases with robosigning issues. In both cases Deutsche Bank was plaintiff and won by summary judgment at trial court. SCt released two unpublished opinions a couple of weeks ago remanding with instructions. As I understand it, they did not rule on the merits of the assignments at issue. But local attorney friends tell me it is notable that they took jurisdiction (as opposed to the typical assignment to a Court of Civil Appeals) and was quite unusual. They say the SCt is sending a message.
And what is going on with the supposedly imminent global states settlement with the banks on robosigning issues? john/banned says some AG’s have until February 6th to join, but beyond that I’m not sure of the status. Anybody have news?
So legal actions on MERS practices seem to be picking up steam. Will these lawsuits only catch the little guys? It seems to me that the big banks were the movers in setting up MERS and they had a duty to see that it functioned properly and legally if they were going to use its services. They did not, so should they now be penalized for that failure? Any thoughts on what is to come regarding MERS?
[Edited to add global settlement question.]
Filed under: Big Banks, Foreclosure | Tagged: MERS |
All Things in Moderation 
Okie, it’s too late for comments from me tonight, but this is a great weekend post and I will come back to it. Thanks, and G’night!
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The timing of this is interesting I think. If I read correctly, the agreement between the banks and the participating State AGs is supposed to be signed Monday? I don’t have time this morning to look it up but I think that’s right. This seems to be a way for the states to go after the banks (at least these three), via MERS and still sign onto the other agreement. We’ll see if the agreement still goes through as the banks may not want to sign the first if the door is still open for this type of suit.
I think, from reading what info I could find, that the individual settlement would be somewhere in the $2000 – $5000 range per unlawful or fraudulent foreclosure.
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Here’s a bit from Bloomberg this morning
California Attorney General Kamala Harris is one of the highest profile attorneys general to publicly balk at the settlement, saying she won’t sign a deal that blocks investigations into mortgage loans.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who last week declined to say whether he would sign the deal, yesterday sued Bank of America, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, New York- based JPMorgan and Wells Fargo & Co. in state court in Brooklyn over the use of a national mortgage database that the state claims led to improper foreclosures.
The agreement to grant so-called most-favored nation status comes in the endgame of a probe that began in 2010 following claims of widespread foreclosure wrongdoing by mortgage servicers. States have until Feb. 6 to accept the agreement with the five largest servicers, which also include San Francisco- based Wells Fargo, New York-based Citigroup Inc. and Detroit- based Ally Financial Inc. The deal, said to be worth as much as $25 billion, will settle allegations the banks used faulty or forged documents to seize homes from borrowers..
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Good morning, lms. Yes, I think the timing is interesting. Dayen has a couple of posts about that, wondering the same thing about how these carve outs will affect the banks entering into the settlement. Illinois also filed suit on Thursday or Friday, but I have not looked up that one yet.
I think “[t]he lawsuit also seeks a court order requiring defendants to take all actions necessary to cure any title defects and clear any improper liens resulting from their fraudulent and deceptive acts and practices” from above link to NY complaint is where the meat is. My thought is that the banks are the ones who really made a mess of our property records, so they should be the ones who have to fix it. But that’s going to be a long and difficult undertaking, and what will the effect be in the meantime on clearing the housing foreclosure backlog and getting the housing market back on an even keel?
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Dayen posts here on IL suit and here on NY suit. (“What I couldn’t understand about Eric Schneiderman’s lawsuit against MERS and three banks today is how it could possibly square with any settlement on foreclosure fraud.”) He also posts here on FL AG failing to proceed.
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I was going to post the second paragraph of your 6:58 am post, Okie, but you beat me to it. I think an agreement to “fix” the courthouse records at banks’ expense must be part of any deal. That should have been the primary goal from the beginning. You know what I think of the trashing of the recording system – it would threaten to make us a third world nation, if it is not soon restitched together.
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Thanks for all the info Okie. I’m really behind in this and almost every other bit of news as I’ve been too busy lately. I have some reading to do I guess. I agree with Mark re the recording system obviously and even though I’ve heard plenty of people claim it’s basically a non-issue as the house will be foreclosed upon anyway for non-payment, it has really clouded title which I always though was sort of rule #1 in real estate. It will be interesting I think to see if they can prove intent with regards to setting up MERS as a way to skirt the rules.
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Coakley’s MA suit, filed in December, is here.
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mark, I think you and I are in unison on this one.
lms, “plenty of people claim it’s basically a non-issue as the house will be foreclosed upon anyway for non-payment.” I don’t think it’s a non-issue. That could be what is significant about the recent OK opinions. If they cannot show clear title to the mortgage, in many states such as OK they cannot foreclose. And if they can foreclose but cannot show clear title to the property, they cannot sell. Or does (or can) a foreclosure action also serve as a quiet title action?
Mike, thanks for that link. Don’t know that they are worth linking to, but there also were the two suits out of NV against the actual CA robosigners. Not sure, but I recall those being criminal fraud charges against low-level individuals.
I wonder why CA did not file. Can she still do so on Monday?
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lms, how is your tenant eviction going? Any progress? Did your attorney at least get it filed?
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okie, yes they got it filed and she was served with the summons. We’re waiting now to see if she responded which I doubt but we don’t know yet. We should know something next week. She called yesterday, the first time we’ve heard from her in a month to let me know the gardener stole her trash can and the hose (ours) with her nozzle on it. Sheesh………………no way he would ever do that, he’s worked for us for 10 years and is the nicest old guy in the world and works really hard. I think she wanted to talk to my husband and give him another sob story because he’s nicer than I am, but luckily he was gone. She tried to convince him in early Jan. that she hadn’t called or brought money over because she’d been bitten by a brown recluse spider……lol.
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lms, glad it’s proceeding. When I was growing up, my Gran supported herself via residential rental property and I’ve had some experience with it myself. Don’t want to go back to it! She sounds like she would be a problem forever, so glad you’ll be able to get rid of her.
Wow, PL is as totally fubar today as I have seen it in a very long time.
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Okie
They seem to be having some trouble adjusting to the new moderation rules. I feel bad for Greg. I read the comments this morning and it sounds like the reporting from other commenters has gotten out of hand which is also adding to the moderation nightmare. I keep being amazed how long people put up with some of the tech and other issues they do. I remember wanting to recapture what we once had there, but I’m not sure it’s ever going to be possible at this point.
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Okie, I guess you’re south of the big storm? Denver got hammered yesterday. Golden had about 24 inches in something like 36 hours and Nebraska’s getting in now. Watch out East Coast but I imagine MsJS is in the path right now.
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heh, lms, this is the weirdest winter I recall for quite a while. We got about 1/4″ of rain yesterday with temps in the mid 60’s. We’ve been predominantly 50’s and 60’s since Thanksgiving, I think. We’ve been 5-10 degrees above normal average for the last couple of months, and no snow (we’ve had a couple of dustings) or ice so far this year.
Not sure if you have cats, but I have made an interesting discovery about mine. For years now I have been perturbed by the fact that I could not grow annual herbs inside during the winter because my cats destructo them quickly. Some they like to eat, some they play with until they’re shredded, and some they just go into a destructive frenzy. Quite by accident I have stumbled on a solution. My store was out of fresh basil (a must for me) but they had some hydroponic basil plants so I bought a couple. It’s been about two months now; they are thriving and the cats have not paid a bit of attention to them. So apparently it’s the soil that is the issue. Who knew?
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We don’t have cats, although I do love them. Our oldest daughter is allergic and so was my mom. I had cats when I was single though. That makes sense about the dirt. I’m working in my garden as soon as it warms up a little more here. We’ve had very mild weather here as well and more wind this time of year than we’re used to. It’s beautiful but dry unfortunately. I still have lettuce, kale, carrots and swiss chard that I planted in September as we’ve had no frost to speak of. I’m cleaning it out today though and making room for spring veggies to plant next week.
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Hi lms, hi okie:
A note from long past: In the late ’80’s I was assigned a portfolio to manage from Wells Fargo. 350 or so mortgages on the asset books of a failed Pennsylvania insurance company. I hired a dozen part-time college kids to comb the Suffolk/Norfolk (Greater Boston) Registries of Deeds to cert ownership. Lots of one-dollar transfers and crazy stuff. We never really finished but were able to give WF a tight valuation of the portfolio, and reasonable confidence they could dispose the assets (bundled) or sell them piecemeal with some(!) confidence they wouldn’t come back at them.
My understanding is that the records required to do what we did, in miniature, have vaporized or never existed in millions of transactions.
I don’t think anyone in the world has the money to do what the AG’s want, and that the lawsuits are leverage at best in order to “chasten” the banks. Those foreclosed, perhaps illegally, are still screwed.
&yes, PL is off the chain 2day.
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I was under the impression that most of the foreclosures under the robo-signing suit were “strategic foreclosures” where an underwater investor basically mails the keys to the bank – in other words they were uncontested foreclosures on vacant property.
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Hi, tao! Interesting experience. I do not understand records disappearing though. Are you talking about records filed with a county clerk or equivalent? IMHO, somebody is going to have to straighten the mess out. If not the banks that caused it, then who? A gazillion quiet title actions with notice to every potential mortgage holder in the chain?
And hi to you too, brent. My impression is not the same as yours about the majority being “friendly” foreclosures. Have you followed Taibbi’s articles about this? His article on the FL rubberstamp special foreclosure court was especially enlightening.
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tao, forgot to say that I agree with your assessment that the last-minute state lawsuits probably are bargaining chips in the global settlement negotiations.
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Brent, that sounds very likely. Hadn’t heard that in the coverage of the AG’s suits and kind of stopped following the story awhile back (when no one was arrested, heh).
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okie,
The Boston deeds didn’t disappear…chains of ownership either stopped entirely prior to the PA company, had very brief straw party ownership with LLP that we couldn’t trace, or skipped from original sale to a one-dollar sale over forty years even though we knew from site visits they had had multiple “owners.”
The properties were also all in some pretty tough ‘hoods.
{ great experience for the quite young tao ;>) }
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tao, depending on what was done with your (and similar) results, I would think such due diligence might be some protection in lawsuits that are surfacing now.
I had a similar enlightening experience working on stand-up O&G title opinions in OK in the boom-time 80’s. I would get caught up in following the same person buying up an entire small town during the depression and how that family name expanded in record ownership in later years. Kinda like daydreaming up fictitious biographies of people in the laundromat while you sit in boredom waiting for your load to finish. LOL.
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I love this….the latest from WaPo to treat PL commenters like a class of six graders (11:40am EST today)
Hi again — many of the posts are back but not all. First, there are folks here that are reporting every single comment that hits the stream. That’s not okay, and it just contributes to getting yourself pinked, so stop. Second, I left pinked a bunch of posts that have good points in them but end with one throwaway insult to another user. If you end a post with “fool”, “you’re garbage”, or some other bait (even if you mean it in jest) — your comment will be removed and stay that way. Third, as Jon has pointed out, we hear you on the complaints about moderation. We discussed this at length on Friday in the newsroom, and will pick it up again on Monday.
Cripes!
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I’ve been too busy writing to check, but sounds like it may be time to take a break and wander over to the PL to view the wreckage. . . it stills seems a little too much like gawking as I pass a car accident, though! 🙂
The Komen post is up for your perusal. Mark in particular gave me a lot of food for thought this morning, so I’m kind of expanding my concept. Catch you in a bit!
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hi, all, been travelling and recuperating from travel this week, so am playing catch up. pl is a mess. as to mers, the problems are in what is called perfecting a title, that’s what a title search does. it traces the title/deed to ensure each and subsequent owner has the the legal right to sell property or morgage. the churnning and burning sale of all that property was done so fast that the steps necessary to record each and every transfer was not recorded in register of deeds offices. thus home owners can be only registered deed holder and morgage holder cannot prove they actually has legal right to foreclose. thus the morgage holder in court of law cannot prove they have legal right to foreclose and in theory at least, the home owner gets to keep property free and clear. this is root of settlement sought by banks, kinda them trying to get the board erased and starting new so they can foreclose with clear title and resell property.
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In other words, Karla, you think the banks are asking for all unrecorded steps in MERS to be ignored, and for title to be determined by the County Clerk’s Registry?
This would involve ignoring, rather than recording, over 400,000 transactions here in Travis County, TX, alone.
It seems a rather elegantly simple solution, I suppose, but most of these transactions have not resulted in default, and if MERS is simply avoided, the original mortgagee now owns the note and power to foreclose while the original mortgagor is paying someone else. Do you see the problems here?
Interesting, indeed [wordplay intended].
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Rosanne and I are headed to a Valentine’s Day Gala and I have to clean up now, so see y’all tomorrow sometime. Karla, are you
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/karla-dockery/16/102/81a
Whether or not you are, I forgot to welcome you to ATiM. Come back for more, please!
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This needs to be addressed in national settlement. It’s another major impediment to bank lending on mortgages.
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yes, mark, i am that karla. seems that is how my old college boyfriend found me. the only other presence i have in internet is there, here, and PL. don’t worry, i am slowly dipping toe in water and looking for sites i can get informed content from.
may not be around much next while. at least two trips to VA scheduled and one day surgery this month which means two to three days recoperating after each.
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mark, settlement is being targeted in that direction. $25 billion would not evven begin to cover cost of playing catch up and clearing/updating records, but that is bottom line of settlement. just went through that myself and did a little title searching myself to make sure property was clear before i tendered offer, so had to learn system from scratch.
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A Valentine’s Gala on 2/4, Mark?!?!??? Seems a tad early to me, but you Texans are a law unto yourselves! 🙂
And welcome, Karla, if I didn’t say it last time you were here. Glad you came back, and hope to see more of you!
OK, Komen Part Two is up; I hope it answers some of your questions about the politics, although I suspect that that’s going to be in part three–which I hope to get up tomorrow morning before the Super Bowl festivities start. I hope I haven’t tried you patience with my long posts too far. . .
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Hi, karla. Glad you’re here. You must be ticktock on PL?
$25 billion would not evven begin to cover cost of playing catch up and clearing/updating records.
Perhaps I’m wrong about this, but I had the impression $25b is the cash settlement amount being considered in the global settlement. That still leaves the banks cleaning up their own property records mess as a separate matter. Actually, I’m surprised that at this late date more details of the supposedly imminent settlement have not leaked; or maybe they have and I just missed it.
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