Ok, maybe I emphasized the CON in RECONTRUST but check, check and re-check again every document and entity that is trying to foreclose on property…you never know what you might find.

According to Bloomberg and foreclosure defense attorney Beth Findsen:

AG Mark Shurtleff advised Brian Moynhian that the bank’s foreclosures in Utah are illegal. “A Bank of America Corp. unit conducting home foreclosures in Utah is violating the law, the attorney general said in a letter as individual states advanced their investigations of mortgage servicing. “All real estate foreclosures conducted by ReconTrust in the state of Utah are not in compliance with Utah’s statutes, and are hence illegal,” Shurtleff wrote.”

“ReconTrust’s exercise of fiduciary powers in the state of Utah is a violation not only of state law, but also applicable federal law,” Shurtleff said.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!

Finally!  Bank of America coughs up $20 million and Saxon another $2.35 millionto members of the military who are victims of wrongful foreclosure actions.

On average, Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez said victims in the Saxon case will receive an average of $130,555, while the Countrywide victims will receive about $125,000 each.

He said he hopes that all other servicers “will take a very careful look at these settlement agreements.”

The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act provides protections for those military personnel that are deployed away from home.  Specifically prohibiting foreclosure on a servicemember’s home unless there is a court order.

It’s a very simple process for banks to quickly search a database to determine if a borrower is a member of the military and then just follow the rules!  Court orders for foreclosures are routinely and fairly simple to obtain but banks are in such a rush to foreclose that innocent families are caught up in a whirlwind of bank negligence and profiteering.

If you or someone you know is facing a foreclosure or has been wrongly foreclosed upon contact our office today.

– The Bank Slayer

The article below is from the Huffington Post

Improper Military Foreclosures: U.S. Settles With Two Firms [UPDATE]

Amid blistering heat and thunderous bombing in central Iraq during summer 2005, U.S. Army Sgt. James Hurley suddenly found it difficult to reach his wife back home in Michigan.

For four days straight, he called and got a troubling message that the line had been disconnected. Eventually, Hurley tracked her down through his uncle.

“She tells me, ‘We got kicked out of the house, we’re foreclosed,’” Hurley recalled. “I was so pissed off. If it wasn’t for my roommate and my sergeant who was over me, I think I would have gone nuts.”

As his wife removed every stick of furniture from their home, cramming it in her parents’ house and in a nearby garage, Hurley was left to stew halfway around the world. He asked for extra-long shifts and additional mechanic assignments, just to keep his mind off things.

It would be another six months before he could return home to sort out the mess, beginning a years-long court battle with Saxon Mortgage Services over the loss of his home while deployed overseas.

Prompted in part by Hurley’s case, the Justice Department on Thursday announced a $22 million settlement with Saxon and a unit of Bank of America to provide relief to more than 170 active-duty military members who experienced improper foreclosures over the past few years.

Active-duty military are protected by the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, a law that provides a slew of consumer protection measures designed to protect military personnel from financial distress. Among other things, the law prohibits foreclosure on a servicemember’s home unless there is a court order.

The Government Accountability Office hinted at the investigation in a report earlier this month.

The Justice Department alleged that the Bank of America unit, formerly part of Countrywide Financial, improperly foreclosed on 160 military personnel between January 2006 and May 2009 and didn’t check whether the borrowers were active-duty military.

They also alleged that Saxon Mortgage Services Inc., a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley, foreclosed on 17 servicemembers without obtaining court orders.

Bank of America agreed to pay $20 million, and Saxon Mortgage Services, of Fort Worth, Texas, agreed to pay $2.35 million. If additional military members come forward, the companies have agreed to compensate them beyond those amounts.

“I feel quite confident in the thoroughness of the investigation to date,” said Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez. “However, if we identify other victims in the course of our review, or if the servicers identify other victims, we will of course compensate them.”

On average, Perez said victims in the Saxon case will receive an average of $130,555, while the Countrywide victims will receive about $125,000 each.

JPMorgan Chase has also disclosed in recent months that it improperly foreclosed on 18 servicemembers. Perez said he could not comment on other mortgage servicers that the Justice Department may be investigating for violations of military consumer laws.

He said he hopes that all other servicers “will take a very careful look at these settlement agreements.”

A spokesman for Morgan Stanley issued a statement on behalf of Saxon Mortgage Services.

“First and foremost, we want to apologize to those military families that were affected by any mistakes made in the foreclosure process. Our servicemen and women deserve the highest level of customer service. Saxon has taken meaningful steps to ensure it has appropriate policies and procedures in place to comply fully with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.”

Victims identified by the Justice Department included soldiers who returned home severely paralyzed and suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

Hurley settled with Saxon Mortgage Services separately in March, but the Justice Department initiated the investigation in response to his case, Perez said.

For six months after he heard the news in 2005, Hurley was burdened with both the mental strain of a war zone and concerns about the fate of his wife and home on the other side of the world.

Since returning home to Michigan in early 2006, he and his wife have moved into a small cabin where her parents lived.

He did receive some money earlier this year — he couldn’t disclose the amount based on the terms of his settlement — but he said his only real wish was to get his house back.

A longtime handyman, Hurley has done his best to expand the place and make it more comfortable. But after the foreclosure, his prior home of more than a decade remains in the hands of someone else.

“To this day I still don’t understand why,” Hurley reflected. “They took it illegally; why can’t I get it back? I didn’t want any money. All I wanted was my house back.”

He suffers from pinched nerves and major back and neck problems, the result of injuries sustained while driving around in tanks. He has major difficulties hearing out of his right ear.

Hurley said he was happy to hear that others are getting restitution, and he hopes that more come forward.

“These banks know they can’t do it, but they turn around and they do it anyway,” he said. “Because they’re the people who are in power, and they think all the government’s going to do is slap their hands.”

Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial (GMAC) have been (and still are) cheating taxpayers by wrongfully foreclosing and then claiming millions of dollars in reimbursements from HUD, FHA & other governmental bodies for losses on mortgage loans.

Why won’t you let the dog sniff your locker?

As the article below shows, these banksters resist all attempts to uncover the truth about what is really going on behind the curtain – instead offering up billions to sweep the problems under the rug.  Doesn’t that just smell wrong?  Why would anyone offer BILLIONS to just look the other way if you hadn’t done anything wrong?

This just affects the deadbeats who don’t pay their mortgage, right?

A frequent comment we hear is, “Hey those deadbeats that can’t pay their mortgage deserve to be foreclosed.”  Yes, some folks are deadbeats or what we call predatory borrowers but most are not.  Most folks have had life hit them in the mouth and are just looking for some relief.   Many are not looking for a handout and are willing to sell their home and walkaway.

Almost every month we have a family walk into our office, who is CURRENT and not in default but their mortgage account is jacked up.  For instance, they paid their property taxes but the bank paid them as well (erroneously) and now won’t accept their regular mortgage payment unless they also send them money for the mis-paid taxes.   Or how about the military families that were foreclosed while they were deployed overseas – in direct violation of the law.

The article below from the Huffington Post points out the consistent, rampant and willful way in which these large banks enrich themselves not just the expense of the deadbeat or the honest law abiding borrower whose account is jacked up but every tax paying citizen in America.

Whether or not you or someone who you know is struggling with their mortgage situation, the shameful acts of some of the largest banking institutions in America needs to stop.  We all suffer.

- The Bank Slayer

Confidential Federal Audits Accuse Five Biggest Mortgage Firms Of Defrauding Taxpayers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/16/foreclosure-fraud-audit-false-claims-act_n_862686.html

WASHINGTON — A set of confidential federal audits accuse the nation’s five largest mortgage companies of defrauding taxpayers in their handling of foreclosures on homes purchased with government-backed loans, four officials briefed on the findings told The Huffington Post.

The five separate investigations were conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general and examined Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial, the sources said.

The audits accuse the five major lenders of violating the False Claims Act, a Civil War-era law crafted as a weapon against firms that swindle the government. The audits were completed between February and March, the sources said. The internal watchdog office at HUD referred its findings to the Department of Justice, which must now decide whether to file charges.

The federal audits mark the latest fallout from the national foreclosure crisis that followed the end of a long-running housing bubble. Amid reports last year that many large lenders improperly accelerated foreclosure proceedings by failing to amass required paperwork, the federal agencies launched their own probes.

The resulting reports read like veritable indictments of major lenders, the sources said. State officials are now wielding the documents as leverage in their ongoing talks with mortgage companies aimed at forcing the firms to agree to pay fines to resolve allegations of routine violations in their handling of foreclosures.

The audits conclude that the banks effectively cheated taxpayers by presenting the Federal Housing Administration with false claims: They filed for federal reimbursement on foreclosed homes that sold for less than the outstanding loan balance using defective and faulty documents.

Two of the firms, including Bank of America, refused to cooperate with the investigations, according to the sources. The audit on Bank of America finds that the company — the nation’s largest handler of home loans — failed to correct faulty foreclosure practices even after imposing a moratorium that lifted last October. Back then, the bank said it was resuming foreclosures, having satisfied itself that prior problems had been solved.

According to the sources, the Wells Fargo investigation concludes that senior managers at the firm, the fourth-largest American bank by assets, broke civil laws. HUD’s inspector general interviewed a pair of South Carolina public notaries who improperly signed off on foreclosure filings for Wells, the sources said.

The investigations dovetail with separate probes by state and federal agencies, who also have examined foreclosure filings and flawed mortgage practices amid widespread reports that major mortgage firms improperly initiated foreclosure proceedings on an unknown number of American homeowners.

The FHA, whose defaulted loans the inspector general probed, last May began scrutinizing whether mortgage firms properly treated troubled borrowers who fell behind on payments or whose homes were seized on loans insured by the agency.

A unit of the Justice Department is examining faulty court filings in bankruptcy proceedings. Several states, including Illinois, are combing through foreclosure filings to gauge the extent of so-called “robo-signing” and other defective practices, including illegal home repossessions.

Representatives of HUD and its inspector general declined to comment.

The internal audits have armed state officials with a powerful new weapon as they seek to extract what they describe as punitive fines from lawbreaking mortgage companies.

A coalition of attorneys general from all 50 states and state bank supervisors have joined HUD, the Treasury Department, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission in talks with the five largest mortgage servicers to settle allegations of illegal foreclosures and other shoddy practices.

Such processes “have potentially infected millions of foreclosures,” Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair told a Senate panel on Thursday.

The five giant mortgage servicers, which collectively handle about three of every five home loans, offered during a contentious round of negotiations last Tuesday to pay $5 billion to set up a fund to help distressed borrowers and settle the allegations.

That offer — also floated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in February — was deemed much too low by state and federal officials. Associate U.S. Attorney General Tom Perrelli, who has been leading the talks, last week threatened to show the banks the confidential audits so the firms knew the government side was not “playing around,” one official involved in the negotiations said. He ultimately did not follow through, persuaded that the reports ought to remain confidential, sources said. Through a spokeswoman, Perrelli declined to comment.

Most of the targeted banks have not seen the audits, a federal official said, though they are generally aware of the findings.

Some agencies involved in the talks are calling for the five banks to shell out as much as $30 billion, with even more costs to be incurred for improving their internal operations and modifying troubled borrowers’ home loans.

But even that number would fall short of legitimate compensation for the bank’s harmful practices, reckons the nascent federal Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. By taking shortcuts in processing troubled borrowers’ home loans, the nation’s five largest mortgage firms have directly saved themselves more than $20 billion since the housing crisis began in 2007, according to a confidential presentation prepared for state attorneys general by the agency and obtained by The Huffington Post in March. Those pushing for a larger package of fines argue that the foreclosure crisis has spawned broader — and more costly — social ills, from the dislocation of American families to the continued plunge in home prices, effectively wiping out household savings.

The Justice Department is now contemplating whether to use the HUD audits as a basis for civil and criminal enforcement actions, the sources said. The False Claims Act allows the government to recover damages worth three times the actual harm plus additional penalties.

Justice officials will soon meet with the largest servicers and walk them through the allegations and potential liability each of them face, the sources said.

Earlier this month, Justice cited findings from HUD investigations in a lawsuit it filed against Deutsche Bank AG, one of the world’s 10 biggest banks by assets, for at least $1 billion for defrauding taxpayers by “repeatedly” lying to FHA in securing taxpayer-backed insurance for thousands of shoddy mortgages.

In March, HUD’s inspector general found that more than 49 percent of loans underwritten by FHA-approved lenders in a sample did not conform to the agency’s requirements.

Last October, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said his investigators found that numerous mortgage firms broke the agency’s rules when dealing with delinquent borrowers. He declined to be specific.

The agency’s review later expanded to flawed foreclosure practices. FHA, a unit of HUD, could still take administrative action against those firms for breaking FHA rules based on its own probe.

The confidential findings appear to bolster state and federal officials in their talks with the targeted banks. The knowledge that they may face False Claims Act suits, in addition to state actions based on a multitude of claims like fraud on local courts and consumer violations, will likely compel the banks to offer the government more money to resolve everything.

But even that may not be enough.

Attorneys general in numerous states, armed with what they portray as incontrovertible evidence of mass robo-signings from preliminary investigations, are probing mortgage practices more closely.

The state of Illinois has begun examining potentially-fraudulent court filings, looking at the role played by a unit of Lender Processing Services. Nevada and Arizona already launched lawsuits against Bank of America. California is keen on launching its own suits, people familiar with the matter say. Delaware sent Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc., which runs an electronic registry of mortgages, a subpoena demanding answers to 75 questions. And New York’s top law enforcer, Eric Schneiderman, wants to conduct a complete investigation into all facets of mortgage banking, from fraudulent lending to defective securitization practices to faulty foreclosure documents and illegal home seizures.

A review of about 2,800 loans that experienced foreclosure last year serviced by the nation’s 14 largest mortgage firms found that at least two of them illegally foreclosed on the homes of “almost 50″ active-duty military service members, a violation of federal law, according to a report this month from the Government Accountability Office.

Those violations are likely only a small fraction of the number committed by home loan companies, experts say, citing the small sample examined by regulators.

In an April report on flawed mortgage servicing practices, federal bank supervisors said they “could not provide a reliable estimate of the number of foreclosures that should not have proceeded.”

The review of just 2,800 home loans in foreclosure compares with nearly 2.9 million homes that received a foreclosure filing last year, according to RealtyTrac, a California-based data provider.

“The extent of the loss cannot be determined until there is a comprehensive review of the loan files and documentation of the process dealing with problem loans,” Bair said last week, warning of damages that could take “years to materialize.”

Home prices have fallen over the past year, reversing gains made early in the economic recovery, according to data providers Zillow.com and CoreLogic. Sales of new homes remain depressed, according to the Commerce Department. More than a quarter of homeowners with a mortgage owe more on that debt than their home is worth, according to Zillow.com. And more than 2 million homes are in foreclosure, according to Lender Processing Services.

Rather than punishing banks for misdeeds, the administration is now focused on helping troubled borrowers in the hope that it will stanch the flood of foreclosures and increase consumer confidence, officials involved in the negotiations said.

Levying penalties can’t accomplish that goal, an official involved in the foreclosure probe talks argued last week.

For their part, however, state officials want to levy fines, according to a confidential term sheet reviewed last week by HuffPost. Each state would then use the money as it desires, be it for facilitating short sales, reducing mortgage principal, or using the funds to help defaulted borrowers move from their homes into rentals.

In a report last week, analysts at Moody’s Investors Service predicted that while the losses incurred by the banks will be “sizable,” the credit rating agency does “not expect them to meaningfully impact capital.”

************************* Shahien Nasiripour is a senior business reporter for The Huffington Post.

Strange but true…bank AND attorney fraud.   No surprise either that AHMSI is named!

It’s bizarre but, it turns out, Wall Street cut corners when it created those mortgage-backed investments that triggered the financial collapse. Now that banks want to evict people, they’re unwinding these exotic investments to find, that often, the legal documents behind the mortgages aren’t there. Caught in a jam of their own making, some companies appear to be resorting to forgery and phony paperwork to throw people – down on their luck – out of their homes.

Names such as:
Akerman Senterfitt & Eidson, P.A. , American Home Mortgage Servicing, Docx, LLC, Florida Default Law Group, Law Offices of David Stern, Law Offices of Marshall Watson, Lender Processing Services, Inc., Shapiro & Fishman Law Firm

Action Date: April 4, 2011
Location: West Palm Beach, FL

On April 3, 2011, CBS’ 60 MINUTES aired a segment showing massive fraud by banks and mortgage-backed trusts in foreclosures. The segment focused on one particular document mill, Docx, LLC, owned by Lender Processing Services, Inc., a company that works for over 51 banks. One former employee confessed to forging 4,000 documents each day.

What mortgage servicing companies used the Docx forged documents in hundreds of thousands of cases?

The major mortgage servicer involved was American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. in Coppell, TX. Other mortgage servicers that used forged documents from LPS include Saxon Mortgage Services in Fort Worth, TX and Select Portfolio Servicing in Salt Lake city, Utah.

What bank/trustees most often used the Docx forged documents in foreclosures?

Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Bank of America were the top five users of these forged documents, but other banks were also involved.

American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc. knew about the forgeries, but never disclosed to courts or homeowners their widespread use of forged documents.

In thousands of cases across the country, Deutsche Bank National Trust Company continues to push these documents upon the courts as proof that they own mortgages and have the right to foreclose, despite overwhelming evidence and even admissions of forgeries.

These servicing companies and bank need to begin the process of admissions, disclosures and reparations.

What law firms pushed and continue to push these fraudulent documents upon Courts and homeowners?

In Florida, the firms that used these documents and continue to use these documents are: Law Offices of David Stern; Florida Default Law Group; Law Offices of Marshall Watson; Shapiro & Fishman Law Firm and Akerman, Senterfitt & Eidson, P.A. Lawyers who used and continue to use these Docx forgeries in court should, at a minimum, lose the right to practice law.

The government focus must be on protecting the rights of homeowners and shareholders and the court system and holding the banks and securities companies accountable.

60 Minutes – Lender Fraud

The friendly folks at BankofAmericaSuck.com posted information about the screens and the access to info that your bank has about your home loan.

LPS, short for Fidelity’s Lender Process Services is the nations largest insurance & foreclosure tracking servicing and is used by many banks to handle the nitty gritty details involved in managing your home loan – specifically how to maximize profits for the bank at the homeowner’s expense AND to clean up any troublesome title issues related to cleanly foreclosing on your home by a lender who is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the one whom you started AND different from the lender named in the recorded documents living in the property records.

My favorite rip-off is the banks’ plan to insure your home month by month when they intend to foreclose (and add it to your bill) but not naming you in the policy so you reap no reward.

Think of it this way.   The bank takes out insurance to pay off your loan if they have to foreclose.  They foreclose, collect the insurance money, SELL YOUR HOUSE keeping that money, and then SUE YOU FOR THE DEFICIENCY between what you “owed” and what they got at the foreclosure auction!  Nothing like trying to collect three times!!

Sweet deal for the bank.  Sour for the homeowner.

Fight for your rights!

– The Bank Slayer

Fidelity LPS Navigation for Foreclosure Info

While some lenders do utilize web-based proprietary systems (MortgageServ, Res.net, etc) for insurance and foreclosure tracking, the majority of the lenders in the US (including Bank of America, Aurora Loan Services, and OneWest) utilize the Fidelity LPS system, which is maintained by Fidelity National Financial. It seems almost impossible to believe all of our banks would allow a single point of failure in our nation’s financial systems, however a certain level of cockiness is certainly warranted after successfully pulling off the largest series of cons in our nation’s history.

The LPS system can be accessed several ways. Using Internet Explorer, Balboa and Assurant agents are able to query every field within the system via the web based Lending Portal Login for all of their clients. The information is then used to build all of the AxsPoint/Cool reports utilized to track Force Placed and REO information on the CCS & PAC systems. The tracker then places the information on Clientsource for the servicer to view.

These systems are all web-based, because while the banksters do practice “honor amongst thieves,” each individual banks still likes to hide a certain level of information from each other to allow the possibility of stealing from each other while stealing from you. Web-based systems allow them to control the information visible to each other.

The LPS System

Depending on the terms of the contract between the tracker and servicer, the SOR (System of Record) can either be the information on LPS (accessed via the Lending Portal Login) or CCS (accessed via Clientsource). Either way, if your attorney were to subpoena documentation in court for a foreclosure case, you will be presented with the Fidelity LPS information, if anything.

At first glance, LPS appears to be quite a confusing system. To make things even more difficult, the field values are stored in CD libraries that can only be accessed if you have CPI Navigator installed on your system, and are able to access either the physical disk or the virtual disk installed on an internal network drive. Many field values are chosen by the servicer, so they can vary. The general system architecture, however remains consistent throughout each company.

Once logged in to the LPS system, on the top left of each screen will be a 4-character field (which can be accessed by either pressing Home or clicking on the field with your mouse). The 4 characters represent a screen subset, as well as a particular screen. Each associate with LPS access (whether customer service, management,  or back-end) has at least read/print access to each of the major screens listed below.

It is important to know that many of them can not update the fields on these screens based on their particular access, however they are ALL able to access the information and provide it to you with 6 simple key strokes (Home-4 character screen name, Enter) within 10 seconds or less. The most important screen subsets for your usage are:

FOR_ (Foreclosure Screens)

These screens house all information relating to the foreclosure of your home. There are 4 screens utilized: FOR1, FOR2, FOR3, and FORN.

The FOR1-3 screens are utilized by the foreclosure agents to process your foreclosure, and are occasionally utilized by the insurance tracker to determine REO premium values, as these screens display loan specific information for your flood zone, loan investor, state, replacement cost, principal value, step code (a code assigned based on the current step of foreclosure you are in), etc.

The FORN screen is where all information is notated by the agents regarding your foreclosure, including a 3 digit code that is automatically attached to each transaction to identify the individual representative, field agent, or automated system update responsible for the update.

REO_ (Real Estate Owned Insurance Screens)

These screens house all information relating to the insurance placed on your home after the foreclosure. They are set up exactly like the FOR screen subset, with REO1-3 housing the foreclosure and REO information, while REON has notations of each transaction performed within the screen subset, including the 3 character ID of who made the change.

REO insurance is important, because depending on foreclosure laws for your particular state and investor (FNMA and FHLMC-owned loans tend to be more strictly regulated), REO insurance can be placed on your loan before the foreclosure proceedings are complete. REO insurance is always paid out of your escrow account.

If you do not have an escrow account, or if it is set up only for taxes, the LPS system is designed to automatically create one for you, rolling the balance into your account. This means that if you do not have an escrow account, and your attorney was successful in litigating your foreclosure case, you will still have paid for an REO policy (issued through Balboa, Meritplan, or Newport Insurance) of 1 month or more of insurance on your home that lists the loan servicer has the loss payee.

You, as a borrower, are unable to file a claim against this policy, as you are in no way listed on the policy, if a loss were to have occurred in this time frame. In addition, more often than not, REO policies are renewed monthly, and a new policy number is issued for each 1 month term. If you call in to have this money refunded to you, the system only allows a cancellation of the most recent policy, and you may have multiple policies listed on your account, which you can not see.

HAZ_ (Hazard Insurance Screens)

This screen subset houses all information regarding hazard insurance (whether voluntary, force-placed, or real estate-owned). It is divided once again into HAZ1-3 for maintenance and HAZN for notations.

There is also a HAZM screen which shows any historic policy placement on your loan within the last 3 years. Many lenders will not list the specific REO policy number, but will instead only list REO as the policy number, but you can still find out whether or not you’ve ever had REO insurance placed.

In addition to current insurance information, the HAZ1 screen will show the investor for your loan (along with contact information for them), the insurance company and agent with contact info (including force placed and REO), foreclosure status, property address, escrow status, escrow balance, etc.

INV_ (Investor Information Screens)

The INV screen subset will show all information regarding the current and historical investor information for your loan. This screen subset is read-only for most representatives, however, it can still be accessed by all associates and emailed/faxed to you if you call and ask.

If you were told by your servicer that any of the above listed information is not available or could not readily be accessed, you have been lied to. If it was told to you in court, your lender has officially committed perjury per United States law, as every loan tracker and loan servicer is provided a copy of the CPI Navigator disk, which is updated monthly.0

In addition, this information is documented in several departmental electronic policies and procedures maintained throughout each company involved with the maintenance of your loan , as well as in physical paper job aides, training manuals, and shortcut cards located on the cubicle walls of most associates’ desks.

If you have even a decent foreclosure attorney, you may be entitled to a free house, courtesy of your lender’s cockiness. Be sure to thank them afterward.

MERS is the bane of homeowners who simply want to know who really owns their loan and who might really have their Promissory Note.

The article below from the The New York Times highlights the flaws and misconduct that is going on behind the scenes and helps explain (in part) why you can’t easily determine who owns your mortgage.

For example,

MERS’ board gave its senior vice president, William Hultman, the rather extraordinary power to deputize an unlimited number of “vice presidents” and “assistant secretaries” drawn from the ranks of the mortgage industry.

The “nomination” process was near instantaneous. A bank entered a name into MERS’s Web site, and, in a blink, MERS produced a “certifying resolution,” signed by Mr. Hultman. The corporate seal was available to those deputies for $25.

Can you the homeowner log onto MERS and see who they claim owns your loan.  Sure –>  Go HERE.

The reality turns out to be a lot messier. Federal bankruptcy courts and state courts have found that MERS and its member banks often confused and misrepresented who owned mortgage notes. In thousands of cases, they apparently lost or mistakenly destroyed loan documents.

Destroyed?  Huh?

…not even the mortgage giant Fannie Mae, an investor in MERS, depends on it these days.

“We would never rely on it to find ownership,” says Janis Smith, a Fannie Mae spokeswoman, noting it has its own records.

If you want to negotiate from a position of strength you will need to file suit against your lender and force them to come forward with proper authority.  Don’t let them hide behind MERS and its smoke screen.

Click here to see & hear from one of the attorneys we recommend from The Gore Law Firm as he speaks about MERS during a live interview on CBS Radio.

MERS discussion with Randall Macchi from The Gore Law Firm

- The Bank Slayer

MERS? It May Have Swallowed Your Loan

By MICHAEL POWELL and GRETCHEN MORGENSON at The New York Times

Taking someone’s money with no intention of performing any service or delivering a product  is not only unethical but in mose cases illegal.

Last month the Attorney General of Arizona decided that enough is enough.  Bank of America has simply been stealing money from unsuspecting homeowners.  Not only are they stealing money but they are tricking them into believing they are making progress or “buying” their way to a loan mod.

Time and time again we see these large banks or mortgage servicers duping homeowners into paying for something they are not getting.  If a borrower makes payments under the auspices of a modification plan that is given and orchestrated by the lender there should be a clear outcome and the plan should be according to clearly understood rules.

If you never intended to give the homeowners a loan modification then just come out and tell them versus leading them on for months while taking their hard earned money which you don’t apply to principle but just fees.   Sickening.

If you or someone you know has dutifully made payments to their mortgage company yet fell victim to this bank scam please contact our office immediately.  713-595-8200

Below is the official press release.

- The Bank Slayer

Bank of America Corp. violated Arizona’s consumer fraud law by misleading consumers trying to get home loan modifications, state Attorney General Terry Goddard said Friday as he filed a civil lawsuit against the bank.

The bank also violated the terms of a 2009 consent agreement it signed requiring the bank’s Countrywide mortgage subsidiary to implement a loan modification program, Goddard said.

Hundreds of homeowners kept making their mortgage payments because Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America repeatedly assured them their loan was being modified, he said. Instead, many lost their homes anyway.

“Those people could have used that money for something else,” Goddard said. “They were deceived into continuing to make mortgage payments when they had no hope of saving their homes.”

The attorney general’s office was deluged with consumer complaints and launched an investigation more than a year ago, Goddard said. Settlement talks with the bank that began in April ultimately collapsed Thursday.

Calls seeking comment from Bank of America were not immediately returned.

The lawsuit, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, alleges that the bank has repeatedly violated terms of the consent agreement. The pact was expected to lead to loan modifications for thousands of Countrywide customers in Arizona, which had the nation’s fourth- highest foreclosure rate last month, according to RealtyTrac Inc. But the company failed to make   timely decisions on modification requests and went ahead with foreclosures, Goddard said.

Goddard said Nevada is expected to file a similar lawsuit later Friday.

Although Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and several other large lenders are claiming a Holiday Gift with their self imposed foreclosure freeze sadly it won’t help Texans one single bit!

This “gift” is nothing more than a shameless attempt at improving their poor public image.

Why won’t it help Texans?

Because although they will suspend foreclosures for the holiday season, roughly from Dec. 20 to Jan. 3, the next foreclosure sale date is January 4!!!!!!

Part 2 – Equator Tips for Success

If you want to be successful in short sales that require Equator make sure to employ these Tips and Traps. Part 1 can be read here

The following Equator tips and traps come from Dan Welch.  Dan Welch is the lead short sale negotiator for Home Solution Counselors and a bring ‘em on and “your next” closer.

Bank # next

Dan saw the light and fled from the darkside (he used to work inside the bank – working against homeowners).   He now spends the better part of 40 hours a week with a wireless headset, three phone lines and a Batphone Hotline into The Gore Law Firm as he routinely hammers banks into accepting and approving short sales.

We asked Dan to provide us with a game plan for success with Equator.  Most agents know that Bank of America‘s short sale tool can cause a real estate agent to lose control of the short sale process.

1. Know your time frames:  The servicer and the agent both have time frames on ALL tasks assigned in Equator. Call every week, ask the servicer what the next task due for the negotiator is and ask when that task expires. If it’s beyond that deadline, bust some balls.  Don’t let up.  They promised they would meet a deadline!
2. Read the manual: When you initiate a short sale with BAC, they send you a user’s manual for Equator. Read it! Knowledge is power and power is good.
3. Stay on top of your tasks: When a task is due on 11/14, you better make sure to add a note to your calendar. When that task dies, so does your deal.  How long have you been working on this file? 6 weeks, 3 months, a year? And it was declined and closed by those haters at the bank and now you have to start over!!?? YOU (agents, or 3rd party negotiators) are responsible for completing the assigned tasks by their deadline. Helpful hint: Get your borrower’s paperwork and required docs together BEFORE they’re requested and keep updated bank statements and paystubs. Being prepared; I know it’s a novel concept.
4. It ain’t over till it’s funded! : Just because you get a counter acceptance, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting it approved.  Did you forget about mortgage insurance?  Don’t understand how MI works.  Read this article HERE.   This stuff can cause an extra delay of 2 weeks or MORE – after the initial SP acceptance.  So, wait to tell your seller that the deal will work until AFTER you find out what the MI company wants.  To be safe, wait until you have a demand payoff letter, in hand, from the servicer – and the numbers actually work.
   
5. Keep impeccable notes, take screenshots & record ALL calls: When your negotiator who’s working too many files drops the ball on yours; you need proof and evidence to show their supervisor or one of the upstanding gents at “TGLF”.   Nothing better than replaying their own words from a recorded call or displaying a screenshot.  If necessary bring a lawsuit with this evidence.  They’ll turn tail and run and you’ll get what you want.

Final thought: Equator and the industry in general are changing at a break-neck pace. These tips may be pertinent today and mean little tomorrow. It’s an ever-evolving business and it’s important to stay on top of the facts and evolve with the industry.  Most of us, who are still in this crazy industry and plan on eating tonight, have had to adapt greatly over the past several years.  Equator is new, but it’s not scary – just frustrating.  Good luck and try to keep a cool head.

Part 1 – Equator Traps to Avoid.

If you want to be successful in short sales that require Equator make sure to employ these Tips and Traps.

The following Equator tips and traps come from Dan Welch.  Dan Welch is the lead short sale negotiator for Home Solution Counselors.  Dan saw the light and fled from the darkside (he used to work inside the bank – working against homeowners).   He now spends the better part of 40 hours a week with a wireless headset, three phone lines and a Batphone Hotline into The Gore Law Firm as he routinely hammers banks into accepting and approving short sales.

Since the Houston area’s Houston Association of Realtors’ MLS reports that over 73% of all listed short sales never close, with most being lost to Texas’s rapid foreclosure process, we wanted to know why Dan is getting 93% of all short sales approved and closed.

We asked Dan to provide us with a game plan for success with Equator.  Most agents know that Bank of America‘s short sale tool can cause a real estate agent to lose control of the short sale process.

Here are Dan’s Traps to Avoid.  Monday I’ll post Dan’s Tips.

1. NEVER trust their counter(s): If you receive a counter in Equator, take a screenshot before you do anything else. When you accept or counter back the “counter worksheet” usually disappears for good.   BAC is known for countering the offer with “A” and then reneging on it and countering again with “B”.    SECRET TIP : A = typically a value close to the current offer which represents ACTUAL property value.    B = the price your buyer won’t pay, even in a good economy.    My view is if they don’t honor counter “A”, even if they knock a couple grand off their minimum net to make good on it, you’re closer to getting them what they need to get the deal approved by management or investor.
2. NEVER agree to a prom note or cash contribution: I stopped agreeing to prom notes and cash contributions when I was asked by BAC to “please have your seller sign a promissory note to cover some of (GENERIC INVESTOR)’s losses.” – NO!     The borrower isn’t responsible for an investor’s risky investment decision gone sour. They can either agree to a short sale or lose money on the deal in foreclosure.   This should be your attitude.
   
3. Email everything through Equator: You’ll almost NEVER get a call from the servicer after making a request through Equator. Most of these agents are overworked. Sometimes carrying a workload of up to 375 files. It’s all they can do to keep up.  Equator’s email messaging system is great for tracking a deal and the conversation.  Also, no more hearing “I never got the message”, because you, your client, the bank’s negotiator and their supervisor can see the proof in black and white in the Equator message archive.
4. Dispute their value: The bank won’t disclose this…. but, sometimes they skew the BPO or appraisal results to meet their own needs!!   So, call them out on it. If you’re a competent agent, you should have completed a CMA or at least run comps to make a good assumption as to property value. If the bank gives you a ridiculous number, tell them how ridiculous it is and submit comps, CMA, repair estimate or WHATEVER you have to devalue the property. I think since so much of the new process differs from the traditional short sale process, that agents or negotiators tend to forget they have the right to dispute the bank’s alleged property value. It doesn’t always work, but it’s better than rolling over and taking it! Remember, if enough of you “roll over and take it”, the bank and their investors make new policies or guidelines to make it harder for you and the rest of us to stand up and fight. So, for the sake of us all, FIGHT!
5. Don’t give in.  Sue them if needed:  Many times the negotiator on the other side is powerless or plain incompetent.  If things go south or your file is facing foreclosure you CANNOT trust that simply because the file is in review in Equator or you have accepted an offer in Equator that they won’t foreclose. Get an attorney that you can trust.  Get an attorney that has successfully filed lawsuits and WON against Bank of America.  You can look this up yourself in the Federal or District Court level in your area.  See if they have open AND closed lawsuits against Bank of America or whatever bank you are fighting.   Lawsuits will allow you to remove Equator’s power and will cause the bank to assign special staff to handle the lawsuit. If necessary get a TRO or restraining order against the bank for negligence. (This is where that screenshot you took might come in handy).