In Texas we have noticed foreclosures in the name of MERS have suddenly become VERY rare.  We haven’t run across one in several months.

Does this mean MERS has vanished? 

Nope, but the mortgage servicers are downplaying the role of MERS and trying to shield MERS and themselves from the bright light.

This means you need to dig a little deeper to uncover really what is going on behind the curtain.

The article below from Reuters highlights MERS’ recent announcement to its members and 20,000+ “officers” that they need to leave out MERS’ name in foreclosure proceedings.

If you or someone you know is facing a mortgage hardship or foreclosure contact our office immediately.

- The Bank Slayer

Exclusive: Facing criticism, MERS cuts role in foreclosures

(Reuters) – MERS, the electronic mortgage registry that faces multiple investigations for its role in thousands of problematic foreclosure cases, changed its rules to lower its profile in court-supervised foreclosures.

MERS, a unit of Merscorp Inc. of Reston, Virginia, owns the computerized registry, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems. Mortgage loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and several of the largest U.S. banks established MERS in 1995 to circumvent the costly and cumbersome process of transferring ownership of mortgages and recording the changes with county clerks.

In rule changes announced to MERS members on July 21, the company forbade members to file any more foreclosure actions in MERS’s name.

It also required mortgage servicers to obtain mortgage assignments and record them with county clerks before beginning foreclosures.

Mortgage-loan servicers perform routine duties for the investment trusts that own pools of mortgages, including collecting mortgage payments and, when necessary, filing foreclosures.

Although these trusts are legally required to own the mortgages when they file to foreclose, the servicers in many cases did not obtain documents known as assignments on their behalf until weeks or months after launching a foreclosure action in court, a recent Reuters Special Report found. (link.reuters.com/kyb72s)

Since the collapse of the housing boom, many foreclosure cases were filed in MERS’s name, even though the registry doesn’t really own either the mortgage or the promissory note, the document which states the terms of the mortgage loan.

MERS’s role in foreclosure cases has made it a lightning rod in recent months in court decisions which have held that loan servicers’ use of the registry violates basic real estate and mortgage laws.

In the last week, state attorneys general in Massachusetts and Delaware have announced investigations of MERS, and several other states have broader inquiries into foreclosure practices that include MERS.

It is unclear how much the rule changes will help MERS with its legal problems.

Under the new rules, servicers are required to stop filing foreclosures in MERS’s name, but MERS’s role in foreclosures won’t actually be eliminated. The servicers will continue to obtain the needed mortgage assignments from MERS. In past cases examined by Reuters, such assignments have included ones of questionable legitimacy, such as mortgages owned by now-defunct lenders.

O. Max Gardner III, a North Carolina lawyer who is specialist in foreclosure actions in bankruptcy courts, said the change will have the effect of making MERS’s role in assigning mortgages invisible in court.

The assignments will still come from MERS, but “they just won’t be in the court files any more,” he said.

MERS spokeswoman Janice Smith said the new rules make mandatory a trend that already was under way.

She noted that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and several large banks already had stopped filing foreclosures in MERS name. Smith said the change would avoid confusing homeowners facing foreclosure by eliminating MERS, a company they had never heard of, from court documents.

She also said that MERS’ s original purpose was to keep track of changes in servicers and mortgage ownership. “Foreclosure really was not central to MERS’s core business,” she said, adding that MERS received no income from foreclosures.

Mortgage-law specialists say that lenders and servicers for a long time relied heavily on bringing foreclosures in MERS’s name. This helped make possible foreclosures that otherwise might not have taken place because the necessary original documents were missing.

MERS says that it is the holder of record of 32 million, or 60 per cent, of U.S. mortgages. But it has only a handful of employees. Instead, it has designated some 20,000 employees of banks and other servicers as MERS “officers.”

Some courts and homeowners’ lawyers have criticized this system because in effect it enables servicers to assign mortgages to themselves whenever they needed one to foreclose.

The rule change also comes amid a growing movement against MERS among county clerks around the U.S. They have been pressing state attorneys general and local prosecutors to investigate MERS for allegedly failing to record documents with them and pay the associated filing fees. The rule change, by requiring servicers to record mortgage assignments sooner and pay recording fees, will partly address the clerks’ concerns.

(Editing by Michael Williams)

SHOCKER!!   Buyer of a short sale doesn’t own the property he just purchased (or does he?).  Seller of the short sale paid off the wrong party (or did he?).

The below email was sent to Neil Garfield at Living Lies.  Sadly this is not shocking at we know of two other lawsuits where the seller and the buyer acted in good faith and sold the property and the money was sent to BofA (and MERS was involved as well) and later the “real” owner of the deed of trust came forward and demanded that the transaction be undone due to a mistaken release of the deed of trust by the wrong party.

What does this mean to a real estate agent involved in the transaction?

Get an attorney involved – preferably BEFORE the short sale closes.  Why?  Quite simply you need to make sure that the transaction is buttoned up tight.   Many of the short sales that involve an attorney and litigation against the pretender lender will require a settlement agreement to be signed at closing (or at least have enough documentation that the seller & buyer have some ground to stand on).

But what does a settlement agreement do and how does it help you as the real estate agent?

First, the pretender lender whose is receiving the proceeds of the short sale “swears” they are the real lender or working for the real lender (like Fannie Mae).  Second, a well crafted settlement agreement will indemnify the seller (or whichever parties are named) – meaning that the lender getting the money has to defend the seller if they are sued over the specifics related to the settlement, i.e. the short sale.

Does the buyer lose the house and does the real estate agent have to give back their commission?

Very likely the answer is no.  But you will have to hire an attorney to fight this battle for you.   The title company should be on the hook for the value of the home – meaning they will either have to pay off the “real” lender or the new homeowner.   The downside is that it could cost more than the commission just to fight this type of suit AND the title insurance is only good for the amount of the policy (if the house was bought for less than full value or thousands of dollars in updates/remodeling has been performed you could lose this amount).

Bottom Line

Short sales and even purchasing foreclosure can be great equity and value builders for the buyers and assist the seller with disposing of a property but a good title company and good lawyer can help you keep this value hopefully keep your sanity and commission.

Seek legal counsel from a real estate attorney and one who has experience in dealing with short sale and foreclosure.

- The Bank Slayer

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

The foreclosure defense advocates have been having a field day discussing the outcome and applicability of issues from the recent Massachusetts Supreme Court decision.     Today’s guest post is from George W. Gore the founder and lead attorney for The Gore Law Firm.

In this post he gives a quick overview of the case and the impact that it might have here in Texas.    George points out the ways in which Massachusetts law differs from Texas law and thus how a case like this is or is not applicable to Texas homeowners.

In my opinion, it isn’t a silver bullet for Texas homeowners BUT it shows the banks get careless and don’t believe they need to follow the rules (or laws) as everyone else is expected to.

But what George doesn’t mention (because he is too humble) is that his firm has filed 100+ lawsuits versus mortgage banks just in the local Houston area and they are consistently beating the banks and winning EXCELLENT resolutions for homeowners.

- The Bank Slayer

FROM: George Gore

All,

Sadly, it does not help us in Texas nearly as much as the folks in Massachusetts.  However, it does indicate a willingness to actually ding the lenders for ignoring the formalities.

Main holding:

Quote:  The judge did not err in concluding that the securitization documents submitted by the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that they were the holders of the Ibanez and LaRace mortgages, respectively, at the time of the publication of the notices and the sales.

GORE:  In other words, they submitted paperwork showing that someone else owned it at the time of the foreclosure so the notices were all incorrect and therefore it is improper (with any quality control, they will catch this and re-foreclose next time before filing the paperwork).

Secondary Points:

1)      Quote: We have long held that a conveyance of real property, such as a mortgage, that does not name the assignee conveys nothing and is void; we do not regard an assignment of land in blank as giving legal title in land to the bearer of the assignment.

GORE: Not applicable to Texas.  Texas uses notes and deeds of trust.  Notes can be in blank and not recorded.  Deeds of trust do not have to be recorded (except to save priority and establish constructive notice of the lien).

2)        Quote: Second, the plaintiffs contend that, because they held the mortgage note, they had a sufficient financial interest in the mortgage to allow them to foreclose. In Massachusetts, where a note has been assigned but there is no written assignment of the mortgage underlying the note, the assignment of the note does not carry with it the assignment of the mortgage.  Barnes v. Boardman, 149 Mass. 106, 114 (1889). Rather, the holder of the mortgage holds the mortgage in trust for the purchaser of the note, who has an equitable right to obtain an assignment of the mortgage, which may be accomplished by filing an action in court and obtaining an equitable order of assignment.  Id.  (“In some jurisdictions it is held that the mere transfer of the debt, without any assignment or even mention of the mortgage, carries the mortgage with it, so as to enable the assignee to assert his title in an action at law…. This doctrine has not prevailed in Massachusetts, and the tendency of the decisions here has been, that in such cases the mortgagee would hold the legal title in trust for the purchaser of the debt, and that the latter might obtain a conveyance by a bill in equity“). See  Young v. Miller, Gray 152, 154 (1856).

In the absence of a valid written assignment of a mortgage or a court order of assignment, the mortgage holder remains unchanged. This common-law principle was later incorporated in the statute enacted in 1912 establishing the statutory power of sale, which grants such a power to “the mortgagee or his executors, administrators, successors or assigns,” but not to a party that is the equitable beneficiary of a mortgage held by another. G.L. c. 183, § 21, inserted bySt.1912, c. 502, § 6.

GORE: THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN A KEY POINT:  But, sadly, as wording indicated,  Massachusetts is on its own here.   Texas does not have the same “does not follow” rule.  In Texas, it is well established that the deed of trust (or lien) follows the Note.

3)      Quote:  A valid assignment of a mortgage gives the holder of that mortgage the statutory power to sell after a default regardless whether the assignment has been recorded. See G.L.c. 183, § 21;Mac Farlane v. Thompson, 241 Mass. 486, 489(1922). Where the earlier assignment is not in recordable form or bears some defect, a written assignment executed after foreclosure that confirms the earlier assignment may be properly recorded. See Bon v. Graves, 216 Mass. 440, 444-445 (1914).

A confirmatory assignment, however, cannot confirm an assignment that was not validly made earlier or backdate an assignment being made for the first time. See Scaplen v.Blanchard,187 Mass. 73, 76 (1904) (confirmatory deed “creates no title” but “takes the place of the original deed, and is evidence of the making of the former conveyance as of the time when it was made”). Where there is no prior valid assignment, a subsequent assignment by the mortgage holder to the note holder is not a confirmatory assignment because there is no earlier written assignment to confirm. In this case, based on the record before the judge, the plaintiffs failed to prove that they obtained valid written assignments of the Ibanez and LaRace mortgages before their foreclosures, so the post foreclosure assignments were not confirmatory of earlier valid assignments.

GORE: This is one point that we look for here in Texas.  The party doing the foreclosure has to be able be the party of record (or servicer for that party).  Typically, the foreclosure mills have done a good job on this issue of making sure the deed of trust is transferred to the foreclosing party before bringing the foreclosure action (seems to be triggered by the borrower’s default).

The one possible exception that has been noted is when they have brought the foreclosures in the name of MERS (the nominee on many deed of trusts).  Typically, they simply transfer the deed of trust to the foreclosing party by signing as a MERS officer on behalf of previous lender to avoid MERS being the actual foreclosing party.  Whether or not this gets them in the clear is a debatable matter but at this point, these transfers have been accepted as proper by Texas courts and the fact that few homeowners are willing or able to fight this allows the banks to continue to use this strategy.

GORE: So, the main holding is nice and we might get a chance to use it if the foreclosure mill or bank really messes up (although it is hard to mess this up because their accounting seems to be triggered by the supposed note holder) or we come up with a new theory (we try every day).  Point one is inapplicable in Texas and point two, the biggest issue, is not one we can use either.

- George W. Gore

While most folks know the name of the Servicer of their mortgage it now identifies the INVESTOR of the loan as well.

It’s easy to look up your loan and see if Freddie, Fannie or some other “investor” claims ownership of your loan.

There are several ways to look up your loan.

First and best way to look up your loan is to use the MIN # (MERS Identification Number)

1. First look at your mortgage documents.  Look for the Deed of Trust (Not the Warranty Deed) or go online and look yours up in the property records.

2. Locate the MIN number in the top right hand corner of the document.

3. Go to https://www.mers-servicerid.org/sis/

4. Search by MIN, or if you do not have your MIN number, Go for the 2nd way to search –> Search by Property Address/Borrower Details (not as accurate)

5.  It should list your servicer and your investor.

But what if it doesn’t find your loan?

Then either you have no MIN and you are not in the MERS system or you entered it incorrectly.

If you are not in the MERS system you can still check the Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac websites to see if they claim to own your loan.

- The Bank Slayer

Bank of America “accidentally” foreclosed on someone again!    It has been a couple of months since they last did this so give them a break.

We can get your house too!

Thanks to 4closureFraud.org for the awesome graphic!

This poor guy bought a house, in CASH, which used to have a Bank of America mortgage and obviously that was good enough for BofA to take the house and convey it to Fannie Mae.

Read on below…

- The Bank Slayer

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Foreclosure crisis

Man’s home sold out from under him in foreclosure mistake

By Harriet Johnson Brackey, Sun Sentinel

September 22, 2010

When Jason Grodensky bought his modest Fort Lauderdale home last December, he paid cash. But seven months later, he was surprised to learn that Bank of America had foreclosed on the house, even though Grodensky did not have a mortgage.

Grodensky knew nothing about the foreclosure until July, when he learned that the title to his home had been transferred to a government-backed lender. “I feel like I’m hanging in the wind and I’m scared to death,” said Grodensky. “How did some attorney put through a foreclosure illegally?”

Bank of America has acknowledged the error and will correct it at its own expense, said spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens.

Grodensky’s story and other tales of foreclosure mistakes started popping up recently across South Florida. This week, GMAC Mortgage — one of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers and a major mortgage lender — told real estate agents to stop evicting residents and suspend sales of properties that had been taken from homeowners in foreclosure. The company said it might have to “correct” some of its foreclosures, but was not halting those in process.

In Florida courts, which have been swamped with foreclosure cases for several years, mistakes “happen all the time,” said foreclosure defense attorney Matt Weidner in St. Petersburg. “It’s just not getting reported.”

And the legal efforts required to resolve a foreclosure mistake are complicated. “Unwrapping it is like unwrapping Fort Knox,” said Carol Asbury, a Fort Lauderdale foreclosure attorney. “It’s very difficult.”

The process is under increasing scrutiny, as Florida’s court system struggles with the mountain of cases that have resulted from the housing crisis.

Grodensky said he spent months trying to figure out what happened, but said his questions to Bank of America and to the law firm Florida Default Law Group that handled the foreclosure have not been answered. Florida Default Law Group could not be reached for comment, despite several attempts by phone and e-mail. Grodensky said he has filed a claim with his title insurance company, but that, too, has not resulted in any action.

It wasn’t until last week, when Grodensky brought his problem to the attention of the Sun Sentinel, that it began to be resolved.

“It looks like it was a mistake in communication between us and the attorneys handling the foreclosure,” said Bauwens.

Court records show Countrywide Home Loans filed a foreclosure case in Broward County civil court against the former owner of the home on Southwest 14th Street in 2008. Bank of America took over Countrywide at the end of that year.

The following year, Grodensky and his father Steven bought the house for cash as an investment property. Jason Grodensky’s brother Kenny Sloan lives in the house now. They negotiated a short sale, which means the lender agreed to accept less than the mortgage amount. Documents show the sale proceeds were wired to Bank of America. The sale was recorded in December 2009 at the Broward County Property Appraiser’s Office.

But in court, the foreclosure case continued, the records show. There was a motion to dismiss the case in July, followed the next day by a motion to re-open it. A court-ordered foreclosure sale took place July 15. The property appraiser’s office recorded the transfer of the title to the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) the same day.

Bauwens said the lender would go back to court to rescind the foreclosure sale.

Broward Chief Judge Victor Tobin, who set up the county court’s foreclosure system, said this is the first he’s heard of this type of mistake. “From the court’s point of view we have no way of knowing that someone sells a house unless they tell us,” said Tobin. “The bank would first have to tell the lawyers and the lawyers would presumably ask the court for an order dismissing the case.”

Tobin said this is the first he’s heard of this type of mistake. The court system is under pressure to clear up its foreclosure backlog. This year, the state court system pumped $6 million into the effort, hiring more temporary judges and staffers.

Some say there’s too much effort aimed at simply disposing of the cases.

“The evidence doesn’t matter, the proof doesn’t matter, due process doesn’t matter,” said Asbury, the attorney. “The only thing that matters is that they get rid of these cases.”

Mindy Watson-Cintron of Century 21 Tenace Realty said she was unable to stop a foreclosure even though she had a willing buyer for a Coral Springs home last summer. Watson-Cintron had a letter from GMAC Mortgage, agreeing to sell the house in a short sale. The letter indicates the deal would be accepted through Aug. 20.

Watson-Cintron said she called, pleaded and even spent three hours one day in the lobby of the law offices of David Stern in Plantation trying to get someone to agree to put the foreclosure on hold. Stern’s office is one of the nation’s largest foreclosure firms and, Watson-Citron said, represented GMAC in the foreclosure case.

But the foreclosure continued. The lender took back the home and now has it listed for sale – at a lower price than Watson-Cintron’s buyer offered. “The bank’s not talking to the attorneys and the attorneys are not talking to the courts,” she said.

Stern could not be reached for comment despite several attempts by phone and email to his office. A spokesman for GMAC Mortgage promised to look into the case.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is investigating Stern’s firm, Florida Legal Default Group, based in Tampa, the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson in Fort Lauderdale and Shapiro & Fishman, which has offices in Boca Raton. Officials have said the investigation centers on whether foreclosure documents submitted by these firms were false, misleading or inaccurate.

In announcing its decision this week to halt evictions and suspend sales in foreclosure cases, GMAC cited a deposition by Jeffrey Stephan in a Palm Beach foreclosure case in which Stephan said he did not verify all the documents and did not sign them all in the presence of a notary. Stephan said he signed as many as 10,000 documents a month.

Some foreclosure defense attorneys have questioned whether similar practices involve other lenders as they push huge numbers of foreclosures through the courts. In one South Florida foreclosure case, Chase Home Finance executive Beth Cottrell said in a deposition in May that her team of eight supervisors signs 18,000 documents a month. Chase’s spokesperson did not comment.

This is really an unbelievable story but sadly, if you work in foreclosure defense, it’s all too often these types of railroading of people’s lives occurs.

The folks at 4closureFraud.org did an OUTSTANDING job at digging into the screw job a disabled veteran got when a house he was renting was foreclosed.

Of course the story has all the typical players:  large national bank, MERS and a foreclosure mill.

Here’s a photo of the guy who got TWO days notice before being tossed out.

“Harris had lived in the house for several years and tried repeatedly to buy it, first from the previous owner through a short sale and later from the bank that bought the foreclosed property, he and his real estate agent said.

Harris said he received a notice on Tuesday that he would be evicted on Thursday. He scrambled to line up a federal loan and cash to help him buy the house, but the bank’s lawyer told him it was too late, Harris said.”

You can read this excellent article in full and see the goods 4closureFraud dug up here

- The Bank Slayer

Don’t give up when fighting the big banks!  You can win.  It takes patience and sharp legal minds as your cases progresses forward but don’t just give in.

- The Bank Slayer

Hammer Time

Thanks to foreclosuredefensenetwork.com for the following article…

INCREDIBLE VICTORY IN IOWA: JUDGE VACATES 2005 SUMMARY JUDGMENT ENTERED AGAINST BORROWER AND REQUIRES PLAINTIFF TO PROVE ISSUES AS TO OWNERSHIP OF NOTE AT TRIAL

In a stunning decision, an Iowa District Court Judge has issued a 4 page written opinion vacating a 2005 summary judgment which had been entered against the borrower in favor of Wells Fargo. The decision also vacates a July 7, 2010 Order which reaffirmed the 2005 summary judgment.

The borrower retained Jeff Barnes, Esq. in 2009, who began questioning the decision in view of prior pro se filings of the borrower in which she stated that Wells Fargo had previously told her in 2004 that her loan was owned by Lehman Brothers. The 2005 summary judgment was entered on an Affidavit of a representative of Wells Fargo which stated that the affiant had read the foreclosure petition and motion for summary judgment and that the statements therein were true, one of the statements being that Wells Fargo was in possession of the note.

Shortly after Mr. Barnes was retained, the case was set for trial. Mr. Barnes, together with local Iowa counsel Christine Sand, Esq., propounded discovery upon Wells Fargo, which was not complied with as of the time of the original trial. Wells Fargo’s counsel simply dumped a pile of unsegregated documents on counsel table on the day of trial without even a formal response to the discovery request. To date, the subject discovery (which seeks, in part, the evidence as to ownership of and chain of title to the note and mortgage) has not been fully complied with. The trial was reset to late September, 2010.

On July 21, 2010, Wells Fargo filed a Motion to Substitute Plaintiff in which it stated that “it has been determined upon information and belief that pursuant to a Servicing Agreement between Wells Fargo and Lehman Brothers Bank FSB, an assignment is required and will be executed and recorded. The holder of the note and mortgage is Lehman Brothers Bank FSB.” As those of you who read foreclosure defense websites know, Lehman previously filed for Bankruptcy.

Note that Wells Fargo states that the assignment “will be recorded”. The borrower first challenged Wells Fargo’s ownership of the note in 2004, and now, some time in the future, Wells Fargo is “going to do” an assignment?! Further, it now comes out, in 2010, that what the borrower said in her 2004 pro se filings was 100% correct.

The matter becomes even more complicated and uncertain. The Court’s opinion notes that on August 19, 2010, an affidavit was filed by a representative of Wells Fargo stating that “the original copy of the note has been lost”. In the opinion, the Court states that it premised its [prior] summary judgment ruling on Plaintiff’s possessing the note. The Court then went on to state “The validity of that premise having become increasingly doubtful, and the Plaintiff having chosen to offer nothing as to when Lehman Brothers Bank FSB became the “holder” of the note, when the note was lost, the circumstances surrounding Lehman Brothers Bank FSB becoming the “holder” of the note, or the circumstances surrounding the loss of the note, the orders granting partial summary judgment and reaffirming that judgment should be vacated and the plaintiff should be required to prove its case at trial”.

We characterize this decision as a justice delayed (through no fault of the Court or the borrower) but not denied. We hope that more members of the judiciary scrutinize foreclosures this carefully, and laud this Jurist for his diligence.

It’s simple, follow the money.   Everyone understands the purpose of a compensation plan.  Develop a plan that uses money to motivate a certain behavior.

For the past several years we’ve been saying that the banks/servicers WANT to foreclose properties.   It is the fastest way for them to generate fee income as well as convert a home to cash.

4closure fraud.com and Mandelman matters posted a great article about an interview with a past JPMorgan Chase employee.    He echos some of the same things that one of our employees who used to work for IndyMac/OneWest states…

While GSE’s like Fannie & Freddie tout efforts to slow foreclosures… and “Fannie Mae guidelines allow for modifications to be considered...Seemed like more than 95% of the time, the instruction came back ‘proceed with foreclosure…”

While homeowner after homeowner is ready to sell their soul to save their house the reality as this employee states is  “They’re [sp] whole focus is to foreclose, not to modify.  They put the borrower through every hoop and obstacle they can, so that when something fails to get done on time, or whatever, they can deny it and proceed with the foreclosure.  Like, ‘Hey we tried, but the borrower didn’t get this one document in on time.”

Face the reality that you need to take matters into your own hands and fight hard if you are going to win versus a large and powerful bank.

- The Bank Slayer

JP MORGAN INSIDER – “CHASE is in the Foreclosure Business, NOT the Modification Business.”

“JPMorgan CHASE is in the foreclosure business, not the modification business’.”  That, according to Jerad Bausch, who until quite recently was an employee of CHASE’s mortgage servicing division working in the foreclosure department in Rancho Bernardo, California.

I was recently introduced to Jerad and he agreed to an interview.  (Christmas came early this year.)  His answers to my questions provided me with a window into how servicers think and operate.  And some of the things he said confirmed my fears about mortgage servicers… their interests and ours are anything but aligned.

Today, Jerad Bausch is 25 years old, but with a wife and two young children, he communicates like someone ten years older.  He had been selling cars for about three and a half years and was just 22 years old when he applied for a job at JPMorgan CHASE.  He ended up working in the mega-bank’s mortgage servicing area… the foreclosure department, to be precise.  He had absolutely no prior experience with mortgages or in real estate, but then… why would that be important?

“The car business is great in terms of bring home a good size paycheck, but to make the money you have to work all the time, 60-70 hours a week.  When our second child arrived, that schedule just wasn’t going to work.  I thought CHASE would be kind of a cushy office job that would offer some stability,” Jerad explained.

That didn’t exactly turn out to be the case.  Eighteen months after CHASE hired Jared, with numerous investors having filed for bankruptcy protection as a result of the housing meltdown, he was laid off.  The “investors” in this case are the entities that own the loans that Chase services.  When an investor files bankruptcy the loan files go to CHASE’S bankruptcy department, presumably to be liquidated by the trustee in order to satisfy the claims of creditors.

The interview process included a “panel” of CHASE executives asking Jared a variety of questions primarily in two areas.  They asked if he was the type of person that could handle working with people that were emotional and in foreclosure, and if his computer skills were up to snuff.  They asked him nothing about real estate or mortgages, or car sales for that matter.

The training program at CHASE turned out to be almost exclusively about the critical importance of documenting the files that he would be pushing through the foreclosure process and ultimately to the REO department, where they would be put back on the market and hopefully sold.  Documenting the files with everything that transpired was the single most important aspect of Jared’s job at CHASE, in fact, it was what his bonus was based on, along with the pace at which the foreclosures he processed were completed.

“A perfect foreclosure was supposed to take 120 days,” Jared explains, “and the closer you came to that benchmark, the better your numbers looked and higher your bonus would be.”

CHASE started Jared at an annual salary of $30,000, but he very quickly became a “Tier One” employee, so he earned a monthly bonus of $1,000 because he documented everything accurately and because he always processed foreclosures at as close to a “perfect” pace as possible.

“Bonuses were based on accurate and complete documentation, and on how quickly you were able to foreclosure on someone,” Jerad says.  “They rate you as Tier One, Two or Three… and if you’re Tier One, which is the top tier, then you’d get a thousand dollars a month bonus.  So, from $30,000 you went to $42,000.  Of course, if your documentation was off, or you took too long to foreclose, you wouldn’t get the bonus.”

Day-to-day, Jerad’s job was primarily to contact paralegals at the law firms used by CHASE to file foreclosures, publish sale dates, and myriad other tasks required to effectuate a foreclosure in a given state.

“It was our responsibility to stay on top of and when necessary push the lawyers to make sure things done in a timely fashion, so that foreclosures would move along in compliance with Fannie’s guidelines,” Jerad explained.  “And we documented what went on with each file so that if the investor came in to audit the files, everything would be accurate in terms of what had transpired and in what time frame.  It was all about being able to show that foreclosures were being processed as efficiently as possible.”

When a homeowner applies for a loan modification, Jerad would receive an email from the modification team telling him to put a file on hold awaiting decision on modification.  This wouldn’t count against his bonus, because Fannie Mae guidelines allow for modifications to be considered, but investors would see what was done as related to the modification, so everything had to be thoroughly documented.

“Seemed like more than 95% of the time, the instruction came back ‘proceed with foreclosure,’ according to Jerad.  “Files would be on hold pending modification, but still accruing fees and interest.  Any time a servicer does anything to a file, they’re charging people for it,” Jerad says.

I was fascinated to learn that investors do actually visit servicers and audit files to make sure things are being handled properly and homes are being foreclosed on efficiently, or modified, should that be in their best interest.  As Jerad explained, “Investors know that Polling & Servicing Agreements (“PSAs”) don’t protect them, they protect servicers, so they want to come in and audit files themselves.”

“Foreclosures are a no lose proposition for a servicer,” Jerad told me during the interview.  “The servicer gets paid more to service a delinquent loan, but they also get to tack on a whole bunch of extra fees and charges.  If the borrower reinstates the loan, which is rare, then the borrower pays those extra fees.  If the borrower loses the house, then the investor pays them.  Either way, the servicer gets their money.”

Jerad went on to say: “Our attitude at CHASE was to process everything as quickly as possible, so we can foreclose and take the house to sale.  That’s how we made our money.”

“Servicers want to show investors that they did their due diligence on a loan modification, but that in the end they just couldn’t find a way to modify.  They’re whole focus is to foreclose, not to modify.  They put the borrower through every hoop and obstacle they can, so that when something fails to get done on time, or whatever, they can deny it and proceed with the foreclosure.  Like, ‘Hey we tried, but the borrower didn’t get this one document in on time.’  That sure is what it seemed like to me, anyway.”

According to Jerad, JPMorgan CHASE in Rancho Bernardo, services foreclosures in all 50 states.  During the 18 months that he worked there, his foreclosure department of 15 people would receive 30-40 borrower files a day just from California, so each person would get two to three foreclosure a day to process just from California alone.  He also said that in Rancho Bernardo, there were no more than 5-7 people in the loan modification department, but in loss mitigation there were 30 people who processed forbearances, short sales, and other alternatives to foreclosure.  The REO department was made up of fewer than five people.

Jerad often took a smoke break with some of the guys handing loan modifications.  “They were always complaining that their supervisors weren’t approving modifications,” Jerad said.  “There was always something else they wanted that prevented the modification from being approved.  They got their bonus based on modifying loans, along with accurate documentation just like us, but it seemed like the supervisors got penalized for modifying loans, because they were all about finding a way to turn them down.”

“There’s no question about it,” Jerad said in closing, “CHASE is in the foreclosure business, not the modification business.”

If you’re mortgage company claims that Deutsche has your loan courtesy of a MERS assignment saddle-up!

MERS is again denied the ability to magically assign the deed of trust and/or note.  This time it involves Deutsche Bank.    Below is the info that was released today by Neil Garfield.

Affidavits out of nowhere, personal knowledge by a notary in the foreclosure mill, assignments purportedly signed years ago but somehow failed to be recorded until ownership issues arise and one of my favorites the assignment of the deed of trust and/or note from a company bankrupt and out of business for years but somehow they found someone who still has the ability to sign a current assignment from an extinct business.

Do you take third-party out-of-state checks?  Just tell them “trust me” I’m a bank!

Trust me this cash is real!

Here is the link and file… http://livinglies.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/9-09-10-ny-mers-no-authoriy-dismissed.pdf

- The Bank Slayer

MERS-Deutsch Slammed on Quiet Title

MERS tried to Quiet Title. In so doing they paved the way for millions of homeowners to sue MERS to quiet title. The net result is that the encumbrance is invalid. That means the debt, the obligation, MIGHT exist, but it is NOT secured by the home. I’d say I told you so, but that would be immature.

All of that is important but Judge Jeffrey Arlen Spinner went a lot further and made his mark on the issue of bogus affidavits that say nothing but which are used by foreclosure mill attorneys who spout off about what the affidavit says or what it proves. Judge Spinner flatly says the affidavit would be insufficient even if MERS had an interest, which it does not. He clearly states the law which is valid not only in New York, but EVERY state and federal jurisidiction, but which has been ignored by a majority of judges until now:

To establish a claim of lien by a lost mortgage there must be certain evidence (e.s.) demonstrating that the mortgage was properly executed with all the formalities required by law and proof of the contents (e.s.) of such instrument. … Here Burnett’s affidavit simply states that the original mortgage is not in Deutsch Bank’s files, and that he is advised (e.s.) that the title company is out of business. Burnett gives no specifics as to what efforts were made to locate the lost mortgage…. More importantly, there is no affidavit from MLN by an individual with personal knowledge of the facts that the complete file concerning this mortgage was transferred to Deutsch Bank and that the copy of the mortgage submitted to the court is an authentic copy of Torr’s Mortgage.” (e.s.)

EDITOR’S NOTE: The importance of this decision and its citations cannot be over-stated. Now we are getting down to the nub of it. It isn’t enough for the  foreclosure lawyer to make empty allegations contained nowhere in pleadings, affidavit or proof. The foreclosure lawyer is seeking affirmative relief — enforcement of the note and sale of the property. If he can’t plead the case in good faith then he doesn’t belong in court. And if he does plead the case he must prove it within the boundaries of ordinary rules of evidence. A competent witness must exist who is wiling to testify under oath and who actually appears to do so. They musts possess PERSONAL knowledge (not what someone told them) of the facts about which they are going to testify. Business records exceptions are very restrictive as they prevent the other side from cross examining a live witness (a basic constitutional right of due process).

• “Trust me” is not a substitute for real evidence.
  
• If they want to prove the obligation, they need evidence.
  
• If they want to prove a default, they need evidence,
  
• if they want to prove the note is evidence of the obligation, they must prove that assertion with evidence that the note is the whole deal (which is NEVER the case in a securitized loan).
  
• If they want to prove a lost note they need evidence that the note was in existence, when it was in existence, how it came into existence, and what happened to it — not just say we had it, but now we don’t.
  
• And watch out for those “original notes.” Many of them are fabricated using simple software and a color printer. If there are no impressions on the back of the page, even the note they present is probably NOT the original and is probably a fabrication printed off a laser or dot matrix printer. Close examination will show even a novice the truth of this statement.