Archive for the ‘Florida Law News’ Category
Friday, May 11th, 2012
I’m not a reader of tea leaves, so I am not about to guess how the Florida Supreme Court will ultimately rule on Roman Pino vs. The Bank of New York.
But listening to the justices attack Amanda Lundergan, Roman Pino’s attorney, while seemingly going much easier on Bruce Rogow, the bank’s very well-respected lawyer, was at best, discouraging.
It’s common for the justices to try to poke holes in an attorney’s case, and it does not always mean that you can predict what their decision will be.
But with the thousands surely watching Thursday’s hearing, I was hoping the Court would have been a little more sensitive to the perception that they were most certainly creating, that the banks already have this one in the bag.
As a whole I found the Supreme Court judges flippant to the obvious fraud that Bank of New York has brought before the court in this case.
And for the Court to downplay the importance of that fraud, and what it means to the integrity of the judicial system, was offensive.
If you were an average homeowner watching yesterday’s hearing, I am pretty sure you came away with a feeling that the playing field is not level, and there are two different sets of rules for the banks and for the rest of us.
That is truly unfortunate.
The Supreme Court has to be above the fray, and they must not abdicate their responsibility to police their own system.
Which is exactly what would happen if the Court allows the phony documents, the fraudulent backdating, the bogus notes and assignments to be brought before them without penalty.
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Tags: amanada lundergan, bank of new york, banking, bruce rogow, case, court, Florida, Florida Supreme Court, florida supreme court ruling, Ice Legal, integrity, new york, pino, roman pino, romans, supreme, supreme court, supreme court judges, supreme court of the united states, the bank of new york
Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida Supreme Court, Roman Pino Vs Bank of New York | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
The banks are terrified they might actually be held accountable for their actions!
If you haven’t already heard, there is a monumental case that was heard Thursday morning in the Florida Supreme Court, and every single homeowner should be paying close attention to this case.
To watch a replay of the oral arguments, please click here.
The case is Roman Pino vs. Bank of New York. It involves all the customary fraud I have seen in countless cases.
Missing documents, fraudulent assignments, fraudulents notaries, and forged documents, and a bank once again trying to shuffle it’s dirty deeds under the rug like loose dirt.
When Bank of New York first tried to foreclose on Pino, a regular working guy from Greenacres who fell behind on his mortgage when his business dried up, there was no assignment of mortgage.
So Bank Of New York’s lawyers tried to re-file with a new assignment, one which was fraudulently backdated (AKA robosigned).
The bank’s original lawyers, by the way, were from David J. Stern’s office. You know their story.
When our good friend and colleague Tom Ice, Pino’s lawyer, challenged the documents, Bank of New York suddenly decided they didn’t want to foreclosure anymore, dropped their lawsuit and scurried back into their hole.
End of the story??
Not even close. Ice continued to dog Bank of New York like a pitbull, because he, believe it or not, also thinks the banks need to actually be held accountable! (Remarkable I know.)
He tried to have the voluntary dismissal overturned, so that Bank of New York could face sanctions for the forged documents they tried to use to swindle Roman Pino and the court.
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Tags: 4th district court of appeals, attorney, bank, bank of new york, banking, banking industries, banks, case, court, David Stern, district court, Florida, Florida Supreme Court, foreclosure, foreclosures, landmark, mortgage, new york, pino, real property law, roman pino, romans, supreme court, tom ice
Posted in Bank Fraud, Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Florida Supreme Court, Roman Pino Vs Bank of New York | 3 Comments »
Monday, May 7th, 2012
A group from the Miami Workers Center clean up the area around an abandoned bank-owned house, as police officers wait nearby (Photo Courtesy:Miami Workers Group)
It never ceases to amaze me the glaring duality of the world I live in.
I am constantly reminded that we live in world where you and I have to play by one set of rules, yet the vast financial complex that resides on Wall Street isn’t held to even a fraction of those standards.
The latest example comes way of a small protest in Liberty City last week.
A few members of the Miami Workers Center, a grassroots organization, arrived at an abandoned foreclosed home, a property that like countless others is nothing more than a glorified trash dump.
Their nefarious plot? To clean the home up, and try to make it a little less of an eyesore.
Scary right?
And what did this group, which included a grandmother and an pregnant woman, encounter when they arrived at that home?
About a half dozen cops, who threatened to arrest any of them if they stepped foot on the Bank Of America-owned property.
The protesters, to their credit, didn’t give up and cleaned up the public areas around the home. Not once was a burglary tool spotted.
The officers watched over these men and women like mother hens as they picked up beer bottles and broken glass, among other fabulous ‘accessories’ the home had accumulated over the last few years. (Bank of America took the home in 2010.)
But when the banks not only trespass, but break into my clients homes? How many police officers can I get on the case? Not a single one.
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Tags: bank, bank fraud, banking, breaks, citizen, cleaning, federal reserve system, foreclose, foreclosed homes, foreclosure, foreclosures, gets, GMAC, miami workers center, police, protest, wall street
Posted in Big Banks, Florida Law News, Foreclosure Fraud | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is now asking for the public’s input on what she should do with the $300 million the state will be receiving directly from the national mortgage settlement.
She is openly soliciting your suggestions through her website from now until May 14th. As a foreclosure defense attorney and one of the people on the front lines of the housing crisis, I have more than a few ideas.
So Pam, please consider this my open letter to you and your office.
First and foremost, here is what you should NOT do with the money. Don’t throw it at principal reduction. It will have virtually no impact on Florida’s communities, it would be like throwing the money into quicksand.
So far, Florida’s efforts to offer financial relief to homeowners have just fallen flat.
Florida’s Hardest Hit program just hasn’t worked, and even recent changes to the program’s requirements will not help it reach enough people.
Move The Banks Out of Your Cities
What you need to do Ms. Bondi, is use the money to make systemic changes to Florida’s housing market.
First, give the money to your towns and cities to clear out Florida’s foreclosure blight. Blight caused by the abundance of abandoned homes the banks own, but refuse to take care of.
I’ve long told my readers that banks are bad neighbors, and the Sun-Sentinel now has the numbers that make my case.
Ms. Bondi, despite what your boss says, banks are the problem and you need to get them out of your cities and towns. Give your local governments the ammo to do it.
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Tags: banking, bondi, consumer fraud, defense attorneys, directly, federal reserve system, Florida, Florida Attorney General, foreclosure, MERS, million, mortgage, mortgages, national mortgage, open letter, pam, Pam Bondi, real property law, settlement
Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Mortgage Settlement, Pam Bondi | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
What would he have said about the banks fraudulent acts?
Last weekend Chuck Coulson, the man once called Richard Nixon’s ‘hatchet man”, passed away at the age of 80.
Known both for his being one of the ‘Watergate Seven’ and his subsequent 2nd life as a born-again evangelist, I can only wonder what he thought of of our current foreclosure crisis.
I don’t know if he ever gave it much thought, but I suspect there would be a level of amazement.
Watergate, which started over a single break-in, landed almost 50 men in jail, including many top Nixon aides like Coulson.
The banks have broken into thousands of homes in their efforts to secure ‘abandoned properties’. Except you and I both know that most of these homes were anything but abandoned.
Sometimes they weren’t even in foreclosure. I’ve had about a dozen clients who’ve had their locks changed or had their homes ransacked by repo agents who were hired by the banks.
The banks, playing the role of Nixon and his cronies, have used aggressive tactics that Coulson, in his days as Nixon’s legal counsel, might have employed.
Coulson allegedly said he would walk over his own grandmother to get the president re-elected, which sounds appropriate because banks have done almost everything else in order to foreclose on homeowners who often didn’t deserve it.
Yet for crimes that would seem to fit in any file on Watergate, there is not a single banking executive who has been arrested.
I’ll bet good money Coulson would wonder why.
Coulson was convicted for his efforts in trying to discredit the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, but what would he have said about the ‘hatchet job’ banks have done on homeowners?
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Tags: 20th century in the united states, banking, banks, chuck coulson, conspiracy, coulson, foreclosure, foreclosures, hatchet job, hatchet man, homeowners, oppenheim, politics, presidency of richard nixon, richard, richard nixon, watergate, watergate scandal
Posted in Florida Law News, Foreclosure Defense | No Comments »
Friday, April 6th, 2012
Judge Signs $25 Billion Foreclosure Settlement
It’s finally official. The so-called $25 billion foreclosure settlement has been signed off by a federal judge.
This comes after the settlement was filed in court last month. DC District Judge Rosemary Collyer did the honors Wednesday.
I won’t rehash my thoughts about what’s good and what’s bad about this settlement. Everything that needs to be said about it has been said.
You and I know that the banks will get more of a pass than they are entitled to for all of their robosigning shenanigans. In reality they are really only paying out about $5 billion in actual money, and I’ve still haven’t seen a single banking officer jailed.
Just remember this fight ain’t over yet!. This settlement was a necessary step, in order for the feds to move on to their investigation into securitized trusts.
THAT is where the banks will hopefully get what’s really coming to them.
Mortgage settlement oversight begins in North Carolina
Now that the settlement is official, the new government agency that will be watching the banks is now open for business.
North Carolina Banking Commissioner Joseph Smith is going to oversee the office and how the banks will receive “credits” towards the settlement for providing homeowners mortgage relief.
Relief, unfortunately, will often come in the form of transactions, such as short sales, that the banks were already doing before the settlement was announced.
“By itself, this settlement will not remedy every problem that system faces. But trust in our mortgage system can move forward if we use this opportunity to show fairness, transparency and accountability,” Smith said. “
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Tags: bank, banking, clerk and comptroller, economics, federal judges, Federal Reserve, federal reserve system, feds, foreclosed homes, foreclosure, foreclosure settlement, foreclosures, joseph smith, mortgage, mortgage settlement, north carolina banking commisioner, offer, Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight, OppenheimLaw, oversight, palm beach, palm beach clerk and comptroller, palm beach county, palm beach county foreclosure, palm beach foreclosures, personal finance, Real Estate, real property law, reo, reo homes, robosigning, rosemary collyer, rules, securitized trusts, settlement, sharon bock, subprime mortgage crisis, us federal reserve
Posted in Florida Law News | 1 Comment »
Saturday, March 31st, 2012
Bill extends Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007
I warned you earlier this month that if you’re considering a short sale, the time to get the ball rolling is now.
That’s because the Mortgage Debt Relief Act, which was passed in 2007, is set to expire at the end of this year. If that happens you’ll have to pay taxes on any forgiven debt that comes out of a short sale.
I remain skeptical that Congress, in this election year, will come through and extend the MDRA, but at least some Congressmen haven’t forgotten how important this legislation is. Then again, in an election year anything is possible.
U.S. Reps. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and John Larson, D-Conn., have introduced the Homeowners Tax Fairness Act. It would extend the Mortgage Debt Relief Act for another three years.
Let’s hope Congress gets their act together and passes this bill.
NY Foreclosure Case Could Be A Game Changer
It remains to be seen if a foreclosure dismissal will have an impact here in Florida, but none the less it has the chance to be a real game changer.
The case is OneWest Bank, FSC vs Galli. OneWest had tried for a partial summary judgement against the Gallis, but the judge in the case denied it and instead ruled in favor of Mr. and Mrs. Galli.
As I’ve always said, you have to make the banks prove they own the note, but in reality it’s more than that. I could pick up a note off the street and say I owned it, but it wouldn’t necessarily be true.
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Tags: consumer fraud, crisis, debt, debt relief, economics, extended mortgage, foreclosure, foreclosures, MERS, mortgage, mortgage debt, mortgage debt relief, mortgage insurance, mortgage relief, mortgages, ny, ny foreclosures, personal finance, quilt, quilts, Real Estate, relief, short sale, subprime mortgage crisis
Posted in Florida Law News, Foreclosure Defense, Friday RoundUp, MERS, Short Sales | No Comments »
I’m not a reader of tea leaves, so I am not about to guess how the Florida Supreme Court will ultimately rule on Roman Pino vs. The Bank of New York.
