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 theFlorida Supreme Court, and every single homeowner should be paying close attention to this case.
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.
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. (more…)
The clock may have run out on this year’s Super Bowl (Way to go Giants!!) but there’s still a few minutes left in this year’s REAL grudge match, the Banks vs. the Attorney Generals.
It’s 4th and Inches, the score is tied, and it would be nice to avoid overtime.
Today we could learn whether the much-discussed robo-signing settlement with Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Ally Financial and CitiGroup will come to pass, and in what form.
With California AG Kamala Harris returning to the negotiating table, the deal looks closer than ever to being sealed. Harris, who represents the state with the largest amount of foreclosed homes, has rightfully been hesitant to sign off because her state has the most to gain, or lose, from this deal.
We were initially very hesitant to see this deal go through ourselves, but the time has come for it to put to bed.
Why?
Because we feel the deal in its current form does a lot. Does it help every single homeowner who’s underwater? Of course not. There is no deal that will.
But here is who it does help. The homeowners who have fought to keep their homes from day one, who were at the forefront of these legal challenges against the banks. Much of what we have learned about robo-signing and the lack of standing banks had to bring foreclosure, would not have come to light without these crusaders, and its time they got a reprieve.
In theory it also helps the responsible homeowners, the ones who paid their mortgages on-time and whose homes went underwater through no fault of their own. They too need to be rewarded. (more…)
We’ve all been reading with horror about the developing situation in Italy with the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that capsized last Friday, killing several people.
What really caught our attention is the actions of the ship’s captain Francesco Schettino, who reportedly abandoned ship in the middle of the evacuations. He’s been blamed for causing the tragedy by recklessly taking the ship off-course and too close to shore
We can not compare the loss of life with the foreclosure crisis, but an argument can certainly be made that there is a parallel between the captain’s actions and that of big banks.
Banks have also been reckless, taking the economy from its intended destination and showing a complete lack of disregard with their shady real estate and foreclosure practices. We believe they have abandoned the homeowner and the taxpayer, while failing to consider their well-being and solely worrying about their own self-preservation.
Whereas the cruise line’s executives have quickly held the captain accountable, we’ve yet to see our federal government do the same to the banks, despite countless opportunities to do so.
In this excellent editorial published in the New York Times, the paper calls on President Obama to steer this ship back on course by forming an inter-agency task force to investigate the banks for their actions, many of which could be considered criminal.
Yes there’s been investigations and settlements, but there’s been very little accountability for the top executives, who’ve been rarely held personally responsible. For example Angelo Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide, didn’t have to admit to any wrongdoing when he settled civil fraud charged level by the SEC. Yes he had to pay a 67.5 million dollar fine, but that’s a fraction of the 521.5 million he’s reported to have received between 2000 and 2008, according to the NY Times. (more…)
Now that the holidays are behind us and we’re well into the new year, news that will impact the foreclosure market in 2012 is starting to cross our desk. So what headlines were we talking about this week?
This week we blogged about the Federal Reserve finally coming around and looking out for the homeowners, instead of the banks. A 26-page white paper released by The Fed offered up their suggestions on how to fix the broken housing market. They also finally came to the conclusion that government MUST come down harder on lenders. Some of the ideas offered up by The Fed may be tough for Congress to swallow, but we believe they have a good chance of keeping more people in their homes.
We particularly liked the idea of turning more foreclosed and vacant properties into rental homes (so much better for the neighborhoods) and the need to offer principal reduction to more homeowners. Roy Oppenheim expands on this issue in his latest “From The Trenches” video.
Foreclosures were in steep decline across the country in 2011, including a 67 percent drop here in Broward County, according to RealtyTrac. Thanks to the ‘robo-signer’ scandal, lenders were suddenly much more careful about bringing foreclosure cases to the courts. While that is likely to continue in 2012, Roy Oppenheim told the Sun-Sentinel that things could start to pick up.
“It’s going to pick up, but it’s not going to be insane like it was,” he explained.
Palm Beach County also saw a significant drop last year, 58 percent, while Florida was down 63 percent, RealtyTrac reported. (more…)
Finally!!!It’s a word that is being bantered about the hallways of Oppenheim Law all too often these days, and thanks to the Fed’s recent comments on the foreclosure crisis, it’s been thrown around at rapid-fire pace these last few days.
Through a 26-page white paper which highlighted the “extraordinary problems plaguing the housing market”, officials at the Federal Reserve have told policymakers on several congressional banking committees that the government must step up and take a more active role in fixing the mess that they themselves have helped create.
Up until now the Fed has kept their fingers out of the housing market, but even they now realize the far-reaching impact the foreclosure crisis is having on the overall economic climate. In the white paper they offer up several suggestions, such as reducing the barriers to converting foreclosed homes into rental properties, and loosening the grip on lending standards in order to help the market recover.
The Fed now wants harsher action from Congress on America’s top lenders, and Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin even told a conference at the Association of American Law Schools that the Fed “must impose penalties for deficiencies that resulted in unsafe and unsound practices.”
It must be time to check our subscriber list to the South Florida Law Blog, because it sure looks like our friends at the Fed are on it!
We’ve suggested for a while now that turning foreclosed homes into rental properties is an obvious and logical step. For years banks have collected homes like animals in Noah’s Ark, and now it’s time to put this inventory to good use. 60 Minutes showed us what happened when these homes go empty, so why not put good people in these homes! The government may not like the idea of becoming a landlord, but really isn’t it better than the alternative!! This mass inventory of foreclosed homes can be an asset for our government if more of them are rented out, instead of being a detriment. (more…)
Banks will need to clean up their circus “act” in 2012 when it comes to Florida foreclosure cases thanks to a series of stinging decisions handed down by the 4th District Court of Appeals that could be the gift that keeps on giving for Florida homeowners.
The court finally realized the banks must have the proper authority before they proceed in the foreclosure process. For years I have been saying the banks have systematically been cutting corners in the foreclosure defense process by not having the requisite power to bring their cases.
In this most recent case, Robert McLean vs. JPMorgan Chase, Chase, which was seeking to foreclosure on McLean’s Broward County home, claimed the note from the borrower was “lost, stolen or destroyed.” I call shenanigans on that claim. The truth is banks were in such a rush to move forward that they just never bothered to check their own paperwork.
McLean sought to squash the foreclosure because he said that Chaseultimately could not prove they were the owner of the note. In fact the assignment of mortgage, which is a document which indicates that a mortgage has been transferred from the original lender, which Chase produced to the court was signed three days AFTER the first foreclosure complaint was filed by the bank.
The 4th DCA, in our eyes, had no choice but to reverse a lower court’s decision and side with the homeowner. As the saying goes, possession is nine tenths of the law, and in this case, Chase was left holding an empty bag. The court noted that if there was “substantial doubt about the note” that the bank should dismiss and refile the case, and it was clear from Chase’s lack of concrete proof that they had no legal standing in this case.
As 2011 got underway we were presented with a fascinating yet disturbing report by the Florida Association of Court Clerks called “Unfair, Deceptive and Unconscionable Acts in Foreclosure Cases”. It brought these horrible practices into the harsh light of day.
“What we got from this is the state has had the opportunity to see where the laws have been broken,’ Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller Sharon Bock said at the time, “and frankly, it is in large part thanks to the work of the defense attorneys.
We cited April Charney from the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid and Peter Ticktin and many others wonderful attorneys who have taken bank officers’ depositions, challenged judges rulings and fought the good fight for the Florida homeowner.
Somewhere along the line, the overly ambitious bankers on Wall Street had the “great idea” of slicing and dicing the interest of the Promissory Note and literally severing it from your Mortgage. Why? Convenience,expediency, and, arguably, greed. And much like Humpty Dumpty after his great fall, the banks couldn’t bring the mortgages and their corresponding Notes all back together again. The banks were accused of fraud and perjury trying to do just that.
If Americans are right, 2012 will finally be the magic year for the housing market. Over 2,000 adults were polled by Trulia and RealtyTrac , and the majority, 22 percent, said most Americans think the housing market will fully recover in the new year. A mere 10 percent thought a recovery would happen this year, while nearly a quarter of those surveyed predicted a bumpy road until 2015 and beyond. (more…)
