Posts Tagged ‘Attorney General’

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Where’s Waldo? Where’s a Copy of the Mortgage Settlement?

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Just like Waldo, a copy of the mortgage settlement is awfully hard to find.

The dust has finally settled on last week’s mortgage settlement.

It dominated the news cycle once the details of the agreement broke. I spent the bulk of my day a week ago talking to the media and weighing in on it’s significance.

But there is one clear question that I haven’t heard anyone been able to definitely answer yet.

Has anyone seen the darn thing, in it’s entirety? I sure haven’t!

I’ve seen press releases from the states, plenty of summaries, and an extensive statement from Attorney General Eric Holder. So there are details that are out there. But the document itself?

Right now Waldo is easier to find.

No formal agreement has been filed with the courts and we hear it may not even be completed!

And according to my friends at the Crew of 42 Blog, Congress hasn’t seen a copy of it either.

Maryland congressman Elijah Cummings is quoted in Crew of 42 as saying he wasn’t concerned that he hadn’t seen a copy and that he trusts his attorney general.

Color us slightly more skeptical.

A website was set up explaining the details of the settlement the day it was announced, but where the actual settlement is supposed to be it just says coming soon.

For a government that prides itself on being transparent, this just can not stand.

President Obama may be reengaged and all signs point to him being back on the side of the homeowner, but there are plenty who remain unconvinced and this doesn’t exactly help.
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Posted in Foreclosure Defense, Mortgage Settlement, President Barack Obama, Robosigning, Roy Oppenheim | 1 Comment »

Homeowner’s Super Bowl — Clock Winding Down on Robo-Signing Settlement

Monday, February 6th, 2012

Courtesy: New York Giants

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.
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Posted in Eric Schneiderman, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Fraud, robosigning settlement | 6 Comments »

Obama and the State of the Union — a Political Jekyll and Hyde?

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Leading up to the State of the Union, we heard a lot of chatter that a proposed $25 billion settlement with the banks would be a selling point in President Obama’s speech.And maybe it would have been, had President Obama delivered the State of the Union. But clearly the person we saw last night addressing Congress was candidate Obama, who is a very different individual.

The State of the Union, at times, felt more like a stump speech that an address from a sitting president. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Obama finally sounded like someone willing to play tough with the banks with his ‘No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts’ line. Only time will tell if this is a true change in the President’s perspective, or if he’ll go right back to being the same man who handed out bailouts like candy.

We were glad to see Obama acknowledge that Wall Street was playing by its own rules, but he had a hand in allowing them to do so, so we hope he understands if we’re still a bit skeptical.

Right before the State of the Union, the Huffington Post broke the news that New York Attorney General Eric Scheniderman has been named to lead a new Unit on Mortgage Origination and Securitization Abuses, which could be a real game-changer. Like the editorial team at Oppenheim Law, Schneiderman has been a vocal critic of the aforementioned settlement.

He has been very tough on the White House’s foreclosure policies before, so maybe we’ll finally see the accountability and thorough investigation that we’ve been demanding.
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Posted in Florida Law News, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud, Obama | 2 Comments »

NY Times columnist backs Oppenheim in denouncing proposed foreclosure settlement

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

NY Times backs foreclosure expert Roy Oppenheim's opinionFlorida homeowners might have a new definition for bank robbers… With details now coming to light on a possible deal between banks and the state governments, it’s seems the chances of these financial institutions being held accountable is less and less likely.

South Florida law blogger and foreclosure attorney Roy Oppenheim strongly opposed the deal, which is being sought by state Attorneys General including Florida’s Pam Bondi, in a recent FOX newspiece. Now New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgensen has backed up Oppenheim’s assertion that the deal, in its current proposed form, is not worth the potential relief that it might provide to homeowners.

Oppenheim called the reported $20-25 billion dollars in principal that homeowners would be forgiven for “a drop in the bucket” and now Morgensen reports that deal would only cost the banks between 3.5 and 5 billion dollars in actual cash, to be paid by about a dozen or so institutions. The rest of the banks’ penalties would come in the form of credits.

While HUD secretary Shaun Donovan insisted in the Times article that the settlement will hold banks accountable, both Morgensen and Oppenheim remain unconvinced. Oppenheim told FOX the deal isn’t worth a “deal with the devil”, and that it robs homeowners of the chance to bring legal action against the banks.

And will it really provide the relief homeowners are seeking?? The Times piece points to a 2008 settlement involving Countrywide Financial that promised $8.7 billion in relief to borrowers in Illinois and California that failed to deliver anything close to that. And California is one of several states that has backed out of this current negotiation.
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Posted in Bank Fraud, Daily Business Review, Florida Law News | No Comments »

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