Posts Tagged ‘fannie mae’

Drug Dealer or Florida Homeowner: Who Does Constitution Really Protect?

Monday, December 19th, 2011

The Oppenheim Law editorial team found this ironic: A drug dealer has more constitutional rights to protection from the government in his home than your average homeowner in foreclosure.

In a case being appealed to the United States Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme Court recently held that because the “home” has a long standing history of receiving additional constitutional protect

Interestingly enough, the U.S. government, through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, is the single largest investor of residential mortgages. So what this really means is that the government can steal your house through bad loan paperwork and fraudulent foreclosure practices, but the local drug dealer is safe from a sniff by Franky the Drug Sniffing Dog.ions, using a drug sniffing dog outside the front door of a drug dealer’s house constituted an illegal search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Yet this same court has allowed banks and investors to use the lower courts in Florida as their own private collection agency.

This is yet one more example of the absurd turn that this country has taken during the real estate crash and subsequent foreclosure crisis, putting the government into the position of protecting the sanctity of a home owned by a drug dealer violating criminal laws, while stripping the same protections from one who is just down on his financial luck, in part due to the banks themselves.

The English belief that “every man’s house is his castle” formed the basis of the Fourth Amendment, and yet now has been convoluted to only protect criminals from prosecution, while leaving homeowners in foreclosure high and dry against a system that steamrolls their constitutional rights in the interest of protecting big banks, Wall Street, and now Uncle Sam.
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Foreclosure Headlines: Robo Signer/ Whistle Blower Dead, Occupy The Street; Homeowner Holiday Reprieve, Average Foreclosure Length Up, New Mass AG Sues Banks

Monday, December 5th, 2011
Roy Oppenheim Reports on Florida Foreclosure

The Florida Foreclosure Defense Headlines via Oppenheim Law

Notary behind robo-signing scandal found dead

A whistle-blower who brought a massive case to light was found dead inside her Nevada home.

Officers found the body of Tracy Lawrence, 43, after she failed to show up for a 8:30 a.m. court appearance, Las Vegas station KSNV reported. She was supposed to be sentenced for her role in the fraud case, but she never arrived and her lawyer said he was concerned for her well-being, so the judge dispatched officers to her home.

Detectives have ruled out homicide, KNSV reported, but it’s not known if Lawrence died of natural causes or if she took her own life.

The week before, she pled guilty one criminal charge of notary fraud, after she admitted that she had notarized around 25,000 fraudulent documents as part of a foreclosure fraud scheme.

Prosecutors allege title officers Gary Trafford and Geraldine Sheppard of California are behind the scheme that involved Lawrence, both were indicted on more than 600 charges in a 439-page indictment filed on November 16. Both are still at-large.

Homeowners join OWS movement

Last week 60 Minutes shined a harsh light on the homeless problem in Florida, that one third of the homeless families in America are from the Sunshine State. And two-thirds of homeless families are living on the streets. For them ‘Occupy Wall Street’ has literally become ‘Occupy The Street’.

If there is any positive to be had from this difficult news, it’s that the social stigma attached to losing your home is now gone, Oppenheim Law reports. For some underwater homeowners, foreclosure has become a form of protest, not unlike the OWS movement. But some are walking away willingly and protesting from their living rooms, while others are forced into their cars.
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Foreclosures to Rentals. Obama Finally Listens to Oppenheim Law

Wednesday, July 27th, 2011

Taking a cue from Oppenheim Law, the Obama Administration is mulling over plans to reduce the number of foreclosed homes on the market by renting them out, according to the Wall Street Journal.

As the large inventory of distressed homes on the market continues to push a reduction in home prices as well as an increase in rental prices, the government is thinking about renting the homes owned by Fannie and Freddie.

The proposal has two benefits:

  1. Reducing the amount of distressed homes for sale
  2. Clearing the surplus of homes currently unoccupied.

These benefits would be the keys to a successful housing market recovery. Increasing the amount of rental properties available can also stabilize rent prices, which have been going up as foreclosed families wait before buying another home.

While the benefits of the proposal are obvious, it is still just a proposal. It’s too bad the Administration did not listen to Oppenheim Law back in 2009 when we advocated using the inventory of foreclosed homes to benefit communities, instead of just letting them sit unoccupied and cause suburban blight.

The Government could easily enact the proposal by ordering Fannie and Freddie to sell their foreclosed homes to investors who promise to rent them out. The investors could then hire management companies to look after the houses. If the Administration decides to follow through with the plan, the Government might actually make money on the deal and help the housing recovery at precisely the right time for it: before the next wave of foreclosures hit. That way, the market can be more resilient when the next hit comes and absorb more losses.

Early “Fraud-closure” Warnings Ignored, Internal Fannie Mae 2006 Reports

Friday, March 25th, 2011

Black hat foreclosure has been an accepted practice since 2006? Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

As Florida’s top prosecutor continues to investigate the state’s law firms for improper foreclosure work, a report has surfaced showing Fannie Mae was warned in 2006 of abuses in the way lenders and their law firms handled foreclosures, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The fraud-closure problem that’s been snow-balling could have been minimized, if only the government paid attention to documented reports!

This internal report, produced years before regulators began investigating the mortgage industry’s practices, said Florida foreclosure attorneys “routinely made” false statements in court attempting to process foreclosures more quickly.

The report said Fannie Mae officials “believe foreclosure counsel are sacrificing accuracy for speed” but did not name any firms, the Journal said.

How ironic that the government has essentially known of the fraudulent, illegal practices of banks and the mortgage industry for five years, and is still trying to fix these catastrophic wrongs. Essentially, this equates to fraud, perpetuated by the idea that you can privatize profits and socialize losses.

And apparently this is what you get when the fox is asked to clean up the hen house.

It is also interesting to note that after the government took complete control of Freddie and Fannie in 2008 amid soaring loan losses, Florida foreclosure filings soared to unprecedented levels. This report proves that the government is to blame for our real estate debacle as much, if not more, than the banks who have taken the brunt of America’s scorn for years.
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