Posts Tagged ‘housing crisis’
Friday, May 18th, 2012
States are taking settlement money right from under us!
It’s pretty hard to find a single housing advocate or foreclosure defense attorney, myself included, who didn’t find the national mortgage settlement to be, at the very least, flawed.
It may have been a necessary step to getting the housing market back on track, but we know that it didn’t come close to compensating homeowners who had been illegally kicked out of their homes, and in the end, the banks are getting off remarkably light for their robosigning crimes.
Which is why what a multitude of states are doing with some of the banks money is downright revolting.
At least a dozen states are taking tens of millions of dollars in direct payments from the settlement and treating them like a slush fund.
Let me explain.
Part of the settlement included $2.5 billion that was given outright to the states. Florida took in just over $334 million.
The settlement calls for these dollars to be used to “to avoid preventable foreclosures, to ameliorate the effects of the foreclosure crisis, to enhance law enforcement efforts to prevent and prosecute financial fraud, or unfair or deceptive acts or practices and to compensate the States for costs resulting from the alleged unlawful conduct of the Defendants.”
But much like much of the settlement overall, there is nothing in this language that has any real measure of enforcement. Some states are flat out ignoring these instructions and doing whatever they want with the money they are getting off the backs of good honest homeowners.
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Tags: banking, banking money, causes of the financial crisis of 2007 2009, charlie brown, enterprise community partners, foreclosure, foreclosures, housing crisis, housing market, jerry brown, money, mortgage, mortgage settlement, national mortgage, Pam Bondi, Real Estate, real property law, settlement, settlement money, settling, single house, spending, states, subprime mortgage crisis
Posted in Florida foreclosures, Mortgage Settlement, Pam Bondi | No Comments »
Friday, April 20th, 2012
Courtesy:Cesar Cabrera Photography
When President Obama stood before Congress and the American People three months ago and promised to hold those behind the housing crisis ‘accountable’, I was hopeful.
In the days that followed, his new field general Eric Schneiderman was unveiled and almost immediately action was taken.
When Schneiderman issued subpoenas, just days after the President appointed him to run his new Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, I thought that perhaps, FINALLY, a corner had been turned.
But it’s becoming clear to me now that the train that is the RMBS Working Group hasn’t left the station, and depending on who you believe, there may not even me a station built yet!
After those few weeks of full-court press by Schneiderman, there hadn’t been a peep about the status of the Working Group’s investigation. Yes it may have only been three months, yet I fear that the bold vision you and I were sold might turn out to be just another empty promise.
The press only turned its attention back to the Working Group after a brutal Op-Ed in the New York Daily News. The co-directors of the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation, a citizens coalition group, called Schneiderman out and said they had yet to see any footprint of the RMBS Working Group’s investigation.
The 55 staff members promised by Attorney General Eric Holder were nowhere to be found, the pair claimed.
Yet even this Op-Ed could only draw Schneiderman’s mouthpiece out of the woodwork, rather than the Attorney General himself.
Spokesman Danny Kanner refuted their claims, saying that attorneys and other investigators had already been hired, that we shouldn’t draw any conclusions by the lack of public announcements.
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Tags: attorney genreal, crisis, danny kanner, eric, eric holder, eric schneiderman, fixed income securities, forces, fraud, hoodwinked, housing crisis, investigation, mortgage backed security, mortgage fraud, Obama, residential mortgage backed securities working group, residential mortgage backed security, rmbs, rmbs working group, schneiderman, structured finance, task, task force
Posted in Eric Schneiderman, Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group | 3 Comments »
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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Tags: 4th and inches, ally financial, Attorney General, Bank of America, banking, banks, Citigroup, economics, Eric Scneiderman, foreclosed homes, foreclosure, foreclosure crisis, housing crisis, JP Morgan Chase, kamala harris, mortgage, national football league, new England Patriots, New York Giants, Oppenheim Law, Real Estate, real property law, robo, robosigning settlement, Roy Oppenheim, settlement, Super Bowl, Wells Fargo
Posted in Eric Schneiderman, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Fraud, robosigning settlement | 4 Comments »
Sunday, January 29th, 2012
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman
We here at the South Florida Law Blog decided to clock in a few hours this weekend, because if we didn’t we’d probably fall behind President Obama’s new man-in-the trenches Eric Schneiderman.
President Obama only announced this new investigative unit during Tuesday’s State of the Union, yet the “check”, or in this case the subpoena, is already in the mail.
If you were skeptical that Obama was still interested in the status-quo when it comes to the banks and doing business, may we present Exhibit A.
Eric Schneiderman is turning himself into a modern-day Elliot Ness.
You remember Ness don’t you?
The federal agent whose team of “Untouchables” couldn’t be bought off and helped bring down Al Capone?
Schneiderman too has the era of a man who will not be co-opted. If anyone can stay above the fray and not be reeled in by the banks and their money, he can.
Investigation Going After Cause of Housing Crisis
Schneiderman has stood up to the President before, openly opposing the settlement agreement that we here at the South Florida Law Blog have railed against. And now he is Obama’s point man for placing blame and creating accountability for causing the worst economic crisis in the US since the Depression.
Elliot Ness
The Huffington Post is reporting that outside of claims directly relating to robo-signing fiasco, the banks will not be released from the threat of prosecution for the vast majority of securities-related crimes.
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Tags: banking, Deconstruction the Black Magic of Securitized Trusts, economics, elliot, elliot ness, eric, Eric Scheniderman, eric schneiderman, federal reserve system, finance, fraud, housing crisis, IRS, mortgage backed security, mortgages, ness, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Obama, rampant, robo signing, Roy Oppenheim, schneiderman, SEC, securitization, securitized, securitized trust, South Florida, South Florida Law Blog
Posted in Eric Schneiderman, Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Foreclosure Fraud, Huffington Post, Mortgage Bankers Association, Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, Underwater Mortgage | 2 Comments »
Friday, January 27th, 2012
The South Florida Law Blog loves a good burger!
We’re finally starting to catch our breath, with the substantial amount of news we’ve seen come down the pipeline in the housing market this week.
President Obama’s State of the Union, and the apparent collapse of the federal government’s settlement with the banks have been our focus this week, and rightfully so. But there’s been lots of other stories that have crossed our desk this week, some big, some small, but all important.
Republicans Offer Unpopular Solutions for Housing Fix
Most of our attention has been on the President this week, but we’ve also been keeping our eyes of the Republicans as well. With the Florida GOP Primary just days away, the candidates have been descending on Florida as expected. Foreclosure, which has been long absent from the GOP discussion, has become a more focal issue this week.
Unfortunately, it feels like much of the talking points have focused on the candidates blaming each other for causing the housing crisis, and less on what they plan to do to fix it.
This excellent piece in The Street details all the remaining Republicans comments on foreclosure. They all have suggested a hands-off approach, and appear to be under the misguided notion that the market will correct itself on its own. Gingrich and Paul have made one-note villains out of the Dodd-Frank Act and The Federal Reserve, respectively.
Romney’s past comments about market correction have come back to haunt him as he tries to pass himself off as sympathetic to the homeowners’ plight. Frankly we don’t feel like any of the Republican candidates are looking out for the homeowners.
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Tags: Bank of America, Barack Obaama, David Stern, Dodd-Frank Act, Five Guys, Florida, Florida Attorney General, foreclosure mill, GOP, HAMP, housing, housing crisis, housing market, market correction, Pam Bondi, President Obama, republican, state of the union, TARP, The Federal Reserve
Posted in Florida Law News, Week In Review | No Comments »
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the economy at Shaker Heights High School,Shaker Heights, Ohio, Jan. 4, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
We really haven’t seen President Obama insert himself directly into the housing crisis, but there are rumblings that he may do just that during Tuesday’s State of The Union address.
The fact is that is what homeowners have been clamoring for. A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found 58% of Americans want the government to do more to help people keep homes.
According to HousingWire, Ohio senator Sherrod Brown told reporters today that there was evidence that Obama would address the robo-signing case which involves several major banks. A North Carolina congressman even said there were rumours that Obama would announce a settlement, something HUD secretary Shaun Donovan suggested last week was ‘very close’, as we mentioned in our Week In Review on Friday.
For the record, Obama’s press secretary refused to confirm any details, saying only that the President was “focused on the issue of housing”.
Between Dononvan’s comments and the recent white paper sent out by the Federal Reserve, it seems that more and more top government officials are finally realizing how important the housing market is to our economic recovery, not to mention their own political survival.
This is not news to us here at the South Florida Law Blog.
In the Huffington Post last September, Roy Oppenheim called housing the “thousand pound gorilla in the room” in the 2012 election, as many of the states with the highest underwater mortgages, such asFlorida, are also key electoral swing states. The pressure on Obama to be more aggressive on the banks is growing in Washington, and it’s about time.
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Tags: barack obama, foreclosure, gallup poll, housing and urban development, housing crisis, HUD, Huffington Post, president, President Obama, principal reduction, republican, Roy Oppenheim, shaun donovan, sherrod brown, state of the union, usa today, Wall Street Journal
Posted in Federal Reserve, Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Foreclosure Defense, Huffington Post, Obama, Roy Oppenheim, The Wall Street Journal | 3 Comments »
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Florida Real Estate Goes From Bad to Worse…
Securitized Trusts Face Scrutiny and Housing Crisis Now Worse Than the Great Depression Questions Roy Oppenheim.
From Bad...
Florida real estate is not alone. Serious questions are being raised about the validity and legality of mortgage backed securities, the negotiable instruments at the center of our country’s mortgage boom and subsequent bust.
Now, the state attorney generals of New York and Delaware, the two states whose laws govern the trusts in charge of mortgage backed securities, are investigating whether Wall Street properly bundled and documented the loans that they turned into securities.
The two attorney generals are investigating Bank of New York Mellon and Deutsche Bank, the two largest firms acting as trustees, who were supposed to be responsible for ensuring that the documentation of the securities was proper and complete.
Rules governing the securitization process are very complex, and there are specific steps to be followed to ensure the trusts comply with federal tax laws.
Serious consequences would result if the banks did not follow the proper procedures for establishing a chain of ownership of the loans through the securitization process including the rescission of beneficial tax treatment that trusts are normally given.
These Trusts actually put form over substance to the extent that form is the substance. If the Trustees really did not follow the law, the damages would likely be devastating.
To Worse…
Florida real estate can get worse? The housing crisis that resulted from these mortgage backed securities and Wall Street greed is now worse than the Great Depression.
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Tags: Florida real estate, Great Depression, housing crisis, Roy Oppenheim
Posted in Florida Law News | 1 Comment »
