The OCC Misses the Point on Toxic Waste
By Daniel Edstrom
DTC Systems, Inc.
http://www.dtc-systems.net
We all see what we want to see. But when others control the conversation, it is easy to miss the point. As a regulator the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency should be taking the lead and controlling the conversation, but in reality, they have been bridled and are being led around by the nose. Conspiciously absent are numerous issues they as a regulator have the responsibility of dealing with. This article is timely in response to an article by Neil F. Garfield (http://livinglies.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/the-big-lie-banks-did-nothing-illegal/), which is a response to Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism article (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/12/more-msm-criticism-of-obama-nothing-illegal-here-move-along-stance-on-foreclosure-fraud.html), which is a response to a Reuters article (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/22/us-foreclosures-idUSTRE7BL0MC20111222). But I found none of these articles until I was finished writing this post. Take the following random and critical issues:
- Are the loans in the pool? Were the loans ever in the pool? Does the pool exist? Did the pool perfect interest in any of the loans? This issue is very political and the OCC in our opinion will never address this issue or look into this.
- What loans are in default? Can a loan be in default? What comes first, the default or the loss?
- Are there any compliance issues?
Continue reading “The OCC Misses the Point on Toxic Waste” »
Legal Standing At Inception
By Daniel Edstrom
DTC Systems, Inc.
No I am not an attorney and no I am not providing legal advice. This is the name of an article I just read posted on Neil Garfield’s LivingLies blog. The article is from Mark Stopa, an attorney in Florida. Read this article first and then come back and read my comments below: http://livinglies.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/legal-standing-at-inception/
When I saw the title, I thought awesome, they will go back to the origination of the loan. But they went back to the time the judicial foreclosure case was filed. This is a good argument and it should be fairly straight forward, or at least as straight forward as anything can be in a legal proceeding. What I was looking for was what I heard this last week from somebody. They went to bankruptcy court and told the judge that they had evidence that their loan was table funded, which means the named lender did not provide the money to fund the loan. The money to fund the loan came from an unknown and undisclosed third party. The bankruptcy judge made a simple statement. The judge said that if the named originator did not fund the loan, then they have nothing to transfer, and the movant in the motion for relief from stay (the bank) would therefore have nothing. This judge understands that the note is only evidence of the obligation, it is not the actual obligation. Transfer of the note or the security instrument (Mortgage, Deed of Trust, Security Deed or Mortgage Deed) without an interest in the obligation itself, is meaningless. That is the type of standing issue that I would like to see attorneys make in all states.
Is this why under Regulation “Z” table funded loans have the presumption of being predatory?
Oregon Does it to MERS Again
By Daniel Edstrom
DTC Systems, Inc.
Once again MERS is hammered, this time in Federal District Court by the Honorable Owen M. Panner. This judge understands clearly what is going on and has some serious questions. Read this case to understand securitization and foreclosures. Here are some highlights (there are many others):
Should the beneficiary choose to initiate non-judicial foreclosure proceedings, the Act’s recording requirements mandate the recording of any assignments of the beneficial interest in the trust deed.
Nobody held a gun to the head of the servicers and required them to use non-judicial foreclosure. They have the right to choose which action they wish to use – non-judicial or judicial. The problem in this case (and almost all other cases), is that the servicers are making the wrong choices. Why? Money, what else?. It is not their concern that they don’t qualify to use non-judicial foreclosures. It is not their concern that they have to strictly comply with statutes. In 90% or more of all cases the homeowners are walking away so nobody will know anyway right? Oops, now the titles have to be cleaned up because of the mess left behind by the servicers, which have all but destroyed the title records for foreclosed properties. This means that in the future, somebody else will have to file a judicial lawsuit to clean up the title for a property because the servicer made the wrong choice and failed to strictly comply with non-judicial statutes. By the way this problem is understated and far worse than anyone actually imagines or understands at this point.
The Internal Revenue Service is investigating the Tax-Exempt Status of REMICs
By Daniel Edstrom
DTC Systems, Inc.
Reuters has announced that “The Internal Revenue Service has launched a review of the tax-exempt status of a widely-held form of mortgage-backed securities called REMICs.” This comes after many years of homeowners, lawyers and securitization experts having discussed the shenanigans of Wall Street. The standard industry practice is that loans were never perfected into these REMICs, which required the loans as “qualified mortgages” to be in the REMIC within 90 days of the “startup day”, which corresponds with the trust “closing date”. However, in nearly every case we have seen, the REMIC servicers are doing an assignment of the security instrument into the trust after the loan is in foreclosure in order that whoever is foreclosing has the right to foreclose. Unfortunately once a loan is in default it is no longer a “qualified mortgage” under REMIC laws, not to mention that it is years past the REMIC “startup day”. Nor as Judge Arthur Schack puts it in New York, why is the trustee accepting the conveyance of a non-performing loan into the trust?
Specifically the article says “These banks’ transgressions, confirmed in court decisions and through recent action by federal bank regulators, include the failure to formally transfer ownership of mortgages to the trusts that invested in them and the subsequent creation of fraudulent mortgage assignments and other false documents.” Cease and Desist Consent Orders were just issued against Bank of America, Citibank, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, US Bank, Wells Fargo, Aurora Bank, EverBank, EverBank Financial Corporation, IMB HoldCo LLC, OneWest, Sovereign Bank, DocX, LPS Default and MERS. Just wait until the Securities and Exchange Commission decides to investigate Sarbanes-Oxley legislation against the statements these entities have made under oath with what the bank regulators found actually happened with them. Continue reading “The Internal Revenue Service is Investigating the Tax-Exempt Status of REMICs” »
