"The fraud is the norm." Hey Obama, how about halting all foreclosures until this paperwork debacle is straightened out? His response: No, that would be bad for the economy (banks). That's really funny, because during the 2008 campaign, Obama called for a Foreclosure Moratorium. But now that he's in office, he does the opposite. Shouldn't there be a law against that?... in fact, almost no bank currently foreclosing on homeowners has a reliable record of who owns the loan; in some cases, they have even intentionally shredded the actual mortgage notes. That's where the robo-signers come in. To create the appearance of paperwork where none exists, the banks drag in these pimply entry-level types — an infamous example is GMAC's notorious robo-signer Jeffrey Stephan, who appears online looking like an age-advanced photo of Beavis or Butt-Head — and get them to sign thousands of documents a month attesting to the banks' proper ownership of the mortgages.
This isn't some rare goof-up by a low-level cubicle slave: Virtually every case of foreclosure in this country involves some form of screwed-up paperwork. "I would say it's pretty close to 100 percent," says Kowalski. An attorney for Jacksonville Area Legal Aid tells me that out of the hundreds of cases she has handled, fewer than five involved no phony paperwork. "The fraud is the norm," she says.
More Good News: It may well be that the banks lost 100% of the paperwork!
MERS intended to provide an electronic registry of all mortgages. By appointing a "vice president" in every financial firm, it believed that all transfers of lien rights among these firms were "in house". Hence it operated on the belief that no subsequent public recording was necessary, and no further endorsement of the mortgage note was necessary for in-house transfers of the payment intangible as it kept a record of transfers of the mortgage. It claimed to be a nominee of these firms (purported to hold the mortgage) but also to be the holder of the mortgages including the "Unidentified Indorsees In Blank" -- mortgages that were never properly endorsed over to purchasers. We know, however, that MERS recommended that mortgage servicers retain notes, so MERS's claim to be the holder rests on its claim that appointed VPs are employees. But these employees are not an agent/employee of the "Unidentified Indorsee In Blank", nor are they paid by MERS or in any way supervised by MERS.In other words, the banks set up this MERS agency to help them bundle the mortgages and sell them as AAA securities as fast as possible. But in their need for speed, they just skipped out on all the important paperwork. Ooops!
This practice is in violation of numerous laws. Property law requires filing sales in the public record. Notes must be affixed (permanently) to the security instrument -- a mortgage without the note has been ruled a "nullity" by the Supreme Court. MERS's recommended business practice (with the servicer retaining the note) would make the mortgages a "nullity". A complete chain of title is required to foreclose on property -- every sale of a mortgage must be endorsed over to the purchaser, and properly recorded. Without this, it is illegal to foreclose on property -- no matter how many payments the homeowner has missed.
And now it's coming back to haunt them.
No comments:
Post a Comment