Month: July 2012

Written by Beth Findsen Attorney

Special Servicers Receive Countrywide Mortgages En Masse

Housing Wire reports in its “Morning Cup of Coffee” Post: Countrywide is transferring mortgages to special servicers on certain deals in line with the servicing part of a proposed $8.5 billion residential mortgage-backed securities settlement proposed by The Bank of New York Mellon ($16.80 0.07%) and Bank of America($7.28 -0.03%) last year. As of June 26, Countrywide transferred 38,000 loans to Specialized Loan Servicing, Select Portfolio Servicing and Green […]

Written by Beth Findsen Attorney

Surprise, Surprise! Most CFPB Complaints Relate to Mortgages, Modification and Foreclosure

David Dayen wrote about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) release of information breaking down the complaints received so far: So the majority of the issues covered foreclosures and loan modifications. Keep in mind that CFPB didn’t start taking complaints until July 2011. That’s AFTER the robo-signing scandal, after all the revelations of faulty servicing, […]

Written by Beth Findsen Attorney

Mortgage Resolution Partners FAQs Regarding Proposed Eminent Domain Program San Bernadino County

Mortgage Resolution Partners, a “Community Advisory firm working to stabilize local housing markets and economies by keeping as many homeowners with underwater mortgages in their homes as possible” is suggesting that local municipalities use eminent domain to pry underwater mortgages away from the securitization trusts that proclaim to hold them, and the perversely-incentivized servicers that […]

Written by Beth Findsen Attorney

Twombly and Iqbal: the Federal Judicial Center’s Study of Motions to Dismiss

Hoffman’s Analysis of FJC Study of Twombly/Iqbal Published Professor Lonny Hoffman’s article, “Twombly and Iqbal’s Measure: An Assessment of the Federal Judicial Center’s Study of Motions to Dismiss” has just been published at 6 Fed. Cts. L. Rev. 1 (2012), available here. The abstract reads: This paper provides the first comprehensive assessment of the Federal Judicial Center’s long-anticipated study of motions […]

Written by Beth Findsen Attorney

Foreclosure News Links

Gretchen Morgenson writes about Neil Barofsky’s (former federal prosecutor who had the pleasure of being selected to police TARP) new book skewering the  crew of “complacent, bank-friendly Treasury officials” with whom he was expected to placate. Barofsky says, “The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so […]

Written by Beth Findsen Attorney

Rep. Brad Miller Weighs in on the Eminent Domain Fix

The biggest banks have delayed recognizing losses on seconds for years while paying dividends and lavish executive bonuses. Involuntary sales of seconds at fair market value would end fictitious valuations and require an immediate accounting loss, making dividends and executive bonuses much harder to justify and perhaps even revealing some banks to be insolvent. Rep. […]

Written by Beth Findsen Attorney

Oregon Appellate Court Says MERS Does Not Meet Statutory Definition of “Beneficiary”

In Niday v. GMAC Mortgage, LLC, No. A147430 (Or. Ct. App. July 18, 2012 ),Oregon’s appellate court has determined that MERS does not meet the definition of “beneficiary” as set forth in Oregon’s non-judicial foreclosure statute. This is consistent with some of the Oregon federal district court cases where the issue was thoroughly analyzed, such as James […]

Written by Beth Findsen Attorney

Equitable Balance in Non-Judicial Foreclosure States

Elizabeth Renuartof Albany has written Toward a More Equitable Balance: Homeowner and Purchaser Tensions in Non-Judicial Foreclosure States, 24 Loyola Consumer Law Journal 562 (2012). Here’s the abstract: We are now facing the fifth year of the fallout from the subprime mortgage meltdown. The economic crisis gripping the United States began when large numbers of homeowners defaulted […]

Written by Beth Findsen Attorney

Helen Purcell, Are You Listening? Register of Deeds Guilford County Strikes One For Protection of Land Records

Guilford County Registry of Deeds v. Lender Processing Services, et. al., from Guilford County’s Response to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss: Defendants filed thousands of mortgage documents with the Guilford County Register of Deeds containing: (1) flagrantly forged signatures, (2) illegal notarizations, and (3) perjured and other false statements of fact. Defendants may attempt to disagree with this […]