Regarding the National Mortgage Settlement with the big five servicers, the oversight group headed by Joseph A. Smith has issued its first report. https://www.mortgageoversight.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ProgressReport08292012.pdf You will note that the self-reporting servicers say they are doing awesome! They love them some short sales, that’s for sure. It’s fun to get Monopoly credit for deficiencies that you […]
Judge Posner on Eliot Spitzer’s Viewpoint show here: Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer sits down with federal Judge Richard Posner of Chicago’s Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to discuss his views on the 2008 financial crisis and the controversy surrounding how to interpret the Constitution — is it a living document or should we only […]
Remember how the AG National Mortgage Settlement money was supposed to go to help homeowners (who lawmakers keep threatening to help, since I don’t know, circa 2009, but there’s just never any money left after the taxpayers pay off the TBTF banks, and all of their counterparties, and stuff like that, see Neil Barofsky’s (Special […]
ReconTrust is a Bank of America company that pretends to be an independent trustee under deeds of trust serviced and sometimes owned by other Bank of America affiliates. The AG for the State of Washington took Recon to task for failing to meet the obligations of a trustee under Washington’s non-judicial foreclosure statute. WA-Recontrust Consent […]
We linked the oral argument to this case in the past. The Washington Supreme Court answered the following certified questions: Opinion: Bain v MERS IndyMac WA S Ct CERTIFIED QUESTIONS 1. Is Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., a lawful “beneficiary” within the terms of Washington’s Deed of Trust Act, Revised Code of Washington section 61.24.005(2), if […]
NY Times Article on Credit Card Suits: Lenders, the judges said, are churning out lawsuits without regard for accuracy, and improperly collecting debts from consumers. The concerns echo a recent abuse in the foreclosure system, a practice known as robo-signing in which banks produced similar documents for different homeowners and did not review them. “I […]
Go to the Daily Bail for the full post and the video of Barofsky. Good stuff. More embarrassing secrets revealed about Geithner’s penchant for protecting Wall Street, from a July 24 appearance by Neil Barofsky on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that left the panel stunned in disbelief. It’s a safe assumption that Tim Geithner now regrets […]
Hoffman on “Rulemaking in the Age of Twombly and Iqbal” Lonny Hoffman has just posted on SSRN the above-titled paper. Abstract: In this article I am essentially trying to answer one critical question: Faced with the controversy triggered by the Supreme Court’s decisions in Bell Atlantic Co. v. Twombly (2007) and Ashcroft v. Iqbal (2009), particularly over […]
And this is one of the reasons that I miss Texas (although this is also the law—and used to be recognized as such—in Arizona, that a borrower can challenge the validity of an assignment). The good old Southern District (Houston) federal district court has this to say about the preposterous assertion that a homeowner lacks […]
I think this new case has good reminders about when it is appropriate for the court to grant equitable relief to a defendant and upon what basis and at what stage in the proceedings. Too often I see bank servicers argue that borrowers must be dismissed on the pleadings because they have not offered to […]
Beth Findsen Attorney 