WEEKEND EDITION, JANUARY 21 JANUARY 25, 2013

MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2013

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate.org Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

New York Congresswoman Seeks Inquiry on Costs of Foreclosure Reviews The high cost of reviewing foreclosures at big banks has ignited an inquiry by one member of Congress. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat who is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, has asked federal regulators overseeing foreclosure reviews to provide details about the independent contractors who examined borrowers cases. The contractors reportedly received more than $1 billion in fees for their work doing foreclosure reviews, which ultimately led to a $3.3 billion cash settlement for borrowers.

HSBC To Pay $249 Million In Foreclosure Settlement British bank HSBC will pay $249 million to settle federal complaints that its U.S. division wrongfully foreclosed on homeowners who should have been allowed to stay in their homes. The agreement with the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is similar to deals with 12 other banks that ended a review of loan files required under a 2011 federal action. Combined, the 13 banks will pay $9.3 billion. What Does the New Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Paper Tell Us? There are two major, critical questions that show up in the literature surrounding the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The first question is how much compliance with the CRA changes the portfolio of lending institutions. Do they lend more often and to riskier people, or do they lend the same but put more effort into finding candidates? The second question is how much did the CRA lead to the expansion of subprime lending during the housing bubble.

America's hardest neighborhoods

hit

foreclosure

Total foreclosure filings, including default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, were down 3% in 2012 compared with a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac's year-end foreclosure report. Yet while overall filings have plunged some 36% since the peak foreclosure year of 2010, some states are now seeing their foreclosure rates climb.

Records Confirm FBI Targeted Occupy Protests, Categorized As Terrorist Activity Records released by the FBI via a Freedom of Information Act request confirm earlier accusations of political policing regarding the Occupy movement. Even more disturbing, personnel within the FBI invoked the term domestic terrorismwhen referring to nonviolent protests while also coordinating opposition to the protests with banks and other private firms. The Partnership For Civil Justice Fund launched the FOIAs and has setup a webpage to review

Payback time: Florida foreclosing on banks

homeowners

Foreclosure standstill to be Oregon topic in new year The Oregon Legislature and Supreme Court have at least one definite topic on their agendas in the new year: finding a solution to the state's foreclosure standstill. Oregon's new foreclosure mediation program was supposed to give homeowners one last chance at keeping their homes. Instead, it brought out-of-court foreclosures to a halt. Faced with new.

Hundreds of homeowners and condo associations are foreclosing on banks that have failed to pay dues and other expenses on the properties they've repossessed. When banks foreclose on a home they become responsible for paying fees to the homeowners association -both any unpaid fees going back as far as 12 months and all expenses going forward.

BofA settling key lawsuit over Utah foreclosure Bank of America has agreed to a substantial settlement in a lawsuit by Utah homeowners in which an earlier ruling had raised serious questions about whether a unit of the bank had legally foreclosed on homes in Utah. But the state of Utah, which intervened in the case and filed its own complaint, has not signed off on the settlement and apparently wants to continue to assert its claim that the banks ReconTrust Co. unit, based in Texas, illegally carried out foreclosures in this state.

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WEEKEND EDITION, JANUARY 21 JANUARY 25, 2013

TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2013

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate.org Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

Borrowers get some legal leverage in CFPB servicing rules The national servicing standards drafted by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are finally making their way across the mortgage industry. One of the significant legal questions is whether an individual borrower, who claims a CFPB servicing rule has been violated, can bring the issue into court. In other words, do the CFPB guidelines like the California Homeowner Bill of Rights create a private right of action for borrowers to challenge servicing issues in court?

Strategies to Improve the Housing Market Strategies to Improve the Housing Market is a summation of recommendations from experts representing the mortgage origination, servicing and insurance industries, investors, industry associations, federal agencies and regulators, and nonprofits. The key strategies outlined in the paper focus on practical solutions that can be implemented quickly and rehabilitate the housing market to get it on a sustainable path going forward.

Project Manager: Provides key leadership for national foreclosure intervention grant program ESSENTIAL DUTIES / RESPONSIBILITIES Supervise grant application review process including: drafting Funding Announcement, notifying eligible applicants of their ability to participate in the program, drafting grant application, recommending scoring criteria, and working with Information Management Division to program application and grant review pages into NeighborWorks online grant application system.

Assessor's office was off the radar As the details of the case have emerged through a yearlong Times investigation and in court documents, it remains unclear how such a scheme could have gone undetected. So many of the steps were carried out in plain sight, leaving witnesses and an extensive paper trail. At least part of the answer lies in the obscurity the assessor's office, the lack of outside scrutiny and the sheer size of the property tax rolls, which make it difficult to detect reductions, even.

Protesters Removed From Van Nuys Home in Eviction Operation Nearly 100 personnel from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department carried out an eviction operation Thursday morning at a foreclosed Van Nuys home that became a rallying point for protesters. The home at 14620 Leadwell St. was at the center of a long-running neighborhood dispute. In 2007, Javier Hernandez bought the home, but his payments stopped after his adjustable rate increased.

Good Samaritans help Perris soldier in a foreclosure bind A military man and his family who lost their home to foreclosure had a very difficult deadline. They were locked out the day after Christmas and given almost no time to get all of their possessions out of the house by Friday. It was a mad dash the moment the gate opened. The Gunn family had just 60 minutes to gather everything they own. "My family is devastated and we don't know what tomorrow brings," said Tina Gunn.

Georgia Foreclosure Law In The Wake Of Recent Decisions There has been recent upheaval in Georgia foreclosure law resulting from several key cases decided in 2012. We do not summarize the cases here, but rather seek to analyze their decisions impact on Georgias non-judicial foreclosure process while we await the Georgia Supreme Courts response. In a sharply-divided decision, the majority held, as a matter of first impression, that Georgias foreclosure notice statute, O.C.G.A. 44-14-162.2(a), requires the person or entity.

Judge finds U.S. Bank in contempt in foreclosure case A circuit court judge found one of the largest banks in the country in contempt of court on Friday over a foreclosure case that has dragged through the system for several years. Attorneys for Dimitri Jansen, a local schoolteacher whose former home in North Port is in foreclosure, said such the contempt order against Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank, is unprecedented. Jansen says his mothers name was mistakenly added to the mortgage he obtained in 2006, that the bank has ignored requests to remove her name from the foreclosure documents and thus wrecked her credit history, and that the bank held up a pending short sale.

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WEEKEND EDITION, JANUARY 21 JANUARY 25, 2013

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2013

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate.org Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

BofA Foreclosure Reviews: Whistleblowers Reveal Extensive Borrower Harm and Orchestrated Coverup (Part I) As grim as this sounds, the conduct was worse than the leaks suggested. After extensive debriefing of Bank of America whistleblowers, we found overwhelming evidence that the bank engaged in certain abuses frequently, in some cases pervasively, in its servicing of delinquent mortgages. This is particularly important because Bank of America has been identified in previous settlements as far and away the biggest mortgage miscreant, paying over 40% of last years state/federal mortgage settlement among the five biggest servicers.

Homeless living in parking lots a reminder of foreclosure crisis Ed Nock has a lot of time to think about what went wrong with his short stint as a home owner now that he's living out of a van. He said he moved to South Carolina from New York last year and was out of his home shortly after. He said there are others like him and he doesn't want to see any more people fall victim to a bad mortgage deal.

State to distribute $60M for mortgage help Florida will give out $60 million in mortgage help as part of the national $25 billion foreclosureabuse settlement, Attorney General Pam Bondi said. "Floridians will now benefit from millions in down payment assistance, housing counseling, legal aid and better funded courts for foreclosure-related issues," Bondi said in a statement. The Legislative Budget Commission approved Bondi's proposal to distribute the.

Peoples struggle against home foreclosures advances in NJ The peoples struggle against foreclosures took a new turn before the New Jersey Court of Appeals here, Dec. 19. Foreclosure today is capitalism in chaos, a capitalism of swindling even on its own terms. New problems require new tactics of struggle. In early December, Attorney Adam Deutsch was invited to speak to the Coalition to Save Our Homes

Distressed home sales still hitting California's inland The percentage of distressed home sales is falling, but still remains elevated in Californias heartland, according to new California Association of Realtors data. Statewide, 35 percent of existing home sales in California last month were distressed, down from 50 percent in November 2011. But the percentages were higher in much of states inland portion, which is where home.

All Defendants Sentenced in $20M Mortgage Fraud Scheme All defendants in a $20 million mortgage fraud scheme have been sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis. A total of 10 defendants were convicted in the scheme whereby a former Dallas Cowboys linebacker used his name and fame, according to evidence in the case, to get business and further the mortgage fraud scheme. The defendants convicted and sentenced are

JPMorgan, Goldman Ask Judge to Dismiss Mortgage Lawsuit JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and other banks asked a New York state judge to dismiss a $1.8 billion lawsuit brought by residential mortgage-backed securities investors. The investors, which included Phoenix Light SF Ltd., sued New York-based JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and the other lenders in New York state Supreme Court in Manhattan in May, accusing them of making misrepresentations.

Detroit Land Bank Authority to take on 7,900 unsold properties from foreclosure auction The question of what is going to happen to the 7,900 properties that did not sell in the Wayne County foreclosure auction in October appears to have been answered. The Detroit News reports that the little-known, quasigovernment entity Detroit Land Bank Authority will be taking on the nearly 8,000 properties. MLive Detroit could not immediately reach Detroit Land Bank Executive Director Aundra Wallace for comment Tuesday morning. Wallace, who was named executive director in 2010, has a tall order ahead of him.

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WEEKEND EDITION, JANUARY 21 JANUARY 25, 2013

THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2013

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate.org Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

BofA Foreclosure Reviews: Whistleblowers Reveal Extensive Borrower Harm and Orchestrated Coverup (Part II) The whistleblowers, all of whom told their role would be to act as investigators and help borrower get compensation they deserved, described the review process as seriously flawed. Yet even with those obstacles, they saw abundant evidence of serious damage to borrowers. The whistleblowers reviewed 1600 borrower files in a live environment, and saw hundreds more in the attenuated start-up period.

The Street War Against Foreclosure In front yards, banks and courtrooms, activists fight to keep people in their homes. No One Leaves/Nadie se Mude, the Valleys foreclosurefighting guerrilla squad, won yet another victory January 11, when lender Fannie Mae agreed to a 30-day postponement of foreclosure on the home of Christine and Howard Clark at 114 Corona Street in Springfield. As soon as the Clarks got their eviction notice, which in.

Disabled man's family fights off foreclosure On March 2, 2012, 28-year-old Jaymes Draper crashed his motorcycle, leaving him brain damaged and paralyzed from the waist down. "It was about seven o'clock and the nurse surgeon came in and told me he didn't know if he was going to live," said Jayme's father Jim Draper. Jaymes lives at his home in Loris but before his injury, like many during this recession, he tried to restructure his home mortgage.

Weve Nationalized Market. Now What?

the

Home

Mortgage

Mortgage-interest deduction in jeopardy? Shirley Ann Stern is such a big Giants fan that she's buying a new one-bedroom condo near AT&T Park in Mission Bay. At $819,000, the onebedroom would be considered top of the line almost anywhere in the country but here, where it's just a notch above San Francisco's median home price. Being able to deduct all her mortgage interest from her taxable income makes the payments much more manageable, said Stern, who works as a software security.

At the height of the 2008 financial crisis, the country heatedly debated whether to nationalize the failing banking system. Both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations rejected that path as excessive government intrusion into the marketplace. Yet since then, with little planning and paltry public discussion, the government has almost completely taken over the American home mortgage market.

Homeowners Associations Rage War Against Renters Citing They Bring Down Property Values Citing a troubling trend taking place in the United States by HOAs and local governments to limit the number of renters in single-family home developments, Mr. Deegan called these restrictions misguided, discriminatory and based on societal and cultural stereotypes. As recently reported by USA Today, HOAs and many municipalities across the country are.

The real meaning of rising home prices The national median sales price of existing singlefamily homes hit $180,600 in November, 10.1% higher than a year ago, according to data released this morning by the National Association of Realtors. It marks the ninth consecutive monthly year-over-year increase, which last occurred from 2005 to 2006. Since January median prices have risen about 17%. But experts say that spike is largely due to the limited number of homes on the market.

CA Supreme Court Stops Banks Dead In Their Tracks We have heard for years how servicers and banks told homeowners to stop making their mortgage payments in order to qualify for mortgage modification. Then comes the lost papers 4-5 times and then comes the inevitable denial of a the mortgage modification as though anyone had ever considered it and as though the investors were contacted for feedback. The fact is, as the future litigation will point out and reveal in all its splendor, the foreclosers were out to foreclose not to settle, modify or otherwise resolve the situation.. All that changes with this very well-reasoned opinion. The Court clearly is beginning to see that the the without strict adherence to all the rules and all considerations of due process, the court system is being used as a vehicle for theft, fraud, forgery, fabrication and the destruction of peoples lives and livelihood.

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WEEKEND EDITION, JANUARY 21 JANUARY 25, 2013

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate.org Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

KY AG Conway Files Suit Against "MERS" In Foreclosure Investigation The lawsuit alleges that MERS violated Kentucky law by not recording mortgage assignments with County Clerks when mortgages were sold or transferred from one bank to another. By law, mortgage assignments must be recorded in the appropriate County Clerk's office and a $12 fee is collected by the clerks on behalf of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. "Kentucky's statute is clear. It requires assignments be recorded with County Clerks, and MERS directly violated that law by creating this system that provides no public record of sales or transactions and deliberately circumvents paying recording fees to states," General Conway said.

New look at plan to use eminent domain to seize troubled mortgages San Bernardino County and two of its cities last year created a national stir with a proposal to use eminent domain to seize troubled mortgages and write down debt for homeowners. That debate returns to the county this week, with the first public meeting on the matter since August scheduled for Thursday. Meanwhile, the San Francisco investment firm that initially pushed the plan, Mortgage Resolution Partners, is.

Ex-Prosecutor Mary Jo White Named to Top S.E.C. Post President Obama announced Thursday his nomination of Mary Jo White, a former federal prosecutor turned white-collar defense lawyer, to be the next chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In a short ceremony at the White House, Mr. Obama also said he was renominating Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a post Mr. Cordray has held under a temporary recess.

Fewer First-Time Buyers TWO recent national surveys of real estate agents suggest that first-time buyers are on the decline, their access to the housing market blocked by tight credit and eager investors. Roughly 3,000 agents surveyed by the National Association of Realtors from Oct. 22 to Nov. 5 reported that just 31 percent of their sales were to first-time buyers. Normally, first-time buyers represent closer to 40 percent of the market, according to the survey.

Illinois Supreme Court Holds Judgment of Foreclosure Not Immediately Appealable Under Illinois law, a judgment of foreclosure does not end a mortgage foreclosure case; it remains modifiable by the trial court and is strictly interlocutory. After such a judgment is entered, the property is sold once periods for reinstatement and redemption have expired. The person who conducted the sale then reports to the court and, upon motion, the court holds a hearing to confirm the sale, at which the defendant may challenge

A Mortgage Acquired Through Voluntary Purchase Agreement With FDIC Must Be Recorded In Kim v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA, the Michigan Supreme Court held that, where a mortgagee engages in a voluntary purchase agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), it must comply with MCL 600.3204 and record the assignment of the mortgage before foreclosing by advertisement. The court further held that failure to do so renders the foreclosure sale voidable, as.

Missouri Woman Pleads Guilty To Role in $2.8 Million Bank Fraud Against Two Tarp Banks This fraud scheme involved two banks that received funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, Ketchmark said. TARP was designed to help financial institutions recover from the economic downturn, not to provide a cash cow that dishonest business owners could plunder. We will hold those accountable who steal from public funds. By pleading guilty, Brandi Dukes admitted that she learned in 2010 that her husband had committed bank fraud by submitting false.

CA Supreme Court: Riverisland v. Fresno-Madera When fraud is proven, it cannot be maintained that the parties freely entered into an agreement reflecting a meeting of the minds. Moreover, Pendergrass has led to instability in the law, as courts have strained to avoid abuses of the parol evidence rule. The Pendergrass court sought to prevent frauds and perjuries (id. at p. 263), but ignored California law protecting against promissory fraud. The fraud exception has been part of the parol evidence rule since the earliest days of our jurisprudence, and the Pendergrass opinion did not justify the abridgment it imposed. For these reasons, we overrule Pendergrass and its....

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