Category: prima facie case

HEARSAY OBJECTION AND LACK OF FOUNDATION: How Lockbox and Separate Processing Agreements Divert Money and "Servicing" Functions to Undisclosed Third Parties Acting on Behalf of the Investment Bank Who Originated the Transaction with the Homeowner.

February 15, 2023

From LoanDepot quarterly report, 2022: The Company derives income primarily from gains on the origination and sale of loans to investors, income from loan servicing, and fees charged for settlement services related to the origination and sale of loans. Not one word about revenues or profits arising from the receipt of principal and interest from borrowers. But people who have done business with Loan Depot (and there are thousands of them) all think they borrowed money from Loan Depot. So when they see a document purpotedly endorsed or assigned from Loan Depot, it make sense. But it is a lie.

How Foreclosure Mills Win by Misusing "Judicial Notice"

February 10, 2023

Hat tip to summer chic Judicial Notice is a rule of evidence in which the court receives a written request to accept a document into evidence as proof of the truth of the matter asserted. In Foreclosures, the truth of the matter asserted is that there is an unpaid loan account, and the named plaintiff or beneficiary has the right to administer, collect and enforce it. If that is alleged in a form that is allowed by law, and proven in the manner allowed by law, the foreclosure will be granted. I might add, that it should be granted to

The irrefutable logic at the foundation of all successful foreclosure defense narratives

February 2, 2023

The mortgage lien is designed to protect against financial loss — not to promote financial gain. If Wall Street wants to protect the financial gains it created from its crazy scheme using weapons of mass financial destruction, then the least it should do is share a little of that with homeowners, consumers, the government, and investors. * I continually get the same question, mostly because neither the homeowner nor the “investigators” understand anything about being a licensed, educated, experienced investment banker, lawyer, or accountant. If they were any of those, they would not ask the question. * The latest question

FCRA Might Be Fertile Ground for Individual and Class Actions Especially under CFPB Rules

May 3, 2022

if the CRC does not perform the investigation or performs it incorrectly, you can sue them. In a world where the ability to access credit matters more than the ability to access savings, nothing could be more important than these provisions under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Anyone who read the book or saw the film “The Firm” knows that it is often a boring statute that can take down the worst offenders. It was mail fraud in that story. For more information ask the descendants of Al Capone who died in prison of syphilis after being convicted of

Interpleader Might Be Useful in Revealing the Absence of Any Unpaid Loan Account

April 28, 2022

One of my constant comment contributors recently informed me and others that she was trying a new tack. She writes “My attorneys are making a demand that any refi money be placed with the Court and that the judge decides who he wants to pay.” This is very close to an Interpleader action which is virtually unknown amongst laypeople and many lawyers. In an interpleader action, a party says to the court I have this asset and there are two conflicting claims to get it from me. In its purest form, the Interpleader says that he doesn’t care who gets

Notices To and From Servicer Might Mean Nothing at All

April 18, 2022

In homeowner finance, ALL claims start with notices from third parties with whom the homeowner has previously had no communication. My suggestion is that homeowners start challenging those letters, statements, and notices as soon as they arrive. Such challenges make “tracks in the sand” for later use in litigation. But the real issue arises repeatedly because the condition precedent to foreclosure about which there is no dispute is that first there must be a declaration of default. And in the world of securitization, there is no creditor, loan account, or any loss or ven risk of loss arising from a

How Evidence Works for and Against the Consumer/Homeowner

April 7, 2022

(Once again, because of minor medical issues I decline to do the Neil Garfield Show. I offer this instead) It is easy to get lost in the weeds. Don’t make up your own words or definitions because your definitions have no relevance to your case. Do hold the accusing side to their words and to the legally accepted definitions of those words as contained in statutes and cases. But above all, start at the beginning — a rookie mistake made by nearly all young litigators and pro se litigants who skip over the gold to pick up a few pieces

Why the UCC Matters in Foreclosure Cases

April 5, 2022

The problem as illustrated by many scholarly articles and articles on this blog is that courts are given to treat plaintiffs and claimants as holders in due course without anyone asking them to do so. The first thing you need to know about Foreclosure is that it is only about money. If you have the money and you pay it, there is no claim — or at least no claim against you. You might have a claim against a “debt collector” seeking to enforce a nonexistent debt for a nonexistent claimant. The second thing to remember is that, by definition,

"Payment History" is not the loan receivable account

February 2, 2022

The payment history is not the loan receivable account by definition and it is never presented as such. Failure to recognize this obscure fact often results in failure. But those who do understand it, raise their chances of a successful defense from unlikely to very likely. A lawyer (Scott Stafne) shared with me a case that he is apparently working on. This case is interesting because the lawyer for the homeowner has filed the final round of motions in the discovery cycle, which is a Motion in Limine — i.e., a motion to limit testimony from the sole robowitness expected

Getting a piece of the pie: How securitization can work FOR homeowners and not against them

January 19, 2022

There is no sale of the obligation, note or mortgage and so there is no securitization of debt. By splitting the attributes of behavior from the provisions of the executed documents and changing the description of the behavior, an investment bank could, in essence, sell the apparent debt an unlimited number of times without ever recording the sale of the debt, note or mortgage. In most instances, the “closing” of a transaction with a homeowner results in the issuance of a note and mortgage promising payment that is not supported by any reciprocal consideration. In most of the other cases, the “closing” results in very

How Those Refi's Were Turned Into Gold by the Investment Banks

January 12, 2022

Most people cannot conceive of why they should have been paid more at the purported “Closing” of their transaction than what they received or what they think was paid on their behalf. * But the bottom line is that in most cases, whether the transaction involved a resale of the home or “refinancing,” only a fraction of the money you thought was transacted was actually present. It’s not just that they should have been paid more — it is that the homeowner did not receive the money he or she promised to pay back. This fact is part of a

THREADING THE NEEDLE: IT IS WHAT THEY DON'T SAY THAT REVEALS THE TRUTH — AND YOU CAN USE IT!

January 5, 2022

So talk about splitting hairs — here is a statement from a company that is claimed by third parties to be the servicer of a “loan.” Note that the parties making the claim do NOT swear that PennyMac is servicing claims to administer, collect and enforce for them, but rather for some unknown creditor or some other entity that does NOT make such a claim. Think about that. Here is the quote: PennyMac, who, as the loan servicer, is authorized to accept payments for your loan. And here is the analysis of that statement: PennyMac IS authorized, although not by

Why I Think Homeowners Are Entitled to Receive a Second Payment From Investment Banks

January 4, 2022

All homeowners who think they have a mortgage loan have received one payment at a “closing” — or a payment allegedly made on their behalf. For reasons explained elsewhere on this blog, such payments on their behalf are mostly fictional where the underlying investment bank is the same “director” of funds. * The significance is that a second tree springs up in which the scheme described below is duplicated — with little or no cost to the investment banks. Each time the myth of “refinancing” is employed a new securitization tree springs up with dozens if not hundreds of branches.

Destroying, Hiding or Fabricating Evidence: Doctrines Regarding Spoliation of Evidence

December 28, 2021

The latest issue of the Florida Bar journal contains several interesting articles. One of them is entitled “Spoliation of Evidence and Non-party witnesses.” The author is Gary M Glassman, who is the attorney for Daytona Beach. The major points of the article that I think are relevant to Foreclosure Defense litigation are that (A) spoliation has a very broad meaning and (B) the refusal to produce documents that are relevant to the case at Bar raises an inference in favor of the homeowner, and might even give rise to a cause of action for damages. Foreclosure lawyers have long relied

Stop Using the Labels: Homeowners Lose Foreclosure Cases When They Refer to the "Servicer"

December 27, 2021

You need to challenge the status of the company claiming to be a servicer by finding out what functions they really perform. * I know I have contributed to the problem, but I think it’s time to stop using the labels that are promoted by the banks. * Companies that are claimed to be the “servicer”, by all accounts, do not perform any functions normally attributed to that label. This it is against the interests of the homeowner or the lawyer representing the homeowner to accept the use of the term unless there is foundation testimony as to the actual

Why You Need to Perform Investigation of Real Facts in the Real World

December 22, 2021

I state with great confidence that among those homeowners who perform and achieve a slam dunk win over the foreclosure lawyers, the great majority enjoy that victory because they did the investigation and hired a lawyer who knew what to do with the information (as opposed to slinging it at the judge and expecting the judge to make sense of it). Question received from one of the readers of this blog: “I’m trying to understand how a house in NJ. Is alleged to be notarized in Florida and recorded by a company in Idaho (whose Name of course, is not

You Can Use This As a Template for How I Would Respond in a Discovery Dispute — Especially with Wells Fargo, Fannie Mae and Wachovia as the Originator

December 14, 2021

In a dispute between the attorney for the homeowner and the attorney for the alleged “lender”, there are a number of devices that are nearly universally applied across the country in order to ridicule and defeat the homeowner. The more you are aware of them, the better you will be prepared to deal with them. Opposing counsel is instructed to accomplish several things (winning being the last of the things on his or her menu). First, the idea is to undermine the confidence of the homeowner and to undermine the confidence of the lawyer for the homeowner in any defense

Tonight! Q&A on Prelitigation Strategies — QWR, DVL and Complaints to CFPB and State AG 6PM EST 3PM PST

December 9, 2021

Thursdays LIVE! Click into the Neil Garfield Show Tonight’s Show Hosted by Neil Garfield, Esq. Call in at (347) 850-1260, 6 pm Eastern Thursdays As a follow-up to our FREE presentation CLE webinar on Prelitigation Strategies and Practices, we offer an open mike Q&A on tonight’s show. Please think about your questions in advance and refrain from long monologues about your case. As an introduction let me state the obvious premise of this work: If as a consumer you have executed a promissory note and mortgage (or deed of trust) and you think that there is a loan account receivable somewhere

"Black Knight": Banks Are Peddling A False National Narrative of Declining Foreclosures

December 7, 2021

I’m busy today so I can’t publish my usual long analytical article. But one thing that is constantly staring at me is the fact that the national press and news releases are in basic conflict with local media. And the fact that local media is going out of business isn’t helping. Black Knight is a company whose size and reputation is entirely based upon preparation, presentation, and use of false documents and information that were forged, robosigned, and back-dated. Those were the days when it was called Lenders Processing Services in which DOCX was used to produce the false documents.

Magna Bank, N.A. as Trustee for registered holders of certificates issued under the name of the Macandcheese Acquisition Trust, Inc. an inactive corporation, for a nonexistent trust, series 2022-XL-1

December 6, 2021

So a friend of mine left her phone in my car. Here is what I wrote to her: Thank you for leaving your phone in my possession, which as you know is 9/10s of the law. That means that even though you paid for it and you received ownership from the seller, I can now claim it as my property. So by possessing the phone I was able to issue and sell several certificates based upon the possible rental income I would receive from you for access to the phone you already own. * I told the buyers you had scheduled payments

How Could This Not Be a Loan?

December 3, 2021

if the investment bank paid the homeowner as an incentive payment rather than as a loan, then there is no debt any more than salary or wages can later be called a loan. The fact that the consumer/homeowner thought or even wished it were otherwise makes no diffeerence. If I pay you money and you think it is a loan but I paid you for services you rendered, the substance of the transction is “fee for services” — not a loan — and there is no legal or ethical or moral obligation to pay it back. I think the one

Here is How Wall Street Smoke and Mirrors Works

December 1, 2021

The idea that some company bearing the label of “servicer” is performing financial functions and accounting on behalf of an investor, a trust, a trustee is completely false from end to end. Such companies do nothing and were never intended to do anything except act as a buffer, in name only, to prevent liability attaching to investment banks who had entered the lending marketplace without any intent to enter the business of lending money for profit. But when the homeowner admits that such labels and narratives are true, the law of the case becomes the false narrative and labels. As

How Likely Is It That a Homeowner Will Win a Foreclosure Case?

November 30, 2021

The answer to this question depends upon the homeowner — not the judge. * If the homeowner rigorously, aggressively and persistently seeks enforcement of the rules of civil procedure, the rules of discovery, the rules of evidence and enforcement of court orders, the chances of quite good that the homeowner role reach a very favorable result. * If the homeowner attempts to make a claim or state and affirmative defense that requires proof of malfeasance by the opposition (or anyone else), probability of failure is extremely high. * The general consensus has accepted the proposition set forth in the national

The fallacy of construing negative decisions as bad decisions for homeowners

November 29, 2021

It’s not the job of courts to save litigants from their own admissions. Here is a simple rule: if you admit the existence of the loan account receivable and you admit the rights of the servicer and the currently named claimant, you have no viable basis to challenge standing or enforceability. “Yes, but” doesn’t count in court. Here is the other rule: if you challenge the existence of the loan account receivable and deny the rights of the servicer and the currently named claimant consistently, starting with the first notices and correspondence that you receive after the apparent “closing” the