BANK AMNESTY AGAIN: Leaving Consumers to Fend (Litigate) for Themselves

Jan 28, 2013

“To someone who lost his house to mortgage servicer incompetence or malfeasance, that’s not restitution. It’s an insult. “The capped pool of cash payments is wholly inadequate in light of the scale of the harm,” says Alys Cohen, staff attorney for the National Consumer Law Center.” Adam Levin, abcnews.com

Editor’s Analysis: In case after case across the country it is readily apparent that there complete strangers making claims on mortgages, foreclosing, evicting and even collecting “Trial Payments” while they intend to do nothing other than Foreclose — because that is where the money is and because it is only through a foreclosure that they cap the losses and pass them onto investors despite having received large scale payments of insurance and other hedges.

The Banks have it their way despite the obvious unconscionable, illegal, immoral and unethical breach of trust between consumer and bank and between banks.

Whether it is the Chase WAMU deal, or the BOA countrywide deal, or the Indy-mac One West deal, the facts are in — we don’t need to theorize anymore — the banks are NOT the creditors, they cannot shows proof of loss, proof of payment or any financial transaction that would entitle them to enforce an invalid note or foreclose on an invalid, unperfected mortgage lien.

But the institutionalization of hypocrisy and deviant behavior on the part of the Banks has left us with “settlements” that settle nothing, leaving millions of homeowners who lost their homes to entities that received a windfall from the foreclosure process and the windfall from dual tracking “modification” reviews that were a pure sham designed only to get the homeowner in the deepest hole possible so that foreclosure would become inevitable.

At our members conference this Wednesday, we will talk about what is getting traction in the modification of mortgages and what is getting traction in the litigation of mortgage disputes.

The important thing to remember that is that the MONEY never came from ANY of the parties in the sham securitization chain starting with the originator. While there are exceptions — like World Savings — the truth defeats further claims regarding the Wachovia acquisition and then the Wells Fargo acquisition of Wachovia. Either the assignments were missing or they fabricated and forged.

If you ask yourself why they wouldn’t have had the assignments done all nice and proper which is the way the banking world works when BORROWERS must sign documents, you will feel uncomfortable with Wall Street explanations of volume causing the paperwork confusion. It was the exact same volume that produced millions of “originated” mortgages where the i’s were dotted and T’s were crossed —- that is, where the Borrower had to sign. The banks had no trouble then — it was only when the banks had to sign that there was a problem. Where the securitization participants had to sign was neither disclosed nor drafted nor executed.

The simple reason is that there was nothing to sign. There was no financial transaction where money exchanged hands which is why I am pounding on the point that the lawyers should be aiming at the money rather than the documentation. “For value received” means that value was paid or transferred. When you ask for the wire transfer receipt or cancelled check that shows payment and which would establish proof of loss, you are asking to see the transaction upon which the banks place all their reliance.

Their argument that they don’t need to show the actual transaction is a dodge to protect themselves from showing that the transactions in the bogus securitization scheme were all a sham. Your argument should be simple — they say they lost money and that the homeowners owes it. Let’s see the actual proof that they made the loan, lost the money and have not already been paid. The assignments are not accompanies by actual money exchanging hands which means that the assignment lacked consideration and was therefore an executory contract at best, pending payment.

Then you need to ask yourself why there was no consideration when you know that money was funded from somewhere for a loan to the “benefit” of your client (albeit based upon fraud in the execution and fraud in the inducement including appraisal fraud). YOU must tackle the basic issue in the mind of just about every judge — as long as the money was there at the “closing” of the loan, and the borrower signed the papers, and then defaulted on those promises, what difference does it make whether some OTHER papers were fabricated or even forged.

The fact remains, your client, in the eyes of the Judge, got the loan, agreed to the terms and then defaulted. In our world, when you default on a loan, judgment is entered, foreclosure is completed and eviction, if necessary proceeds. The banks have relied upon this perception for years which considerable success. The reason borrowers often lose in litigation is that they arguing about the wrong thing. As soon as they go after the documentation first they are going down a rabbit hole. It is a tacit admission that the loan was valid, the note is evidence of the loan and the mortgage secures the note. DENY and DISCOVER puts that front and center as an issue of fact in dispute.

By going after the money transactions and requiring proof of payment and proof of loss and asking for the accounting data that shows the loan receivable on the books of an entity, you are striking at the heart of the sham transaction.

If you ask me for a loan for $100 and I say “Sure, just sign this note,” and you go ahead and sign the note, what happens when I don’t give you the $100 loan. The answer, which has caused considerable confusion in the foreclosure defense world is that I can nonetheless sue you (on its face the note LOOKS like a negotiable instrument) , but I can’t win. Because if you deny that I ever completed the loan transaction by funding the loan to you, then I have to prove that I gave you the money. I can’t because I didn’t. My argument that you did receive a loan that day and therefore you owe me the money is a lie. You owe the money to whoever actually gave you the money.

At the closing of these loans originated by nominees with no power to touch the money and whose only source of income was fees, not interest on the loan, the borrower was fooled by the fact that the money showed up for the loan. It never occurred to the borrower to ask any questions since the paperwork, and all the disclosures required by law told him a story about the loan. The borrower could not possibly know that the story told by the documents, the documents he or she signed at closing were all a lie.

The Banks will take the position that everyone was authorized to make representations and act for everyone else — except when it comes to paying down the debts with money received from insurance and the proceeds of credit default swaps, federal bailouts etc. In THAT case the bank says it was not the agent of the investors and had no duty to either the investor or the borrower since the banks were the named insureds — made possible only because they purposefully put the name of a nominee on the note, a nominee on the mortgage (or even two nominees on the mortgage) so that the banks could open up a window of time during which they could claim ownership of the loans despite the fact that they had not funded one dime to originate or purchase any loan.

Thus if go for the money first and THEN show the the fabrication, forgery and perjury in documents, the case makes sense and can be presented to the court without giving one inch of admission that the loan, the note or mortgage were real, valid or enforceable. AND by sending a standard QWR and FDCPA letter, the banks have nowhere to hide. In litigation the motion becomes a petition to enforce the RESPA 6 inquiry and the FDCPA inquiry either through direct order or through discovery.

THEN you force the disclosure of the identity of the creditor who actually has a negative account balance on their books for the loan, directly or indirectly, and seek modification or settlement based upon the facts of the case. HAMP modification is impossible, settlement is impossible without first establishing who could submit a credit bid at auction or who could execute a valid satisfaction and release of the debt.