It Was the Banks That Falsified Loan Documents

I know it doesn’t make sense. Why would a lender falsify documents in order to make a loan? I had a case in which a major regional bank had their loan representatives falsify loan documents by having the borrower certify that there were houses on his two vacant lots. The bank swore up and down that they were never involved in securitization.

When the client refused to make such a false statement — the bank did the loan anyway AS THOUGH THE NONEXISTENT HOMES WERE ON THE VACANT LOTS. Thus they loaned money out on a loan that was guaranteed to lose money unless the borrower simply paid up despite the obvious loss. The borrower’s error was in doing business with what were obviously unsavory characters. True enough. But he was dealing with the regional bank in his area that had the finest reputation in banking.

He figured they knew what they were doing. And he was right, they did know what they were doing. What he didn’t know is that they were doing it to him! And they were doing it to him in furtherance of a larger fraudulent scheme in which investors were systematically defrauded.

When I took the client’s history all I had to hear was this little vignette and I knew (a) the bank was involved in securitization and (b) this loan was securitized BEFORE the closing and even before any application for loan was solicited or accepted by the bank. The client balked at first, not believing that a bank would openly declare its non-involvement with Wall Street when the truth would so easily be known.

But the truth is not easily known — especially when the bank is involved in “private label” trusts in which there are no filing with the SEC or other agencies.

The real question is why would the bank ask the borrower to certify the existence of two homes that were never built? Why would they want to increase their risk by giving a loan on vacant land that supposedly had improvements? Or to put it bluntly, Why would a bank try to cheat itself?

The answer is that no bank, no lender, no investor would ever try to cheat themselves. The whole purpose of our marketplace is to allow market conditions to correct inefficiencies and moral hazards. So if the bank was cheating or lying, the only rational conclusion is not that they were lying to themselves, but rather lying to someone else. They were increasing the risk of non repayment and decreasing the probability that the loan would ever succeed, while maximizing the potential for economic loss to the lender. Why would anyone do that?

The answer is simple. These were not “overly exuberant” loans, misjudgments or “risky” behavior situations. The ONLY reason or bank or any lender or investor would engage in such behavior is that it was in their self interest to do it. And the only way it could be in their self interest to do it is that they were (a) not lending the money and (b) had no risk of of loss on any of these loans. There is no other conclusion that makes any sense. The bank was being paid to crank out loans that looked valid and viable on their face, but in fact the loans were neither valid nor viable.

Why would anyone pay a bank or other “originator” to pump out bad loans? The answer is simple again. They would pay the originator because they were being paid to solicit originators who would do this and then aggregate over-priced, non-viable loans into bundles where the top layer contained apparently good loans on credit-worthy individuals. And who would pay these aggregators? The CDO manager for the broker dealers that sold toxic waste mortgage bonds to unwitting investors. As for the risk of loss they created an empty unfunded trust entity upon whom they would dump defaulted loans after the 90 day cutoff period and contrary to the terms of the trust.

So it would LOOK LIKE there was a real lending entity that had approved, directly or indirectly, of the the “underwriting” of a loan. But there was no underwriting because there was no need for underwriting because the originators and aggregators never had a risk of loss and neither was the CDO manager of the broker dealer exposed to any risk, nor the broker dealer itself that did the underwriting and selling of the mortgage bonds.

Reynaldo Reyes states that “it is all very counter-intuitive.” That is code for “it was all a lie.” But we keep treating the securitization infrastructure as real. In the 2011 article (see below) in Huffpost, the Federal Reserve cited Wells Fargo for such behavior — and then the Federal Reserve started buying the toxic waste mortgage bonds at the rate of some $60 billion PER MONTH, which is to say that approximately $3 Trillion of toxic waste mortgage bonds have been purchased by the Federal Reserve from the Banks. The Banks settled with investors, insurers, guarantors, loss sharing agencies, and hedge counterparties for pennies on the dollar, but so far those settlements total nearly $1 Trillion, which is a lot of pennies.

Meanwhile in court, lawyers are neither receiving nor delivering the correct message in court. They seek a magic bullet that will end the litigation in their favor which immediately puts them in a classification of lawyers who lose foreclosure defense cases. The bottom line: the lawyers who win understand at least most of what is written in this article, have drawn their own conclusions, and are merciless during discovery and/or at trial. Then the opposition files a notice of voluntary dismissal or judgment is entered for the homeowner “borrower.” Right now, these losses are acceptable to banks who are still playing with other people’s money. If lawyers did their homeowner and litigated these cases aggressively, the bank’s illusion of securitization would end. And THAT means most foreclosures would end or never be started.

Wells Fargo Illegally Pushed Borrowers into SubPrime Mortgages

Tags: foreclosures, securitization, subprime loans, SunTrust
Posted in Corruption, evidence, foreclosure defenses, foreclosure mill, Modification, Pleading, securities fraud, Servicer |