NJ Court Considers Statewide Foreclosure Suspension Jan 19

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EDITOR’S COMMENT: As concern mounts that the entire title infrastructure has been put at risk by shoddy practices in lending, recording, transferring and foreclosing mortgages, a New Jersey Judge has set a hearing to consider suspension of ALL foreclosures by the megabanks pending further investigation. What was once considered “fringe” analysis is now mainstream as courts all the way up to State Supreme Court take a closer look at securitization.

It’s not difficult to imagine how challenging it has been for Judges and their law clerks. Millions of foreclosures already “completed” (and perhaps waiting to be undone), millions more in the pipeline, and still millions more likely. What was once perceived as just another foreclosure has become a battleground for wielding political power. The banks are running out of time and out of arguments as to why the recording statutes and all the basic tenets of property law should be put on hold while they take away the homes of people who committed no act other than putting their signature on a pile of documents that even Alan Greenspan has admitted he didn’t understand in the context of securitization.

I believe the law is very clear and has been clear for hundreds of years. The pretender lenders made up their own rules and didn’t even obey those. Their actions violated existing statutory law, their own securitization structure, and any inference of fair play or equity. Their hubris in not only lying to get an undeserved bailout and now needing another one, while at the same time asserting the obligations are still due from the borrowers goes beyond the bounds of any ethical or moral standards.

What they seek is no less than a change in the law and to have it applied retroactively. This change would put all real property transactions in a state of uncertainty. Instead of molding their methods to the requirements of an orderly society they seek to mold the law to their past conduct. The likelihood of their success is minimal. But they have already had a maximum effect on the lives of tens of millions of Americans whose lives and prospects have been turned upside down.

TRUST — both the use of the word as in “trustee” and the actual confidence that banks would act with caution to protect the deposits of their customers and to provide the needed capital for innovation, business start-ups and business expansion (the engine of jobs in America) —- has been misused and abused by institutions who violated their charter and all applicable laws in a financial coup d’etat whose effects will be rippling through the rest of our lives, the lives of our children and grandchildren.

The net effect of what the pretenders seek to accomplish is to make America an unsafe place to do business. Instead of being the venue that governs international trade and domestic commerce, businesses and people will be required to revert to an extreme version of caveat emptor. So far from being the shining light on the hill, we have become the scoundrel of the world economy. We have everything to lose and nothing to gain from giving the pretenders what they want.

They may not care about the collateral damage they have caused in their financial holocaust. We don’t care about the collateral benefit that results from beating them back into their cages.

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JPMorgan, GMAC Urge New Jersey Court Not to Suspend Home Foreclosures

Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other U.S. banks told a New Jersey court that defects in their processes for seizing homes in the state can be remedied without halting foreclosures.

The banks have taken steps to improve their procedures, making a suspension unnecessary, they said in documents filed yesterday in state court in Trenton, New Jersey, and made public today. The filings came in response to a proposal to freeze foreclosures in the state by six U.S. banks while their procedures are reviewed.

The banks’ practices came under scrutiny after bank employees signed court documents in foreclosure cases without reviewing their accuracy, according to court papers.

“Bank of America fully appreciates the court’s concerns and looks forward to working with the court to address them,” the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company said. “The court should not take the steps outlined in the order because they are unnecessary and will cause a wholesale delay in administering foreclosure cases that is not in the public interest.”

Judge Mary Jacobson scheduled a Jan. 19 hearing to consider suspending uncontested foreclosure cases and foreclosure sales by the banks: Ally Financial Inc., Bank of America, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and OneWest Bank, according to a Dec. 20 order.

Jacobson said in the order that the move “is necessary to protect the integrity of the judicial foreclosure process in New Jersey and to assure the public that the process going forward will be reliable.”

The case is In the Matter of Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Pleading and Document Irregularities Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division-General Equity Part, No. F- 59553-10, Mercer County (Trenton)

To contact the reporter on this story: David McLaughlin in New York at dmclaughlin9@bloomberg.net.

Tags: creditor, disclosure, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure offense, New Jersey
Posted in bubble, Corruption, Eviction, securities fraud |