Blog posts with "foreclosure"

 “Despite what you may have heard, the foreclosure crisis is far from over, especially in Florida, which leads the nation, more than 300,000 cases still pending, another half-a-million homeowners delinquent, hundreds of thousands of modified loans about to balloon in payments,” according to economics correspondent Paul Solman in this PBS NewsHour video, which highlights several examples of the "600,000 Florida families who have lost their homes since 2007, 5.5 million homes lost nationw...

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has prevailed against the second largest bank of Switzerland Credit Suisse’s motion to dismiss the Attorney General’s $10 billion lawsuit against the bank for fraud concerning the sales of mortgage-backed securities prior to the 2008 financial crisis. This suit was filed back in 2012 as a result of allegations that the bank misrepresented to investors the downside risks of mortgage-backed securities which the bank was hawking prior to the finan...

Journalist Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone recently exposed the story of Alayne Fleischmann, the Department of Justice's key witness supporting the $9 billion (claimed to be $13 billion) mortgage & securities fraud related settlement of November 19, 2013. Fleischmann provides a long and detailed account of the circumstances leading up to the DoJ's resolution of JPMorgan Chase's culpability in relation to what Fleischmann describes as "massive criminal securities fraud" within the bank's mort...

Wells Fargo, the largest mortgage servicer in the nation, was unable to keep its infamous Home Mortgage Foreclosure Attorney Procedure Manual from being introduced into evidence in a federal case (case number 1:13-ap-01553) before  Judge Allan L. Gropper of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The recently exposed Wells Fargo manual appears to instruct foreclosure mill attorneys how to fabricate missing loan documents to foreclose on homeowners. In the case, the f...

Democracy Now just reported on “a recently revealed internal Wells Fargo document appears to guide lawyers step by step on how to fabricate missing documents to foreclose on homeowners. Wells Fargo is the country’s largest mortgage servicer and services some nine million home loans.” The attorney that “discovered the Wells Fargo manual on how to produce missing documents to foreclose on homeowners” contextualized and described the manual as follows: The manual [is] entitled the "...

Explosive new allegations have emerged in the ongoing litigation against Bank of America (BoA) in relation to intentionally botched loss mitigation procedures, most especially in relation to the government-sponsored Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP).  Several whistleblower former employees from BoA’s loss mitigation department have come forward asserting a laundry list of egregious abuses of both their borrower and the U.S. taxpayer. Some of the highlights of this scheme include ...

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi criticized Bank of America for failing to comply with the servicing standards of the National Mortgage Settlement. “Complaints about Bank of America account for nearly 40-percent of the total 293 complaints the Attorney General’s Office has reviewed and shared with the National Monitor regarding possible non-compliance by the banks.” In a letter to Bank of America’s counsel in preparation for a meeting between the National Mortgage Settlement’s mon...

From right to left, Attorney General Eric Holder, former Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair, and former SEC Chair Mary Schapiro, are sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010. (AP PHOTO/PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS) Two recent Obama-appointees, SEC Chair Mary Schapiro and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and SEC Chair Mary Schapiro, have decided to cash out through the revolving door. As explained in a National Journal article: As...

In a not-so-shocking turn of events, the previously botched OCC foreclosure fraud settlement has reached a new level of absurdity. As reported in the blogosphere, OCC Independent Foreclosure Review checks, sent by a paying agent of the name Rust Consulting, are being rejected by banks due to insufficient funds. To make matters worse, Rust Consulting is sending the checks out in scammy-looking envelopes, which bear a striking resemblance to a debt collection letter or bulk spam mail, have a lo...

Recently leaked information indicating that a replacement to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) “Independent Foreclosure Review” has now been confirmed by the OCC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). As the Huffington Post noted, there is clearly no longer a need for concern over the independence of the review, because it is now being managed by the very same entities who were supposed to be punished by the settlement. Lenders and servicers will now...