"do they just not want to book the repo"
If they take possession, they owe insurance, maintenance, and taxes. I guess they figure they can't flip it quickly, so they don't want the REO liability.
You fail.
Thomas John Miller (born August 11, 1944, in Dubuque, Iowa) is the current Democratic Attorney General of Iowa
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Tom_Miller
BTW, Iowa has gone democrat in 5 out of the last 6 presidential elections.
lol boutons.
Iowa is RED STATE
Just keep telling yourself that you dumb .
lol boutons.
lol @ the self-pawning bot.
That's our boutons.
ing Dukakis won Iowa, but no, they're as red a state as they come accorinding to the boutons-bot.
But... But... But...
If it's not a blue state, what's this hype about president Bush stealing it?
Why did Obama win 53.93% to 44.39%?
Bombs Admission of Failed Securitization Process in American Home Mortgage Servicing/LPS Lawsuit
Did you get it? They said that these procedures were standard between the two companies, which was to “..to memorialize the transfer of ownership lender to the securitization trust” right before initiating foreclosure. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that is impermissibly late. The note and mortgage had to get to the trust by a clearly specified date, usually 90 days after closing. As we’ve written numerous times, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the securitization en y was a New York trust, and New York trusts are like computer code, they can only operate exactly as stipulated. The exception was trusts by Chase and WaMu, which did allow for the originator to serve as custodian for the trust.
So AHMSI has just admitted that all of its foreclosures done with LPS were completed by the wrong party. In Alabama, wrongful foreclosures are subject to statutory damages of three times the value of the house, and recent cases have awarded much higher multiples of the property’s value. This little paragraph is a litigation goldmine for the right attorneys.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/...+capitalism%29
Buffett’s BofA Stake Nets $1.4B on First Day
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...first-day.html
===
aka, Wealthy enough to make your own waves. WB did the same with buying $5B of Goldman Sacks in mid-crisis, made about $3B, IIRC.
Must mean he thinks it's at or near the bottom.
Or he has enough money to set what the bottom is.
Maybe, but I think it wakes more than that. Could be people followed him, jacking up the price. artificial price increases usually don't last long, and when they do, you have a tech stock crash, housing bubble bursting, etc.
Follow the leader and get screwed.
He effectively set what the bottom is for BoA at this point in time.
The cash he put in there basically covers the spread of liabilities everybody was so concerned about and that made the stock tank.
You can only do that when you have billions to invest.
Obama Goes All Out For Dirty Banker Deal
A power play is underway in the foreclosure arena, according to the New York Times.
On the one side is Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General, who is conducting his own investigation into the era of securitizations – the practice of chopping up assets like mortgages and converting them into saleable securities – that led up to the financial crisis of 2007-2008.
On the other side is the Obama administration, the banks, and all the other state attorneys general.
This second camp has cooked up a deal that would allow the banks to walk away with just a seriously discounted fine from a generation of fraud that led to millions of people losing their homes.
The idea behind this federally-guided “settlement” is to concentrate and centralize all the legal exposure accrued by this generation of grotesque banker corruption in one place, put one single price tag on it that everyone can live with, and then stuff the details into a anium canister before shooting it into deep space.
This is all about protecting the banks from future enforcement actions on both the civil and criminal sides. The plan is to provide year-after-year, repeat-offending banks like Bank of America with cost certainty, so that they know exactly how much they’ll have to pay in fines (trust me, it will end up being a tiny fraction of what they made off the fraudulent practices) and will also get to know for sure that there are no more criminal investigations in the pipeline.
This deal will also submarine efforts by both defrauded investors in MBS and unfairly foreclosed-upon homeowners and borrowers to obtain any kind of relief in the civil court system. The AGs initially talked about $20 billion as a settlement number, money that would “toward loan modifications and possibly counseling for homeowners,” as Gretchen Morgenson reported the other day.
What is most amazing about Wylde’s quote is the clear implication that even a law enforcement official like Schneiderman should view it as his job to “do everything we can to support” Wall Street. That would be astonishing interpretation of what a prosecutor's duties are, were it not for the fact that 49 other Attorneys General apparently agree with her.
In Schneiderman we have at least one honest investigator who doesn’t agree, which is to his great credit. But everyone else is on Wylde’s side now. The Times story claims that HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and various Justice Department officials have been leaning on the New York AG to cave, which tells you that reining in this last rogue cop is now an urgent priority for Barack Obama.
Why? My theory is that the Obama administration is trying to secure its 2012 campaign war chest with this settlement deal. If Barry can make this foreclosure thing go away for the banks, you can bet he’ll win the contributions battle against the Republicans next summer.
Which is good for him, I guess. But it seems to me that it might be time to wonder if is this the most disappointing president we’ve ever had.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...824?print=true
=======
Yep, Barry the fist-bumping socialist/communist/terrorist subversive anti-American. Fox Repug Propaganda network is ALWAYS right
oops, not crimes, just mistakes, we NEVER make mistakes (when enriching ourselves)
JPMorgan fined for contravening Iran, Cuba sanctions
JPMorgan Chase Bank has been fined $88.3 million for contravening US sanctions against regimes in Iran, Cuba and Sudan, and the former Liberian government, the US Treasury Department announced Thursday.
The Treasury said that the bank had engaged in a number of "egregious" financial transfers, loans and other facilities involving those countries but, in announcing a settlement with the bank, said they were "apparent" violations of various sanctions regulations.
JPMorgan agreed to pay the money "to settle potential civil liability for apparent violations" of seven separate sanctions rules between 2005 and 2011.
Treasury called all of those actions "egregious because of reckless acts or omissions" by the bank.
"OFAC determined that JPMC (JPMorgan) is a very large, commercially sophisticated financial ins ution, and that JPMC managers and supervisors acted with knowledge of the conduct cons uting the apparent violations and recklessly failed to exercise a minimal degree of caution or care with respect to JPMC's US sanctions obligations," the Treasury said.
A JPMorganChase spokeswoman told AFP that none of the cases "involved any intent to violate OFAC regulations."
"These rare incidents were unrelated and isolated from each other. The firm screens hundreds of millions of transaction and customer records per day and annual error rates are a tiny fraction of a percent," Jennifer Zuccarelli said in an email.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/2...e+Raw+Story%29
Bank of America kept AIG’s legal threat under wraps for months
Top Bank of America Corp lawyers knew as early as January that American International Group Inc was prepared to sue the bank for more than $10 billion, seven months before the lawsuit was filed, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Bank of America shares fell more than 20 percent on August 8, the day the lawsuit was filed, adding to worries about the stability of the largest U.S. bank. It wasn't untilWarren Buffett stepped up with a $5 billion investment that those fears were eased, though hardly eliminated.
The bank made no mention of the lawsuit threat in a quarterly regulatory filing with theU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission just four days earlier. Nor did management discuss it on conference calls about quarterly results and other pending legal claims.
The SEC's rules for litigation disclosure are murky, and some lawyers said Bank of America may have been justified in not revealing AIG's lawsuit before it was filed. The bank's litigation disclosures are in line with those of many rivals.
But other lawyers said banks have an obligation to disclose legal threats that could have major consequences.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/3...e+Raw+Story%29
Nevada Says Bank Broke Mortgage Settlement
The attorney general of Nevada is accusing Bank of America of repeatedly violating a broad loan modification agreement it struck with state officials in October 2008 and is seeking to rip up the deal so that the state can proceed with a suit against the bank over allegations of deceptive lending, marketing and loan servicing practices.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in United States District Court in Reno, Catherine Cortez Masto, the Nevada attorney general, asked a judge for permission to end Nevada’s participation in the settlement agreement. This would allow her to sue the bank over what the complaint says were dubious practices uncovered by her office in an investigation that began in 2009.
In her filing, Ms. Masto contends that Bank of America raised interest rates on troubled borrowers when modifying their loans even though the bank had promised in the settlement to lower them. The bank also failed to provide loan modifications to qualified homeowners as required under the deal, improperly proceeded with foreclosures even as borrowers’ modification requests were pending and failed to meet the settlement’s 60-day requirement on granting new loan terms, instead allowing months and in some cases more than a year to go by with no resolution, the filing says.
The complaint says such practices violated an agreement Bank of America reached in the fall of 2008 with several states and later, in 2009, with Nevada, to settle lawsuits that accused its Countrywide unit of predatory lending. As the credit crisis grew, the settlement was heralded as a victory by state offices eager to help keep troubled borrowers in their homes and reduce their costs. Bank of America set aside $8.4 billion in the deal and agreed to help 400,000 troubled borrowers with loan modifications and other financial relief, such as lowering interest rates on mortgages.
But foreclosure problems mounted in Nevada, where Countrywide originated 262,622 loans, and complaints about the bank’s loan servicing practices began flooding into Ms. Masto’s office shortly after the settlement was struck. She found that Bank of America had “materially and almost immediately violated” the terms of the settlement, according to the complaint.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/bu...gewanted=print
Nevada Lawsuit Shows Bank of America’s Criminal Incompetence
It’s pretty remarkable that Mr. Market shrugged off the devastating implications of the amended lawsuit filed by the Nevada attorney general, Catherine Masto against various Bank of America en ies. As we’ve stated before, litigation by attorney general is significant not merely due to the damages and remedies sought, but because it paves the way for private lawsuits.
And make no mistake about it, this filing is a doozy. It shows the Federal/state attorney general mortgage settlement effort to be a complete travesty. The claim describes, in considerable detail, how various Bank of America units engaged in misconduct in virtually every aspect of its residential mortgage business.
The case argues on two tracks: it seeks to overturn the legal shield provided by a 2008 consent decree with Countrywide, since, in simple terms, Countrywide and BofA have flagrantly disregarded it. The case argues a separate series of claims, based on the same fact set, in case the consent decree is deemed to be operative.
The complaint describes abuses from the very outset of the securitization process: how borrowers were mis-sold mortgages (it describes how entire products were effectively predatory), how investors were misled as to their quality, how they were not conveyed properly to securitization trusts, how borrowers were subject to abusive servicing (as in charged improper and impermissible fees), how promises made under the old consent decree regarding mortgage modifications were violated (for instance, even though interest rate reductions were promised, instead modifications often resulted in HIGHER interest rates), and the filing of fraudulent paperwork to execute foreclosures.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/...+capitalism%29
U.S. Is Set to Sue a Dozen Big Banks Over Mortgages
The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits, which are expected to be filed in the coming days in federal court, are aimed at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, among others, according to three individuals briefed on the matter.
The suits stem from subpoenas the finance agency issued to banks a year ago. If the case is not filed Friday, they said, it will come Tuesday, shortly before a deadline expires for the housing agency to file claims.
The suits will argue the banks, which assembled the mortgages and marketed them as securities to investors, failed to perform the due diligence required under securities law and missed evidence that borrowers’ incomes were inflated or falsified. When many borrowers were unable to pay their mortgages, the securities backed by the mortgages quickly lost value.
Fannie and Freddie lost more than $30 billion, in part as a result of the deals, losses that were borne mostly by taxpayers.
In July, the agency filed suit against UBS, another major mortgage securitizer, seeking to recover at least $900 million, and the individuals with knowledge of the case said the new litigation would be similar in scope.
Private holders of mortgage securities are already trying to force the big banks to buy back tens of billions in soured mortgage-backed bonds, but this federal effort is a new chapter in a huge legal fight that has alarmed investors in bank shares. In this case, rather than demanding that the banks buy back the original loans, the finance agency is seeking reimbursement for losses on the securities held by Fannie and Freddie.
The impending litigation underscores how almost exactly three years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the beginning of a financial crisis caused in large part by subprime lending, the legal fallout is mounting.
Besides the angry investors, 50 state attorneys general are in the final stages of negotiating a settlement to address abuses by the largest mortgage servicers, including Bank of America, JPMorgan and Citigroup. The attorneys general, as well as federal officials, are pressing the banks to pay at least $20 billion in that case, with much of the money earmarked to reduce mortgages of homeowners facing foreclosure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/bu...gewanted=print
=============
Taxpayers "lost $30B", do you think the penalties on the banks will make the taxpayers good? nah, pro forma/fool-all-y'all hand slaps, at very max.
The More You Look, The More Bank Criminality You Find in Mortgage Land
First is that the Associated Press reports that Guiford County, North Carolina register of deeds Joe O’Brien has found evidence of robosigning in his filed dating back to 1998. This is significant because:
Servicers did nothing on a one-off basis. If O’Brien found robosigned do ents in his files that far back, it is certain there are other examples in other jurisdictions dating back that far.
It indicated the procedural abuses are much longer standing than virtually all commentators had assumed. I had thought it started with the 2002-3 refinancing boom, when servicers failed to staff up to meet big increases in volumes, which led to corners-cuttting in origination and eventually led to abuses in foreclosures. But this records search indicates the bad practices started much earlier and came to be applied over time on a more widespread basis.
The second sighting comes from American Banker’s Kate Berry, and provides additional confirmation of other reports that banks continue to engage in backdating of do ents after having piously sworn to stop that sort of thing:
Several dozen do ents reviewed by American Banker show that as recently as August some of the largest U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., Ally Financial Inc., and OneWest Financial Inc., were essentially backdating paperwork necessary to support their right to foreclose.
Some of do ents reviewed by American Banker included signatures by current bank employees claiming to represent lenders that no longer exist.
Many banks are missing the original papers from when they securitized the mortgages, in some cases as long ago as 2005 and 2006, according to plaintiffs’ lawyers. They and some industry members say the related mortgage assignments, showing transfers from one lender to another, should have been completed and filed with do ent custodians at the time of transfer.
“It’s one thing to not have the do ents you’re supposed to have even though you told investors and the SEC you had them,” says Lynn E. Szymoniak, a plaintiff’s lawyer in West Palm Beach, Fla. “But they’re making up new do ents.”
The banks argue that creating such do ents is a routine business practice that simply “memorializes” actions that should have occurred years before. Some courts have endorsed that view, but others, such as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, have found that this amounts to a lack of sufficient evidence and renders foreclosures invalid.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/...+capitalism%29
"Fraud As a Business Model"
Goldman "magnified the impact of toxic mortgages." The Wall Street Journal reviewed data showing that a $38 million subprime-mortgage bond created in June 2006 was referenced in more than 30 debt pool causing around$280 million in losses to investors by 2008. In other words, Goldman kept repackaging, reselling or protecting (buying credit default protection on) losers. It took the wrong kind of nerve for Goldman's CEO to say he was doing "God's work."
William K. Black is a former bank regulator who played a role in hundreds of successful prosecutions after the Savings and Loan Crisis. He told the Wall Street Journal: "It's a great myth that you can't defraud sophisticated financial parties." Particularly when loans are fraudulent and material information was not disclosed.
Until the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Goldman Sachs for fraud in April of 2010, it was easy to forget that we have a regulatory agency designed to protect the public from the pillaging of corporate America. Six months earlier, the SEC has arranged a settlement with JPMorgan that showed how rigged the system is. The banking giant agreed to pay a $25 million penalty and cancel $647 million in fees owed by Alabama's Jefferson County as the result of a complicated derivatives deal that blew up in the county's face. As part of the settlement, JPMorgan neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing--despite overwhelming evidence that it had engaged in plenty of wrongdoing.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-...comm_ref=false
well its nice to see that the Democratic version of WC can up a thread just as well.
On topic, i didn't think the justice department had the balls to even do this much. Its a step in the right direction even if too little way too ing late.
I will clamor for more draconian tactics against the financial 'industry.'
50 State Attorney General Effort to Sell Out to Banks Makes Even More Egregious Offer
The so-called 50 state attorney general mortgage settlement negotiations (a bit of a misnomer, since at least 4 attorneys general appear to be out, and various Federal banking regulators are alos party to the deal) are looking more and more like a desperate effort to reach any kind of a deal so as to save the officialdom’s face. The only good news is the banks are so insistent on total victory that despite the efforts to pretend the talks are making progress, the odds of a deal being consummated still look remote.
It is nevertheless frustrating to continue to see the media depict the flailing about by the attorneys general headed by Tom Miller as progress. I’ve been involved in negotiations for much of my career, and I’ve never seen so much incompetence on open display. The Financial Times headline, “US banks offered deal over lawsuit” is substantively misleading. You can’t credibly put forward a proposal unless your side has signed off on it. Yet he has just made an offer that his own side may not support. And this isn’t the first time Miller has pulled this trick.
Per the Financial Times:
According to five people with direct knowledge of the discussions, state prosecutors have proposed settlement language in the “robosigning” case that also might release the companies from legal liability for wrongful securitisation practices.
Some state officials have expressed concern that they have offered the banks far too broad a release from liability. Others say the broad language was perhaps inadvertently crafted and will be tightened as negotiations continue. Participants on both sides stressed the talks remain fluid.
Lordie, this is deja vu all over again. As we said in July:
The latest update is comical, if you read between the lines. The deal is cash for a release. Everything else is decoration. And both sides of that deal are falling apart. The banks are squabbling among themselves as to who has to pony up what, with everyone except maybe BofA posturing that they really don’t owe that much. Oh, and the other side of the equation, the release? The banks and the AGs are not on the same page.
But if you read the Wall Street Journal article on the state of play on talks, you might well be fooled by the upbeat tone and the emphasis on the agreement on the stuff that does not matter (we and others went through the original AG term sheet, and it was pathetic, since virtually all of it was nice sounding exhortations which merely having the banks agree to comply with existing law!). For instance:
All sides have agreed to a framework that would govern how banks meet their obligations once a deal is reached. Those include principal reductions on certain mortgages, forgiveness of second-lien loans, res ution to borrowers and dealing with foreclosure-related blight. A person close to one of the banks said remaining differences are narrowing.
Earth to base, “remaining differences” are irrelevant if the biggest items aren’t close to resolution.
I wish someone would put this effort out of its misery. But as long as the media keeps treating the Miller/Federal regulator PR as serious, yours truly will have to keep debunking it
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/...+capitalism%29
A previously undisclosed HUD investigation reveals that banks took at least $6B in reinsurance kickbacks:
http://www.americanbanker.com/issues...1041928-1.html
http://www.americanbanker.com/issues...1041741-1.htmlSeveral dozen do ents reviewed by American Banker show that as recently as August some of the largest U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., Ally Financial Inc., and OneWest Financial Inc., were essentially backdating paperwork necessary to support their right to foreclose.
Some of do ents reviewed by American Banker included signatures by current bank employees claiming to represent lenders that no longer exist.
Many banks are missing the original papers from when they securitized the mortgages, in some cases as long ago as 2005 and 2006, according to plaintiffs' lawyers. They and some industry members say the related mortgage assignments, showing transfers from one lender to another, should have been completed and filed with do ent custodians at the time of transfer.
"It's one thing to not have the do ents you're supposed to have even though you told investors and the SEC you had them," says Lynn E. Szymoniak, a plaintiff's lawyer in West Palm Beach, Fla. "But they're making up new do ents."
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