If you think foreclosures are a thing of the past, think again

Living Lies – by Neil Garfield

In order to maintain the illusion of legality and an orderly marketplace the banks and their servicers must continue to push foreclosures even if it means going after people who are not actually withholding payments. The legacy of the mortgage meltdown and the brainless government policies that let the banks get away with what they had done, is that the crime not only continues but is being repeated with each new claimed securitization or “resecuritization” of residential loans.

As I predicted in 2006, the  tidal wave of foreclosures was in fact unprecedented, underestimated and continues to this day. With a starting point of around 2002, foreclosures attributed to the mortgage meltdown have continued unabated for 17 years. I said it would 20-30 years and I am sticking with that, although new evidence suggests it will go on much longer. So far more than 40 million people have been displaced from their homes and their lives.

Google Buffalo and New Jersey, for example and see whether they think foreclosures are a thing of the past. They don’t. And the people in Buffalo are echoing sentiments across the nation where the economy seems better, unemployment is down, wages are supposedly increasing but foreclosures are also increasing.

And let’s not forget that back in the early and mid 2000’s foreclosures did not mention trustees or trusts. In fact when the subject was raised by homeowners it was vehemently denied in courts cross the country. The denials were that the trusts even existed. This was not from some homeowner or local lawyer. This was from the banks and their attorneys. It turns out they were telling the truth then.

The trusts didn’t exist and there were no trustees. But in the upside down world of foreclosure here we are with most foreclosures filed in the name of a nonexistent implied trust on behalf of a “trustee” with no trustee powers, obligations or duties to administer any assets much less loans in foreclosure.

In order to understand this you must throw out any ideas of a rational market driven by fundamental economics and accept the fact that the banks  and their servicers continue to be engaged in the largest economic crime in human history. Their objective is foreclosure because that accomplishes two goals: first, it rubber stamps prior illegal practices and theft of borrowers’ identities for purposes of trading profits and second, it gives them a free house and free money.

If they lose a foreclosure case nobody suffers a financial loss. If they win, which they do most of the time (except where homeowners aggressively defend) they get a free house and the proceeds of sale are distributed to the players who are laughing, pardon the pun, all the way to the bank. Investors get ZERO.

As for modifications, look closely. The creditor is being changed along with the principal interest and payments. It might just be a new loan, except for the fact the new “lender” is a servicer like Ocwen who has not advanced any money for the purchase or acquisition the loan. But that’s OK because neither did the lender or the claimant. Modification is a PR stunt to make it look like the banks are doing something for borrowers when in fact they are stealing or reassigning the loan to a totally different party from anyone who previously appeared in the chain of title.

Modification allows the banks to claim that the loan is performing — thus maintaining the false foundation supporting trades and profits amounting to dozens of times the amount of the loan. Watch what happens when you ask for acknowledgement from the named Plaintiff in judicial states or the named beneficiary in nonjudicial states. You won’t get it. If US Bank was really a trustee then acknowledging a settlement on its behalf would not be a problem. As it stands, that is off the table.

The mega banks, with unlimited deep pockets derived from their massive economic crimes, began a campaign of whack-a-mole to create the impression that foreclosures were on the decline and the crisis is over. Their complex plan involves decreasing the number of filed foreclosures where the numbers are climbing and increasing the filed foreclosures where they have allowed the numbers to sink. Add that to their planted articles in Newspapers and Magazines around the country and it all adds up to the impression that foreclosures derived from claimed securitized loans are declining.

Not so fast. There were over 600,000 reported foreclosures last year and the numbers are rising this year. Most of them involve false claims of securitization where the named claimant is simply appointed to pretend to be the injured party. It isn’t and in many cases a close look at the “name” of the claimant reveals that no legal person or entity is actually named.

US Bank is often named but not really present. It says it is not appearing on its own behalf but as Trustee. The trust is not specifically named but is implied without the custom and practice of naming the jurisdiction in which the trust was organized or the jurisdiction in which it maintains a business. That’s because there is no trust and there is no business and US Bank owns no debt, note or mortgage in any capacity. The certificates are held by investors who acknowledge that they have no right, title or interest in the debt, note or mortgage. So who is the claimant? Close inspection reveals that nobody is named.

In fact, those foreclosures proceed often without contest because homeowners mistakenly believe they are in default. In equity, if the facts were allowed in as evidence, the homeowner would be entitled to a share of the bounty that was a windfall to the investment bank and its affiliates by trading on the borrower’s signature. A “free house” only partially compensates the homeowner for the illegal noncensual trading on his name with the intent of screwing him/her later.

Upon liquidation of the property the proceeds of sale are deposited not by an owner of the debt, but by one of the players who just added insult to injury to both the borrower and the original investors who paid real money but failed to get an interest in the fabricated closing documents — i.e., the note and mortgage.

The Banks have succeeded in getting everyone to think about how unfair it is that homeowners would even think of pursuing a “free house”. By doing that they distract from the fact that the homeowners and the investors who put up the origination or acquisition money are both excluded from the huge profits generated by trading on the signature of borrowers and the money of investors who do not get to share in the bounty, which is often 20-40 times the amount of the loan.

The courts don’t want to hear about esoteric arguments about the securitization process. Judges assume that somewhere in the complex moving parts of the securitization scheme there is an owner of the debt who will get compensated as a result of the homeowner’s refusal or failure to make monthly payments of interest and principal. That assumption is untrue.

This is revealed when the money from the sale of property is traced. If you trace the check you will be mislead. Regardless of where the check is mailed, the check is actually cashed by a servicer who deposits it to the account of an investment bank who has already received many times the amount of the loan principal. That money is neither credited to the account of the borrower nor reported, much less distributed to investors who bought certificates (wrongly named “mortgage bonds”).

Neither the investors who bought the original uncertificated certificates nor the investors who purchased contracts based upon the apparent value of the certificates ever see a penny of the proceeds of a foreclosure sale.

In order to maintain the illusion of legality and an orderly marketplace the banks and their servicers must continue to push foreclosures even if it means going after people who are not actually withholding payments. The legacy of the mortgage meltdown and the brainless government policies that let the banks get away with what they had done, is that the crime not only continues but is being repeated with each new claimed securitization or “resecuritization” of residential loans.

When the economy contracts, as it always does, the number of foreclosures will shoot up like a thermometer held over a steam radiator. And instead of actually looking for facts people will presume them. And that will lead to more tragedy and more inequality of income, wealth and opportunity in a country that should be all about a level playing field. This is not the marketplace doing its work. It is the perversion of the marketplace caused by outsized and unchecked power of the banks.

My solution is predicated on the idea that everyone is to blame for this. Everyone involved should share in losses and gains from this illicit scheme. Foreclosures should come to a virtual halt. Current servicers should be barred from any connection with these loan accounts. Risk and loss should be shared based upon an equitable formula. And securitization should be allowed to continue as long as securitization is actually happening — so long as the investors and borrowers are aware that they are the only two principals on opposite sides of a complex transaction in which trading profits are likely as part of the disclosed compensation of the intermediaries in the loans originated or acquired.

Disclosure allows the borrowers and the investors to bargain for better deals — to share in the bounty. And if there is no such bounty with full disclosure it will then be because market forces have decided that there should not be any such rewards.

Living Lies