This is an awful story.
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A second foreclosure fraud, mortgage put-back story...
In an opinion published last Tuesday, the chief judge, Judith H. Wizmur, cited testimony from an executive at , which bought Countrywide. The lender’s practice, the executive said, was “to maintain possession of the original note and related loan documents.” Countrywide did this even though the pooling and servicing agreement governing the mortgage pool that supposedly held the note required that it be delivered to the trustee, the court document shows.
If Countrywide’s practice was to hold onto the note, then investors in this pool and others may question whether the security was constructed properly and legally and may be able to require Bank of America to buy back their securities.
Larry Platt, a partner at the law firm K & L Gates in Washington, spoke on behalf of Bank of America on Friday. He said the New Jersey decision did not constitute a basis for broad mortgage repurchase requests.
“We believe the loan was sold to the trust even if there wasn’t an actual delivery of the note,” he said. “The risk of repurchase is going to depend on the unenforceability of the loan and we think the loan is enforceable. We think this is an aberration; Countrywide’s practice was to deliver the notes.”
While it is hard to assess the damage that suits like these could cause, the authors of the Congressional report estimated $52 billion.
The bulk of that would be shouldered largely by the four largest banks — Bank of America, , and . The panel arrived at this estimate using analysis provided by investment firms and taking into account possible loan losses, an assessment of successful put-back rates and assumptions of losses to be borne by the banks on mortgages they are forced to repurchase.
Those banks have already reserved almost $10 billion for expenses related to buybacks, in addition to $11.4 billion in costs they have already incurred, the report said. “It is not inconceivable that the major banks could recognize future losses over a 2-3 year period,” it said.
ONLY time will tell if the panel’s estimates are low, high or right on the money. The report is painstakingly temperate.
But financial burdens for big banks are not all that’s at stake here. Perhaps even more significant are the social costs associated with mortgage paperwork improprieties and any attempt to brush them under the rug.
Continue reading at the NYT...
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One dead, two wounded in shooting involving South Beach eviction case
A man being evicted from a South Beach condominium complex apparently opened fire Monday morning. Details remained sketchy at noon, but police may have returned the gunfire, striking the man.
http://4closurefraud.org/2010/11/22/more-civil-unrest-one-dead-two-wounded-in-shooting-involving-south-beach-eviction-case/
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If you've not read this yet, take a minute...
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