This email came to me from SEIU - Service Employees International Union - a union, who for the most part, supports "the people". I say, "for the most part" because there are times when I do disagree with them but as far as unions go, this is one of the better ones.It includes a link to a web site that allows you to easily modify a letter to your bank and allows you to email it with a simple click of a button.
It has a very comprehensive list of banks and a link to go to if your bank is not included. In addition, it provides a toll free number for each bank.
There are two problems I find with this web site - www.wheresthenote.com. The letter is addressed to "the bank" not the servicing company that actually is managing your account. However, in many cases, your servicing company is owned by the bank addressed to. You need to refer to your payment stubs or your payment book of coupons to see who you actually make your check payable to or if already in foreclsoure, who the named Plaintiff is.
The second problem I see here is in the body of the letter that you can and should modify.
The last paragraph of the letter reads:
To protect myself and my family, I need to know who owns my mortgage. Within thirty days, I would like to know the name, address, and phone number of the bank or investor that owns my mortgage. Furthermore, in light of the recent allegations of foreclosure fraud, I demand to see the original mortgage note proving ownership over my home loan. If you fail to produce a mortgage note proving that you have a right to collect my mortgage payments, I will be forced to consider all options available to me to ensure that my family and my home are protected.The last, highlighted bold sentence is the one I don't agree with. This is why and I will bold my comment.
You are asking "the bank" - not necessarily your servicing company - to give you the name and address of the "true" owner of your note. If your "bank" is not the "true" owner then it will not have, should not have and cannot produce the original note. Second, if you are writing to your servicing company (that often have the name of the bank as part of their name) they never own your note and therefore should not have the original note in their possession.
Having possession of the note DOES NOT, I repeat, DOES NOT give them the right to collect your payments nor take any foreclosure action against you. You will have little defense if you stop making your payments to them or take any legal action against them for not providing a copy of the original.
If you want to insure that whoever you are writing to has the right to collect your payments you should ask them for a copy of their servicing agreement with the "true" owner of your note or at the very least that "portion" of the agreement that indicates their servicing rights. They will not disclosue to you their entire agreement which would include their fees, etc
Larry,
Last week, JPMorgan Chase announced they were halting foreclosures in 23 states. Turns out, the bankers in charge of approving the foreclosure paperwork weren't even reading what they were signing. Now, one by one, foreclosures at America's biggest banks are grinding to a halt. It's gotten so bad, several states are taking the banks to court - calling for an immediate freeze on all foreclosures.
The banks created this mess, it's on them to clean it up. You have a right to know if your mortgage is affected. If you're a homeowner, will you send a letter to your bank and demand to see your original mortgage note? You can do it online in less than five minutes: http://www.wheresthenote.com
Wall Street has bought and sold our mortgages so many times, they've lost track of who owns what. And now they're getting caught red handed. In one state, two banks tried to foreclose on the same home. In another state, BofA tried to take a house away from a man who'd never even had a mortgage. The more we learn, the worse it gets.
It's time to pull the curtain all the way back. Demand to see YOUR mortgage note: http://www.wheresthenote.com
Banks are calling these "technical glitches." These are more than technical glitches. These are monumental screw-ups that are forcing families out of their homes. The banks raise our rates and change our terms - and if we make one mistake, we pay with our homes.
Now it's our turn to demand accountability from them. Visit http://www.wheresthenote.com and demand to see your mortgage note.
Thanks,
Stephen Lerner
SEIU.org
PS - Don't have a mortgage? Pass this on to someone who does. Every single homeowner needs to know if their bank still holds their mortgage note.
SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION
To whom it may concern:
I own the property at the address listed above, and your bank services my mortgage.
Over the last several weeks there have been many stories documenting the problem that banks are foreclosing on homes without proof that they own the loan. I have learned that in many cases, banks like yours do not even know who owns the loans you service. Employees at several leading banks have admitted to rubber stamping tens of thousands of foreclosures every month, without even checking to make sure that the bank had a legal right to proceed with foreclosure. In some cases, banks allegedly falsified mortgage documents to cover up their mistakes. There have been reports of two banks trying to foreclose on the same home, banks foreclosing on homeowners who were current on their payments, and even of a bank foreclosing on a home where the homeowner had never taken out a mortgage to begin with. This is not merely a "technical problem"--it is the difference between having a warm bed at night and being out on the street.
As a homeowner and a customer of your bank, I am horrified. I had always believed that it I played by the rules, I would be protected, but now I know that banks like yours think the rules don't apply to them.
To protect myself and my family, I need to know who owns my mortgage. Within thirty days, I would like to know the name, address, and phone number of the bank or investor that owns my mortgage. Furthermore, in light of the recent allegations of foreclosure fraud, I demand to see the original mortgage note proving ownership over my home loan. I would like to see copies of all endorsements and assignments of my mortgage note and where and when the assingment(s) _if any - were recorded. I also ask that you provide me with evidence of your firm being contractually retained to service my loan. (italics indicate added by LR)
If you fail toproduce a mortgage note proving that you have a right to collect my mortgage payments,provide the information I am legally entitled to, I will be forced to consider all options available to me to ensure that my family and my home are protected.
(italics indicate added by LR)
I ask that I receive my response in writing.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Axelrod Is Wrong: Obama Must Protect American Families From Wall Street Fraud
ReplyDeletePosted by Zach Carter on @ 10:32 am
Article printed from speakeasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy
URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/10/11/axelrod-is-wrong-obama-must-protect-american-families-from-wall-street-fraud/
If senior White House adviser David Axelrod’s comments this weekend are any indication, the Obama administration is woefully misreading the foreclosure fraud crisis currently gripping the U.S. economy. Axelrod refused to commit the administration to a national moratorium on foreclosures, and mischaracterized a massive, systematic fraud perpetrated by Wall Street banks as a set of unfortunate “mistakes.” This is not a minor scandal and it will not simply go away. President Barack Obama needs to stand up for the middle class and protect our economy from Wall Street theft. If he doesn’t, the economic and political price will be devastating.
http://tinyurl.com/29efbmw
Is this allowable? Would this help people stay within the law? please read comments..
ReplyDeleteCarl: Send a certified letter requesting the recorded Assignment of Mortgage (document that proves that they are the mortgage holder and who sold them the loan). Then when you don't receive it (and you won't), send another certified letter advising them you are opening up an escrow acct. and you will be making payments to the escrow account until they forward to you the legal document where it reflects them as the mortgage holder.
Continued......
Carl: Make sure the bank names it: "Escrow Account-Mortgage" and pay your payments to that account. Once the "mortgage holder" tries to file a lien, judgment, foreclosure, whatever- go in front of the judge and show him your paperwork, including a bank statement where the mortgage payments have been going. Until the banks can prove that they "own" the mortgage (as the property owner- you are legally entitled to have this document in your possession), they will be unable to foreclose. Good luck
Experience- the law states that you, as a the owner the property, is entitled to any/all documents that is in reference to your property, every time you receive a notice from the "new" mortgage holder (alot of times these loans are sold over and over again to various banks) you advise them via certified letter that you are invoking your right to have a copy of the document which states they are entitled to receive your payments.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/real-estate/states-probe-of-foreclosures-could-force-reforms-969546.html
5. Regulatory Oversight: The banks have demonstrated — yet again — that they are too irresponsible and reckless to operate without strong oversight. Just a few quarters after being bailed out for their reckless lending, they find themselves in trouble for irresponsible foreclosure proceedings and all manner of illegal behavior. Is it they — or we — who never learn history’s lessons ?
ReplyDelete7. Government Ownership of Banks Is Bad: When the government has a substantial stake in major financial institutions, they fail to discharge their duties of enforcing the law. Under normal circumstances, the reckless illegality we have seen from banks would have caused the US Attorney to become involved in the investigations. Instead, the nation’s chief law enforcement officer has a conflict of interest.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/10/the-impact-of-error-from-securitization-to-foreclosure/
How in the heck are you going to change this?
ReplyDeleteThe Rot Within: Our Culture of Financial Fraud and the Anger of the Honest (October 15, 2010)
With accountability effectively lost, cheating, lying, misrepresention, embezzlement and fraud, both petty and monumental, have all been incentivized. Thus the "little people" game the welfare/entitlement system and the Financial Elites game the mortgage market, and everyone gamed whatever piece of the housing bubble they could grab.
Where does that leave the honest citizenry? At an extreme disadvantage. Lying, sins of omission, misrepresentation and doing the bidding of evil organizations gets you bonuses and career advancement, while refusing to game the system as instructed gets your fired.
5. This financialization effected a net transfer of public and private income streams and wealth from the citizenry and State to the coffers of the financial Elites. As actual productivity and wealth-creation declined, so did wages and incomes when priced in purchasing power.
To offset that decline, people, companies and governments replaced income with debt: they borrowed to fill the gap between their desires/commitments/spending and their net income.
The financial Elites were happy to supply the debt and capture the income streams of servicing that debt. By securitizing those debts and writing derivatives against them, the Elites created a stupendously profitable windfall to exploit. The Central State and its central bank were happy to comply, as they are in partnership with the Elites which enrich and empower them.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct10/fraud-anger10-10.html
Question to Readers On Mods
ReplyDeleteThe story I have been hearing is that tens of thousands of Mod letters have been sent by servicers in the past few weeks.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/question-readers-mods
Welcome To The Machine....
ReplyDeleteI believe there is a further story here, in that all the "robosigning", "HAMP"ing and other attempts to roll people's paper in some form or fashion is an intentional act designed to cover the original deficiencies. The simple fact is that nobody cares if the paperwork sucks so long as the loan continues to roll, as nobody ever looks at it. It is only when one wants to enforce the terms of a contract that we get to the meat of the matter - did the contract ever really exist up and down the line, or did someone get duped or worse, blatantly ripped off?
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/showthread.php/3557-The-Market-Ticker-Welcome-To-The-Machine....
Friday, October 15, 2010
ReplyDeleteCongressional Oversight Panel Report - HAMP Program and Conflicts of Interest
"Discussion of Conflicts of Interest"
The report notes actual or potential financial conflicts of interest of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with their duties owed to Treasury under HAMP. The Panel's prior report noted that the dual role - as "doers" of mortgage mortgage modifications for loans they own or guarantee and "overseers" of Treasury's mortgage modification program - "may present competing interests or diminish the overall effectiveness of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's ability to modify mortgages, engage in HAMP administration or oversight, or both."
The report discusses the argument that this structural conflict is an "immitigable conflict because the interests are not aligned." [page 85].
http://jbublick.blogspot.com/
Guest Post: Foreclosure Counterattack – Propaganda, Pseudo-Legality, and Thuggery
ReplyDeleteThe first line of defense is the propaganda line that this is just a technical glitch, not a fundamental problem with the loan or the security, or any kind of systematic intentional fraud. So far this has been the preferred PR line for the administration and the mainstream media. But the banks are also working the line that no matter what the flaw, it can simply be legalized by legislative brute force.
Rather than deal with the considerable consequences of these abuses, the banks are prepared to bulldoze well settled state laws to give them an easy way out. And I’m not basing my view on this story alone; I had a conversation yesterday with a Congressional staffer who matter-of-factly said (but with little understanding of the underlying issues) that Congress would intervene on behalf of the industry, via its authority over national banks.
Congress took one step in this direction by frantically grabbing and unanimously passing a pre-existing bill which would require all states to accept the weakest state-authorized electronic notarizations. This would be only a minor fix of one of the technical issues, and isn’t very important in itself. But it probably foreshadows the far more expansive legislation we can expect to see after the election. Bolstering all of this, the banks are making extortionate threats against the real economy. They promise to wreck it even further if they aren’t given a clear path on this.
http://tinyurl.com/2flow92
THE “DELAYED/LATE PAYMENT” SCAM TO RAILROAD BORROWERS INTO FORECLOSURE
ReplyDeleteIt thus appears, under the totality of the circumstances and in view of the frequency of the fact pattern, that what the “lenders”, servicers, and others are doing is to falsely lure the unsuspecting borrower into a set of false representations for the express purpose of fraudulently manufacturing a foreclosure while depleting the borrower’s liquid reserves which could have been used to defend the foreclosure.
http://foreclosuredefensenationwide.com/?p=297
Make banks pay for robo-signers
ReplyDeleteBy Robyn E. Blumner, Times Columnist
In Print: Sunday, October 17, 2010
In a deposition taken earlier this year, Moua said her bank title is "Work Director," and a big part of her job is to sign between 300 and 500 foreclosure-related affidavits per day. She said the only parts of the affidavits she verified were that her name and title were correct.
In foreclosing on the Palm Beach County home of John Stipek, Moua swore in court papers that she had examined "all books, records and documents" kept by Wells Fargo concerning Stipek's loan. She hadn't.
She was asked whether she even knew what books, records and documents the statement pertained to. She had no idea.
Moua also swore that she had "personal knowledge" of the sums of money Stipek owed Wells Fargo. She didn't.
The whole thing was a fraud. And just for added comic value, Moua was listed as "Vice President of Loan Documentation" in the affidavit, which she says is a title the company doles out to people who spend their days signing affidavits.
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/make-banks-pay-for-robo-signers/1128141
Foreclosure Gate is here to stay!
ReplyDeleteWatch this: The bankers will dismiss it....you can't!
http://tinyurl.com/25p28vg
http://jsmineset.com/2010/10/17/in-the-news-today-680/
The Big Business Wall Street Won’t Discuss: JPMorgan & BofA Shell Companies
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/344bqnz
Nice job Obama..
ReplyDeleteThe capitulation begins....
BofA Sets Timetable for Foreclosure Review
*
* Greg Kondrek replied:
James, all is proceeding according to contract law. As long as you honor your obligations, all is well.
As for the unfortunate defaulters, perhaps Mr. Obama can construct some "Obam-villes" in commemoration of the famous displaced-person shanty towns of the Hoover era.
My concern is more toward the underlying, overriding issue...long-term unemployment...and the continued confusion of the Obama Administration over how to solve this issue.
Frankly, the Obama Administration is neither bright, practical, nor courageous, and will continue to make destructive mistakes.
As MORE senior-level workers have their unemployment insurance expire, there will be too much fuel added to the fire that is the melting American Economy.
THIS will be VERY BAD, indee
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303496104575560432631814848.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us_business#articleTabs%3Dcomments
And here I thought that all the missing paperwork and "re-created" foreclosure documents were all a mistake, and not an attempt to cover up something nefarious that happened earlier?
ReplyDeleteGee, you mean I was right three years and change ago, and despite the protests otherwise by bank executives on CNBS and other "mainstream media" outlets they are in fact filing court process agreeing with me, meaning that they're intentionally LYING on national television?
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2219940
Ok Obama, Make Good On Your Promise
ReplyDeletehttp://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2220203
Are we going to change this?
ReplyDeleteDominant Social Theme: Please don't look at the man behind the curtain.
Free-Market Analysis: We are well aware of the corruption that inevitably arises when regulatory democracies persist and like tumors begin to swell. The United States is perhaps the world's most powerful regulatory democracy, and likely its most icily corrupt. Nevertheless, it is absolutely startling to find a senior judge (see article excerpt above) at one of America's most important financial regulatory agencies – the Commodities Futures Trading Commission – bluntly accusing a former CFTC Chairwoman (Wendy Gramm, wife of former Senator Phil Gramm) and a fellow judge of deliberate malfeasance, apparently over decades. Sub dominant social theme: "This kind of thing doesn't happen in the US!"
http://www.thedailybell.com/1461/Retiring-CFTC-Judge-We-Covered-Up-Market-Manipulation.html
More bad news for the deeply troubled homeowners grasping for a way to save their homes: Even South Floridians who are able to negotiate a loan modification can have their homes sold out from under them.
ReplyDeleteThe reason: The foreclosure cases against them never stopped.
In the chaos surrounding hundreds of thousands of Florida mortgages that are delinquent or in foreclosure, legal experts say a growing number of mix-ups are being reported -- in which a foreclosure is not called off, even though the homeowner and the lender have agreed to a modification.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-foreclosures-loan-modifications-20101022,0,2979203.story
Open Letter To The SEC's Worthless Enforcement Division
ReplyDeleteSent 10-21-10 to SEC Enforcement Division
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/open-letter-secs-worthless-enforcement-division
FDIC Called On To Put Bank Of America Into Receivership
ReplyDeleteCharging that the ongoing foreclosure fraud epidemic is the work of precisely the same unrepentant bank officers whose fraudulent mortgage schemes crashed the financial system in the first place, two leading critics of the financial industry are calling on the FDIC to put some of the nation's biggest banks into receivership -- starting with the Bank of America -- and make them clean house.
So the only solution, then, is new management. "We should remove the senior leadership of the banks and replace them with experienced bankers with a reputation for integrity and competence, i.e., the honest officers that quit or were fired because they refused to engage in fraud," Black and Wray write.
They suggest starting with Bank of America, which they call "a 'vector' spreading the mortgage fraud epidemic throughout much of the Western world."
Black and Wray write that Bank of America "is sufficiently large and powerful that its receivership will send the credible signal that America is restoring the rule of law and that even the most elite frauds will be held accountable. "
On Wednesday, administration spokesmen declined to endorse any dramatic federal action. They declared that they had found no "systemic" threat to the financial system from the foreclosure problems, spoke of "mistakes" and "errors" rather than pervasive fraud and said the banks and servicers now need to "fix" their "processes."
They "cannot even bring themselves to use the 'f' word -- fraud," Black and Wray write. "They substitute euphemisms designed to trivialize elite criminality."
http://tinyurl.com/2fkz5sy
Mortgage Mess: Shredding the Dream
ReplyDeleteThe last five years of rising foreclosures, to the highest rate since the Great Depression, have exposed the carelessness with which banks lent money. The banks figured they could always seize ownership and resell at a profit, assuming they hadn't already dumped the loan on an unwary investor. And they wouldn't let technicalities impede the process; the website 4closurefraud.com, which is operated by the Carol C. Asbury Save My Home Law Group, has links to documents from Nassau County, N.Y., in which someone entered "BOGUS" as the grantee for the mortgage—i.e., the party entitled to foreclose.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_44/b4201076208349_page_2.htm
There is an implied covenant of dealing in good faith in all contracts. I cannot induce you to commit to a contract that I have every reason to believe you cannot perform on - that is, where my intent is not your performance as I represent to you but rather I intend and expect that you will default.
ReplyDeletePeople have tried to defuse this mess by saying that "the borrowers are to blame for borrowing money they could not pay." But the problem with this analysis is that it fails to take into account that the lenders knew by 2006 they were in the majority making loans to people who couldn't pay and continued to issue those loans - which means they were making loans for the explicit purpose of inducing people not to borrow and pay but to borrow and default, destroying the borrower financially. And incidentally, for those who wish to point to the UCC (and some people are starting to in their claim that this is a "nothingburger"), there's a problem that arises with the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act when the lender makes a loan knowing that the cash flow and asset position of the debtor is insufficient to make payment as agreed.
So what did Geithner (who, I will remind you, was Citi's along with the other big banks', primary regulator for safety and soundness during this entire mess) do? Did he force the banks to tell the truth, to unwind fraudulent transaction, and take these institutions through receivership? Uh, no.
Instead he, along with the banks, President Obama and Kanjorski, extorted FASB - the accounting standards body - forcing them essentially at gunpoint to make legal marking these loans which everyone knew were crap when they were made at whatever the banks wished, instead of at their actual value - which, for those 80%, was in fact recovery value at the time of origination or approximately 50 cents on the dollar!
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2228830
Do they get tv in the WH?
ReplyDeleteUnemployment Benefits: The 99ers
October 24, 2010 5:00 PM
Even after an extension of unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, many of those about to go off the program are in a quandary. Scott Pelley talks to some of them in Silicon Valley.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6987699n
Bill Black, Part II: Close The Big Banks. Now
ReplyDeleteUh huh. You weren't dancing, you were looting, and in a just society by now we'd be done with the trial and you'd be swinging.
What to do? We suggest an immediate moratorium on foreclosures and a requirement that all notes be produced by purported holders of mortgages within a reasonable length of time. If they cannot be found, the mortgages -- as well as the securities that pool them -- are no longer valid. That means that the homeowners are not indebted, and that the homes are owned free and clear. And that, dear bankers, is a big, big problem. It is also the law -- without evidence of debt, there is no debtor and no creditor.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2229910
I sent two letters to two separate mortgage companies with the above language. Both responded that they were not obligated to provide me with this information.
ReplyDelete