Wed 2010-10-13 09:01 EDT

Foreclosure, Subprime Mortgage Lending, and the Mortgage Electronic Registration System

Christopher Peterson

...Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., commonly referred to as ``MERS,'' is the recorded owner of over half of the nation's residential mortgages. MERS operates a computer database designed to track servicing and ownership rights of mortgage loans anywhere in the United States. But, it also acts as a proxy for the real parties in interest in county land title records. Most importantly, MERS is also filing foreclosure lawsuits on behalf of financiers against hundreds of thousands of American families. This Article explores the legal and public policy foundations of this odd, but extremely powerful, company that is so attached to America's financial destiny...The article culminates in a discussion of MERS' culpability in fostering the mortgage foreclosure crisis and what the long term effects of privatized land title records will have on our public information infrastructure. The Article concludes by considers whether the mortgage banking industry, in creating and embracing MERS, has subverted the democratic governance of the nation's real property recording system.

foreclosures; mortgage Electronic Registration System; subprime mortgage lending.

naked capitalism Sun 2010-10-10 12:54 EDT

FUBAR Mortgage Behavior: Florida Banks Destroyed Notes; Others Never Transferred Them

...But to give readers the latest report of modern FUBAR, mortgage edition, let us continue with the sorry saga of ``Where's My Note?'' For the benefit of newbies, what everyone calls a mortgage actually has two components: the note, which is the borrower IOU, and the mortgage (in some states, it's called a deed of trust) which is the lien on the property. In 45 states, the mortgage is a mere accessory to the note; you must be the real party of interest in the note in order to foreclose. The pooling and servicing agreement, which governs who does what when in a mortgage securitization, requires the note to be endorsed (just like a check, signed by one party over to the next), showing the full chain of title...The endorsements also have to be wet ink; no electronic signatures permitted. I've had a lot of anecdotal evidence to support the idea that these procedures, which were created in the early days of mortgage securitizations, were simply not observed on a widespread, if not a universal basis...

Florida Banks Destroyed Notes; FUBAR Mortgage Behavior; naked capitalism; transfer.

Fri 2010-10-08 21:53 EDT

MERS 101

MERS - Mortgage Electronic Registration Inc. - holds approximately 60 million American mortgages and is a Delaware corporation whose sole shareholder is Mers Corp. MersCorp and its specified members have agreed to include the MERS corporate name on any mortgage that was executed in conjunction with any mortgage loan made by any member of MersCorp...Thus in place of the original lender being named as the mortgagee on the mortgage that is supposed to secure their loan, MERS is named as the ``nominee'' for the lender who actually loaned the money to the borrower. In other words MERS is really nothing more than a name that is used on the mortgage instrument in place of the actual lender. MERS' primary function, therefore, is to act as a document custodian. MERS was created solely to simplify the process of transferring mortgages by avoiding the need to re-record liens -- and pay county recorder filing fees -- each time a loan is assigned. Instead, servicer's record loans only once and MERS' electronic system monitors transfers and facilitates the trading of notes...MersCorp was created in the early 1990's by the former C.E.O.'s of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Indy Mac, Countrywide, Stewart Title Insurance and the American Land Title Association... MERS, as has clearly been proven in many civil cases, does not hold any promissory notes of any kind. A party must have possession of a promissory note in order to have standing to enforce and/or otherwise collect a debt that is owed to another party. Given this clear-cut legal definition, MERS does not have legal standing to enforce or collect on the over 60 million mortgages it controls and no member of MERS has any standing in an American civil court. MERS has been taken to civil courts across the country and charged with a lack of standing in reposession issues. When the mortgage debacle initially, and inevitably, began, MERS always routinely brought actions against defaulting mortgage holders purporting to represent the owners of the defaulted mortgages but once the courts discovered that MERS was only a front organization that did not hold any deed nor was aware of who or what agencies might hold a deed, they have routinely been denied in their attempts to force foreclosure. In the past, persons alleging they were officials of MERS in foreclosure motions, purported to be the holders of the mortgage, when, in fact, they not only were not the holder of the mortgage but, under a court order, could not produce the identity of the actual holder. These so-called MERS officers have usually been just employees of entities who are servicing the loan for the actual lender. MERS, it is now widely acknowledged by the courts, has no legal right to foreclose or otherwise collect debt which are evidenced by promissory notes held by someone else...

MERS 101.

Fri 2010-10-08 21:45 EDT

NO. THERE'S NO LIFE AT MERS

Damian ``DinSFLA'' Figueroa

...MERS was founded by the mortgage industry. MERS tracks ``changes'' in the ownership of the beneficial and servicing interests of mortgage loans as they are bought and sold among MERS members or others. Simultaneously, MERS acts as the ``mortgagee'' of record in a ``nominee'' capacity (a form of agency) for the beneficial owners of these loans...More than 60 percent of all newly-originated mortgages are registered in MERS. Its mission is to register every mortgage loan in the United States on the MERS System. Since 1997, more than 65 million home mortgages have been assigned a Mortgage Identification Number (MIN) and have been registered on the MERS System...Since MERS is a privately owned data system and not public, all mortgages and assignments must be recorded in order to perfect a lien. Since they failed to record assignments when these loans often traded ownership several times before any assignment was created, the legal issue is apparent. MERS may have destroyed the public land records by breaking the chain of title to millions of homes...

Life; MER; s.

Fri 2010-10-08 21:34 EDT

Improper GMAC Affidavits Leading to Charges of Document Fabrication to Change Title >> naked capitalism

Yves Smith

...the web emanating from the GMAC affidavit improprieties extend much further than most may realize. Although GMAC continues to maintain that having its ``robot signor'' officers like Jeffrey Stephan provide affidavits on matters they know nothing about is a mere technical problem that they can remedy. In fact, an affidavit is a statement of someone with personal knowledge of a matter. Stephan signed as many as 10,000 documents a month and clearly could not have personal knowledge of the underlying situations. Deliberately preparing and submitting inaccurate documents in a legal proceeding is a fraud on the court...So as much as GMAC and its fellow servicers no doubt hope there little document mess will fade from public view, attorneys are using it as a new weapon to fight questionable foreclosures or force servicers to negotiate principal mods...

CHANGING TITLES; charges; Document Fabrication; Improper GMAC Affidavits Leading; naked capitalism.

Fri 2010-10-08 21:11 EDT

4ClosureFraud Posts Lender Processing Services Mortgage Document Fabrication Price Sheet >> naked capitalism

Yves Smith

...document fabrication is widespread in foreclosures. The reason is that the note, which is the borrower IOU, is the critical instrument to establishing the right to foreclose in 45 states (in those states, the mortgage, which is the lien on the property, is a mere ``accessory'' to the note). The pooling and servicing agreement, which governs the creation of mortgage backed securities, called for the note to be endorsed (wet ink signatures) through the full chain of title...Evidence is mounting that for cost reasons, starting in the 2004-2005 time frame, originators like Countrywide simply quit conveying the note. We are told this practice was widespread, probably endemic. The notes are apparently are still in originator warehouses. That means the trust does not have them (the legalese is it is not the real party of interest), therefore it is not in a position to foreclose on behalf of the RMBS investors. So various ruses have been used to finesse this rather large problem...We finally have concrete proof of how widespread document fabrication was...This revelation touches every major servicer and RMBS trustee in the US...The story that banks have been trying to sell has been that document problems like improper affidavits are mere technicalities. We've said from the get go that they were the tip of the iceberg of widespread document forgeries and fraud...

4ClosureFraud Posts Lender Processing Services Mortgage Document Fabrication Price Sheet; naked capitalism.

Tue 2010-08-24 19:45 EDT

HOMEOWNERS' REBELLION: COULD 62 MILLION HOMES BE FORECLOSURE-PROOF?

Ellen Brown

Over 62 million mortgages are now held in the name of MERS, an electronic recording system devised by and for the convenience of the mortgage industry. A California bankruptcy court, following landmark cases in other jurisdictions, recently held that this electronic shortcut makes it impossible for banks to establish their ownership of property titles--and therefore to foreclose on mortgaged properties. The logical result could be 62 million homes that are foreclosure-proof...

62; Foreclosure-Proof; home; homeowners; rebellion.

naked capitalism Sun 2010-08-22 09:32 EDT

Auerback: News Flash-- China Reduces US Treasury Holdings, World Does Not Come To an End

Marshall Auerback

In a post titled ``China Cuts US Treasury Holdings By Record Amount,'' Mike Norman makes the excellent observation that while China is moving its money out of Treasuries, interest rates are hitting record lows. In other words, the sky still isn't falling. So, Mike wonders, ``Where is the Debt/Doomsday crowd?'' He rightly concludes: ``They're nowhere to be found because they can't explain this. This is a `gut punch' to them. Their whole theory is out the window. They just don't understand or don't want to understand, that interest rates are set by the Fed...PERIOD!!!''...Also of note today: Tokyo's Nikkei QUICK News reports that the #309 10-year Japanese benchmark government bond, the current benchmark, traded to a yield of 0.920% Tuesday morning, down 2.5 basis points from yesterday's close. This is the lowest yield since August 13, 2003. This, from a country with a public debt-to-GDP ratio of 210%!...These are facts. Inconvenient for those who like to perpetuate the lie that the US or Japan faces imminent national insolvency as a means of justifying their almost daily attacks on proactive fiscal policy...

Auerback; China reducing; comes; ending; naked capitalism; News Flash; Treasury holds; world.

New Economic Perspectives Tue 2010-08-03 14:12 EDT

The CBO's Misplaced Fear of a Looming Fiscal Crisis

Eric Tymoigne

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has just released an 8-page brief titled "Federal Debt and the Risk of a Fiscal Crisis." In it you will find all the traditional arguments regarding government deficits and debt: "unsustainability," "crowding out", bond rates rising to "unaffordable" levels because of fears that the Treasury would default or "monetize the debt," the need to raise taxes to pay for interest servicing and government spending, the need "to restore investor's confidence" by cutting government spending and raising taxes. This gives us an opportunity to go over those issues one more time...

CBO's Misplaced Fear; looming fiscal crisis; New Economic Perspectives.

zero hedge - on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero Fri 2010-07-30 15:41 EDT

China Has Been Covertly Funding A Housing Bubble Five Times Larger Than That Of The US: 65 Million Vacant Homes Uncovered

...a report [Fitch] released today titled Informal Securitisation Increasingly Distorting Credit Data, uncovers that China has in fact been massively underrepresenting the actual amount of new loans in the first half of 2010, courtesy of precisely the kinds of securitization deals that blew up half of our own banking system... [moreover, Yi Xianrong,] an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences noted estimates from electricity meter readings that there are about 64.5 million empty apartments and houses in urban areas of the country... China's banks are increasingly becoming more opaque in data presentation, which one can assume is due to their unwillingness to reveal the true state of affairs... [According to] Xianrong ``investment in the domestic property market has completely overturned China's traditional concepts of wealth management and investment and its price formation system'' [Chinese real estate bubble]

65; China; covert funding; dropped; housing bubble; long; survival rate; Time larger; Timeline; Vacant Homes Uncovered; zero; Zero Hedge.

zero hedge Sun 2010-05-09 09:45 EDT

The Day The Market Almost Died (Courtesy Of High Frequency Trading)

A year ago, before anyone aside from a hundred or so people had ever heard the words High Frequency Trading, Flash orders, Predatory algorithms, Sigma X, Sonar, Market topology, Liquidity providers, Supplementary Liquidity Providers, and many variations on these, Zero Hedge embarked upon a path to warn and hopefully prevent a full-blown market meltdown. On April 10, 2009, in a piece titled "The Incredibly Shrinking Market Liquidity, Or The Black Swan Of Black Swans" we cautioned "what happens in a world where the very core of the capital markets system is gradually deleveraging to a point where maintaining a liquid and orderly market becomes impossible: large swings on low volume, massive bid-offer spreads, huge trading costs, inability to clear and numerous failed trades. When the quant deleveraging finally catches up with the market, the consequences will likely be unprecedented, with dramatic dislocations leading the market both higher and lower on record volatility." Today, after over a year of seemingly ceaseless heckling and jeering by numerous self-proclaimed experts and industry lobbyists, we are vindicated...absent the last minute intervention of still unknown powers, the market, for all intents and purposes, broke. Liquidity disappeared. What happened today was no fat finger, it was no panic selling by one major account: it was simply the impact of everyone in the HFT community going from port to starboard on the boat, at precisely the same time...It is time for the SEC to do its job and not only ban flash trading as it said it would almost a year ago, but get rid of all the predatory aspects of high frequency trading, which are pretty much all of them...HFT killed over 12 months of hard fought propaganda by the likes of CNBC which has valiantly tried to restore faith in our broken capital markets. They have now failed in that task too. After today investors will have little if any faith left in the US stocks, assuming they had any to begin with. We need to purge the equity market structure of all liquidity-taking parasitic players. We must start today with High Frequency Trading...

courtesy; day; dies; high frequency trade; Market; Zero Hedge.

zero hedge Tue 2010-03-09 17:59 EST

Is The Federal Reserve Insolvent?

...For a refined analysis of what would happen in that moment of clarity when the world realizes the world's biggest bank is broke, we turn to a presentation by Chris Sims, given before Princeton University, titled "Fiscal/Monetary Coordination When The Anchor Cable Has Snapped."...discusses precisely the issues were are faced with today: namely a monetary policy that has run amok, seignorage, exploding excess reserves, the impact of these on "power money", and, in general, a Fed balance sheet that is increasingly reminiscent of a drunk, rapid and schizophrenic bull in a China store...the only way to deal with a mark-to-market of the Fed currently is to embrace monetization. It is no longer a question of semantics, of who promised what: it is the only mechanical way by which the Fed can dig itself out of a capital deficiency. With GSE delinquencies exploding, and with the Fed (and Congress) singlehandedly facilitating imprudent lender policy by allowing ever more borrowers to become deliquent without consequences, the MBS delinquency rate will likely hit 10% over the next 6-12 months. At that moment, someone will ask the Fed: "what is the true basis of your capital account?" And when the Fed is forced to justify a valid response, is when monetizaton will begin...

Federal Reserve Insolvent; Zero Hedge.

zero hedge Mon 2009-10-26 09:28 EDT

How The Federal Reserve Bailed Out The World

The Bank of International Settlements [BIS] just released a major paper titled "The US dollar shortage in global banking and the international policy response" which goes on to demonstrate just how it happened that Fed chief Ben Bernanke in essence bailed out the entire developed world, which was facing an unprecedented dollar shortage crisis due to the sudden implosion of FX swap lines and other mechanisms which until that point were critical in maintaining the dollar funding shortfall for virtually every foreign Central Bank...When the financial system almost imploded in the fall of 2008, one of the primary responses by the Federal Reserve was the issuance of an unprecedented amount of FX liquidity lines in the form of swaps to foreign Central Banks. The number went from practically zero to a peak of $582 billion on December 10, 2008. The number of swaps outstanding was almost directly inversely correlated with the value of the dollar...what happened is that short-term sources to sustain the massive dollar funding mismatch disappeared virtually overnight, and CBs were suddenly facing a toxic spiral of selling increasingly more worthless assets merely to satisfy currency funding needs in an environment where all of a sudden nobody was willing to provide FX swap lines...had the Fed not stepped in, the rest of the world...would have simply collapsed as the $6.5 trillion dollar funding gap closed in on itself, causing a indiscriminate selling off of all dollar denominated assets. The implosion of the basis trade would have seemed like a picnic compared to what was about to ensue had the Fed not stepped in to perpetuate the Fiat banking way of life.

Federal Reserve bail; world; Zero Hedge.

Fri 2009-10-23 09:42 EDT

America's soul is lost, collapse inevitable - MarketWatch

Paul B. Farrell

Jack Bogle published "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism" four years ago. The battle's over. The sequel should be titled: "Capitalism Died a Lost Soul." Worse, we've lost "America's Soul." And, worldwide, the consequences will be catastrophic. That's why a man like Hong Kong contrarian economist Marc Faber warns in his Doom, Boom & Gloom Report: "The future will be a total disaster, with a collapse of our capitalistic system as we know it today." No, not just another meltdown, another bear-market recession like the one recently triggered by Wall Street's too-greedy-to-fail banks. Faber is warning that the entire system of capitalism will collapse. Get it? The engine driving the great "American Economic Empire" for 233 years will collapse, a total disaster, a destiny we created.

America s Soul; Collapse Inevitable; lost; MarketWatch.

Thu 2009-10-01 17:56 EDT

98489 -- Landmark National Bank v. Kesler -- Leben -- Kansas Court of Appeals

J. J. LEBEN

Landmark National Bank brought a suit to foreclose its mortgage against Boyd Kesler and joined Millennia Mortgage Corp. as a defendant because a second mortgage had been filed of record for a loan between Kesler and Millennia. In a foreclosure suit, it is normal practice to name as defendants all parties who may claim a lien against the property. When neither Kesler nor Millennia responded to the suit, the district court gave Landmark a default judgment, entered a journal entry foreclosing Landmark's mortgage, and ordered the property sold so that sale proceeds could be applied to pay Landmark's mortgage. But Millennia apparently had sold its mortgage to another party and no longer had interest in the property by this time. Sovereign Bank filed a motion to set aside the judgment and asserted that it now held the title to Kesler's obligation to pay the debt to Millennia. And another party, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. ("MERS"), also filed a motion to set aside the judgment and asserted that it held legal title to the mortgage, originally on behalf of Millennia and later on behalf of Sovereign. Both Sovereign and MERS claim that MERS was a necessary party to the foreclosure lawsuit and that the judgment must be set aside because MERS wasn't included on the foreclosure suit as a defendant. The district court refused to set aside its judgment. The court found that MERS was not a necessary party and that Sovereign had not sufficiently demonstrated its interest in the property to justify setting aside the foreclosure. ...The district court properly determined that MERS was not a contingently necessary party in Landmark's foreclosure action. The district court also was well within its discretion in denying motions from MERS and Sovereign to intervene after a foreclosure judgment had been entered and the foreclosed property had been sold. The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

98489; appealing; Kansas court; Kesler; Landmark National Bank; leben.

Thu 2009-10-01 10:14 EDT

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS): A System Designed to Create the Mortgage Back Security Bubble. >> Dr. Housing Bubble Blog

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS)...claims to be a privately-held company and their function is keeping track of a confidential electronic registry of mortgages and the modifications to servicing rights and ownership of the loans. However, if you dig deeper into MERS and their shareholders you will find the same crony bankers...shareholders include AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, WaMu, CitiMortgage, Countrywide, GMAC, Guaranty Bank, and Merrill Lynch...MERS allowed for the mortgage backed security business to explode since it allowed mortgages to be shipped off to Wall Street to be minced into tiny tranches and sold off by the big investment banks...MERS is a front for the mortgage and banking industry. It is claimed as a system of convenience but in reality, it is nothing more than the grease to lube up the housing bubble...what is significant about the Kansas Supreme Court finding has to do with the actual legal ownership of the note and deed especially when it comes to foreclosure...MERS is a straw man...provides ``an opaque veil that clouds not only the actual real ownership of the promissory note, but title to the property.''

created; Dr. Housing Bubble Blog; MER; mortgage; mortgage Electronic Registration System; security bubble; Systems designed.

Calculated Risk Fri 2009-09-04 19:23 EDT

FHA: The Next Bailout?

CalculatedRisk

John Burns Consulting sent out a note today titled: FHA Likely To Be The Next Shoe To Drop"The FHA's aggressive lending programs have continued throughout the housing downturn, causing its market share of the mortgage industry to grow from 2% in 2005 to 23% today. ... The FHA insurance fund, however, is likely running dry. ...

Bailout; Calculated Risk; FHA.

Bruce Krasting Fri 2009-09-04 19:11 EDT

Debt Repudiation -- On the Table

Bruce Krasting

In the Week in Review section the NY Times had a piece by David Streitfeld titled ``When Debtors Decide to Default''. I thought it was an important story. The NY Times put the issue of Debt Repudiation on the table. Exactly where it belongs. The author also contributed a new adjective to describe many of America's troubled borrowers, ``Ruthless Defaulters''. This definition comes to us from the ``lending'' side of the equation. I think that is a misguided definition by the industry. I don't think they know what they are up against. Yet...Debt repudiation is the biggest systemic risk we face...the default rate on mortgages in excess of $500k is going to explode this fall...the CC numbers would follow. Broad based debt repudiation is a distinct possibility.

Bruce Krasting; Debt Repudiation; table.

ClubOrlov Wed 2009-08-26 11:24 EDT

Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation

kollapsnik

This talk was presented at The New Emergency Conference in Dublin, on June 11, 2009. ``we all have to prepare for life without much money, where imported goods are scarce, and where people have to provide for their own needs, and those of their immediate neighbours'' ``Most of the wealth is in very few private hands right now. Governments and the vast majority of the people only have debt. It is important to convince people who control all this wealth that they really have two choices. They can trust their investment advisers, maintain their current portfolios, and eventually lose everything. Or they can use their wealth to reengage with people and the land in new ways, in which case they stand a chance of saving something for themselves and their children. They can build and launch lifeboats, recruit crew, and set them sailing.'' 1. Good morning. The title of this talk is a bit of a mouthful, but what I want to say can be summed up in simpler words: we all have to prepare for life without much money, where imported goods are scarce, and where people have to provide for their own needs, and those of their immediate neighbours. I will take as my point of departure the unfolding collapse of the global economy, and discuss what might come next. It started with the collapse of the financial markets last year, and is now resulting in unprecedented decreases in the volumes of international trade. These developments are also starting to affect the political stability of...

ClubOrlov; Definancialisation; Deglobalisation; relocalisation.