WEEKEND EDITION, APRIL 8 APRIL 12, 2013

MONDAY, APRIL 8, 2013

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate.org Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

Naked Capitalism: Launching Our First (Free) Ebook on the OCC/Fed Foreclosure Review Fiasco We hope you will download this ebook, read it, and circulate it widely. Its timely because the botched foreclosure reviews are coming back into focus. The GAO released its report on them yesterday, and even though it was narrow in focus, it confirmed, as Dave Dayen reported, that the IFR was poorly designed, inconsistently implemented, and subjected to changing guidelines. Elizabeth Warren and Elijah Cummings will be meeting with the OCC and the Fed on Tuesday April 9 to grill them on their sorry performance in the IFR. On Thursday the 11th, Sherrod Brown will be holding hearings in the financial institutions and consumer protection subcommittee. Maxine Waters has also said she will be introducing legislation next week to curb regulators use of third party consultants.

Fannie Mae REO specialist allegedly asked for kickbacks A former Fannie Mae sales associate who allegedly promised to provide listings to a real estate broker from the mortgage giant's REO inventory in exchange for kickbacks has been indicted on three counts of wire fraud. Armando Granillo, 44, worked out of Fannie Mae's Irvine, Calif. office as a real-estate owned (REO) specialist, reviewing applications submitted by real estate brokers seeking to list properties foreclosed on and repossessed by Fannie Mae

CoreLogic: 10.4 million mortgages still in negative equity The fourth quarter of 2012 ended with another 200,000 underwater borrowers moving to a state of positive equity, meaning they no longer owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, CoreLogic said Tuesday. The report shows, that while the housing recovery continues, the rate at which negative equity homeowners turn positive is slowing down.

American Money: Life After Foreclosure In a September 2009 editorial I co-wrote with author Barbara Ehrenreich, we highlighted stories of several individuals who were hard hit by the recession. One of them was Willett Thomas, a nonprofit specialist based in Washington, D.C. Though she owned a home and a rental property in Gainesville, Florida, a hard run of luck quickly left her in dire straits: she fell ill, couldnt find a job, and the house she lived in fell into foreclosure.

Mortgage settlement to provide $143.6M in Wisconsin relief More than 3,000 Wisconsin borrowers will receive more than $143.6 million in loan-related relief, according to a press release from Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen Wednesday. Each borrower will receive about $47,000 from the national mortgage settlement, a $25 billion joint federal-state agreement with the nations five largest mortgage services over foreclosure abuses and fraud, and unacceptable nationwide.

Survey: Price Gap for Damaged REOs, NonDistressed Homes Widens Prices for damaged REOs were down 17.1 percent from the average price recorded a year ago and average $88,100, the lowest level seen in the surveys four-year history. The survey also found that while the investor share of purchases for damaged REOs has increased, interest for properties in that category has waned among current and first-time homebuyers.

New foreclosure rules aim to nip predatory lenders in the bud Illinois homeowners, especially those in the throes of a foreclosure battle with lenders, can finally breathe a small sigh of relief now that the playing field has been leveled a bit more. In an announcement Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court released a series of new rules aimed at cleaning up the foreclosure process and stopping many of the predatory lending practices that contributed to the recent housing market crash.

OCC, Fed Stonewalling Congressional Oversight of Independent Foreclosure Reviews So what we have here is a penalty for banks robbing people of their homes (Warren and Cummings are quick to point out the 700-plus illegal foreclosures banks have admitted to in the course of the reviews), where shadow regulator reviewers like Promontory Financial Group made out at twenty times the rate of the actual victims who were harmed. And as Yves has painstakingly documented, the consultants were more interested in finding elegant ways NOT to review the files, or to creatively spin the findings.

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WEEKEND EDITION, APRIL 8 APRIL 12, 2013

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2013

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate.org Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

No Justice When Facts Of A Case Are Ignored In Favor Of A Conflict Of Interest Sideshow I personally did not learn that our loan had been transferred to Bank of America or that it was being handled by LSI Title until the week after Tracey Lawrences death. While I have been told that the Defendants submitted a Notice of Default prior to that time, I never personally saw such notice until approximately December 2011, when I was gathering together documents for my upcoming mortgage mediation. The attorney generals office also argued that to allege that Kelleher had a vendetta against LSI as early as September 2011, when Kelleher was wholly unaware of LSIs involvement until December is unsupportable by the facts of the case.

Warren and Cummings to Meet with Fed and OCC on Foreclosure Abuses Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry accepting their proposal for a meeting to discuss the requests Warren and Cummings have made for documents relating to mortgage servicer abuses identified as part of the Independent Foreclosure Review. "Criminal activity should.

Mortgage applications slide 7.1% Mortgage applications slipped 7.1% for the week ending March 15, marking the second straight week of declines, an industry trade group said Wednesday. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported fewer applications as home purchase and refinancing activity thawed. The refinance index and the purchase index dropped 8% and 4%, respectively, from the previous week. The refinance share of mortgage activity declined to 75%, making this 10 consecutive weeks of.

Protesters shut down Wells Fargo Bank in Richmond The protest was organized by Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), which also staged demonstrations at branches in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego. The protests launched what ACCE calls a "campaign calling on Wells Fargo to enact a broad principal reduction program, reduce short sales and release data on borrowers helped by income and race."

Bank Executive Sentenced for Mortgage Fraud According to evidence presented at trial, from approximately April 2003 through October 2005, Blanford, while working as a senior sales representative for Long Beach Mortgage, a wholesale subprime lender and former subsidiary ofWashington Mutual Inc., participated in a scheme to defraud his employer. Blanford earned compensation based on the volume of loans processed by Long Beach Mortgage. The evidence established that he paid.

City of St. Louis passes new foreclosure ordinance "Home foreclosures present dangers to the health, safety and welfare of the public, thereby creating a public nuisance. They hurt property values and interfere with the collection of real property taxes. It's a serious concern, which municipal government cannot ignore," Mayor Francis Slay said. "The City is heartened by the willingness of the major lenders in town to participate in home foreclosure mediation."

RealtyTrac: Foreclosure sales uneven across the nation Based in Irvine, Calif., RealtyTrac is the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties. Although foreclosure-related sales represent a shrinking share of total sales, primarily because of fewer bank-owned purchases, distressed sales are still a disproportionately high portion of the overall housing market, said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac.

VICTORY! South Minneapolis Grandmother Wins Loan Modification After a public pressure campaign through Occupy Homes MNs Foreclosure and Eviction Free Zone, Gayle Lindsey, a nursing assistant and grandmother in South Minneapolis who was facing imminent eviction, has won a modification of her mortgage from M&T Bank. Gayles victory came marks the seventh for Occupy Homes MN and the first in the Foreclosure and Eviction Free Zone, a project that brings neighbors in the Central and Powderhorn neighborhoods together to refuse to leave their homes without a fair negotiation.

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WEEKEND EDITION, APRIL 8 APRIL 12, 2013

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate.org Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

Indictment - 18 U.S.C. 1343, 1346: Wire Fraud, Deprivation of Honest Services Defendant ARMANDO GRANILLO ("defendant GRANILLO") was employed by Fannie Mae, at its office in Irvine, California, as a Real Estate Owned Foreclosure Specialist. Defendant GRANILLO's duties included reviewing and approving applications made by real estate brokers for permission to list Fannie Mae REO properties for sale; assigning Fannie Mae REO property listings to approved real estate brokers; and approving sales offers submitted by approved brokers for the sale of Fannie Mae REO properties. Defendant GRANILLO was paid by salary by Fannie Mae, and defendant GRANILLO was not entitled to receive compensation from the sale of Fannie Mae REO properties.

Costly Consultant Work on Foreclosures Prompts Congress Scrutiny U.S. lawmakers plan to summon regulators and outside consulting firms to explain shortcomings in a multi-billion dollar settlement over botched mortgage foreclosures, according to two people briefed on the plan. Senator Sherrod Brown, chairman of the Senate Banking Committees subcommittee on financial institutions, is scheduling a hearing to examine the relationship between federal agencies and third-party firms for mid-April, according to the people, who.

Forum on the Future of Housing: Speakers With just a few weeks left until our forum in Washington, D.C. on The Future of Housing: Whats Next for Housing Demand, Mortgage Finance, and Recovery, weve lined up an impressive array of speakers. You can see more about them below. If youd like to attend the event on April 18 in Washington, D.C., please RSVP here. More information and ongoing news about the forum is available on our housing forum site or by following hashtag #HousingFuture on Twitter.

Revenge of the Clerks: MERS Confronts County Clerk and Qui Tam Lawsuits Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) has faced unceasing controversy from litigators and scholars for its role in foreclosures, its effect on public records transparency, and its role in the housing bubble. While scholarly accounts have described the challenges MERS has faced in foreclosure and bankruptcy courts, this essay seeks to examine the most recent .

Historic Hanford Inn shuts down in foreclosure Some of the hotel rooms were rented out on a monthly basis. Mike Longoria was renting one of those rooms, and was the only resident left in the hotel on Wednesday. He told Action News he had no place to go and was asking to stay in the room, without running water for a couple of more days. He is not the only one hurt. Dori Shankland worked as the hotel's night manager. She lived in a room and is now in a jam....

The Us Federal And State Governments Conspiring With Criminal Organiztions To Seize Private Property The central bankers, principally through their mouthpieces installed within the federal governments Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner, argued that any accounting requirements, any restrictions, any regulation whatsoever over the trillions of dollars provided to them would be unfair and unworkable. And so, incredibly, the banks and Wall Street casinos received trillions of dollars, with no strings.

We dont want low-ball offers: CMHC firm on not disclosing foreclosure information Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. is making no apologies over its tactic of not disclosing a house has been repossessed when it puts the home back on the market. The Crown corporation says it is acting like any other seller just trying to get the best offer it can. Critics charge CMHC should disclose more information, given its role as Canadas national housing agency. We dont want to attract low-ball offers, said Mark McInnis, vice-president insurance underwriting.

Tax Help for Underwater Homeowners If youre one of many homeowners who paid top dollar for your home and are still waiting for the price to recover, don't forget about an important tax break. Mortgage debt that a lender forgives- say, by restructuring your loan or through foreclosure- is not taxable as income on your federal tax return While you still have to report it, this is a huge savings and its (still) here for only a limited time. Say uou bought a home back in 2006 for $400,000 and you put down $60,000 and took out a mortgage for $340,000. Now the home is worth around $330,000 and you are no longer able to make the monthly payments because your spouse has been unemployed for three years.

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WEEKEND EDITION, APRIL 8 APRIL 12, 2013

THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 2013

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate.org Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

Homeowner takes bank to trial to avoid foreclosure over mortgage he didnt sign A Miami-based bank is trying to seize Jorge Jaens home in the Florida Keys over a mortgage that he never signed. Jaen alleges that both he and Great Eastern Bank of Florida were victims of mortgage fraud, but hes the one who could pay the price by losing his home in Plantation Key. The foreclosure lawsuit is set for trial April 1 in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. It all started in 2006 when the three-bedroom home, at 145 Venetian Way, was transferred for minimal monetary compensation by a quit-claim deed from Jaen to Remy Development of Florida. Jaen claimed in his motion to dismiss the complaint that he had no knowledge of the deed and it was a bogus.

Freddie Mac failing homeowners, watchdog says Freddie Mac and its regulator are not doing a good enough job bird-dogging complaints by homeowners about the companies handling their mortgages, a federal oversight official said Thursday. The mortgage giant's eight largest mortgage servicers resolved more than 25,500 "escalated" complaints from homeowners between October 2011 and November 2012, but failed to take care of 21% of them within the required 30-day window, according to a report.

$9.3 Billion in Payments and Foreclosure Assistance to Begin in April 2013 On March 18, 2013, more than 4.2 million people were sent postcard notices about payments they will receive as a result of an agreement between federal banking regulators and 13 mortgage servicers. As a result of this agreement, the Independent Foreclosure Review ceased at those servicers. A full list of companies and their affiliates or subsidiaries covered by the agreement are listed below.

Economic Fairness foreclosure reforms

blasts

bankers

over

4 Plead Guilty to Appraisal Fraud Scheme According to prosecutors, Shepherd arranged for the sale of 24 properties in Summit and Stark counties, Ohio, at prices that were inflated by phony appraisals. George and Sadler pleaded guilty to charges of Telecommunications Fraud and Falsification, respectively. Many of their appraisals either omitted information regarding the poor condition of the properties or listed improvements to the home that were never actually made.

It caught our attention this week when Economic Fairness Oregon sent out a scathing email accusing the Oregon Bankers Association of trying to stall an effort to expand foreclosure protection. Last year's foreclosure reform law mandates that borrowers facing non-judicial foreclosures those that are not processed through the courts have the right to a face-toface meeting with their lender.

They Bailed on Their HomesNow They Want Back In Home sales are slowly climbing back, thanks to investor demand, improving consumer confidence in housing, and the surprising return of former homeowners who once walked away from their commitments. These so-called, "strategic defaulters," some of them investors and some owner-occupants, are coming back to the market, despite damaged credit, and apparently the market is welcoming them back

Group's efforts to revitalize neighborhoods pay off The 15 employees of the Southwest Organizing Project, a nonprofit community group on Chicago's Southwest Side, are housed in a small, shared office space when they aren't out in the community. They are out a lot in the neighborhoods, ones particularly hard-hit by the housing crisis. The way they've approached housing issues, as well as other concerns in Chicago Lawn.

Fighting the Foreclosure Nightmare that Never Ends During that process, the homeowner still owns their home. Zombie foreclosures happen when the homeowner assumes they have lost their home and moves when the bank begins foreclosure, but the foreclosure process is never completed. So both the homeowner and their title are caught in between this world and the next, like a zombie. The problem is that once the homeowner leaves, theres an opportunity for real estate taxes to go unpaid and the property to go unmaintained, which often leads to code enforcement violations, vandals, and even squatters. You wind up with a whole slew of new problemswhich the homeowner, not the bank, can still be liable for without even knowing it.

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WEEKEND EDITION, APRIL 8 APRIL 12, 2013

FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 2013

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate.org Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

New IG Report Exposes FHFAs Failure to Properly Ensure Banks are Complying with Consumer Protection Laws Another week has brought yet another sorry report from the FHFA Inspector General finding that FHFA and the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) have failed to take seriously their obligations to protect consumers, said Cummings. Todays report only confirms what I believe is the urgent need of the Oversight Committee to hold a hearing with FHFA and its Inspector General to examine FHFAs repeated refusal to fully implement its statutory obligations to ensure that American homeowners are never again subjected to the abusive business practices of banks.

JPMorgan Chase Faces Full-Court Press of Federal Investigations As the nations strongest bank, JPMorgan Chase used to be known for carrying special sway with regulators. Now it increasingly finds itself in the cross hairs of federal authorities. At least two board members are worried about the mounting problems, and some top executives fear that the banks relationships in Washington have frayed as JPMorgan becomes a focus of federal investigations.

Former Treasury Secretary Joins LPS as Board Member A former Treasury secretary is joining Lender Processing Services (LPS) board of directors, the company announced. John Snow, Ph.D., was appointed to serve on the risk and compliance committee of the Florida-based companys board of directors. Snow served as Secretary of the Treasury under President Bush from February 2003 to June 2006 and has work as president of JWS Associates, LLC since then.

Anatomy of an Attempted Foreclosure Fraud On February 26, 2013 a foreclosure trial was held in Middlesex County New Jersey. Plaintiff Roundpoint Mortgage Servicing Corp. was caught attempting to foreclose using a fraudulent promissory note. The following shows the true promissory note executed by the homeowner compared to the fraudulent one produced at trial. The matter has been dismissed and forwarded to the local prosecutor's office in the hopes that criminal action will be pursued.

Bank of America admits to NY AG probe and other investigations The bank admitted in a securities filing this week that the New York Attorney General is currently conducting an investigating into Bank of Americas purchase, securitization and underwriting of mortgage loans and mortgage-backed securities. As of today, the bank said it has provided documents and testimony related to the investigation. Furthermore, BofA said it's facing a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation related to Merrill.

Homeowners associations find short sales an option to recoup losses Some homeowners and condominium owners associations, struggling after the foreclosure crisis, are increasingly turning to short sales or rental agreements to stanch losses and prevent future damage to their neighborhoods, real estate brokers and association managers say. When the real estate market crashed at the end of the last decade, homeowners associations found themselves dealing with unprecedented.

Homebuilder activity quiets down in January After jumping 9% in December, construction spending in the U.S. dropped 2.1% to a seasonally adjusted rate of $883.3 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The January numbers are still 7.1% higher than the January 2012 estimate of $824.7 billion. Seasonally adjusted private residential spending dropped 2.6% below the revised December estimate of $630.9 billion, reaching only $614.2 billion in January.

Atlanta Housing Activists Retake House For Senior Evicted After Needless Foreclosure Mildred Garrison-Obi, or Obi as many of her friends call her, was evicted from her home by force last November. After the eviction, Mildred was left with nowhere to go, sleeping on friends couches, or renting a room at the local extended stay hotel. She began attending weekly meetings held by Occupy Our Homes Atlanta, and after helping to move a young homeless family into a bank owned home in December, Mildred was inspired to keep fighting and take her own home back from the bank.

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