On April 13, 2011, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Office of Thrift Supervision announced enforcement actions against 14 large residential mortgage servicers and two third-party vendors for unsafe and unsound practices related to residential mortgage servicing and foreclosure processing.  As part of those consent orders, federal regulators required servicers to engage independent firms to conduct a multi-faceted review of foreclosure actions in process in 2009 and 2010. Under the orders, independent consultants are charged with evaluating whether borrowers suffered financial injury through errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies in foreclosure practices and determining appropriate remediation for those customers. Where a borrower suffered financial injury as a result of such practices, the agencies' orders require financial remediation to be provided.

To be eligible, the mortgage must have been active in the foreclosure process between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2010, the property securing the loan must have been the primary residence, and the mortgage must have been serviced by one of the following mortgage servicers:

• America's Servicing Co.
• Aurora Loan Services
• BAC Home Loans Servicing
• Bank of America
• Beneficial
• Chase
• Citibank
• CitiFinancial
• CitiMortgage
• Countrywide
• EMC
• EverBank/EverHome Mortgage Company
• GMAC Mortgage
• HFC
• HSBC
• IndyMac Mortgage Services
• MetLife Bank
• National City Mortgage
• PNC Mortgage
• Sovereign Bank
• SunTrust Mortgage
• U.S. Bank
• Wachovia Mortgage
• Washington Mutual (WaMu)
• Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.
• Wilshire Credit Corporation

As part of that program, the 14 mortgage servicers covered by the enforcement actions will begin mailings November 1, 2011 that will continue through the end of the year. The mailings are intended to provide information to potentially eligible borrowers on how to request a review of their case if they believe they suffered financial injury as a result of errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies in foreclosure proceedings related to their primary residence between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010. The mailings will include a request for review form. Requests for review must be received by April 30, 2012.

The third-party consultant will assess whether any errors, misrepresentations, or other deficiencies resulted in financial injury to borrowers. Where a borrower suffered financial injury as a result of such practices, the consent orders require remediation to be provided.  During the review, customers may be contacted by mortgage servicers for additional information at the direction of the independent consultant.

Borrowers may also visit www.IndependentForeclosureReview.com for more information about the review and claim process. Assistance with the form and answers to questions about the process are available at 1-888-952-9105, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. (ET) and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (ET).

If you believe that you are eligible for the Review Program or need assistance with the process or determining your rights, than please let us know and we can put you in touch with somebody that may be able to assist. Please click here to contact us.

The information presented in this Article is not to be taken as legal advice. Every persons situation is different. If you are upside-down on your loan(s), especially if you're facing a lender lawsuit, get competent legal advice in your State immediately so that you can determine your best options.

Quiet title action a sneak attack on RMBS

A Virginia quiet title litigator won a nullified deed of trust in Fairfax County this week on a Onewest loan (as successor to Indymac). We are trying to get the property sold immediately. This time a property last sold for 1.8+ million$.  Briefly, this technique takes advantage of the layer of opaqueness purposefully created by MERS in the land record. MERS- or mortgage electronic registration systems, - Wall Streets’ mortgage swamp monster does four things for big bankers:  

 

A)  MERS Allows banks to illegally get away with NOT paying County promissory note transfer taxes each time the note passes to a new entity through chain of title in the securitization process.

 

B)  MERS Keeps a layer of Opaqueness in the land record through which the homeowner cannot see to find out who really owns their promissory note, but the banks can  see through it allowing dishonest representations to both homeowner and Courts alike with very little interference or penalty.

 

C)  MERS Allows banks to foreclose in MERS name so even through the foreclosure process in many states, the RMBS- (mortgage backed securities pool) that owns the note doesn’t have to reveal itself.

 

D) MERS is, According to MERS executives who have had to suffer depositions a “single use bankruptcy vehicle” therefore, when it all goes sideways and is exposed for being the demonic wealth transferring monster that it is, the banks plan on killing MERS ultimately and with it as much liability as they can dump into the legal sink hole..

 

However brilliant this piece of Wall Street magic was, there are problems.  As soon as MERS places a MIN number on a deed of trust and sells the note off to a depositor or trustee of an RMBS, the lender in the land record is now no longer a true party of interest. In deed of trust states like Virginia, California, Utah,  Nevada  & Texas the question immediately begged is well who is the trustee of the deed of trust?  Does this party have a relationship with the new note holder that MERS is dutifully hiding?  Do they even know who the note holder is?   Is the trustee a little title company who is no longer in business??     

 

The best case scenario for quiet title is in a deed of trust state where the trustee in the land record is out of business or doesn’t know who the real note holder is. The attorneys sue to demand that the party who doesn’t belong in the land record remove themselves. If the party is out of business, we’ll we call that a default judgment. There are lots of deeds of trusts that are susceptible to this very easy attack, because MERS made the banks think that the land record didnt require true parties of interest to be updated.    

 

If you would like to find out more about quite title action than please contact us and we can put you in touch with one of our attorneys.