Category: foreclosure

Special report: Legal woes mount for a foreclosure kingpin | Reuters

by nootkabear, posted in Attorneys, big brother, Court Cases, foreclosure, Judicial Corruption, law, Legal, manifest injustice

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/12/06/us-foreclosures-lps-idUSTRE6B547N20101206

Lest We Not Forget…

Special report: Legal woes mount for a foreclosure kingpin

Fall leaves blow past an empty home (C) seen in a well kept neighborhood where the house is listed on the auction block during the Wayne County tax foreclosures auction of almost 9,000 properties in Detroit, Michigan, October 22, 2009. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

Fall leaves blow past an empty home (C) seen in a well kept neighborhood where the house is listed on the auction block during the Wayne County tax foreclosures auction of almost 9,000 properties in Detroit, Michigan, October 22, 2009. Credit: Reuters/Rebecca Cook

By Scot J. Paltrow

JACKSONVILLE, Florida | Mon Dec 6, 2010 2:10pm EST

JACKSONVILLE, Florida (Reuters) – Lender Processing Services is riding the waves of foreclosures sweeping the United States, but in late October its CEO, Jeff Carbiener, found himself needing to reassure investors in the $2.8 billion company.

Although profits were rolling in, LPS’s stock had taken a hit in the wake of revelations that mortgage companies across the country had filed fraudulent documents in foreclosures cases. Earlier in the year, the company, which handles more than half of the nation’s foreclosures, had disclosed that it was under federal criminal investigation and admitted that employees at a small subsidiary had falsely signed foreclosure documents.

Still, Carbiener told the Wall Street analysts in an October 29 conference call that LPS’s legal concerns were overblown, and the stock has jumped 13 percent since its close the day before the call.

But a Reuters investigation shows that LPS’s legal woes are more serious than he let on. Public records reveal that the company’s LPS Default Solutions unit produced documents of dubious authenticity in far larger quantities than it has disclosed, and over a much longer timespan.

Questionable signing and notarization practices weren’t limited to its subsidiary, called DocX, but occurred in at least one of LPS’s own offices, mortgage assignments filed in county recorders’ offices show. And rather than halt such practices after the federal investigation got underway, the company shifted the signing to firms with which it has close business ties. LPS provided personnel to work in the new signing operations, according to information from an LPS spokeswoman and court records including an October 21 ruling by a judge in Brooklyn, New York. Records in county recorders’ offices, and in the judge’s opinion, show that "robosigning" and preparation of apparently false documents went on at these sites on a large scale.

In one instance, it helped set up a massive signing operation at the nearby office of a major client, a spokeswoman for the client, American Home Mortgage Servicing, confirmed. LPS-hired notaries who worked there said in interviews that troves of documents were improperly handled. They said that about 200 affidavits per day were robosigned during the two months the two notaries remained there.

A spokeswoman for LPS confirmed to Reuters that it had helped other firms establish operations that performed the same function. LPS spokeswoman Michelle Kersch didn’t specify which firms. But beginning early in 2010, county recorders’ records show, signing shifted also to law firms under contract with LPS.

Interviews with key players and court records also show that pending investigations and lawsuits pose a bigger threat to the company than Carbiener let on.

The criminal investigation in Jacksonville by federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is intensifying. The same goes for a separate inquiry by the Florida attorney general’s office. Individuals with direct knowledge of the federal inquiry said that prosecutors have impaneled a grand jury, begun calling witnesses and subpoenaed records from LPS.

The company confirmed to Reuters that it has hired Paul McNulty, former deputy U.S. attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, to represent it in the investigation. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment on the probe.

The U.S. Comptroller of the Currency’s office, which is responsible for supervising national banks, also announced in November that it had teamed up with the Federal Reserve to conduct an on-site examination of LPS.

Meanwhile, the threats from four class action lawsuits filed in federal courts appear to be greater than the company has indicated, especially one filed in Mississippi. In a highly unusual move, a unit of the U.S. Justice Department has joined that suit as a plaintiff. The lawsuit alleges that LPS extracted many millions of dollars in kickbacks from law firms through an illegal fee-sharing arrangement, in exchange for doling out lucrative foreclosure work to them.

The lawsuit also charges that LPS illegally practices law and routinely misleads homeowners and federal bankruptcy judges. Carbiener has said there is little reason to worry about the Mississippi suit because the company already prevailed in a federal lawsuit in Texas that had made nearly identical accusations. But court records in that case show that the lawsuit was dropped without any ruling on the merits of the allegations.

Copies of LPS internal documents obtained by Reuters and testimony in lawsuits shed new light on the company’s unusual dealings with its vast network of law firms. LPS relentlessly pressed them for speed. The result was almost instant filing of foreclosure documents, mostly prepared by clerical workers, not lawyers, according to court records, including deposition testimony by LPS officials. Several judicial opinions from around the country and evidence from investigations in Florida show that these documents often were riddled with inaccurate information about the amount homeowners owed, and were signed and notarized en masse without anyone at the firms checking the information in them.

Under LPS’s system, law firms that were slower, often because their lawyers carefully prepared and reviewed court documents before filing them, were effectively punished, according to deposition testimony and other sources. The computer automatically assigned bad ratings to these firms, and the flow of work assignments to them dried up.

A BOOMING BUSINESS

Few firms benefited more from the collapse of the U.S. housing boom than LPS. Spun off as an independent company in 2008, the company has seen its profits, with big help from its mortgage default services business, reach $232 million for the first nine months of 2010. That is a nearly 15 percent increase from the same period in 2009. Its revenue last year was $2.4 billion, up from $1.8 billion in 2008.

And business continues to surge. Carbiener told analysts on the October 29 call that "we continue to gain market share across all key business segments." In a November 23 report prepared for investors and clients, LPS said banks are pushing to foreclose on properties as rapidly as possible, driving "the foreclosure inventory rate to all-time highs." It said that at the end of October, the number of properties going into foreclosure is "7.4 times historical averages and rising."

The banks’ push to evict homeowners faster and in bigger numbers than ever before makes LPS’s services even more crucial to them. LPS’s success is built on its advanced, super-automated system that is highly efficient, low-cost, and speeds foreclosures through to completion. The "LPS Desktop" starts foreclosure actions, assigns work to law firms and supervises the cases to conclusion with almost no intervention by humans. (LPS says foreclosure actions are started by its clients, the loan servicers. But copies of agreements with servicers obtained by Reuters show that LPS has direct access to the banks’ and other servicers’ computer systems, and LPS detects defaults and initiates foreclosures based on parameters given to it by the banks.)

Few loan servicers could resist handing over key tasks to the company. Today, LPS boasts a client list that includes 14 of the 15 biggest loan servicers, with household names such as Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase — its two biggest clients, according to LPS’s most recent 10K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company has said that Bank of America joined as a client earlier this year. LPS says that all 50 of the nation’s largest banks use at least some of its services.

In essence, LPS is a giant electronic butler for the big banks and other companies in the industry. It attends to routine tasks the loan servicers prefer not to do themselves. These include tracking mortgage payments, calculating amounts owed to investors who purchased bundles of mortgages, ensuring that property taxes and insurance get paid — and automatically filing foreclosure actions when homeowners go into default.

The pending investigations and lawsuits, however, are focusing on whether LPS, in its zeal to serve its clients, broke the rules, in part by replacing missing bank documents with fictitious ones to make foreclosure cases go through.

SIGNATURE TROUBLE

The first sign of legal problems for LPS emerged earlier this year, when the company disclosed that federal prosecutors in Florida had opened a criminal investigation into apparently forged signatures on foreclosure documents prepared by DocX, the shuttered subsidiary located in a small office park in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Fidelity National Financial, LPS’s former parent, had bought DocX in 2005. The unit soon became a high-speed mill, churning out mortgage assignments — many of which are now known to be of doubtful validity — on behalf of banks and investor trusts, helping them to foreclose on homeowners.

Mortgage assignments are documents transferring ownership, usually from the original lenders to trusts owned by investors who bought securitized packages of mortgages. Loan servicers typically file foreclosure actions on behalf of the trusts when any of their mortgages go into default. But cases popping up all over the country show that the original lenders never handed over ownership of mortgages to the trusts. Assignments establishing ownership of a mortgage are required as evidence in foreclosure cases.

DocX turned out tens of thousands of newly-minted mortgage assignments, purporting to show transfers of ownership long after the mortgages should have been handed over to the trusts, according to the standard provisions in trust agreements.

Thousands of these bore the signature of DocX employee Linda Green. The signatures didn’t look alike, however, and LPS eventually confirmed that multiple DocX employees had signed her name. Some of the assignments stood out because they listed the new owner of the mortgages as "bogus assignee" or "bad bene."

LPS spokeswoman Michelle Kersch said "bogus assignee" and "bad bene" were simply standard placeholders on document templates which the employees inadvertently had neglected to fill in with the proper names.

In his October 29 conference call with analysts, Carbiener said that when the company discovered the DocX wrongdoing in December 2009, it immediately stopped it and soon shut DocX down. But it turns out that DocX continued operating much longer than LPS originally had acknowledged. In a written response last week to questions from Reuters, LPS’s Kersch confirmed that DocX actually wasn’t closed until August 2010. She said: "The last document signed by DocX was on May 14, 2010." But she said no improper signing had occurred there since 2009.

DUBIOUS DOCUMENTS

Hundreds of public records examined by Reuters show that production of suspect mortgage assignments was not limited to DocX.

The records indicate that employees in one of LPS’s own offices, in Mendota Heights, Minnesota, signed and notarized large numbers of documents which for multiple reasons appear invalid. Records filed with county recorders’ offices show that the Minnesota office continued to turn out these documents at least through the end of January 2010.

Dozens of assignments were signed by LPS Minnesota office employees who listed themselves as corporate officers of banks and other loan servicers, a sampling of public records from counties in five states shows. As at DocX, the assignments were signed years after the mortgages should have been transferred to the investment trusts.

The signature of one of these LPS employees, Liquenda Allotey, appears on thousands of mortgage assignments. Homeowners’ lawyers and at least one judge — federal bankruptcy judge Joel B. Rosenthal in Massachusetts — have noted that Allotey’s signature is a simple zigzag line, raising questions about whether other individuals may have signed his name. Titles listed below the signature identify him variously as "vice president" or "attorney in fact" for at least 13 banks and mortgage companies.

LPS spokeswoman Kersch said Allotey signed all of the documents himself, and said all mortgage assignments prepared in the Minnesota office "were executed under a lawful grant of authority." She didn’t spell out, however, how such authority was given.

In any event, two other aspects of many mortgage assignments signed by Minnesota employees raise strong doubts about the documents’ legitimacy.

State laws, backed up by court decisions, require that mortgage investment trusts and others filing to foreclose on houses possess a valid mortgage assignment at the time they file for foreclosure. If it doesn’t, the laws require that the case be dismissed.

An examination of county recorders’ records turned up dozens of mortgage assignments signed and notarized by the Minnesota office weeks or months after a foreclosure case had been filed. Records show that even though invalid, the belated mortgage assignments often enabled foreclosure cases to sail through.

April Charney, an attorney who represents homeowners at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, said in a Reuters interview that in most instances homeowners can’t afford lawyers and don’t challenge the foreclosures.

In many states, judges often approve the foreclosures without carefully examining the documents, she said. And at least until recently, when widespread questions were raised about the legitimacy of mortgage documents, judges routinely accepted belated mortgage assignments — even in cases contested by the homeowners, she said.

Equally difficult to explain are mortgage assignments signed by LPS Minnesota employees purporting to be officers of lenders that no longer existed. For example, in January 2010, two Minnesota employees jointly signed one as officers of Encore Credit Corp., defunct since 2008.

On other occasions, LPS employees signed as authorized officers of American Brokers Conduit, well after the subprime lender had been liquidated in bankruptcy. And in many instances they signed as officers of Sand Canyon Corp. In a March 18, 2009 affidavit, Sand Canyon’s president, Dale M. Sugimoto, said the company had completely exited the mortgage business in 2008 and had no mortgages to assign.

In written answers to questions, LPS spokeswoman Kersch didn’t respond directly to questions about the employees signing mortgage assignments after the foreclosures had been filed, or about signing on behalf of defunct companies. Instead, she said that the LPS employees signed mortgage assignments because lawyers who had filed foreclosure cases asked them to. She said the lawyers "decide when and if an assignment of mortgage is required."

Shortly after the federal investigation was launched in December 2009, LPS began moving to curtail document-signing activities at the company itself. LPS says that the Minnesota office stopped signing mortgage assignments at the end of January 2010, and public records appear to confirm that. Carbiener said during the analysts meeting that LPS has now ended all signing of mortgage assignments and affidavits at the company.

Without someone to draw up replacement documents, though, LPS’s clients faced potential hardship, because so many mortgages were never assigned by lenders, as required, in the first place. Without these documents, thousands of foreclosures all over the country would come to a halt.

Reuters has learned that rather than stamping out the practice, LPS in December 2009 began transferring signing operations out of its own offices and into those of firms it has close relationships with. Kersch confirmed that LPS sent personnel to work "at client locations to assist clients during this period."

For example, LPS arranged through a local employment service to hire about a dozen notaries, sending them to work at a new signing operation set up in the Jacksonville office of American Home Mortgage Servicing, one of LPS’s biggest clients.

Records from county recorders’ offices show that at least as recently as October, American Home Mortgage Servicing employees signed exactly the same type of questionable mortgages assignments that LPS staffers at DocX and in Minnesota had signed. These included assignments done on behalf of defunct companies like American Brokers Conduit, and after foreclosure actions already had been filed. Reuters obtained a partial list of the names of the LPS-hired notaries. Copies of mortgage assignments available publicly show that these notaries notarized many of these assignments, including ones signed on behalf of defunct companies.

In interviews, two of the notaries, who asked that they not be identified, said the American Home Mortgage Servicing office also set up a "robosigning" operation for affidavits, another type of document required in foreclosure cases. The employees who signed the affidavits were swearing that they had verified the facts listed in them, such as the specific amounts owed by homeowners.

But the two notaries, who said they were dismissed after raising questions with supervisors about the practices, said that each morning about a half-dozen American Home Mortgage Servicing employees in about an hour would sign some 200 affidavits received via LPS’s computer system, without reading them, let alone verifying the facts they contained. "In that time, come on, you have not verified figures in 200 documents. That’s impossible," one of the notaries said.

Philippa Brown, spokeswoman for American Home Mortgage Servicing, said in an e-mailed statement that "We recently had independent audits conducted on our processes and it was found that at no time was AHMSI (American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc.) ‘robosigning’." She confirmed that the company had used DocX until December 2009, and then "contracted with LPS" to provide it with notaries "in connection with execution of affidavits and other documents" in American Home Mortgage Servicing’s office. Concerning assignments the company signed for defunct lenders, Brown said American Home Mortgage Servicing "obtains authorization from the previous parties," but did not explain how.

LPS acknowledged that it had sent notaries to several companies to help them set up signing operations. Kersch said: "When LPS Default Solutions group transitioned away from signing documents on behalf of its customers, in some cases it employed notaries who worked on-site at client locations to assist clients during this period." The spokeswoman confirmed that LPS provided training at these sites, but said it was only "technical" training on using the LPS Desktop system.

TROLLING FOR CASES

It remains unclear whether LPS faces more legal risks because of its document-signing operations or because of its odd arrangement with the lawyers assigned to file foreclosure actions.

Reuters has obtained new details of how the relationship worked from copies of the "network agreements" the law firms sign with LPS, among other sources. Interviews and records from court cases show that this system often worked to the detriment of homeowners struggling to keep their homes.

LPS says that clients are the ones who pick law firms to represent them in foreclosure cases. But copies of its agreements with clients reviewed by Reuters state that the company’s clients sign up to use LPS’s network of lawyer. The agreements and depositions from lawsuits show that when a homeowner goes into default, the LPS system automatically selects a law firm in its network, sometimes using criteria set by a client, and transmits an offer of work that pops up on the law firm’s LPS Desktop screen.

The firm has no more than a couple of hours to accept the job. And if it does, it immediately agrees to pay an up-front fee to LPS. The law firms also pay LPS a monthly fee for use of the LPS Desktop system.

The company denies that it charges fees to lawyers in exchange for assignments of work. Kersch said the company charges fees strictly for the use of LPS’s computer system. Carbiener on October 29 said: "Our services are nonlegal, and are similar to any other operational cost of a law firm such as the licensing costs they pay for word-processing software or accounting software."

But in a lawsuit deposition on January 13, 2010, Christian Hymer, an LPS first vice president, testified that the company often signs up the law firms that are part of its network. In addition, until recently, lawyers signed work agreements only with LPS, not with the loan servicers. Kersch said that currently lawyers are required to sign separate agreements both with LPS and the servicers.

Laws in nearly all states forbid lawyers to share legal fees with nonlawyers. The laws are intended to prevent kickbacks for funneling legal work to an attorney, the cost of which would be passed on to unsuspecting clients or, as in foreclosure cases, billed to homeowners.

LPS isn’t a law firm. The Mississippi class action suit alleges that LPS is a nonlawyer middleman between the servicers (acting on behalf of trusts that own the mortgages) and the lawyers. It alleges that the company illegally decides which law firms get to file foreclosure cases, and makes decisions about what they file.

RED, YELLOW, GREEN

Interviews, deposition transcripts and LPS’s own records underline that the company keeps its clients happy and maximizes its own fee income by whipping law firms to gallop cases through the courts.

The law firms are on a stopwatch: Kersch confirmed that the LPS Desktop system automatically times how long each firm takes to complete a task. It assigns firms that turn out work the fastest a "green" rating; slower ones "yellow" and "red" for those that take the longest.

Court records show that green ratings go to firms that jump on offered assignments from their LPS computer screens and almost instantly turn out ready-to-file court pleadings, often using teams of low-skilled clerical workers with little oversight from the lawyers. Copies of company newsletters from shortly before LPS was spun off show that the company each year gave awards to the law firms that were consistently the fastest.

Firms that move more slowly were slapped with "red" designations. For them, work offers dried up.

LPS denies that the rating system is used to punish slower firms. Kersch said the ratings are generated so that law firms can compare their speed and efficiency with an average calculated for a wide group of firms.

LEGAL AFFAIRS

The term "robosigners" was coined to describe the low-level clerical workers who signed many thousands of affidavits for foreclosure cases, swearing to the truth of facts they had never checked. But it turns out that the professionals at these firms — the attorneys who have strict legal and ethical obligations to file truthful documents in court — have carried out similar activities on a large scale. They allowed others to sign their names to multiple types of court pleadings they had never read or bothered to check, involving many types of documents.

In an April 2009 court decision, Diane Weiss Sigmund, a federal bankruptcy judge in Philadelphia, specifically faulted lawyers whose firm filed LPS-transmitted documents in court using clerical workers to sign the name of a lawyer who hadn’t looked at them.

In that case, it turned out that, contrary to the documents supplied via the LPS system, the homeowners weren’t in default on their mortgage.

Referring to the LPS computer system, the judge stated, "the flaws in this automated process become apparent." She added: "An attorney must cease processing files and act like a lawyer."

Jacksonville legal aid attorney Charney says that carelessly prepared documents, containing basic errors, have been used to foreclose on a big portion of the homeowners who have lost their houses.

LPS denies that its system encourages carelessness by law firms. In the October 29 conference call, Chief Executive Carbiener said that based on routine internal reviews, "we are not aware of any defects in our signing and review processes that resulted in the wrongful foreclosure of any borrower."

(Editing by Jim Impoco and Claudia Parsons)

Special report: Legal woes mount for a foreclosure kingpin | Reuters

New York sues banks over foreclosures – Feb. 3, 2012

by nootkabear, posted in Court Cases, Courts, foreclosure, law, Legal

http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/03/news/economy/banks_sued/index.htm?source=cnn_bin

New York sues banks over foreclosures

  • By Jennifer Liberto@CNNMoneyFebruary 3, 2012: 3:15 PM ET

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has sued the big banks over their use of an electronic mortgage registry.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has sued the big banks over their use of a private electronic mortgage registry.

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney) — The New York attorney general sued some of the nation’s biggest banks on Friday, accusing them of unlawful and deceptive practices for relying on a private electronic registry that tracks mortgages.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on Friday sued Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), as well as the Mortgage Electronic Registration System Inc. (MERS) in New York state court.

Schneiderman says that the banks created the electronic registry as an "end-run" around the public property recording system to help them more quickly buy and sell parts of mortgages. He said the system helped banks create "deceptive and fraudulent court submissions" and improperly foreclose on homeowners.

"Our action demonstrates that there is one set of rules for all — no matter how big or powerful the institution may be — and that those rules will be enforced vigorously," said Attorney General Schneiderman in a statement.

Foreclosure settlement could be coming

MERS runs a database created in the 1995 to digitize and centralize the paperwork surrounding the bundling and selling of the loans. MERS members include most of the large banks in the mortgage industry. More than 70 million loans are registered in the MERS system, including 30 million that are active, according to the New York attorney general’s office.

The New York suit alleges that the database was used by the big banks to transfer ownership of mortgage debt without paying government registration fees and properly recording the transactions. The system also concealed the identities of the holders of mortgage debt from borrowers, the suit claims.

"MERS’ conduct, as well as the servicers’ use of the MERS System, has resulted in the filing of improper New York foreclosure proceedings, undermined the integrity of the judicial process, created confusion and uncertainty concerning property ownership interests, and potentially clouded titles on properties throughout the State of New York," according to a statement by the New York Attorney General.

MERSCORP, parent company for Mortgage Electronic Registration System Inc., said the company refutes the attorney general’s claims, adding that federal and state courts nationwide have already upheld the MERS’ business model, according to a statement.

One Washington research analyst notes that the New York charges are similar to past cases brought against MERS, and that so far, "the industry has won most of those challenges," said Jaret Seiberg, of Guggenheim’s Washington Research Group "The ones they lost tend to be on narrow issues.

In December the Massachusetts attorney general filed a lawsuit against the same banks, as well as Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and GMAC Mortgage, alleging similar complaints. That case is still pending.

Schneiderman is also leading a working group of federal and state officials that the president put together to investigate mortgage securities fraud.

At the same time, Schneiderman is also considering whether New York should sign on to a mortgage servicing settlement agreement that federal officials and state attorneys general have been negotiating for a year with the nation’s largest banks that service mortgages. To top of page

New York sues banks over foreclosures – Feb. 3, 2012

The Shocking Truth About The Crackdown On Occupy | Before It’s News

by nootkabear, posted in foreclosure, Injustice, law, Legal

The Shocking Truth About The Crackdown On Occupy | Before It’s News

The violent police assaults across the US are no coincidence. Occupy has touched the third rail of our political class’s venality

by Naomi Wolf

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.

Oakland, California riot police advance on peaceful Occupy Oakland, November 3, 2011.But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that "New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers" covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that "It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk."

In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up; in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons. The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on "how to suppress" Occupy protests.

To Europeans, the enormity of this breach may not be obvious at first. Our system of government prohibits the creation of a federalized police force, and forbids federal or militarized involvement in municipal peacekeeping.

I noticed that right-wing pundits and politicians on the TV shows on which I was appearing were all on-message against OWS. Journalist Chris Hayes reported on a leaked memo that revealed lobbyists vying for an $850,000 contract to smear Occupy. Message coordination of this kind is impossible without a full-court press at the top. This was clearly not simply a case of a freaked-out mayors’, city-by-city municipal overreaction against mess in the parks and cranky campers. As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.

Why this massive mobilization against these not-yet-fully-articulated, unarmed, inchoate people? After all, protesters against the war in Iraq, Tea Party rallies and others have all proceeded without this coordinated crackdown. Is it really the camping? As I write, two hundred young people, with sleeping bags, suitcases and even folding chairs, are still camping out all night and day outside of NBC on public sidewalks – under the benevolent eye of an NYPD cop – awaiting Saturday Night Live tickets, so surely the camping is not the issue. I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response.

That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted.

The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.

The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.

No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

When I saw this list – and especially the last agenda item – the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.

For the terrible insight to take away from news that the Department of Homeland Security coordinated a violent crackdown is that the DHS does not freelance. The DHS cannot say, on its own initiative, "we are going after these scruffy hippies". Rather, DHS is answerable up a chain of command: first, to New York Representative Peter King, head of the House homeland security subcommittee, who naturally is influenced by his fellow congressmen and women’s wishes and interests. And the DHS answers directly, above King, to the president (who was conveniently in Australia at the time).

In other words, for the DHS to be on a call with mayors, the logic of its chain of command and accountability implies that congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorize mayors to order their police forces – pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS – to make war on peaceful citizens.

But wait: why on earth would Congress advise violent militarized reactions against its own peaceful constituents? The answer is straightforward: in recent years, members of Congress have started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth, as we see from the "scandal" of presidential contender Newt Gingrich’s having been paid $1.8m for a few hours’ "consulting" to special interests. The inflated fees to lawmakers who turn lobbyists are common knowledge, but the notion that congressmen and women are legislating their own companies’ profitsis less widely known – and if the books were to be opened, they would surely reveal corruption on a Wall Street spectrum. Indeed, we do already know that congresspeople are massively profiting from trading on non-public information they have on companies about which they are legislating – a form of insider trading that sent Martha Stewart to jail.

Since Occupy is heavily surveilled and infiltrated, it is likely that the DHS and police informers are aware, before Occupy itself is, what its emerging agenda is going to look like. If legislating away lobbyists’ privileges to earn boundless fees once they are close to the legislative process, reforming the banks so they can’t suck money out of fake derivatives products, and, most critically, opening the books on a system that allowed members of Congress to profit personally – and immensely – from their own legislation, are two beats away from the grasp of an electorally organized Occupy movement … well, you will call out the troops on stopping that advance.

So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence. It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organized suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not. MORE HERE

Nye Lavalle, We Applaud You for Your Efforts to Expose Robo-Judges Signing Robo-Orders!!!

by nootkabear, posted in Attorneys, Courts, foreclosure, Injustice, Judges, Judicial Corruption, Judicial Rulings, law, Legal

 

Message for My Friends & Colleagues –From: Nye Lavalle

Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 3:50 PM
Please Read Entire Email

NOTE: to all blogs!!!

     Please post the email to the AGs, I wrote last week that I did not send you. I wrote them in confidence.       

       However, since they have failed to act and respond I think the way to get to them AND GET RESPONSES AND ACTION is to publicly publish all my warnings and my letters so there is a VERY public record of notices and warnings to them.

    They may wish to ignore me again, but I and hopefully each of YOU, won’t let them! So, please read You may also publish and post, separately, my letter attached to FHFA’s OIG.

Dear friends,

I am taking the gloves off, its that time! Attorney General Beau Biden did us all proud and right yesterday, despite the political reality that he faces in a state that hosts as corporations, the banks, Wall St. firms, and system he is attacking. I would ask that each of you kindly read the entirety of this letter and to assist me help each of you and this nation of ours and force the other AGs and elements of our government and the media to be as bold and brave as Beau Biden!

Beau knows MERS! LOL He certainly not only vindicated me and my decade-old fight against MERS and my predictions, but all of us, especially Max, April, Judges Logan and Gordon (would love to interview each now) and let me not forget our favorite jurist, Judge Schack!

Let us not forget the crooked judges too, like Craig Schwall and Louis Levenson in Fulton Co who will be getting their comeuppance next month in both courts of law and public opinion (the media). We need to have media focus on the Judges who get it and the judges we have evidence of corruption on. (including our tapes) This will be one of our new objectives. We also need to expose Robo-Judges™ who issue Robo-Orders™!

We’re starting a new movement in America. Our new movement will complement the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy the Internet movements by assisting those trying to help or most importantly IGNORING TO HELP our nation and states. That is the media who is trying to help and some in government like Beau Biden. The other AGs and regulators that ignore us will be publicly noticed and later publicly embarrassed if they fail to act, since a "record" of notices, warnings, and actions or inactions will be publicly displayed now and for the years to come that anyone can access. We shall begin with Names!!

The name for these new movements shall be Occupy The Government & Occupy The Media! As for the media, we shall and I request that you respect their time and their space.

The first step is that I want each of you to provide me, Lisa, Michael, Matt and everyone of our colleagues and comrades in arms with an email list of ALL media and government contacts you have in two separate email address books for Outlook or AOL. We will then discuss content to send by each of us to these contacts. For the media, we will target great story ideas for each journalist and editor we have befriended and has supported the cause. We will also provide a host of information, facts, and evidence for their investigative needs. The media is not only our friend, but our greatest ally in this movement, next to the Internet!

For government, we will create letters and petitions and forward to them in masse! Also, we will document and forward complaints, and evidence of fraudulent bank behavior. They are either with us, or against us! They get to choose and so do we, by a vote. It’s time to stop picking leaders by social issues, but real life issues. You’re either a bank bitch and for them or you’re not (like Beau).

I want to do to the AGs, all regulators, and politicians, what I did to CEOs and boards years ago, paper them and "put them on notice" to act. Let’s see if they ignore our warnings this time around since doing so, will surely jeopardize their political and/or professional aspirations. As they move up the political food chain, we will have a record of what they were warned of and what they did or didn’t do so that their prior actions can be judged by voters and regulators alike.

I am reminded of Gandhi’s quote "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." We’re now winning, so it’s time to pile in on as the bankster’s lawyers would say. Over the years, I have created a "hit list" and "target list" of enemies and foes and have guarded carefully very personal information about them. While information is power, knowledge of what to do with that information, and the wisdom to know when its right to use, is key. I suggest you each do the same!

Next, I will begin writing more letters and more warnings based on my experience and I will start doing some polling with the help of supporters and sponsors I will seek from law firms. This will accomplish a few goals. First, it will bring national media attention and coverage to the issues and second, media attention, business and leads to the law firms than sponsor my research. My research has traditionally garnered national media attention and the front pages of virtually every newspaper as well as television and radio. It will once more, do so again.

As for Beau Biden, his complaint is a masterpiece and must read and pins the tail on the ASS (sorry, Donkey was way too kind) so to speak in MERS. In effect, he is not only seeking to shut down every MERS foreclosure in DE, but seeking to foreclose on MERS itself! I wonder what ASSet protection MERSCORP and its enablers have in place.

I have previously called the racketeering acts of the servicers the "default servicing enterprise." However, Beau kept it simple and called it the "foreclosure enterprise." I agree. From this day forward, when we discuss or refer to this racketeering enterprise, let’s all agree to call it and refer to it as the FORECLOSURE ENTERPRISE! Let’s get that mantra up and explain it for what it is, an enterprise which is key for RICO actions, both state and federal, which is where we will be going next with the evidence we have all uncovered. Make Foreclosure enterprise as widely known and accepted as robo-signing and fraudclosure!

In his complaint and his exhibits, Beau Biden has laid the foundation for attacking MERS and every lender. In every case where MERS is ANYWHERE in the chain (current or prior loans) you must file his complaint and exhibits with the court with a notice for the Court to take "judicial notice" of the complaint. Next, you must also file all of the county recorder lawsuits. Remember, building a record is the most important thing you can do in a case. This is how we will also expose the corrupt judges we have evidence on. An analysis of their record and rulings will assist media and also how we vote them out. We shall approve and disprove of judges and politicians and make our voices known, regardless of party affiliation. We will make them sign pledges and contracts, so we know where stand.

We will get our friends in person, email, and on Facebook, to work with us, petition, send emails, make phone calls and focus attention on issues and those who fight and oppose us. We will gather lists of names too and personal and email addresses for protesters.

Our first petition will be the abolishment of MERS and I am drafting Lisa Epstein to create the first draft using the relief that Beau seeks in his lawsuit to be the first petition of our group. Lisa, please copy me, Jacqs, April, Dan, and Max on it and we’ll get out soon!

Friends, its time! 2012, the Mayans predicted would be the end of the world "as we know it!" I’m reminded of the song "its the end of the world as we know it, its the end of the world as we know it. If we believe and act, we can do it! I know we can and i know we will!

It’s time my friends, time to get immediate attention and use the legal strategy the the banks and foreclosure mills created called "piling on" after football piling on. Let’s get to the media, get to the government, get to judges, and get to the people. Let’s Occupy Government and The Media and take control of the destiny God has given each of us! 2012 is upon us. The Mayans were right, its the end of the world as we know it, and the start of a new world, not new world order, as we desire and want it to be free of banks, political influence, and corruption!

Nye

Foreclosure Hell…

by nootkabear, posted in Attorneys, Court Cases, Courts, foreclosure, Injustice, Judges, Judicial Corruption, Judicial Rulings, law, Legal

                                                                Important Evidence & Affidavit in Foreclosure Law Firm, Robo-Signing, & MBS Investigation          

From Nye Lavalle

Thu, Oct 20, 2011 1:18pm                                                                             
From Nye Lavalle

Dear Attorneys General:

Recently, the Office of Inspector General for the Federal Housing Finance Agency released reports about a special counsel investigation by Fannie Mae and that a shareholder had warned and provided Fannie Mae and others as far back as 2003 about robo-signing and foreclosure abuses. This story was picked up by the NY Times’ Gretchen Mogenson and a plethora of other news media. While Gretchen and the FHFA didn’t name me, I was nonetheless ousted since she and many others, including some of you, knew this shareholder was me.

I have been working hard behind the scenes to warn and stop the catastrophic events of the past few years which I first forecast in 1996! I have spent almost $1 million and spent over 40,000 hours since 1994 investigating, researching, and documenting these frauds. I have millions of pages of documents and a history like a bear in the woods who has left a trail all the way up to personally warning and communicating to the CEOs of virtually every bank, servicer, and Wall Street firm of these abuses. I took shares in each of these companies in the late 90s to warn them. Jaime Dimon, William Harrison, Kerry Killinger, Ace Greenberg, and James Cayne are just a few. However, the ratings agencies were warned as well as law firms and accounting firms, especially Deloitte!

As the shareholder that in 2003 warned Fannie Mae and worked with the independent counsel they appointed, Mark Cymrot, of Baker Hostetler in Washington DC, I have a unique perspective as well as set of facts that each of you could never obtain due to the cost and time limitations, that I have accumulated since 1993, almost 20-years!

However, as you will see by the attached letter to FHFA and links to reports and warnings I have authored since the mid-nineties, many were warned, including some of your offices since the mid to late nineties. I am also the individual that first discovered robo-signing and foreclosure fraud in the mid-nineties and authored reports documenting such abuses starting in the mid-nineties, until a "visiting judge" in Dallas, TX gagged me from telling this story.

It wasn’t until 2000, at the National Consumer Law Center conference in Colorado when I released reports on these frauds and abuses. Some of your lawyers were in attendance and were provided two reports. Only Max Gardner, a bankruptcy lawyer from North Carolina, took the reports to heart and began a decade-old fight to expose this corruption.

Robo-signing and foreclosure fraud and the intentional fraudulent filing of lawsuit complaints, advertisements of sale, assignments of mortgage, satisfactions of mortgage, and affidavits, as you will see from my well-documented reports, are not a recent phenomenon or the result of the securitization craze that swept America and the world from the late nineties to mid-2000’s.

They were carefully planned and orchestrated after the RTC debacle in the late 80s wherein a select group of "special servicers," commonly referred to in the industry as the industry’s "toxic waste dumps," were created to push these newly developed and even "patented" foreclosure factory processes that the four major special servicers "tested" and then "perfected" for the rest of the industry. These special servicers are known to many of you, but their names were EMC Mortgage, SPS f/k/a Conti-Fairbanks Capital, Ocwen, and Litton Loan.

Through "partnerships" with firms like the Barrett Burke operation in Texas, the LOGs group (Shapiro) out of Illinois, the McCalla Raymer group in Georgia and many others, they created an automated foreclosure machine that threw all caution to the wind when it not only came to ethics, but the law. In a newly expanding "virtual" world, they, along with vendors and third parties such as title insurers Fidelity National and First American created patented and marketable "cradle-to-grave" systems and processes to expand the housing and mortgage markets and cover-up and conceal the known fraud to all of them perpetrated mostly by aggressive loan brokers and occasionally borrowers and factored such losses and circumstances into their system. I can provide each of you with mens rea and scienter to prosecute for frauds.

As they tested these systems and perfected their fraud via such practices as intentionally concealing the real ownership of a promissory note and first foreclosing in the names of servicers who claimed to "own" the notes and then MERS, they really were double and multi-pledging the promissory notes to themselves and others to obtain servicing advances as well as take gain on sale accounting treatments on the notes they originated with no risk to them, since they had already forward sold the notes to our respective mutual, trust, and pension funds.

As you each take your own collective and individual approaches towards your investigations, I would whole-heartedly agree with Attorneys General Scheiderman, Biden, Harris, and others who want to continue this investigation. If you don’t continue and right the wrongs, I will boldly predict that each of you will have blood on your hands. I say this as no threat of any means whatsoever, but as a warning based on my understanding as a social scientist and advocate of the human psyche that for some is weak, but for others is broken. If you look at my forecasts and predictions over the years, I have one heck of a batting average in getting it right. As my former partner, Dr. Roy Stout who was featured in the book Blink, would say, I see things and data that others want to ignore. For the first time in my life, I am scared – – scared, not for me, but for our nation and our nation’s youth and those who might have to endure the consequence of the excesses of my generation.

Today, its mortgages, but when these young students, like an ex-girlfriend who at 22 left school with $150,000 in student debt realize what has occurred, all bets will be off. Today, they are peaceful – – tomorrow, they may be vengeful! The Occupy Wall Street movement is only the start. The American public and world, want to see accountability. They want to see perps walk. They want the intentional bankers, hedge funds, and Wall Street executives who intentionally created and manipulated this world-wide financial debacle prosecuted. If you don’t do it, I fear as the nation and the world’s economy suffers even more, there will be total anarchy in the streets as well as assaults and even "non-political" assassinations against banking CEOs, Wall St executives, and foreclosure lawyers, by para-military right and left wing extremists that were former Army Rangers and Navy Seals who are not only disenchanted with the current situation, but disenfranchised. Living in Savannah, GA last year, I met many Rangers each evening who were angry, very angry for fighting a war that they realized was not for Americans, but for other interests. The discussions I would have in the evenings were illuminating and gave me a great respect for our nation’s military men and women.

However, as they lose more friends, limbs, spouses, their sanity and now their homes, a combustible mixture that is not only flammable, but toxic is spreading. You can see it in the OWS movement and some of the videos. I say these things not to scare you, but to warn you once again and most importantly, to EMPOWER EACH OF YOU, collectively or individually.

You have each been give a god-given opportunity at a vital point in our nation and the world’s history. Each of you, if you do your jobs and ignore the politics, political influence, and lobbying from both banks and the federal government, have a special moment in time to leave a mark. A mark that historians will one day write was the day America and the world decided to be free of political and banking influence and truly helped create a world democracy.

The money now, whether it is $20 billion or $50 billion in the scheme of trillion dollar losses is really not what the people are angry at. They was to see accountability and those who not only created the situation, but manipulated it or ignored it to their personal gain be prosecuted. I hear their voices each day and that’s why I am coming out of the closet, so to speak, despite the threats against my family and I to offer my help and assistance in doing what is right for this nation, our people, and those youths protesting for what they know, that many in our generation simply ignored as they drove their BMWs, put dope up their noses, and lived it up at the expense of their children and grand children.

Now is the time. I can give you the goods on many of these if you want to really follow the patented fraud. Have you all read the patents as yet of all these so-called "processes?" The most human element in the entire automated factory were the actual ignorant robo-signers! In fact, when I discovered and reported on robo-signing, I did so just to give one "minor example of the overall fraudulent scheme that was designed not to defraud borrowers who were only pawns in the "game" as it was called, but our respective pension funds and extraction of our so-called excess wealth.

Think about it, for a moment if you will. Robo-signing is such an elementary fraud, so simple, so stupid, so petty! The real fraud and why the banks want to settle with you so quickly is the securitization and the fact that none of these deals were "true sales," but the financing of receivables whereby investors were defrauded and multi-pledging of paid off notes occurred to inflate their earnings, stock prices, and bonuses.

How many of you have had your original wet-ink promissory note returned to you canceled and paid in full upon its payoff or refinancing? Ask around the office? Then, check your lien release or satisfaction and see if it was robo-signed? Who is your real lender?

Open the black Pandora’s box of financial alchemy in securitization and you will find the multi-pledging and sale of paid off notes, the same notes, and even "ghost notes" that were created with Photoshop and never even executed by a real live borrower. I will save the death threats, break-ins, arsons, computer hacks, and millions of dollars of vexatious litigation by the banks and its foreclosure lawyers against my family, myself, our trusts, and the select group of advocates who were the first to take the baton from my hand for another day. I will even save the bribery of judicial officers, court reporters, and local judges for another day. All I ask is for each of you to think long and very hard, before letting the banks, their servicers, vendors, and lawyers off the hook.

I’ll come to see any of you and give any of you my deposition as well as access to whatever I possess in terms of evidence. I would also suggest that you ask each bank you are investigating and law firm to preserve all evidence and provide to you everything they have in their possession that contains my name "Nye Lavalle" or "Aneurin Lavalle" or this email address that I have had since the mid-nineties. <mortgagefrauds@aol.com>                                                                                                              I am also more than willing to take polygraph exams, should you find that necessary.  In essence, all I personally want is the real and true story told by a real and true investigation and the subsequent civil and criminal prosecution of those responsible for this nation’s morass.

I pray some, or all of you, will take me up on my offer. Please feel free to call or email me at any time if I can be of assistance to you or any of your collective or respective investigations!

Nye Lavalle

FANNIE AND FREDDIE OF FORECLOSURE ABUSES

by nootkabear, posted in Court Cases, foreclosure, Fraud Upon the Court, Injustice, Judges, Judicial Corruption, Judicial Rulings, law, Legal

Original Message—–
From: Nye Lavalle

To: OIGhotline <OIGhotline@fhfa.gov>; DeputyDirector-Enterprises <DeputyDirector-Enterprises@FHFA.gov>;                      Director <Director@FHFA.gov>; DeputyDirector-FHLBanks <DeputyDirector-FHLBanks@FHFA.gov>;                    GeneralCounsel<GeneralCounsel@FHFA.gov>; Ombudsman <Ombudsman@FHFA.gov>
                                                                        Sent: Sat, Oct 8, 2011 10:28 pm
Subject: I AM THE FANNIE SHAREHOLDER NAMED IN YOUR OIG REPORTS THAT WARNED FANNIE AND FREDDIE OF FORECLOSURE ABUSES IN 2003 AND AFTER

Gentlemen,

By way of introduction, my name is Nye Lavalle and I am the shareholder/investor, referenced in your recent OIG reports that warned Fannie Mae’s board and CEO of foreclosure and legal abuses almost a decade ago. For over a year, I worked closely with Fannie Mae and Mark Cymrot of Baker Hostetler, who was the independent counsel appointed by Fannie Mae, to investigate allegations contained in my 2004 report. I also warned Freddie Mac and its board as well.

The attached letter will provide you more information and hopefully open a dialogue between us that will help us find solutions for our nation and its citizens as well as hold those responsible, accountable for their actions.

To that end, I stand ready and able to assist you each in your respective duties at FHFA and the OIG for FHFA.

Sincerely,

Nye Lavalle

SEC Investigates S&P in Mortgage Crisis

by nootkabear, posted in Attorneys, Court Cases, foreclosure, law, Legal

Law.com

SEC Investigating Standard & Poor’s Role in Mortgage-Crisis CDO

Brian Glaser Contact

Corporate Counsel

September 27, 2011

On Monday, Standard & Poor’s parent company McGraw-Hill reported its receipt of a Wells notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, warning of potential civil charges against the ratings agency for its role in the recent mortgage crisis.
According to CNN/Money, "the commission could fine the company for alleged securities violations related to a 2007 collateralized debt obligation deal that S&P rated. . . The CDO deal in question, known as Delphinus CDO 2007-1, was arranged by Mizuho International and Delaware Investments acted as the collateral manager. In 2007, S&P had a AAA rating on the security, which was backed largely by subprime mortgages."
McGraw-Hill was notified by the SEC on September 22 and, according to Financial Times, the move by the regulatory agency "marks the first time the SEC has sought to pursue charges against a ratings company in connection with its rating of a CDO, linked to pools of residential mortgages." S&P’s is also facing an ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice into its rating procedures.
The SEC’s action comes nearly two months after S&P’s downgraded the U.S. government’s credit rating.
As the SEC looks into possible charges against the company, The New York Times reports that the outcome is not clear-cut:

Standard & Poor’s and other rating agencies were not generally the architects of deals like Delphinus, but the AAA ratings they placed on parts of those deals were critical to the banks’ abilities to sell them to investors. S.& P. and other agencies made record profits placing ratings on mortgage securities like Delphinus, but they did not provide any sort of promises to investors that their ratings were accurate. If investigators at the S.E.C. or the Justice Department find that analysts at S.&P. intentionally gave out inaccurate ratings, that could be a violation of the law.

The news had an immediate effect on S&P’s and its parent company in one regard. Forbes reports of McGraw-Hill stock on Monday: "Shares slid 42 cents to $42.51 in afternoon trading. Earlier, the stock traded as low as $41.50."

See also, "Standard & Poor’s Sees Risk of U.S. Debt Default as Risk to U.S. Business," CorpCounsel, July 2011; and "The U.S. Credit-Rating Downgrade Will Keep In-House Lawyers Busy," CorpCounsel, August 2011.

Failure to show ownership

by nootkabear, posted in Attorneys, Court Cases, Courts, foreclosure, Judges, Judicial Rulings, law, Legal

http://sn133w.snt133.mail.live.com/default.aspx#fid=265f0c107cc149b19b373483f323013d&n=1553048258&mid=2a5a8184-e5e5-11e0-91bc-002264c17c74&fv=1

HSBC Bank USA, N.A. v. Gabay

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Opinion Date: September 15, 2011

Judge: Alexander

Areas of Law: Commercial Law, Consumer Law, Real Estate & Property Law

Janelle Gabay defaulted on a promissory note secured by a mortgage of her real property. HSBC Bank USA, the holder of the mortgage, filed a complaint for foreclosure and sale against Gabay. The district court granted HSBC’s motion for summary judgment. The Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the district court, holding that entry of judgment as a matter of law was precluded where (1) HSBC’s statement of material facts failed to properly present proof of ownership of the mortgage note; (2) HSBC’s statement of material facts did not contain an adequate description of the mortgaged premises including a street address; (3) a genuine issue of material fact existed as to the order of priority and amounts due to other parties-in-interest; and (4) the amount of costs due as part of the amount due on the mortgage was not included in the summary judgment record as required. Remanded.

Money

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