This a hundred times. And the banks have been total asses foreclosing on thousands of people, some who were even current on payments. Bank of America being one of the worst. I have no sympathy for them whatsoever.
Delaware?
So drawing an analogy to the guy who didn’t pay his fire subscription and had his house burn down while the fire crew refused to provide service, the homeowner was a dumb-ass who took a chance on a the value of his house over small $75 fee. He gambled and lost. He is the author of his own misfortune so suck it up.
So in this case, banks and financial institutions in a rush to make as much money as possible on the real estate boom couldn’t be bothered to do the proper paperwork. They took a chance on the value of the mortgages and values of homes securing the loans against the relatively small amount of salaries of an extra few clerks to do the proper paperwork. They are the author of their own misfortunes.
You’re confused. The paperwork issue at hand is on the back end, dealing with foreclosures, not the front end, origination, that you are talking about.
My understanding of the situation (which I admit may be in error), is that there are huge issues with the backend foreclosures with dubious practices and the introduction of fraudulent documents to move the foreclosures forward. But the reason this is happening is that those trying to foreclose do not have clear title to the property; the chain of title is completely muddled and unclear due the sloppy work on the frontend in mortgage reassigments.
Actually I think it’s both. I think there are some cases where there are title concerns to the property and the bank that currently holds the mortgage may not hold the title. I think there are also situations where the banks have made errors and have started foreclosure procedures on people who are current on their payments, which has nothing to do with title issues. Basically it was a giant clusterfuck of paperwork when these mortgages where issued and it’s a giant clusterfuck of paperwork now on the foreclosures.
…and, to no one’s surprise, Wall Street is trying to pin the foreclosure disaster on homeowners.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39674290/ns/business-real_estate/
“If you didn’t pay your mortgage, you shouldn’t be in your house. Period. People are getting upset about something that’s just procedural.” said Walter Todd, portfolio manager at Greenwood Capital Associates.
Some said the issue is one of personal responsibilities.
“Everyone’s responsible for following the law. If we all don’t have to pay our mortgage, should we just stop paying taxes, too?” said Anton Schutz, president of Mendon Capital Advisers. “Your mortgage didn’t get to a robo-signer by accident, it’s because you’re not paying.”
Here’s a hint, asshole. Not paying your mortgage isn’t breaking any criminal law, unlike the fraud you meatbags perpetrated.
Here’s another hint. If you assholes didn’t lend the money, you wouldn’t be foreclosing! You knowingly took a risk that anyone with half a brain would have realized wouldn’t pay off, you lost your money and now you’ve perpetrated fraud trying to recover that loss. Excuse me, but I’m having trouble mustering any sympathy whatsoever. Also, I love how widespread fraud is now simply dismissed as a “procedural” problem.
You know the old lawyer joke? It’s now true for bankers.
“What do you call 10,000 bankers dumped at the bottom of the ocean?”
“What?”
“Progress.”
Reminds of the Mortgage Bankers Association piece from the Daily Show. That was priceless!
“Everyone is responsible for following the law.”
That’s pretty funny given the fraudulent activity that’s being reported.
and…
“We’re not evicting people who deserve to stay in their house,” Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase chief executive, said on a conference call with analysts on the company’s third-quarter earnings on Wednesday.
How would you know that given that the issue is that evictions are moving ahead because the bank employee “robo-signers” aren’t doing any actual case review and just rubber-stamping?
“If we all don’t have to pay our mortgage, should we just stop paying taxes, too?” said Anton Schutz, president of Mendon Capital Advisers.
Since members of Congress don’t bother to read the bills, I like where this is going.
Because they’re not getting to a robo signer until they have been flagged by the system as being delinquent. If anyone believes that there are thousands of homeowners losing their homes while they are current on their payments, well, I have some nice foreclosed property in a swamp to sell you :)
I think the above is correct, but your previous comment seemed directed more towards originations, not paperwork related to the assignment of the loans, or the paperwork related to foreclosures.
Well, when one forecloses on someone who paid cash and doesn’t even have a mortgage it’s not hard to believe that banks aren’t waiting on niceties like delinquency.
So, meet Linda Green, whose signature is on like eleventy quatrillion dollars of mortgages in the form of CEOs’ names. I see some analogies have already made it in: maybe this will be like Abu Ghraib and we are already lining up the chumps to be the public face of punishment for the crimes.
I said thousands. You can always find errors as no system is perfect even if every document file were reviewed properly. The point still stands that the vast majority of homes in foreclosure are due to the homeowners being delinquent, not the result of some grand bank conspiracy to foreclose on any/every homeowner they can. I mean do you really believe banks want to foreclose on people that are not delinquent, since foreclosing costs them money?
“Wants to” is kind of irrelevant when you’re talking about incompetence.
So what’s your point? Does someone being late on their mortgage excuse fraud while foreclosing?
No, but if a lender is deliberately deceptive or disingenuous about the terms of a mortgage, do you really think the average borrower can translate “the fine print” from legalistic bullshit into actual English? I’ve seen interviews with borrowers who claimed they asked the lender, “Is this a fixed-rate mortgage?” and were told it was, then - surprise! - discovered it was actually an ARM the first time their interest rate shot up. One NPR report I heard said a pretty significant chunk of those who took subprime mortgages could’ve actually qualified for lower-interest prime mortgages at the time they borrowed; do you think any of them would’ve done so if they had an honest lender who could’ve steered them towards one?
Furthermore, prior to the notion of selling mortgages like commodities to other financial firms, the lender was responsible for making sure there was at least a reasonable expectation that the borrower could pay them back, because it was their money on the line. Once lenders were able to shift the risk to others en masse, there’s much less incentive to take that into account; instead, it’s all about maximizing profit because if the borrower defaults, they’re no longer the ones on the hook. I won’t say greedy lenders who resold their high-risk mortgages are the only reason we’re in this mess, but I think it’s fair to say it was a pretty significant portion of it.
Perhaps so, but it seems a trifle unfair to insist homeowners follow both the letter and the spirit of the law without expecting the same of mortgage holders. At the very least, it sounds like quite a few people in the mortgage industry didn’t do their due diligence when it came to examining and filing the paperwork properly; at worst you’ve got people who have deliberately filed fraudulent documents to advance foreclosures on shaky grounds.
My point is that if someone is late on their mortgage, the “fraud” is irrelevant with respect to the end result. They’re still late on their mortgage, and they are still going to be foreclosed on. The use or non-use of robo signers is not going to change a single thing - the outcome is going to be the same. They are going to lose their house. Nothing is going to change.
So given that nothing is going to change, I have to ask you, what’s your point? Does someone not signing off properly on foreclosure documentation excuse someone from paying on their mortgage?
But a lot of people here aren’t alleging incompetence. They seem to believe that banks actively foreclosing on people who shouldn’t be foreclosed on.