Mortgage Mess Deepens
There are two things that can stop any property closing. Not having somebody with a certified check to close and not having proper title paperwork. Well the first one is up to the buyer/seller. The second one? Oy Vey! —
Today’s latest chapter in what is now known as the new 3M: the Massive Mortgage Mess, is that Fidelity National has told lenders to halt foreclosures, and to stop sales of bank owned properties. The reason, and this should be no surprise to anyone, is “possible document flaws.” Fidelity is merely the next of, well, all. And while the WaPo reports that the John Walsh, acting director of the OCC has reached out to seven lenders including Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank and HSBC, to review their foreclosure processes in light of the Ally and JPM Chase situations, the news of the day comes from the NYT that Old Republic National Title has stopped insuring title to Ally-foreclosed properties “until further notice.” And once the insurers lost faith in the product they are supposed to have 100% confidence in it is game over: virtually no foreclosure transactions will take place going forward. We hope RealtyTrac will provide an update on what they may be seeing in foreclosure trends in the past two weeks : we are confident these have plunged off a cliff across the land.
This is a tertiary outcome of the whole mortgage securitization mess generated by the Wall Street bankers. Title holders at BofA, Citi, etc are now being looked at for improper documentation on foreclosures. So you can understand Fidelity’s action on this matter.
When somebody tries to sell a ‘go-go’ idea, sometimes it is just best to tell them to ‘go-go’ to hell.
![](http://www.parentalrights.org/vertical/Sites/%7BC49108C5-0630-467E-9B9B-B1FA31A72320%7D/uploads/%7B3EA8D754-D841-4FF4-882C-32895D89991D%7D.PNG")
[1]
I’m glad you wrote about this, because I don’t understand the 23 states story that was out today, mostly involving BofA and the same paperwork/forclosure issue. If someone doesn’t pay, and their mortgage company doesn’t have the proper paperwork and has no way of getting it- what then? The person gets a free house?
[2]
Free houses…yippee!!
now, if Obama would just come fill up my gas tank I could drive around and pick one out!
[3]
The person gets a free house?
Doubtful. If I understand the story correctly this impacts the sale of houses that have already been foreclosed upon and are now owned by the foreclosing lending institution. If title companies won’t guarantee title to a potential buyer, the lending institution is stuck with a rapidly depreciating asset (abandoned houses tend to do that) that it can’t recoup any money on.
That’s bad enough, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t slimy, I mean enterprising, lawyers gathering litigants now to go after lenders on previous sales of foreclosed properties. Must be wonderful being a homeowner who purchased a foreclosed property getting a letter in the mail calling into question title on the property they thought they purchased and now own. Let the lawsuits fly…
[4]
So, if I am reading this correctly, only foreclosed properties potentially have documentation flaws, but other properties, backed by title insurance in the normal course of real estate transactions among credit-worthy people, are okay?
I don’t know about that.
It is my understanding that good loans and bad were co-mingled in the mortgage securities business, and who knows whether titles were impaired in the process.
Let the buyer beware.
[5]
MORE BAD NEWS for Dems down ballot–
Good info from:
governing .com newsletter
about state legislatures in the 2010 election and how things are shaping up as to control by R or D and where party shift in control is likely to happen.
http://app.en25.com/e/er.aspx?s=1222&lid=6195&elq=bd10d761fdfb41a0a31cddc1a57ea5ab
[6]
Here is one that tracks bank failures from January 2008 to September 2010.
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/info-Failed_Banks-sort.html
[7]
JM,
As I understand it, the mess in the foreclosure situation is that the processors, many outsourced, were cooking signatures and docs to keep up with the flood of REO’s coming in. Most likely the holding bank has the pieces but they are not bundled as required by the various states per foreclosure procedure.
That is not to say some banks have not been caught with deep problems. There was a bank in Ohio a couple years back that was caught foreclosing and they could not even produce documents that they held the note on the property. Bad, very bad.
[8]
http://www.neowin.net/news/ea-removes-taliban-from-medal-of-honor
Pathetic.
[9]
KH,
You wait. Some test variants of the game will get squirreled away. It will be found out and that particular variant of the game will go for big bucks at Christies auction.
[10]
Some folks I’m involved with are working hard on voter fraud. They’ve been checking voter registrations for a couple of weeks to clean up the rolls. They have been passing along some of what they are finding and ballot info from the last election. Just thought I’d share some with you, as we all need to be aware. via email:
– I just found 13 new registrations at homeless shelters. Homeless are allowed to vote if they are mentally competent, citizens and non-felons. But they have a residency requirement here in this state that doen’t sync with the number of days they are allowed to be at the shelter. We will look at the entire database to see how many are registered out of this shelter and take to the registrar if it looks like fraud (e.g., registered there for years when the residency is only 90 days, more registrants than room at the inn, etc.)ACORN targets the poor so there may have been manipulation of these poor folks. We will target this precinct for poll watching.
– heard stories from several citizens who were turned away from their normal precincts on Primary voting day. Were told that “your precinct has changed”, though it hadn’t. Those who stayed and complained did provisional ballots. All were Republicans. Underscores the need for POLL WATCHERS!
– Plumas Co., CA Tea Party is investigating a possible loss of 600 absentee ballots during the primary. That’s huge, given there are only about 2700(?) voters there. They are planning to run ads telling their citizens to hand-carry their absentee ballots to the polling place and to call the registrar to see if their last ballot was ever counted. My own Riverside Co. found something like (can’t remember exactly) 2000 absentees at a post office after the Primary. We all had to write the California SOS to get them counted. Luckliy no results changed!I’m telling my friends to hand-cary their absentee ballots to the polls this year.
[11]
And some interesting info for absebtee ballots:
One of the challenges with taking them to the polls is that they don’t count them unless the race is close. We did some experimenting here and tracked how long it took the ballots to be counted. The ones that were mailed in early were counted, but the ones we took to the polls weren’t counted until 3 days after the Election Day.
[12]
Are you going to poll watch this year, TLS?
[13]
#12 Not this year. Hubby’s working out of town so can’t really get someone to manage my kids for the entire day. My function this year is trying to educate my neighbors about the state seats, that we’re 4 seats about from a Dem super majority in both state houses, and helping compile info for the judge seats. I’ll post the good stuff here.
[14]
Here’s some info on 3 candidates for CA supreme court that we CA voters should vote NO on:
Associate Justice Carlos Moreno
Justice Moreno has been on the Court since 2001, appointed by former Governor Gray Davis. He votes are very liberal. His favorite Supreme Court Judge is liberal David Souter. Moreno was on Obama’s short list for replacing Souter. He was recommended by Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Moreno not only voted in the 4-3 decision to overturn traditional marriage with Proposition 23, he was the only “NO” vote in the 6-1 decision that agreed Proposition 8 vote was constitutional. In the past, he has voted against parental consent, against religious rights and against business.
Ming William Chin
Ming William Chin was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1996 by Gov. Pete Wilson. Since he’s been on the bench, he has voted to overturn parental consent, consistent with his pro-abortion views. He shot down Governor Wilson’s attempt to privatize highway jobs.
He voted against Christian contentious objections and for trampling religious liberty. He did vote in favor of traditional marriage and voted to uphold California ’s anti-affirmative action law. Despite a few good votes, he holds a liberal social stands and inconsistency on business/property rights issue.
Tani Cantil-Sakauye
Governor Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown and Ron George as a committee approved the appointment to the Court of Tani Cantil-Sakauye as our new California Supreme Court Chief Justice.
She is 50 years old and an active member of the Japanese United Methodist Church in Sacramento , a church with a liberal pastor. She is considered a “moderate” Republican, leaning liberal on social issues. The liberal Sandra Day O’Connor was her favorite Supreme Court judge. When the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, she performed a same-sex marriage.
In cases brought before her, she has sided with the nurses union over legitimate cost concerns regarding school district positions, and, she was soft on a teen’s violent treatment to a girlfriend.
She did uphold California ’s prohibition against affirmative action and religious free speech. Her point of view is a mixed bag; she has not demonstrated a dependable, consistent, philosophical position.