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One reason why lawyers were so quick to see the patterns in robo-signing and mortgage documentation problems was that the same names kept cropping up on every single mortgage assignment. And the names would be listed as a Vice President and Assistant Secretary of one mortgage company in one note, and another mortgage company in another. And the handwriting on the signatures would vary wildly. And the assignment dates would be wrong.
In short, a lot of problems.
Take a look at the case of Linda Green. She worked for a document processing company owned by LPS, the company sued by its own stockholders yesterday. But in various documents, she is listed as an executive at Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bank, American Brokers Conduit, American Home Mortgage, A-Minus Mortgage Corporation, Arbor Mortgage, National City Bank Indiana, and dozens more. And if you look at the various mortgage assignments, you see that Green’s signature is almost always different. Clearly someone at the company was signing Linda Green’s name to these documents, where she was attesting to being an executive at scores of different companies.
Often in these records you see the name “Tywanna Thomas” under Green’s, listed as “Assistant Secretary.” Thomas’ name is written differently throughout these documents, too. Thomas also worked for Lender Processing Services.
Finally, you have to look at the dates, for more evidence of fraud. Just picking one at random, go to page 18 of what I linked. You see that this assignment of mortgage is dated March 23, 2009. But the trust that the mortgage went into comes from 2006. The trustees have 90 days, under most pooling and servicing agreements, to get the assets into the trusts. That’s not what happened here. It looks more like Lender Processing Services created documents for the servicers based on when they needed them for court, because they sought a foreclosure ruling. And so the dates are completely wrong.
There are thousands, if not tens of thousands of these Linda Green documents floating around out there. They all show varying degrees of fraud – either forged signatures, impersonation of an officer of a bank or improper conveyance of a mortgage into a trust. The amount of wrongdoing here is so widespread, that people should assume that any document from their mortgage company is devoid of meaning.
UPDATE: You have to get back the emphasis on bank balance sheets and sales here, but Cantor Fitzgerald is basically calling this systemic.
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From the linked Bloomberg article about the banks’ troubles trying to sell the lousy loans off their books:
This points to two items (imo):
1) The idea was for the loans to be scrapped every 2-3 years when people refinanced as their interest rate ballooned. This would give the banks new fees off the top.
2) Maybe that’s the reason the paperwork was never completed, and the notes never endorsed or conveyed to the MBS trustees. Why bother, when the loan was only expected to have a half-life of 18 months?
Since in many cases the sponsor was also the servicer, and they would need the note in order to foreclose, or refinance, this may be why they kept the notes in their own warehouses, as we’ve learned this week about Countrywide. MERS required notes to be endorsed in blank and delivered to MERS whenever a servicer closed in MERS name (which was the standard before the rulings against MERS’ standing). (Link
Here’s how this is threatening to turn out if we don’t begin to get a better grasp on the stakes;
The bankers failed to sell the cash flow from your mortgage to the investors, which was against the law since the investors paid for it, and they signed the contracts and everything.
The bankers can’t fix the problem because the investors now know what it is that they sort of bought, but didn’t, and now they wouldn’t want it if the bankers could give it to them, in fact the investors want their money back and the bankers can’t give them their money because they don’t have that much money.
What the bankers do have is a lot of really nasty mortgages that they had intended to sell, but were too cheap, and too lazy to properly transfer to the buyers, and that’s too bad for the bankers because if we turn out to be a nation of laws through some strange accident, they could just get stuck holding that paper themselves, that is if they can find that paper.
So, if history means anything, the investor class, which has lost so much by buying these MBSs which we now understand never existed, is probably going to make common cause with the Bankers to purchase an ex-post facto rehabilitation of their failed attempt to exchange money for something of value, by bribing our congress.
In this scenario, the bankers are absolved of their massive fraud on investors, the investors are made whole for losses associated with doing business with the bankers, and how do they intend to pay for all this?
Easy.
Every American with less than $1 million dollars in the bank, (yes, that bank) will be asked to leave their home, and temporarily live in their car while the bankers, with the help of investors, and our government, attempt to compute the true market price of our former homes, which, when sold back to us at a reasonable profit will, like a miracle, ignite our economy and bring us once again into prosperity.
It’s called free market capitalism, as well as other things.
Wow.
Worst-case scenario, yes????
Well, not that it’s that much beyond what’s really happening. Sigh.
And it looks like such an scheme has already been tried, with respect to the poor Madoff fraud victims obtaining relief on their IRS forms:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/business/18madoff.html
FYI: edit feature is back, up and running!
Sorry to go off-topic (especially so early in the thread), but this certainly sounds interesting…
Only one thing to do then: pass a law and make it all legal. You know that is what is going to happen.
I thought that the Bloomberg article really missed the point, or at least didn’t emphasize the right stuff.
Have you thought about contacting the two individuals listed at the end of the article [the "reporter" and "editor"]?
Your writing and explanation are far superior to their item.
http://stopforeclosurefraud.com/2010/08/26/shapiro-and-fishman-not-admitting-anything-right/
LINDA GREEN had no authority to sign documents for MERS 10/08-10/09
Yes, cynicism prompts me to realize that is one possibility.
Another possibility is that all the mayors, sewer, power, and school boards, and related locally elected people in the US who are getting screwed with budget problems, worried about bond payments, etc, etc may just raise up and create holy hell for their Congressional members unless this mess is cleaned up.
This fraud is wreaking havoc on mayors, governors, and anyone who has to oversee a government-related budget. You honestly think those folks don’t talk to one another? You think they don’t know how to insist that the budget hits they’re being asked to take — while Wall Street hands out bonuses, while no one does perp walks — is really going to fly?
The banksters are still in denial mode.
The Fed is in denial mode.
The Treasury is in denial mode.
The DoJ appears to be in denial mode.
I don’t see the governors, the AGs, or the mayors able to indulge in that kind of denial. They simply cannot afford it.
A federal law to override all those state laws? But… but… but… what about states’ rahts?
Oh wait– that only applies to slavery.
Yeah, I agree. They’re entirely devoid of meaning. It’s 100% “see the name and sign”, 500 times per day.
The document could be transfering ownership of the Holy Roman Empire, dated 1350 AD, and Pope Linda Green would sign it from her residence in Avignon.
And, under monopoly-finance capital an accumulation of misery is a necessary condition, corresponding to the accumulation of wealth. Wealth not accrued in the productive side of the economy, but on the financial side – which now more closely resembles a casino.