As Occupy Our Homes demonstrates at the Department of Justice the fraudclosure crisis continues unabated. A Florida family man who not only made his mortgage payments on time but made payments early faces foreclosure by Wells Fargo. The explanation for initiating the foreclosure proceedings by Wells Fargo is nothing short of amazing and offers a [...]

12 Occupy Philadelphia protesters who staged a sit in at a Wells Fargo bank in Center City Philadelphia were acquitted of charges of conspiracy and defiant trespass for a 2011 protest during the Occupy Wall Street movement. The 12 – one woman and 11 men – were arrested Nov. 18, 2011 when they staged a [...]

Late last week, the Justice Department issued a filing that attempts to reinforce the release limitations set by the foreclosure fraud settlement, stopping Wells Fargo from reimagining the deal as a broader release of liability on various mortgage claims. However, a judge will have to make the final decision. The US sued Wells Fargo in [...]

Put this one in the “what you reap is what you sow” file. A few weeks ago, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York sued Wells Fargo for collecting insurance on FHA loans that were improperly underwritten. This mirrored several other cases out of SDNY, and charged that Wells Fargo gained the [...]

The failings of the 49-state foreclosure fraud settlement have by now become so obvious that even traditional media cannot ignore it. When half of the $2.5 billion earmarked as a hard-dollar penalty to states for aid and relief for struggling homeowners just gets sucked up into filling state budget holes, you can hardly make any [...]

The ACLU’s calss action lawsuit against Morgan Stanley over racial discrimination in lending is out. Five African-American homeowners from Detroit form the core of the plaintiffs, who allege that Morgan Stanley pushed the now-defunct New Century Financial into providing them with a “steady stream of irresponsible, high-risk loans issued in communities of color that were [...]

I don’t really know what to make of this analysis from the Center for American Progress, alleging that the Federal Housing Administration “saved” the housing market during the downturn. First, a word on what the FHA does. They’re basically a government-run mortgage insurer, backstopping loan losses for private lenders for a nominal fee that borrowers [...]

I mentioned in passing yesterday this federal civil lawsuit against Wells Fargo for its conduct on some FHA loans. “Mentioned in passing” is all that the suit deserved, but I see that the PR shop at DoJ tried to turn this into a big deal, with the media playing along. So maybe I should put [...]

I think today is the day for really horrible stories of market dysfunction amid ignorance or outright collusion by the authorities. This does not end with debt collectors on bad checks. It leads back to the mortgage market, where we’ve seen the most horror stories over the last several years. Most market analysts focus on [...]

Let me roll back to that story in the Inland Empire of California, where Wells Fargo broke into and destroyed the wrong house, one that didn’t even have a mortgage. Here’s a funny story: this was not the first time Wells’ contractors broke into that house. It was the second. Tom Goyda, vice president of [...]

We’re told that the housing crisis is over, and especially we’re told that we’ve reached the end of all these “technical errors” in the documentation and foreclosure process. We’re over that hump, the banks have cleaned up their act because those brave souls in the Obama Administration and the state AGs “took them on.” That’s [...]