Posted on 11/15/2007 7:10:13 PM PST by givemELL
Judge Christopher A. Boyko of Federal District Court in Cleveland dismissed 14 foreclosure cases brought on behalf of mortgage investors, ruling that they had failed to prove that they owned the properties they were trying to seize.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Happy reading..eom
ping
Somebody has the paper.
A lot of lenders made loans they should not have made on terms they should not have agreed on. The homeowners who overreached are not solely to blame.
“The big issue in all these cases, whether we are dealing with a bankruptcy court, a state court or a federal court, is who really owns the mortgage note, and that is allegedly what they securitized, said O. Max Gardner III, a lawyer who represents borrowers in foreclosure in Shelby, N.C. “A collateral question is, has that mortgage note really been transferred and assigned to the securitization trust? If not, then they really don’t have standing. It’s Law School 101.”
I don’t agree with the judge. If they did not own it, then the true owner can sue to foreclose. If they did own it, then they can sue to foreclose. Someone can sue to foreclose. To me, it looks like the judge was looking for a way to let the borrower off the hook. Not good for the economy for judges to simply let people who owe money off the hook.
In my view, it’s not really funny. The whole system will go to hell if judges won’t enforce mortgages.
True!
If you could rephrase that in a way that makes sense I'd be forever indebted.
This is NOT something which has some broad and important consequences. Deutsche Bank didn’t have handy the assignment contracts - ie, sloppy paperwork. It’s not as if there are not actual assignments in existence. Its not as though the local loan broker still holds the mortgage even though they get cashed out by DB a month after the note was recorded.
And this whole idea that these homeowners are somehow victims is retarded. In order to get foreclosed upon, you have to NOT BE MAKING YOUR MORTGAGE PAYMENTS!!! Its not like DB just rolled up to some old lady and said “Get Out!”. They don’t want to foreclose on these houses in a market like Ohio. They desparately want these people to start making payments of any kind and keep this paper out there.
There aren’t any victims in this situation. This is just bad representation by the law firm that showed up for DB. They should have had their ducks in a row like any reasonably competent counsel would have. And if they found that DB actually didn’t have notarized assignments to all these mortgages, then they would be slapping people in the head until they got the executed copies in their hands. End of story. Its not like a couple hundred thousand dollar note is just going to slip through the freaking cracks here. SOMEBODY owns the note. SOMEBODY is going to foreclose. The borrowers have guaranteed that by not paying their mortgage (probably for six months or more by the time of this hearing).
This is a clerical matter and not some matter of law. Its like showing up with a lawsuit in which nobody signed the last page attesting that it was written by them. Just sloppiness.
All they need to do is show the judge they own the mortgages and he will enforce them.
>> If they did not own it, then the true owner can sue to foreclose.
I wonder if maybe a whole bunch of mortgages were pooled as collateral for some complex investment vehicle that in turn is owned by a whole bunch of investors. Thus, there’s a many-to-many relationship between investors and borrowers.
So, each investor kinda sorta owns a little piece of each mortgage — but no particular investor can prove complete ownership of any particular mortgage.
If so — what a mess!!!
The Tragedy of the Commons...
“The homeowners who overreached are not solely to blame.”
Ok not solely...maybe 95% to blame.
Before we had personal computers (!) I worked in the mortgage department of a bank. I had to coordinate the loan sales and make sure the manually typed assignment documents got recorded, etc. It was a nightmare of details and rushed deadlines. It looks like things have gotten worse instead of better, LOL.
Is this a tactic that the average debtor facing foreclosure can use? If so I would imagine that lawyers are buzzing about this.
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