Banks lose key foreclosure ruling in top Massachusetts court

Reuters ^ | January 7, 2011 | Jonathan Stempel and Dena Aubin

[ninonitti]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In a decision that may slow foreclosures nationwide, Massachusetts' highest court voided the seizure of two homes by Wells Fargo & Co and US Bancorp after the banks failed to show they held the mortgages at the time they foreclosed. Bank shares fell, weighing on broader stock indexes, on fears the decision could threaten lenders' ability to work through hundreds of thousands of pending foreclosures. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts' unanimous decision on Friday upheld a lower court ruling. It is among the earliest cases to address the validity of foreclosures done without proper documentation. That issue, including the use of "robo-signers" who approved foreclosure documents without reviewing them, last year prompted an uproar that led lenders such as Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Ally Financial Inc to temporarily stop seizing homes. "A ruling like this will slow down the foreclosure process" for lenders, said Marty Mosby, an analyst at Guggenheim Securities in Memphis, Tennessee. "They're going to have to be really precise and get everything in order.

[ninonitti]

Uhoh......torpedo hit below the water line on the banksters.

Speaking of leaks where's wiki?

[colorado tanker]

Well, if you want a judge to hand someone’s house over to you, it's not asking too much to see the paperwork that says you're entitled to it.

[Squidster]

Yes, and its not too much to ask for people to voluntarily surrender their homes when they default. It called — moving out.

ALL of these cases are people that WANT TO KEEP THEIR HOMES even if they default. Also known as DEADBEATS.

Who are the scumbags? The banks or the borrowers? Or both?

[MichiganConservative]

Let’s see how the federal government comes to the rescue of their banster masters.

I’m sure, there’s some sort of interstate commerce ramifications to selling, buying, and foreclosing on real estate.

Won’t someone protect the banks? Please, save the banksters, someone!

It’s not fraud when bankers do it!

[DallasDeb]

You’re wrong. We read on FR some weeks ago that they have foreclosed on people who were CURRENT with their payments. One reason for having proper paperwork is to verify that the current owner is NOT a DEADBEAT or SCUMBAG.

[moehoward]

I’m going to bet that the number of borrowers who intentionally committed fraudulent acts during the mortgage process in the last 10 years is monumentally outnumbered by those from the other side of the desk.

BTW. Just finished reading The Big Short. Wow. Just. Wow.

[Traveler59]

Massachusetts' highest court voided the seizure of two homes by Wells Fargo & Co and US Bancorp after the banks failed to show they held the mortgages

This ruling I can agree with. I don't need a bank/mortgage company attempting to seize my house when they can't prove they're the mortgage holder. Especially since it's already paid off.

[Persevero]

Yeah, you know, you have to hold the bill.

Debts and contracts aren’t a farce, they are real things with real consequences.

[Leisler]

You get a mortgage from Good Old Bank. You don’t pay. Third Bank of Uzbekistan forecloses on you and takes the house, only they don’t have legal, age old, hum drum proof of possessing the mortgage. m ( Good Old Bank says the last time they saw the mortgage is when they sold it to First Auto Union of Detroit. Bank of Uzbekistan says they never heard of First Auto Union of Detroit. )

Do you move out?

( Actually, to an extent, this is a ruling not even about who owes what to who. It is about following 400 years of land court law and cases. Epic fail on the part of the banks. )

[Brookhaven]

Yes, and its not too much to ask for people to voluntarily surrender their homes when they default. It called — moving out.

---

We are still (at least for the moment) a nation of laws.

Yes, people who have defaulted on their loans should have the decency to just leave.

On the other hand, using unlawful means to evict those who refuse to leave is just as bad.

The ends do not justify the means (unless you are a Democrat, in which case “the ends justify the means” is your motto).

[SnuffaBolshevik]

Didn’t a lot of insurance companies, state pension funds, union pension funds and big-shot overseas investors buy these wonderful MBS packages? Sucks to be them if these MBS tranches are full of nebulous unrecoverable crap.

Batten down the hatches, this doesn’t end well.

[BlackElk]

later

[org.whodat]

You. Are wrong but you got it off your chest, it just means after the foreclosure and the home is sold the bad debt the former owner owes will be more and the debt collector will hound them the rest of their lives

[hennie pennie]

omg *ping* ~who~ owns america’s homes????

[Oberon]

Move out without a clear title holder to receive the foreclosure, and you're liable to get a bill next year and the year after that for back taxes on a house you haven't been living in... because you're the only owner of record the city can find.

It's happened.

[Oberon]

Cede ownership to the first supposed lien-holder who shows up, and you may find yourself later on faced by the real lien-holder, expecting his property back.

Some of the titles on these properties are irretrievably damanged for any subsequent buyers, absent court action.

[Kartographer]

Good post Leister!

Yes there are plenty of ‘DEAD BEATS’ that will more than likely end up with houses that they should have, but what seems that so many are missing is that this is a matter of well established standing real estate law!

Clearly what has been done by the Mortgage lenders during their securitization of mortgages and their wholesale breaking of state's real estate laws is so monumentally stupid and is on such a grand scale that people have a difficult time grasping it. Institutions which for years and years where relied upon for their strict adherence to real estate law and procedure have throw most such compliance to the wind. And now when they find themselves in need of using that same system, they are finding that because of their own actions they now can not provide the proper and legal proofs required by that system. Is it to much for a judge to ask before handing over someone house is to ask that legally required proof of the lien be produced? Really is that to much to ask? I think not. Morally yes the people need to get out, but the judge can only order transfer of the property to who ever owns and produces the note, so he can not order the people out.

The kicker here is so many a screaming about the ‘DEAD BEATS’ and their breaching of a civil contract, but little is being said by those screaming the loudest about the ‘DEAD BEATS’ about the mortgage lenders reaction when they realized that they had lost their legal proofs, that reaction was for them and their attorneys to try and force foreclosures by presenting in court fraudulent, forged and postdated documents, perjured statements and affirmations, in other words multiple felonies! Here again all preformed on a scale that many will find unchomperhensable.

A Republic lives only as long as the rule of law is recognized and adhered to. If we allow for those that we feel have committed some wrong to be punished by disallowing them their legal rights and protections granted to them by law then history shows us that in the end we all loose those rights and those protection and the Republic dies.

[Leisler]

....The judge denied the plaintiffs' motions to vacate judgment on October 14, 2009, concluding that the newly submitted documents did not alter the conclusion that the plaintiffs were not the holders of the respective mortgages at the time of foreclosure."

( When commenting on something, try to know what you are talking about. )

[Leisler]

What? We can’t have ‘living law’? But, but who can know what those old men meant when they wrote a year ago, or ten years, or two hundred years? We need to ‘interpret’ the law from day to day as ‘social conditions evolve’!

/sarcasm

[FromLori]

“Didn’t a lot of insurance companies, state pension funds, union pension funds and big-shot overseas investors buy these wonderful MBS packages? Sucks to be them if these MBS tranches are full of nebulous unrecoverable crap.”

They sure did if you have a pension fund or a 401k invested in bonds you are probably among the losers. But Allstate, the NY Fed, Blackrock, Pimco, MBIA and I don’t know how many other’s are now suing the banks because they sold these as triple AAA and they owned the rating agencys to boot.

Sucks to be anyone who pays taxes too since we are also being screwed that way, the banks have offloaded trillions in toxic loans unto Fannie/Freddie and if you remember (2009)right before obama went on vacation there was a news dump where he gave the GSE’s unlimited government support.

U.S. Move to Cover Fannie, Freddie Losses Stirs Controversy

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126168307200704747.html

Every time you hear more money for Fannie/Freddie that means more from you.

Fannie/Freddie was also suing BOA (among others) and the really crappy thing about that is BOA just made a settlement with them this week and taxpayers only got one lousy cent on the dollar! How sweet is that Jamie Dimon(NYT)who is obama’s favorite banker gets a great deal at your expense.

BofA Freddie Mac Putbacks Resolved for 1¢ on $

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/01/bofa-putbacks-freddie-mac/

NY Fed Joins PIMCO, Blackrock In Seeking BAC Mortgage Putbacks

http://blog.t3live.com/2010/10/ny-fed-joins-pimco-blackrock-in-seeking.html

Allstate Sues BofA Over Bad MBS

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10956524/allstate-sues-bofa-over-bad-mbs-report.html

MBIA wins key ruling in Bank of America case

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101223/bs_nm/us_bankofamerica_mbia_lawsuit

President Obama’s Favorite Banker

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/07/president-obamas-favorite-banker.html

Barack’s Wall Street Problem is Now America’s

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/09/21/baracks-wall-street-problem-is-now-americas/

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Donates Serious Cash to Democrats

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/07/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-donat.html

And BTW I don’t feel a bit of pity for those banks they created the Liar’s loans and the ARM’s out of nothing but greed and then just like the Socialist’s they donate to WE bailed them out.

No, The Big Banks Have Not “Paid Back” Government Bailouts and Subsidies

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/no-big-banks-have-not-paid-back-government-bailouts-and-subsidies

Barack’s Wall Street Problem is Now America’s

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/09/21/baracks-wall-street-problem-is-now-americas/