Foreclosure Settlement With Major Banks Close To Completion

The LA Times ^ | February 9, 2012 | 1:25am | Alejandro Lazo

[kiryandil]

A nationwide plan to help nearly 2 million homeowners hit by the mortgage meltdown and improper foreclosure practices could be announced as early as Thursday under a multi-state settlement hammered out by states' attorneys general and the nation's major lenders.

The proposed $25-billion deal would be the largest since the $206-billion settlement with the tobacco industry in 1998. Much of the bank settlement is expected to go to people who are having trouble paying their mortgages or have lost their homes to foreclosure.

[kiryandil]

You're all aware that this is a get-out-of-jail-free card for MASSIVE violations of the law - stuff that would get you or I jail terms of many, many years?

======================

Q: What's the difference between an American bank and an American peasant?

A: An American peasant doesn't have enough money to buy the prosecutor.

[wita]

The massive effort, more than a year in the making, is the most recent government attempt to boost the limping housing market and help people whose homes lost significant value in the housing crash.

But even such a sizable settlement pales against the scope of the housing problem. According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, for instance, U.S. homeowners owe about $700 billion more than their homes are worth.

It would seem a relatively easy task to get to the bottom of this. Then at least any action would be based on truth, reality, and getting to the root cause of the collapse, then massive fines, incarceration, financial collapse, and rebuild. Get out of jail free or states attorney generals bidding for certain select homeowners, insuring perhaps there reelection would be the last resort anyone would sign on too.

When it comes to taxpayer cash, which is anything in the hands of government, they are not to be trusted. It will be poorly spent as far as the people are concerned, but will always benefit “government”.

[theDentist]

It’s not a ‘government’. It’s a GIVErnment.

[Texas Fossil]

Simply papers over the real problem in this FRAUD. Yes it is FRAUD.

The real problem will be an ongoing inability to transfer clear title to some properties that were involved in the MERS mortgage mess. That is the reason they “forged” documents.

[Chunga85]

This is really not surpising.

Considering the fact that congress is holding a debate as to whether or not they should be allowed to engage in insider trading, the charade put on by the AGs is and always was political grandstanding.

I'll be speaking with several excellent and succesful attorneys today who engage in this highly nuanced and technical area of legal practice.

It will be interesting to get their "take" on this; and what impact it may or may not have on their own cases presently in litigation.

I'll go out on a limb and guess that on an individual level it is those who did not, or could not, retain competent legal counsel on their own who will be hurt most.

This gal here is preparing a Press Release and intends to bring many facts to light by week's end.

I'm hoping she gets support.

FWIW...I've remained in contact with the feisty freshman and will do my best to spread the word here and on little Hamlet.

R.I. Senator Moura Complaint To The Department of Treasury RE: Wells Fargo

URGENT FAX FROM RI SENATOR MOURA TO SENATOR JACK REED

"I DEMAND THIS BE PUT TO AN END, AND SANCTIONS IMPOSED FOR WHAT I PERCEIVE TO BE TWO CRIMINAL ORGANIZATIONS."

For Immediate Release FROM Senator Bethany Moura [R-RI] Jan. 10, 2012

"Freshman RI Senator levels serious allegations at Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac - Jan. 10, 2012"

[wita]

From our pockets to the bottomless pit of the poor, through the misspent efforts of the givernment. The poor that a certain Carpenter told us would always be with us. That should answer any questions about givernment solutions for the problems of the poor.

[musicman]

BFLR

[Carry_Okie]

So instead of going to jail they just fork over the stockholders' money? Wow such courage! Oh, the pain! $25 billion out of how much?

Shades of Tony Hayward.

Oh, but they learned their lesson. This settlement will surely serve as a real deterrent in the fewture.

[theDentist]

Amen, brother. All it does it take away incentive for people to better themselves.

[Wolfie]

It’s the nature of white-collar crime. On the criminal side, if you have enough money to buy your way out jail, then that’s what you do. On the prosecution side, it’s bad form to put your country club buddies in prison.

[Kartographer]

Just goes to prove the old adage: “If you are going to steal steal big!”

And I will add: “And do it in a three piece suit and cut the politicians in on the take.”

[woweeitsme]

Gee...dummy me just re-financed the old-fashioned way.

Seriously...there are enough “tools” out there now to refinance. Big brutha doesn’t need to be involved any more than they already are. Heck...they shouldn’t be involved at all!

[Buckeye McFrog]

if any single thing is capable of bringing the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street together to start sticking the elites with the pitchforks, this is it.

[Almondjoy]

Oh the humanity. The banks foreclosed on people they should have foreclosed on. Their guilt? In having Mers unable to track clear title. That’s probably worth 25 billion. But you make yourself sound like a welfare recepient when you suggest that there was some real evil underpinnings here.

Got your hand out?

[Carry_Okie]

The banks foreclosed on people they should have foreclosed on.

There were many cases in which they took or attempted possession of homes upon which the mortgage had been completely paid off. It took a lot of money on the part of those folks to clear a bogus MERS record.

But you make yourself sound like a welfare recepient when you suggest that there was some real evil underpinnings here.

Your grammar is lousy, you can't spell even with a checker in the window, and you know nothing of what the case is about. Then you go making bogus suppositions about me. And I'm supposed to take you seriously? Really?

[edcoil]

They are just binding Americans to more debt. The banks got the money, did it illegally, now paying government to cover for them and put homeowners back in debt again.

[kiryandil]

Oh, an apologist for the poor, uninformed Banksters. Yep, they never saw those sharpster peasants coming, and were cozened by all their intricate, convoluted schemes for bilking the financial naifs working at the banks.

Here's an administration press release from the New York Times for ya:

Mortgage Plan Gives Homeowners Bulk of the Benefits

Yeah, the poor old Big Banks once again get nothing but The Shaft. Well, except they won't get prosecuted for fraud and perjury, and the attorneys-general will sadly announce at a later time that the statutes of limitation clock has been "accidentally" run out.

And the Big Banks will get to stick the bill for all this on the chumps (pension funds and the like) who bought the RMBS crap.

AND. They'll get to pick exactly which mortgages they're going to write down the principal on, which will be the ones with HELOC seconds that are underwater.

But what I just wrote probably translates to you as "waa waa waa-waa waa waa, waa waa deadbeat borrowers make out waa waa".

[kiryandil]

Oh, but they learned their lesson. This settlement will surely serve as a real deterrent in the fewture.

LOL! Can you believe some of the economic naifs on this site who think that somehow "deadbeat borrowers" outfoxed the financial illiterates at the Big Banks?

They must believe that Banksters get those big annual bonuses for good work attendance, in lieu of a gold star...

[dawn53]

This past week we came face to face with a bank’s incompetence. Our son heard of a home that was supposedly in foreclosure. A sign said the home was in foreclosure and gave a phone number to call with BOA.

He contacted his realtor, and the realtor said he didn’t see how BOA could even be trying to “sell” the home as it is still in the homeowner’s name (she passed away 4 years ago...no family, no estate, and the house has been sitting vacant ever since.) They evidently contacted BOA but noone has any info.

My son and his wife really want to buy the house but it seems they’ve hit a dead end...I wonder if BOA even has title to the house. So it sits empty, BOA is paying for yard upkeep we learned from the neighbors and they changed the locks, but here is a prospective buyer wanting to purchase it, and no means to do so and noone they’ve been able to contact at BOA seems to be able to tell them how to proceed.

Strange goings on.

[kiryandil]

The mortgage of the deceased owner is probably heavily underwater, with a large underwater HELOC second in back of it. Bank of scAmerica is probably carrying the loan(s) on their books at 100% good money instead of the financial bloodbath that it really is.

If they sell it for its true worth, they'll have to take the loss ON THE BOOKS, instead of keeping the charade going.