"WE CAN STOP FORECLOSURES"
|
|
We Prepare litigation that raises several arguments which include:
1. Statutory defenses where appropriate, pertaining to the Notice of Default and Intent to Foreclose, were they proper. 2. Attacking the parties attempting to foreclose on the grounds that they ARE NOT the correct parties. 3. Raising an argument where appropriate of Predatory Lending. 4. Requesting to have your Note and Trust Deed reformed to the actual current value of your home. 5. We also make an argument that if your property has been sold at auction the sale should be set aside and you should be reinstated on title. 6. We also prepare for your filing a Notice of Pendency of Action which when recorded with the County Recorder’s office will cloud the title thereby preventing your property from successfully being transferred during the litigation. AND- We have counsel in your area as needed to represent you. |
|
First let’s define the problems
An Overview: How did we get into this mess? More than 20 years of lobbying from the financial industry paid off with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which was passed by Congress following the 1929 stock market crash. The bill was written to limit the conflicts of interest when commercial banks are permitted to underwrite stocks or bonds. The financial industry whittled away at Glass-Steagall for years before finally breaking down its regulatory restrictions in August 1987, when Alan Greenspan -- formerly a director of J.P. Morgan and a proponent of banking deregulation -- became chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Coincidentally--“In 1990, J.P. Morgan became the first bank to receive permission from the Federal Reserve to underwrite securities, so long as its underwriting business did not exceed a10 percent limit. In December 1996, with the support of Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Board issued a precedent-shattering decision permitting bank holding companies to own investment bank affiliates with up to 25 percent of their business in securities underwriting (up from 10 percent). This expansion of the loophole created by the Fed's (Greenspan’s) 1987 reinterpretation of Section 20 of Glass-Steagall effectively rendered Glass-Steagall obsolete. In 1999, after 25 years and $300 million of the banks lobbying efforts, Congress, aided by President Bill Clinton, finally repealed Glass-Steagall. This paved the way for the problems we are now facing. After the demise of Glass-Steagall US Banks began to make loans with the idea that those loans would be immediately sold and a profit would be immediately realized, to further this concept Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bear Stearns Cos., Citigroup Inc., and JPMorgan Chase & Co. conceived the sub prime model that they securitized and marketed to investors as Derivatives, “Mortgage Backed Securities” a Derivative is a very dangerous instrument as it is based on a value that the contracting parties have no interest in, the value is based on the value of the debt secured and the credit of the borrower. Loans were made through warehouse lines available to Mortgage Companies then sold by the initiating lender to its up-line bank, that bank immediately sold the loan to its up-line, sort of like a reverse Multiple Level Marketing program. Ultimately after 5 to 8 up- line sales the loans were bundled into a group of 150 or more loans and sold to a corporation or LLC who securitized the debt instruments and sold off chunks through Wall Street to high income investors. One bank in the chain retained the servicing rights to these loans or sold those rights off separately. Because of the confusion in most cases the wrong party is attempting to foreclose on your loan. The Borrower’s dilemma: Many homeowners are finding themselves with loans that are in excess of the value of their home. Why? Because the Banking industry as a whole, artificially created a run of inflation in home values by making loans available to anyone who was breathing without consideration of whether or not they could sustain their payments, the purpose was to bring more buyers into the market, which caused home prices to rise, in order to make larger profits as they sold your loan. Then they artificially created the deflation in home prices by ceasing to make further loans. Banks and Mortgage companies were aided by appraisers who valued your home far in excess of its real at the time value. Many homeowners were placed in loans that were “predatory” What are Predatory Loans? Most public attention about “predatory lending” has been focused on the largest financial institutions involved in subprime lending such as, CitiFinancial, Household Finance, Conseco/GreenTree, Washington Mutual’s Long Beach mortgage and Bank of America. However, the dividing line between legitimate and abusive behavior is not easily drawn. For instance Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have estimated that between 30% and 50% of all subprime loans were to borrowers who qualified for prime loans. Most community groups would use the term “predatory lenders’ for institutions that engage in subprime lending without a strictly enforced “referral up” program for borrowers who qualify for prime rates. There are a number of institutions that engage in some subprime lending even though a majority of their business is not subprime. To take some regional examples, Wells Fargo has increased its involvement in the subprime lending business dramatically in the last few years. US Bank has had a partial ownership interest in New Century; JP Morgan Chase has purchased Advanta in the past year. And the involvement doesn’t just include the biggest banks. The Minneapolis Federal Reserve estimated that as far back as 1999 29% of the banks in its district offered some type of subprime product. In addition to a lack of a good “referral up” program the following practices are some of those that are most commonly considered “predatory” by community groups in the context of a high interest rate loan: |