Seven years after the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market, New Jersey continues to be a hotbed of home repossessions by lenders, resulting in reams of foreclosure-fraud and improper-debt-collection complaints that mainly target intermediaries known as mortgage servicers.

Fort Lee homeowner Eun Ju Song, who was notified last year that he was in default on his loan and is facing foreclosure, claims mortgage companies botched transfers of ownership rights to the mortgage he signed in 2006 and forged documents to try to fix the problem. In a federal lawsuit filed in Newark in May against Bank of America and the mortgage servicer Green Tree Servicing, he claimed that they haven’t shown they have any legal right to collect.

“With no properly recorded owner of the plaintiff’s mortgage, there is no one or entity entitled to enforce the conditions of the mortgage obligation,” the complaint says.

Jerry K. Wong of Clifton…

Argentina said on Friday it would appeal a U.S. judge’s decision declaring illegal a $539 million (324.69 million pounds) payment the country deposited with Bank of New York Mellon Corp for its restructured bondholders.

BNY Mellon in June obeyed a U.S. court ruling to block the $539 million interest payment on debt that was restructured following Argentina’s record 2002 debt default, paving the way for the country’s second default in 12 years in July.

Argentina said on Tuesday it had stripped Bank of New York Mellon’s authorization to operate in the South American country.

Read on.

Casey v. Rotenberg (In re Kenny G Enterprises, LLC), 512 B.R. 628 (C.D. Cal. 2014) –

A Chapter 11 trustee sought to avoid a transfer of property under Section 544 of the Bankruptcy Code that occurred after (1) the bankruptcy petition was filed and (2) a chapter 11 plan of reorganization was confirmed. The defendants moved to dismiss on the basis that Section 544 applies only to prepetition transfers. The bankruptcy court denied the motion, and the defendants appealed.

Admitting a problem, as the cliché has it, is the first step to solving it. But with the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, admissions of wrongdoing have been the last step. There’s much work to be done to hold giant corporations accountable for their misdeeds.

Over the last few years, the Justice Department and the S.E.C. have been assailed for delivering lashings to corporate malefactors that resemble a fanning with palm fronds. In response, the Justice Department and the S.E.C. would like us to think that they received the message and got tough. This summer, the Justice Department forced Credit Suisse and BNP Paribas to plead guilty to crimes. In some of its recent settlements, the S.E.C. has been requiring individuals and corporations admit that they did something wrong.

Such public statements of contrition have some degree of usefulness. It’s almost ridiculous that we consider it progress…

In re First Mortgage Fund, Inc., 498 B.R. 180 (E.D. Mich. 2013) –

A debtor (First Mortgage), which was the mortgagee of record, foreclosed a mortgage and obtained title to the foreclosed property notwithstanding that it had assigned the note and mortgage to another party several years before the foreclosure sale.  After the assignee sought to make a claim based on the assignment, the debtor’s chapter 7 trustee sought to avoid the rights of the assignee using his strong-arm powers.  After the bankruptcy court found in favor of the chapter 7 trustee, the assignee appealed.

In re Demers, 511 B.R. 233 (Bankr. D. R.I. 2014) –

A chapter 13 debtor objected to the portion of a mortgagee’s claim consisting of expenses related to foreclosure of its mortgage. She argued that since the mortgagee failed to comply with notice requirements under the mortgage, the foreclosure expenses were not valid.

Nothing has changed from the banksters. Still submitting fraudulent documents in the county recorder offices. Check this out. This is an email that I received from Virginia of Deadly Clear website. Thanks Virginia!:

Another one to follow – thought you’d find interesting.

Aloha, Virginia

Check-out www.deadlyclear.com

 
Begin forwarded message:

From: Tim Morell <tim@timmorell.com>
Date: August 21, 2014 9:08:58 AM HST
To: Tim Morell <tim@timmorell.com>
Subject: assignment of mortgage but not the note…

Here is a not your typical MERS type assignment of mortgage.  This is a situation where Citimortgage originally was the holder of the note and filed suit for foreclosure in 2013. The borrower got a successful modification. He started the process with Citi, but Citi advised him that a new servicer would be taking over: FIC Lender Services LLC.

One thing led to another and the client received copies of assignments of…