The painful legacy of the great real estate swindle

Monday Morning Cup of Coffee takes a look at news across the HousingWire weekend desk, with more coverage to come on bigger issues.

Crime may not pay, but politics certainly does, and not just with hard cash.

According to the Clarion-Ledger, when Tony Yarber was elected to the office of mayor in Jackson, Mississippi, Well Fargo paid off his mortgage.

That may be two years ago, but Yarber is not shy about discussing the event.

“Bank records show that Wells Fargo authorized the release of the remaining lien, $91,621.94, on April 22, 2014, the day of his election. Essentially, they wrote it off, Yarber said.”

“Wells Fargo said don’t worry about sending no more money,” he said to local reporter Anna Wolfe.

Yarber, a pastor, delivered a sermon declaring the lien extinguished, mentioning being part of the “very unfortunate…

The Week wrote an opinion piece of a review of David Dayen’s book , Chain of Title. But, in the article written by Ryan Cooper, he discussed the penalities of securitization law in New York and federal if the securities (in this case mortgage loans that were sold to Wall Street to become a securitization trust) did not properly follow the original contract. From The Week: 

Not many noticed while the bubble was going up, but after it collapsed and the recession took hold, millions of people fell into default on their mortgages. Dayen’s book follows three private citizens, Lisa Epstein, Michael Redman, and Lynn Syzmoniak, all of whom were sucked into the foreclosure machine after the economic crash of 2008. In desperation they began poking around their foreclosure documents, and found howling, inconceivable errors — being foreclosed on by a bank that did not own the mortgage, obviously impossible…

“I think what struck me most about this story was the fact that the foreclosure fraud these ordinary citizens uncovered was so crude and so sloppy. I could only conclude that the people involved knew there was nobody minding the store. That says a lot about Americans’ sense of ethics. How many people working in that industry do you think knew they were committing fraud and just didn’t care? “

Earlier this week the New York Times featured a depressing story about homeless people living in the foreclosed and abandoned houses that still dot the landscape in Nevada, reminding everyone of that awful time just a few years ago when families all over the country lost their homes in what has become euphemistically known as “the housing crisis.” It was actually much more specific than that, it was an epidemic of criminal mortgageforeclosure fraud and it devastated millions of…

Chain of Title should be required reading in every college-level business ethics class in America. At a time when “business ethics” is an oxymoron, perhaps the current generation that adores Bernie Sanders might better understand the dangers big banking monopolies hold. David Dayen’s book, Chain of Title, unearths a system with the power and collateral to stonewall millions of homeowners from obtaining one very simple answer: Who owns my mortgage?

If you haven’t been able to wrap your head around why the federal government has failed to prosecute one banker for the foreclosure crisis there is a very simple answer that Chain of Title alludes to. The federal government has a dark secret: the trusts are empty and the falsified notes cannot be traced back to their true owners so they must be “recreated” if a default occurs. This means that the investors, the pensions and the trusts own nothing…

see http://www.housingwire.com/articles/37033-finally-85b-countrywide-mortgage-bond-settlement-gets-green-light?eid=311685972&bid=1405266#.VzY9zv-rw6o.email
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So just to set the stage: we have had hundreds, if not thousands, of settlements between investors and the banks, between government and the banks and between individual “borrowers” and the banks (the latter always being under seal of confidentiality). The Department of Justice has set the tone by declining to get into…

U.S. states Nevada, Wyoming and Delaware are facing growing pressure to address their lack of corporate transparency, as the United States and the international community continue to respond to fallout from the Panama Papers.

At a London anti-corruption summit on Thursday, representatives from the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Isle of Man warned that the “hypocrisy” of the U.S. was hurting the global push for greater financial transparency.

The summit, hosted by British Prime Minister David Cameron and attended by leaders and high-ranking officials from around the world, has drawn increased public attention after the Panama Papers investigation by ICIJ, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 media partners revealed new details about how the world’s rich and powerful use and sometimes abuse secrecy jurisdictions and tax havens.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry compared the threat posed by corruption to the threat posed by terrorism, and urged attendees…

FYI: The book will be released on May 24, 2016 on Amazon. And according to Amazon, the book is:

#1 Best Sellerin Political Science

Get the popcorn ready!

A shockingly frank new book from an anonymous Democratic congressman turns yet another set of conspiracy theories into consirpacy facts as he spills the beans on the ugly reality behind the scenes in Washington. While little will surprise any regular readers, the selected quotes offered by “The Confessions Of Congressman X” book cover sheet read like they were ripped from the script of House of Cards… and yet are oh so believable…
A devastating inside look at the dark side of Congress as revealed by one of its own! No wonder Congressman X wants to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. His admissions are deeply disturbing…

“Most of my colleagues are dishonest career politicians who revel in the power and…

SAN FRANCISCO — The cost to obtain a home loan may go up due to a recent California Supreme Court decision that paves the way for homeowners in default to challenge the validity of their foreclosure, according to a financial industry attorney specializing in lending disputes and real estate.

The California Supreme Court ruled earlier this year in Yvanova v. New Century Mortgage Corporation that “a home loan borrower has standing to claim a non-judicial foreclosure was wrongful” if the foreclosing party does not have the authority to order a trustee‘s sale.

In 2006, New Century granted Tsvetana Yvanova a $483,000 mortgage. The lender went bankrupt the following year. New Century is said to have pooled, securitized and transferred Yvanova’s mortgage to trustee Western Progressive in 2011. Yvanova subsequently defaulted on her loan, and Western Progressive auctioned her home in 2012.

Yvanova’s lawsuit argues the foreclosure was illegal and void…