In re Cornerstone Homes, Inc., 544 B.R. 492 (Bankr. W.D. N.Y. 2015) –

A chapter 11 trustee sought a judgment that a series of mortgages were unenforceable as a matter of law because the written assignments transferring them to the current mortgagees were insufficient. If the trustee prevailed, the mortgage loans would be transformed from secured to unsecured claims.

On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) headlined an event that launched a new coalition calling itself “Take On Wall Street.”

The group includes lawmakers like Warren, Reps. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), labor leaders like the AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka and the AFT’s Randi Weingarten, as well as civil rights groups, community groups, and the organizing giant Move On. It aims to put pressure on lawmakers at all levels to pass stricter rules governing the financial system.

Operating on two principles — “No cheating, and no pushing the risks on taxpayers,” as Warren put it — it’s making five key demands: breaking up the biggest banks; ensuring access to non-predatory banking products, including through the United States Post Office; ending the carried interest tax loophole that allows hedge fund managers to use a tax break for investment income on the income they make at work; reining in executive…

Written by Biloxi

Disclosure: This is not to persuade any  Justice League readers in this political race. It is your right to exercise your vote on the candidate of your choosing. Get out and vote!

I decided to take a very long drive to San Diego this afternoon to attend Bernie Sanders rally for my own view of the rally since his rally is much talked about  in the media with the massive crowd by Sanders’ supporters. And all I can say is that there were alot of people at the rally and it took over close to 2 hours for the long line of people to enter the rally. While I was in line, I did talk to alot of milleniums in line ( and there were a lot young people attending the rally). They are not as dumb as the media make them appear to be. Some of…

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…