Zombie foreclosures inch up again across US

(BREAKING NEWS/OP-ED) — News and information contained in this post are provided by the author with opinions as to cause and effect and in no way, should any of this be construed as legal advice.

Nearly 1.3-million properties make up the shadow inventory to date across the nation, also known as “zombie foreclosures” … homes that sit vacant. That’s 1.3% (1 in 79 homes) according to the latest figures listed by ATTOM Data of San Diego.

The number of foreclosures in process in the U.S. this year (just the 1st quarter thus far) number 298,533, which is up 5% from the fourth quarter of last year. These numbers continue to increase since the coronavirus moratorium was lifted in mid-2021. Of those homes, 8,141 were zombie foreclosures (properties immediately abandoned by homeowners as soon as they were served with notice).

What’s worse is we still have a housing crisis (the lack of affordable housing). A lot of this is due to the lack of current inventory, which drives the price of each home up in the face of demand. Come spring, that may change as the smart homeowners seek to downsize or reinvent themselves into survival mode.

Why are these homes in “zombie mode”?

The only thing this author can gather regarding the “why” is that the properties are difficult to sell because of issues with the chain of title. A lot of these properties were securitized, which means that the chains of title to each is jacked up and what the zombie homeowner probably didn’t realize, is that he probably wasn’t in default when he vacated the residence; however, because he agreed to live in the residence and not abandon it, when he bolted, the contract was voided. Abandonment makes it so easy for mortgage loan servicers to steal the property.

Statistics vary as to what counties across America have the worst performance in zombie properties.

A Nation of Renters?

23.7-million properties in the U.S. are investor-owned. In the first quarter of 2023, 846,000 of this inventory was vacant, with Indiana, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kansas and Ohio ranking in the top five of those vacancies.

The “banks” (through their servicers) took 13,700 properties in foreclosure and 13% of them are still vacant.

None of this explains why investor groups are buying up these properties to rent, other than they don’t have to address title issues while they make bank on them. And to think that title companies paid these REMIC servicers & sponsor-sellers 73% of the mortgage loan’s insured value on each of them, not including swap counterparty payments and default insurance payments.

The shocking truth about securitization is that a $500,000 mortgage loan will net the parties in the securitization chain $7,000,000 per mortgage! This is why the banks were so eager to get the Glass-Steagall Act repealed and Slick Willie was so eager to sign the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act into law.

You can thank our Congress … the best bankster money can buy … for all of what happened in 2008.

Now we’re facing a repeat performance; however, not as bad as what happened in 2008.

Listen to Dave Krieger on ThePowerHour.com, weekday mornings from 7 – 9 a.m. Central Time.

Discovery you can’t afford to miss: the SEC!

(OP-ED) — The opinions expressed herein reflect those of the author and should not necessarily be construed as legal advice; however, the material has been vetted by an attorney who loves the thought process behind what is expressed here.

While everyone is getting the “rope-a-dope” from the banks and their mortgage loan servicers, no one’s looking to the enforcement arm of Wall Street … the revolving door into the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“USSEC”). The author will abbreviate this agency, who is supposed to enforce violations of securities laws; however, seemingly, apparently hasn’t been doing so to the extent that We the People need them to.

The author of this post held off posting this article for the sake of clarification, insomuch that jumping the gun and sending the readers of this post on a wild goose chase for nothing would have been totally discrediting and thus, non-productive. Now that clarification has been achieved, it’s no holds barred.

The author devised a set of discovery, which was then turned into more productive aspects of a means to an end. That discovery revolves around the USSEC, who has the goods you’re looking for if you happen to be facing a REMIC trust, which most of you are since most of your loans were securitized.

This concept and thought process involves a two-pronged attack on the USSEC. Here’s step one:

If you’ll visit sec.gov, you’ll notice the search box in the upper, right-hand corner of the website.

Type in ONLY the REMIC trust’s “Series Number” (for example 2004-NC3, which I will reference in this post as the example). Do NOT type in the entire trust’s name and gobbledygook as you’ll end up with non-descript stuff you can’t use. Once the actual REMIC’s name appears below the search box, make a note of the “CIK” number by whatever means possible because this information will become part of your discovery request.

Rule #1: You cannot serve discovery on a non-party to a lawsuit!

Don’t even try it. You will be wasting your time and money. Instead, the attorney the author spoke with zeroed in on the fact that if you make the USSEC a third-party defendant in your case, the courts will most likely throw them out (dismiss them from your suit) at the first opportunity, much to the objections of the mortgage loan servicer (who’s bring the foreclosure against you trying to reimburse its own coffers), who will then figure out what you’re trying to get at. Thus, the attorney suggests getting a subpoena issued straightaway against the USSEC, asking for certified copies of information directly related to the REMIC trust you’re dealing with. Here’s where the concept attempts to get results:

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the 424(b)(5) Prospectus for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on April 12, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K, also known as Current Report for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on May 3, 2004, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of April 16, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K, also known as Current Report for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on June 2, 2004, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of May 25, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K, also known as Current Report for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on July 1, 2004, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of June 25, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K, also known as Current Report for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on August 3, 2004, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of July 26, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K, also known as Current Report for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on August 27, 2004, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of August 25, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K, also known as Current Report for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on September 28, 2004, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of September 27, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K, also known as Current Report for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on November 1, 2004, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of October 25, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K, also known as Current Report for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on November 29, 2004, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of November 26, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K, also known as Current Report for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on January 3, 2005, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of December 27, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K/A, also known as Current Report – amendment, and all amendments thereto for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on January 12, 2005, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of November 26, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K/A, also known as Current Report – amendment, and all amendments thereto for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on January 12, 2005, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of October 25, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K/A, also known as Current Report – amendment, and all amendments thereto for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on January 12, 2005, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of August 25, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K/A, also known as Current Report – amendment, and all amendments thereto for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on January 12, 2005, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of September 27, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K/A, also known as Current Report – amendment, and all amendments thereto for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on January 12, 2005, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of July 26, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K/A, also known as Current Report – amendment, and all amendments thereto for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on January 12, 2005, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of June 25, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the Form 8-K/A, also known as Current Report – amendment, and all amendments thereto for 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on January 12, 2005, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of May 25, 2004.

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the SEC Form 15-15D, known as Suspension of Duty to Report [Section 13 and 15(d)] of 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on January 26, 2005.  

Submit a complete and true certified copy of the 10-K, known as Annual Report [Section 13 and 15(d), not S-K Item 405] of 2004-NC3, filed with the USSEC on March 31, 2005, as shown on the Edgar Entity Landing Page with a Reporting Date of March 7, 2005.

EXPLANATION OF WHAT’S BEEN REQUESTED THUS FAR …

From the pull-down menu at sec.gov (when you’ve retrieved the REMIC’s files), print and save the list of all of the documents that have been filed with the USSEC on that particular REMIC. This should not be considered as over broad and burdensome to the USSEC since all of these files are contained within the USSEC’s database. They can easily be retrieved and the fee for sending it all to you is $4.00 in postage.

In this particular example, the pull-down menu, which was printed out in full, contained 19 documents, all of which became part of the request for production under subpoena.

You can either ask for all of these documents (that are contained within the USSEC’s files on the REMIC, which in this case was 19) outside of a lawsuit if you wish to get an advance look-see at everything. That’s an option if you don’t want to subpoena the records from the USSEC. However, there’s more to the story than what we’ve covered so far. This is where the subpoena comes in with the double whammy. A lot depends on the timing of the request and whether you’re attacking the servicer ahead of the foreclosure. You’ll want to depose someone with direct, first-hand knowledge of the REMIC you’re going after.

And here’s step two:

Get the court clerk to issue a subpoena to the USSEC to get them to produce someone with relevant knowledge of the documents that can verify and validate any violations of the governing regulations of the REMIC trust. (Again, this is framed as a suggestion and not given as legal advice!)

Inside of the subpoena, you can demand the USSEC check ALL of its records and produce whatever it has, in certified form, for the following (and this is just a sample):

Submit complete and true certified copies, if any you have in your possession or control, of all notes, memoranda and agreements for any certificateholder settlements known to the USSEC for  2004-NC3. 

Submit complete and true certified copies, if any you have in your possession or control, of all known litigation filed by any certificateholder, known to the USSEC for  2004-NC3. 

Submit complete and true certified copies, if any you have in your possession or control, of all known USSEC-related prosecutorial actions taken against 2004-NC3. 

Submit complete and true certified copies, if any you have in your possession or control, of the mortgage loan documents which name the Plaintiffs as the Borrowers that demonstrated that the trustee of 2004-NC3 received the documents described on Page S-75 of the 2004-NC3’s 424(b)(5) Prospectus according to the stated governing regulations. 

Submit a complete and true certified copy, if any you have in your possession or control, of any document that demonstrates the negotiation or transfer of the Plaintiff’s mortgage loan and all related documents therein, which specifically identify the date these mortgage loan documents, including all assignments of mortgage (or deed of trust) thereto, that were documented as part of the transfer from the Depositor to the REMIC trust by the trust’s Cut-Off Date.

You’ll want to review all of the trust’s “FILED” documents first, because the Amendments inside of those REMICs may reveal changes in the number of certificate holders receiving the 8-K’s and 10-K’s and may further reveal the actual “condition” of the REMIC before and after it closed. You’ll need this information for the next step.

Rule #2: You cannot depose a non-party to the suit without relevant cause!

This is a great way to get the mortgage loan servicer’s attention because if the REMIC trust settled out with all of the certificate holders, then the mortgage loan servicer, the real party bringing the foreclosure, has no standing because it can’t prove concrete injury-in-fact required under Spokeo v. Robins. Thus, it has no standing to pursue a foreclosure. And it’s going to fight you tooth and nail to keep its position in the suit because it wants to steal your property.

Don’t expect the mortgage loan servicer and its attorneys to sit idly by while you depose someone with knowledge of the particular REMIC trust. They’ll have their attorneys in the deposition, so you’ll have to craft your questions in such a way so as to expose the bad behavior on the part of the servicer’s employees when it comes to having the USSEC deponent examine the recorded assignment(s), specifically for:

1. Who prepared the assignment? (Was it the law firm or the servicer’s employees?)
2. Who executed the assignment? (Was it someone who wasn’t really who they said they were?)
3. When was the assignment executed? (Well after the Cut-Off Date of the REMIC trust?)
4. When was the assignment recorded? (Well after the Closing Date of the REMIC trust?)
5. What do the governing regulations for this particular REMIC state about Assignment of the Mortgage Loans? (Is it obvious to the USSEC deponent that the regulations were violated?)
6. Has the USSEC ever been notified by anyone to investigate this particular REMIC trust?
7. Does the USSEC have any records of whether or not a credit default swap counterparty paid the certificate holders in full?
8. Does the USSEC have any records of whether or not any default insurance policies paid the certificate holders in full?
9. Does the USSEC have any records of whether or not there were any settlements wherein the certificate holders were paid in full or in part; thus settling any future payments due to them?
10. Has the USSEC ever investigated this REMIC for any securities violations or irregularities?

In other words (and this is just a smattering of all of the questions to be asked of your USSEC deponent) … you’re trying to get the USSEC deponent’s attention to the fact that he/she can testify as to the fact that none of the governing regulations for the REMIC were complied with and that under New York Trust Law, they are void. Any question relevant to violations of the REMIC’s governing regulations would require a statement from the USSEC deponent that could be inferred to be a conclusion of law and the other side will object, but the comment will still go on the record, where the judge can see it.

This is a direct way to get someone in authority to see the assignments as fraudulent and to initiate a potential investigation, both civil and criminal, which may force the mortgage loan servicer to back off rather than run the risk of an exposed criminal prosecution.

You want the judge to see the REMIC for what it is and what the servicer is actually trying to do. Because most judges think they’re pensions are tied to these REMICs, to discover that the REMIC has been closed and the certificate holders paid would mean that the servicer (who has no contract with you) can triple-dip by stealing your home and that the judge doesn’t have to worry about his pension is going to be affected by making the proper ruling and kicking the mortgage loan servicer out of court.

If the investors (certificate holders) settled the case with the REMIC and accepted payment in full, how then can they come into court and claim they were financially harmed? They can’t … that’s the point. They’d have to prove they were damaged and if they got an insurance settlement and were paid in full, they weren’t damaged; thus, the mortgage loan servicer would be potentially committing fraud on the court to attempt to introduce evidence to the contrary.

Remember, in order to issue a subpoena, you have to file suit. You can use the SEC’s own forms to request all of the documents contained in the REMIC’s file for the shipping fee and they will send them certified (outside of the litigation); however, that takes time and doing it outside of litigation means the court has no control over the outcome of the request for anything from the USSEC. The fees for deposing a single party or entity these days is $3,000 – $5,000 depending on where the deposition takes place. However, if you’re trying to protect a million dollar property, no stone should be left unturned.

Again, this isn’t legal advice. It’s just plain common sense.

Quiet Title Actions, Multiple Scenarios and Suspected Court Overreach

(BREAKING NEWS, OP-ED) — The author of this post is a paralegal and trial consultant to attorneys on chain of title issues. The article is designed to educate and is not to be construed as legal advice or to attempt to draw any legal conclusions of law.

A Supreme Court of Iowa case came into my inbox this morning and after reading its 14 pages, it became a relevant topic for discussion here.

In this suit, the tax deed holder (ACC Holdings LLC), twice tried to sue the owner of record (Rooney). The Iowa Rules of Civil Procedure only allow for two “bites at the apple” (IRCP 1.943) and the second voluntary dismissal operated as an “adjudication on the merits” (in other words, by dismissing its own case twice, it blocked the Plaintiff from suing a third time by creating case law, based on a third filing of the same claim). One would begin to wonder exactly what the attorneys for the Plaintiffs were thinking.

You can read the case file here:

acc-holdings-llc-v-rooney-sup-ct-iowa-no-21-0479-apr-29-2022Download

A lot of different ideas came to mind.

First, the property owner could have set up a payment plan with the County Treasurer to pay his past due tax bills, but didn’t.

Second, even failing to set up a payment plan, when the homeowner’s property went up for tax deed sale, the homeowner even had a 90-day chance to redeem the property; yet, he didn’t do that either. Most folks would look upon this guy as a tax cheat who should get his comeuppance.

Needless to say, the investor/Plaintiff obtained a tax deed. Anyone playing this game (like the author) knows that you have to quiet the title in order to make the property marketable. Instead, the Plaintiff served the homeowner with a notice to quit, followed up by a small claims court forcible detainer action, alleging the homeowner was a tenant at sufferance after the issuance of a valid tax deed.

This time, the homeowner fought back by moving to dismiss the Plaintiff’s claim based on the small claims division not having jurisdiction over tax deed actions. The fact the homeowner fought back caused the investor/Plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss its action, but not before filing its second action in district court (instead of small claims court). The mistake the Plaintiff made was using the same, previously-dated, notice to quit that had accompanied the first petition and after seeing the mistake, voluntarily dismissed the second forcible detainer action, which triggered the Rule of Civil Procedure, making a third action moot.

Third, rather than read the Rules of Civil Procedure, the investor/Plaintiff filed a third action for forcible detainer in the district court with a new 3-day notice to quit attached. The homeowner, whose attorney knew what was going on with the IRCP, filed an answer asserting 3 defenses. As usual, no matter how many valid arguments a homeowner might posit, the district court judge doesn’t care and awarded the homeowner’s property to the investor/Plaintiff. The homeowner appealed and the Supreme Court reversed and remanded with instructions, but not without a gob of explanation.

Fourth, a lot of analysis (worth the read) went into the rendering of this opinion. There are some genuine “nuggets” in the analysis that any homeowner looking at quiet title/tax deed issues should examine.

Fifth … and most shockingly … the Iowa Supreme Court sua sponte, took it upon themselves to bring up the discussion of a quiet title action in the form of a question. If this isn’t a “tip-off” to the investor/Plaintiff, what is? However, Pages 10 – 14 had more “teeth” in it for the investor/Plaintiff’s attorneys to chew on. You can bet they won’t make the same mistake twice after reading the Court’s ruling, which dismissed the Plaintiff’s case with prejudice.

Sixth, NOW … the Plaintiff’s attorneys can use this case material as a reference to bring a quiet title action, wherein the Court even ruled that the Plaintiff could bring such an action. By legally posturing the entire case for the Plaintiff, one must ask whether or not the Court exceeded its judicial boundaries by “stepping outside” of the case to submit its own remedy which benefitted the Plaintiff in its future endeavors to evict the homeowner (who claimed he had a disability).

Disability or no disability, one could have made a deal with the taxing authorities to make payments on the tax debt, even at the rate of $100 a month. Now, due to the Court’s “extended ruling” sua sponte, the disabled homeowner is soon going to be kicked to the curb with all of his possessions. Given this Court’s nature as well as the nature of the lower courts, don’t be surprised if the Plaintiff’s attorneys don’t ask the homeowner to pay attorney’s fees when they prevail in court, using the Supreme Court’s template as their basis to quiet title.

Sadly, one must also consider why the homeowner decided to fight (and retain counsel) instead of paying his taxes (which would have been considerably less expensive). Part of the problem with many homeowners is the misguided effort to fight the wrong battle. It would have been better to pay the taxes than pay an attorney and lose the home anyway.

One must also ask … is it worth taking the matter to the Supreme Court of the United States and asking the nation’s highest “conservative” Court whether the Supreme Court of Iowa’s extended ruling violated the civil rights of the Defendant homeowner for educating the Plaintiff’s attorneys in how to obtain the Property? Nope. This homeowner couldn’t afford it anyway. It’s over $15,000 just to file the damned case in the U.S. Supreme Court and there’s no guarantee the Court will hear the case anyway.

And this is why these scenarios are put forth. Homeowners in trouble generally do not pay their hazard insurance or property taxes. That’s the first sign they’re in financial straits. And this is one way that the investors are going to grab up properties to rehab them and turn them into rental properties, which brings to the forefront this author’s key argument that this nation is being turned into a nation of renters because of the lack of homeowners’ financial education.

It is for this reason the author wrote the book Clouded Titles.

So you think you’re in default, eh?

(Op-Ed) — The author of this post is a paralegal that serves as a title consultant to trial attorneys in foreclosure matters and thus, this article is not intended to render legal advice, nor to be construed as such. It is intended for educational purposes only and is not guaranteed to produce any given legal outcome.

The author of this post will try to keep things simple without passing judgment.

There is no doubt here that we are collectively living in troubled times. The rash of foreclosures continues now that the eviction moratoriums have been lifted for the most part. Those who did not undertake a loan modification or request a forbearance (that was actually granted) are probably feeling the sting of communication by the mortgage loan servicers in their mailing out of late notices on unpaid and delinquent mortgage loans.

According to the terms of the mortgage or deed of trust (depending on which “state” you’re in), there is a specific section on Default. Understand that it’s the mortgage loan servicer’s obligation to collect the mortgage loan debt and route payments to the “lender”, no matter WHO that lender might be.

The problem with defaults, loan modifications and the like is that so many of the loans out there today are securitized through the MERS® System. Since the MERS® System was taken over by the same company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, the information coming out of this entity is scarce to non-existent.

Generally, if you miss a payment, the servicer is going to notify you by certified mail. You may have to sign for the letter. The biggest mistake that homeowners make is ignoring these letters, when in fact, this could be the very start of a long, drawn-out process where you can obtain a lot of useful and vital information that your attorney could use in a foreclosure defense posture, without having to pay gobs in legal fees.

What is a QWR?

That process is called a Qualified Written Request (QWR) under RESPA (the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act) § 6. You can easily research this section of the law and discover that RESPA allows you to send a QWR to the servicer’s bona fide QWR address and ask the servicer to send you specific information, which is discussed below.

The author is going to include a sample QWR from the National Consumer Law Center; however, it comes with a caveat. If you want to delay the foreclosure while gathering evidence, it is suggested by many attorneys that you only request two or three documents at a time and just keep the requests coming. As soon as you get the set of documents you asked for, have another letter drafted, ready to go with another 3 to 4 document requests under the same set of statutes. This prolongs the servicer taking any action against you, while you set out to discover (rather than go through objectionable discovery in court against the servicer who’s trying to steal your home) all of the documents necessary to build a sustainable case.

qwr-sampleDownload

Several homeowners this author has talked to have utilized QWR’s to stop foreclosures. It was only when their attorneys told them it wasn’t doing any good to continue sending them … and the homeowners quit sending QWRs … that all of a sudden, the servicers foreclosed on them.

Why send a QWR?

Sending the servicer (at their official QWR address, not their main address) a QWR is a great way to get information from the lender’s mortgage loan servicer. Nine times out of ten, it’s the mortgage loan servicer that retains the law firm to foreclose and it’s the mortgage loan servicer whose employees falsify the assignments they use to create standing to steal your home.

Secondly, when asking intially, the following documents are key to asking for follow-up questions:

1. An unredacted copy of the mortgage or deed of trust
2. A copy of the note, showing all indorsements and allonges proving custody of the note
3. A copy of the complete pay history of the loan, including escrows

Do NOT ask for the original note because it’s highly likely the servicer doesn’t have it. If your loan was securitized, it’s also highly likely, given what Judge Jennifer Bailey in Florida was told by the Florida Mortgage Bankers Association (in 2009), that your note was shredded after it was uploaded into the MERS® System.

exhibit-23_comments-of-the-florida-bankers-association-highlightedDownload

For those of you doubting Thomases out there, read page 4 of the foregoing letter to the judge … understand that the word “eliminated” is just what it is. The banks got rid of the original loan paperwork because they converted the note into a security. They converted a debt instrument into an equity instrument, which makes no sense at all. The foregoing letter was included as an exhibit in the Osceola County Forensic Examination conducted by the author and his team and attorney Allen D. West, Esq., released to the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Osceola County, Florida on December 30, 2014. Since then, subsequent Clerks have kept the examination report on the county’s website.

This is why asking to see the original note is ludicrous because it doesn’t exist in its purest form.

This is why you want to identify WHO the players are in your chain of title and compare what you get from the mortgage loan servicer’s collateral file with all of the other evidence you are able to obtain from a QWR versus the actual discovery within an expensive lawsuit (right out of the gate).

Day 91

Don’t be fooled by mortgage loan servicers whose employees ask you to be 90 days late on your mortgage loan before they’ll grant you a loan modification. On Day 91, the mortgage loan servicer and the trustee will file for insurance claims on the REMIC and get paid in full for the missing mortgage loan payments not made by the borrowers. If the investors in the REMIC are made whole with a payout by the insurance carriers, then who’s in default? The REMIC has no standing to pursue a foreclosure!

Once you’ve been able to ascertain the “players” in the sandbox, it will make things a lot simpler to identify the culprits and pursue some serious litigation against them.

Listen to Dave Krieger on The Power Hour, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., Monday – Friday (Central Time) and don’t forget to watch his speech, streaming live on The Power Hour (thepowerhour.com) on Saturday, May 14, 2022, live from Clay Clark’s Reawaken America Tour at the Carolina Opry in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at 11:15 a.m. Eastern Time.

Vindication Comes In Small Packages

(BREAKING NEWS) — The author of this post is also the author of the Forensic Examination of the Osceola County, Florida public records. The Examination was conducted in July of 2014 by an 8-member team, with the information compiled and delivered to the Osceola County Clerk of the Circuit Court, Hon. Armando Ramirez (now retired) by the author of this post on December 30, 2014 by DK Consultants LLC of Texas. The examination was supervised by a bar-licensed attorney, Allen D. West, Esq. (Redondo Beach, California) and paid for out of Osceola County funds. The results are made a part of this post. This is a report, not an indictment; however, the author has been getting calls from attorneys and homeowners all over the U.S. who have downloaded this report and discovered similarities between the information contained in this report and their own legal scenarios. The author of this post serves as a consultant to homeowners and their attorneys in foreclosure and title matters.

NOTE: The report does not constitute legal advice and the exhibits that were attached to this report are voluminous; thus, any request by the readers of this post for viewing of the exhibits should be sent to cloudedtitles@gmail.com. Because some of the exhibits are NOT in PDF format, there may be a charge assessed for procurement of certain exhibits.

osceola-county-forensic-examinationDownload

The reason for the article on vindication is due to recent events occurring within a court case in the State of Kansas in the U.S. District Court, Wichita Division, where the Osceola County Forensic Examination was cited, under protest, with a motion to strike made by attorneys for the Bank of New York Mellon, which was denied by the Court. This means the Osceola County Forensic Examination sticks as evidence in the case. Needless to say, the lawyers for BONY Mellon were not happy. The Amended Complaint is shown below:

first-amended-complaint-doc-40Download

The interesting thing about court cases is that homeowners get discovery. The author of this post sees certain things he would have suggested been done differently. The author is expecting a call from chief counsel for the Plaintiffs. This attorney (at one time) was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas, so he clearly understands the national gravity of the gravamen of this case.

This is not the author’s only audit of county land records. See below:

williamson-county-real-property-records-audit_january-29-2013Download

Ever since the 49 states attorneys general inked an agreement with the mortgage loan servicers, who were found to be the overseers of the suspect document manufacturing that most homeowners and their attorneys deem suspect, not soon after the ink was dry the servicers started up these fraudulent practices again. The only thing servicers understand is the threat of jail time. They have so much in their war chests they can fight multiple lawsuits in multiple venues. This worked in a case this author put together for an attorney in Florida, where the Lee County Circuit Court judge was directed (through a prayer in the pleadings) to order the Clerk of that Circuit Court to produce certified copies of the assignment of mortgage and power of attorney and submit it to the State’s Attorney for criminal referral and investigation. Soon after the counterclaim was filed, the homeowner’s attorney moved for depositions of the Defendants (the actual author, signer and notary of the assignment). This prompted a move by the servicer’s attorney to move for a settlement, which included a withdrawal of the counterclaim with prejudice. What scared the servicer and its attorney is that they faced implications as accessories to the fraudulent documents complained about. The actual complaint was only 11 pages, plus 6 pages of exhibits. Do you think a judge would actually be in favor of reading such a short complaint? Easily explained. Easy to get through. No bitching. Just stated facts supported by two publicly-recorded documents and citations of the law supporting the action and requests for criminal referral. THAT is what scared the other side into submission.

By virtue of the fact (Paragraph 67 of the Amended Complaint shown in this post) that the Osceola County Forensic Examination was cited and allowed to remain in the complaint (which didn’t go far enough (IMHO) in going after the actual perpetrators themselves) clearly demonstrates vindication for all the crap the author and his team took in bring the Forensic Examination to light. The Kansas Court chose to recognize the report’s value, even though the bank’s attorneys referred to it (similarly to what Florida attorney Matt Weidner referred to it as on an Orlando TV station interview) as, “not worth the paper it was printed on.”

Again, the similarities contained in the report and the assertions made of the suspect fraud contained within the records themselves was enough to convince a federal judge to allow the report to remain on the record. Again, the 758-page report is a “report”, not an indictment. It was a legitimate report, considered fully legitimate by the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Osceola County, Florida, to be published on his website during his tenure in office. That report and the attorney opinion letter accompanying that report is still on the Clerk’s website, even though the Clerk changed hands when Hon. Armando Ramirez (84) retired. The new Clerk, Kelvin Soto, kept the documents in place, including the warning about filing false documents that pops up on the website (osceolaclerk.com) when you access it, which the author of this post helped to draft. Whether the filing of fraudulent documents in that county’s records still continues would be the subject of another forensic examination.

This is one of the reasons that this post’s author and attorney Allen D. West, Esq. taught a class in Las Vegas on The C & E on Steroids! which contains a book and an 8-DVD educational set with accompanying notes and templates on how the author and attorney West constructed the actual declaratory relief complaint. There are only 18 copies left of this kit (hint, hint). This author will not reprint any more of them. Those who are serious about pursuing this option will entertain its legal value.

Every aggrieved homeowner wants to see the signers of these fraudulent documents “hung from the gallows”; however, this will not happen unless you actually make the signers and creators of these documents themselves actual targets. They will “sing for their supper” and rat out their supervisors if put in the hot seat. It’s a small price to pay to see justice done, isn’t it? If you want to see a potential criminal RICO action spawn out of something so trivial, then entertaining an option like this might be well worth your time, effort and expense.

Most people don’t care about a single homeowner’s foreclosure action; however, this case in chief is not that. The homeowners paid off their mortgage! It’s WHO they paid is what’s at issue. They may have paid the wrong party! They can’t even get a legitimate satisfaction of mortgage! A title company examiner claimed their recorded release was suspect! How can they have marketable title? No reasonable person would buy their home, knowing that the wrong party might have been paid and that another party could come back in the future and attempt foreclosure on that same property. Slander of title is an actual damage. A criminal referral within such a case is more than just a slap on the wrist to a mortgage loan servicer. It’s damning and could open a Pandora’s Box the likes of which the servicing industry has yet to see but is all to necessary to vindicate everyone whose mortgage loans were securitized.

The foreclosure mess created by the banks is still plaguing the courts. The political corruption within the court systems in America continues to be exposed with the challenge by homeowners of each of their foreclosure cases, even bringing forth corrupt justices who continually side with the banks despite the overwhelming evidence of suspect documents being offered. The number of lawsuits, according to L. Randall Wray, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (in his past article, “Memo to Banks: You are Toast”), has exposed the fact that “the banks are getting sued from here to Pluto by homeowners, soldiers and sailors, Fannie and Freddie, PIMCO, the NYFed, and just about anybody with access to a lawyer. And, increasingly, the banks are losing.”

Even though this article was published in 2011, the suits continue and banks don’t want to lose more cases. They would rather settle than create bad case law for themselves. Can you blame them for not wanting to go to jail in addition to pay out fines and restitution. The day of real judgment is coming.

Vindication, no matter how small, is still sweet.

Dave Krieger is also a national talk show host on The Power Hour, which airs Monday-Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (Central Time) on radio stations across America, as well as rebroadcasted worldwide on shortwave (7.490 mHz) and streaming live on The Power Hour’s website. Programs are archived daily on the website.