Citibank fails to prove Mortgage Ownership, in Foreclosure Suit

Thank goodness.  It couldn’t have happen a day too soon.

NBC Nightly News (03-09-09) Tent Cities of Homeless Springing Up In Bad Times



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F94f_Ycsjs

Tent City, USA



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

The havoc, that the Mortgage Crisis shell-game of the last decade, has wrought has had truly Epic Consequences.

Here’s another example.

Death of the American Dream? – USA

“This parking lot in Santa Barbara CA, is more than it seems.”

“It has become a refuge for those who lost their homes in America’s Mortgage Crisis, and now have no choice but to use their cars as ‘a place to sleep’ at nites.”

“Bonnie used to be a successful Real Estate Broker, until the Mortgage Crisis took her job.  And her 2 Homes worth over a Million Dollars each.”

Journeyman Pictures

[Embedding disabled by request]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Evicted People — are People Too!

Tent City Interview at Camp Take Notice

Mark Horvath, Founder of InvisiblePeople.tv

Posted: September 20, 2010 — huffingtonpost

Lily Au, a housewife who was once helped by a homeless man and now helps fight homelessness, asked me to visit a tent city in Ann Arbor. After a long drive and a long walk into the woods we arrived at Camp Take Notice . It was there I met Caleb Poirier, a brilliant young man who prefers to just say he is the organizer of Camp Take Notice. Below is a short interview with Caleb that I hope you’ll take the time to watch.

I learned so much from my short time with Caleb. My biggest takeaway is Caleb believes the shelter system is vertical support meaning help comes down from employees to the homeless population then stops. In the tent city model support is horizontal with homeless people helping other homeless people. There is much truth to that and I hope homeless service providers will look at horizontal support solutions empowering homeless people to help each other.  [clip of interview on HuffPo page]

Donation Page for CampTakeNotice

tentcitymichigan.org/

Homeless Has A Name

InvisiblePeople.tv

—–

That Tent City CampTakeNotice near Ann Arbor Michigan, has been forced to move 6 times, since its inception.  A village of like-minded residents, just fighting to survive another day.  But they must not camp too close, ie “within the views” of those main highways of commerce … Now THAT wouldn’t be prudent!

Those are some of the Stark Images — of our fellow Americans — victims of the last decade of Greed Gone Wild.

Sadly we are often too busy, to notice them much anymore. The 99er’s, the Evicted, the Homeless, the Hopeless.  

Noticed or Not — They are simply our fellow Americans, who have been caught in the very real crossfire of job layoffs and mortgage foreclosures.

And those Sub-Prime Mortgage Resets are about to get their second wind … in 2011 … Will you be next on their Economic Hit parade?

I wonder, if the “Tent Cities” in America will ever become,

“Too Big to Fail” ???

I hope not.  (or maybe if they did get TOO Big, then maybe they’d get a Bail Out too?)

—–

Economist James Galbraith was on the Ratigan Show today — he strongly suggested that Banks are failing to live up to the Corporation Charters on which they were founded — including re-investing in local communities and businesses.

Galbraith contends, this is due to the lack of serious Regulation and oversight — Banks have found it more convenient to make their Millions, in other more “creative ways” besides “helping the locals”.

Galbraith calls the ‘new norm’ of predatory banking practices — the “Predatory State“;   he asserts that the Economy cannot be fundamentally “fixed” until this problem of lax Regulation is fixed.

To wit:

Galbraith himself argues the fundamental illusion of viewing the U.S. economy through the free-market prism of deregulation, privatization, and a benevolent government operating mainly through monetary stabilization. The real sources of American economic power, he says, lie with those who manage and control the public-private sectors — especially the public institutions in those sectors — and who often have a political agenda in hand.

Galbraith calls this the Predator State: a state that is not intent upon restructuring the rules in any idealistic way but upon using the existing institutions as a device for political patronage on a grand scale. And it is closely aligned with deregulation.

In the last decade, as clear signals were sent that previous laws, regulations, and supervisory standards would be relaxed, the financial industry was overrun by the most aggressive practitioners of the art of originating and distributing mortgages that were plainly fraudulent. The rewards of involvement were extraordinary, to the point that 40 percent of reported profits in the United States were earned in the banking sector by enterprises that paid out about half of their gross revenues in compensation.

The game came to an end, of course, in September 2008, with the failure of Lehman Brothers. The Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP] effectively quelled a panic, but at the price of forestalling restructuring and reform that would get at the root of the financial crisis. And even though we have managed to sidestep a second Great Depression, that success is marked by extreme limitations:  by a decimated housing sector and a reeling middle class; by the functional dismantling of the major institutions of the American welfare state; and by a loss of trust in the financial sector that cannot be regained until those responsible for the mortgage fraud are identified and prosecuted, in full.

THE GREAT CRISIS AND THE AMERICAN RESPONSE (pdf) — pg 3

James K. Galbraith — Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

Public Policy Brief — No. 112, 2010

Also on Ratigan Show today, it was also mentioned that the Bankers attempting to make their Millions these days, by evicting folks from their Homes —

Yet, those Banksters MAY NOT EVEN HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT to do so.

There is this little problem of Banks have to “establish the chain of title“.

Something apparently those CDO Mortgage collateralization schemes, of the last decade, managed to destroy.  That Bank which lent you the money, may no longer have a “clear claim on the deed”.  [in those cases of CDO Securitization, and the subsequent sales of those “Mortgage Securities”.]

What is this?  Is there a Legal Chink in the Armor in the Corporation — who would ultimately like to ‘own everything’?  

(Corps are just a “legal abstraction” afterall — that exists solely for ‘making ever-more money’, no matter the social costs.)

HOMEOWNERS’ REBELLION: COULD 62 MILLION HOMES BE FORECLOSURE-PROOF?

Ellen Brown, webofdebt — Aug 18, 2010

Mortgages bundled into securities were a favorite investment of speculators at the height of the financial bubble leading up to the crash of 2008. The securities changed hands frequently, and the companies profiting from mortgage payments were often not the same parties that negotiated the loans. At the heart of this disconnect was the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, a company that serves as the mortgagee of record for lenders, allowing properties to change hands without the necessity of recording each transfer.

MERS was convenient for the mortgage industry, but courts are now questioning the impact of all of this financial juggling when it comes to mortgage ownership. To foreclose on real property, the plaintiff must be able to establish the chain of title entitling it to relief.

Strike up a BIG Victory for the “little guys” …

Could Millions of Homes Be Foreclosure Proof?

by Yves Smith, nakedcapitalism — August 20, 2010

A story by Ellen Brown gives a good summary of how the widespread use of a national electronic mortgage registry called MERS, designed to save mortgage securitizers the cost and bother of recording mortgages at the local courthouse, is backfiring spectacularly.

[…]

The article cites a recent case in California which accepts MERS’s contention that it is a nominee, but finds that is insufficient for MERS to foreclose:

The latest of these court decisions came down in California on May 20, 2010, in a bankruptcy case called In re Walker, Case no. 10-21656-E-11. The court held that MERS could not foreclose because it was a mere nominee; and that as a result, plaintiff Citibank could not collect on its claim. The judge opined:

Since no evidence of MERS’ ownership of the underlying note has been offered, and other courts have concluded that MERS does not own the underlying notes, this court is convinced that MERS had no interest it could transfer to Citibank. Since MERS did not own the underlying note, it could not transfer the beneficial interest of the Deed of Trust to another. Any attempt to transfer the beneficial interest of a trust deed without ownership of the underlying note is void under California law.

In support, the judge cited In Re Vargas (California Bankruptcy Court); Landmark v. Kesler (Kansas Supreme Court); LaSalle Bank v. Lamy (a New York case); and In Re Foreclosure Cases (the “Boyko” decision from Ohio Federal Court). (For more on these earlier cases, see here, here and here.) The court concluded:

Since the claimant, Citibank, has not established that it is the owner of the promissory note secured by the trust deed, Citibank is unable to assert a claim for payment in this case.

That is Great News for our fellow Americans who may be facing Foreclosure;  there IS a possible legal avenue for fighting back against the sterile banking practice, that would “lay claim” on all that you’ve worked for, all that you’ve earned — all for the sake of another “quick quarterly buck”.

The Banks, til now have little incentive to renegotiate the Mortgage — given all the stories of  them dragging out such Re-fi requests for months and months — even years!  Could it be, they don’t want to Re-write the Mortgage, because in far too many cases —  the Bank No Longer OWNS THE FREAKING DEED !?

But will those folks living in their car, living in a tent, pounding the pavement in search of a non-existent job — will they even hear about this new ruling against Citibank Foreclosure hounds — let alone have the means and the ability, to pursue such a fight?

one wonders …

Some how in this Mortgage Crisis scandal, it seems the wrong group of people, ended up losing everything, and living on the streets … don’t you think?

Such is life on the mean streets, these days … those with the Gold … far too often make out, like Bandits!

and we make out like the Banditees.