FHFA: Repurchase Requests on Pre-Conservatorship Book Will be Wrapped up by Yearend

From:  IMFnews

By Charles Wisniowski

cwisniowski@imfpubs.com

The Federal Housing Finance Agency declared that by yearend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will complete all their repurchase requests on pre-conservatorship mortgage acquisitions, ending a huge uncertainty for seller/servicers.

“It is time for us to wrap up all our open issues dealing with that period and move on,” said FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco. “I look forward to a speedy resolution of remaining claims in the coming months.” The two GSEs became wards of the federal government in September 2008.

Speaking before the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association, DeMarco promised that, “For the future, we will continue to refine and improve upon the rep and warranty framework. In particular, I anticipate improved data systems and technological developments to contribute to faster and more reliable loan reviews that can lead to further rep and warrant relief in the future.”

For years, lenders have complained vociferously about buybacks. According to figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance, the GSEs took in $16 billion from buybacks during the first six months of 2013. At the same time, lenders succeeded in getting $7 billion in repurchase requests withdrawn. However, $5 billion in demands are still outstanding. For more on the story, see the Thursday edition of Inside Mortgage Finance.

Other areas of interest: Originations, Secondary/MBS, Regulatory, Fannie, Freddie, GSEs

Lawmakers call for banks to rescue federal employees

From:  Deadly Clear 

Reblogged from Justice League:

Lawmakers call for banks to rescue federal employees

Lawmakers urged financial institutions to work proactively with borrowers facing financial distress because of the government shutdown. For three weeks, federal employees have been out of the job without pay.

As the nation enters day 14 of the federal freeze, many government employees are beginning to feel the early signs of financial hardship.

Read more… 92 more words

How do we distinguish between government worker who lost their paychecks and employees of major corporations that laid off personnel or the construction industry that lost their jobs when Wall Street crashed the economy? If you work for the government you deserve special treatment? Ummm...???

A Full Measure - War, Mortgages and measuring the Human Spirit

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

When millions of people are suffering and dying we tend to focus on the stories of individuals who then come to represent them all. Anne Frank represents for a vast majority the ugliness visited on Jews during WWII. The stories are haunting. All stories of vast human suffering impact us.

Only those without conscience or empathy can view the suffering of others and not be moved. Anne Frank died before I was born, but sometimes, unexpectedly, you find yourself confronted with a story of human endurance which is overwhelming.

Another saga of suffering, endured by millions as World War II was playing out, is the massive geographical dislocation of millions of Eastern Europeans as the Soviet-German rolled into Germany from the east.

I learned about this story, unexpectedly, while reviewing a foreclosure case from New Mexico. For the Carl Mehner, who with his parents and siblings survived the nightmare of war, dislocation, starvation, the trauma has has been life long.

Carl's father, an accountant in Dresden, Germany, and his wife were Christians of the “Sabbatarian” persuasion. Their faith made them targets of persecution in Germany as possibly sympathetic to Jews.

Carl's farther, never a soldier, was forced into slave labor, separated from his family, and forced to dig anti-tank ditches.

In 1943, separately, they became refugees, attempting to reach the west as the Soviet Army swept in. Their children were 2, 3 and 6. Carl remembers sleeping in fields, ruins, deserted and destroyed buildings, hungry all the time. Walking seemed endless through a landscape of burning villages.

First separately, and then together, they struggled to find food for themselves and their children. Carl was always cold and starving. Traumas were continuous.

Reunited, Carl's parents were determined to reach America. It was a ten year long struggle. In America, the family worked on a farm for food, as their children attended school.

Eventually, Carl married Frances Phillips from Southgate, California.

The couple eventually settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico where Carl served as chairman for the modern language department for 22 years, retiring in 2005. Frances ran a court reporting business.

Then, the mortgage meltdown began, taking their home without reason.

Fighting back Pro Se, Carl and Frances endured arrest, harassment, and abuse, as have others. They continue to fight. We never know what is possible until we have given our fullest measure. Carl's parents taught him this, and he remembers.

$High$ Priced Attorneys Don’t Necessarily Buy Truth

From:  Deadly Clear

by Deadly Clear

The GLASKI opinion has made the Wall Street banking industry crazy. There was an outcry for publication of this case as it allowed homeowners to challenge fabricated assignments. The Court agreed to publish the opinion.

The securitization case was briefed and argued as a New York law trust case when in fact it was actually a Delaware trust. While the outcome may have likely been the same, the Court's opinion was based upon New York Trust Law. Thereafter, the banks (that it appears failed to raise these issues during or after the hearings) wanted the opinion to be de-certified for publication. Read more of this post

Wall Street Bank Attorneys Are Sour Grapes Over Glaski

From:  Deadly Clear 

by Deadly Clear

Oh Boo Hoo Morgan Lewis! 

Yesterday, Bernard J. Garbutt III (really), a partner with NY firm Morgan Lewis, sent a letter to Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil.Sakauye and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of California representing Deutsche Bank National Trust Co., following an October 4, 2013 letter from AlvaradoSmith (representing JPMorgan Chase) requesting depublication of Glaski v. Bank of America, N.A.

Apparently, Glaski makes the banksters uncomfortable enough that they want the decision to be removed from publication based on the fact that the "PSA states explicitly that the Trust is a Delaware Statutory Trust, organized under the Delaware Statutory Trusts Statute, 12 Del. Code Ann. §§ 3801 et seq., and governed by Delaware law. See, e.g., PSA § 10.05 (governing law)." So, the Wall Street banks hired high priced firms to pen letters to the appellate court begging to hide the Glaski decision.

Read more of this post

"FANNIE MAE, BY ITS OWN ADMISSION, OWNS NOTHING ..."

From:  Deadly Clear 

LIBERTY continues:  "[Judge] Schack correctly concludes that “FANNIE MAE’s Servicing Guide, with its deceptive practices to fool courts, does not supercede New York law.”  I had the same thought when I first encountered this fiat decree of Fannie Mae’s when researching my own lawsuit against Fannie Mae and others a couple of years ago.  It is a relief to hear a judge articulate this so starkly."

The LIBERTY post would like inspire Honolulu attorney Gary Dubin's client who penned a tribute to ol' Fannie: Read more of this post

63 House Members (And Counting) To Ask FHFA for Delay in Lowering the GSE Loan Limit

From:  Inside Mortgage Finance IMFNews 

Monday, Oct 7, 2013


By Paul Muolo
pmuolo@imfpubs.com

Roughly 63 members of the House of Representatives have signed on to a new letter that will formally ask the Federal Housing Finance Agency to delay any reduction in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac loan limit, Inside Mortgage Finance has learned.

Industry advisors and lobbyists are hoping they can move the implementation date for lower loan limits deep into the second quarter of 2014, but they also realize they cannot forestall it completely. Some type of announcement on the issue is expected out of FHFA by mid-month.

On Friday, as reported by Inside Mortgage Finance, the Mortgage Bankers Association officially asked the FHFA to delay a reduction in the GSE loan limit, saying “Now is not the appropriate time to move the limits down.”

In a letter sent late Friday to Acting Director Edward DeMarco, MBA President and CEO David Stevens cites implementation issues tied to new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which become operative early next year. Stevens tells DeMarco that “many changes from the Dodd-Frank Act will go into effect, including the ability-to-repay and Qualified Mortgage requirements, which virtually all observers recognize will tighten credit standards further and reduce availability.”

As for the letter from the 63 members, the correspondence has yet to be sent but will be soon, sources said. “More members may sign onto this,” said one observer. For more updates on the issue, see Inside Mortgage Finance and Inside The GSEs later in the week.

Is Borrower Bashing a Disease or Psychotic Disorder?

From:  Deadly Clear

By Scott E Stafne of Stafne Trumbull, LLC


COMMENT - Mortgages have shown the highly disordered have changed the 'culture' of law and practice in the United States. Faked rules and procedures are now accepted as normal and the outrageous injustices thereby carried out, have become acceptable.  

All lawyers and judges and bankers should be required to undergo the Hare Index for psychopathy.  Then those who pass as normal (if there are any) should be required to undergo therapy. 

Scott Stafne goes to Dallas

In search of Continuing Legal Education credits I wandered into a different world last Thursday and Friday at the American Conference Institute’s Residential Mortgage & Regulatory Conference, Dallas, TX. The people at the conference, mostly lawyers for institutions seeking to eject people from their homes, were clearly human beings; Mostly youngish (under 55). Except for a token two-person panel representing home owners and a group of judges, most of the speakers seemed to agree that there was little need for meaningful judicial involvement in throwing home owners out of their homes. Indeed, many appeared indignant that families would not simply march out of their homes into the elements because their creditors beckoned them to do so.

One of the token “two member” homeowner defense panel complained that in Florida, where she practiced, the Courts had instituted a five minute trial system, for both contested and uncontested foreclosure cases. She complained (as well she should) that judges should treat contested cases differently. According to her Florida judges were not much inclined to do so; notwithstanding centuries of American jurisprudence which requires both sides to a dispute be given an opportunity to present their case.

A creditor’s lawyer belittled her concerns about requiring creditors to prove they actually own the debt, upon which a foreclosure is based. He incorrectly implied it was a completely acceptable practice for judges to exercise their discretion in determining whether hearsay should be admissible and documents should be considered authentic.

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