Romaine unsuccessfully tried to block MERS from doing business in Suffolk County back in 2001.
His predictions were not far off, just too soon…
But now, he is back with a vengeance…
Asking for MERS-y
Homeowners, counties battle bank loan system
When the Suffolk County Legislature meets again next week, the county’s share of an estimated $2 billion in fees big banks saved with their electronic record-keeping system — bypassing paper mortgage records in county clerks’ offices — will top the agenda for legislator Ed Romaine.
In his previous job as county clerk, Romaine fought in court against the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, for several years in the early 2000s and lost. But he’s taking another run at it now as the firm’s shaky legal foundation is cracking and so many ordinary homeowners are suffering from questionable foreclosure actions involving MERS.
“We lost revenues, and they’ve acted wrongly,” said Romaine, who estimates MERS has drained more than $100 million that rightfully belongs to his cash-strapped county. “Filing paper assignments prevented some of the abuses.”
Romaine’s move is part of a growing wave of serious legal challenges to MERS — moves that ordinary homeowners like Noreen and Kevin Tuminski are praying might help them in loan modification negotations when other options have failed.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/asking_for_mers_zB7ZOfZQ3xituLGKyr0cWN#ixzz1KSEzmTqn
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It seems as though everyone wants to look away at the situation we are in.Legal aid doesn’t want to help,and the courts don’t seem to care either.Does anyone know if there’s a class action going on in New York,or any Lawyers that want to help me? Thanks.
10 LIES WE LIVE BY AND SHOULD STOP BELIEVING IF WE WANT THIS TO STOP
Posted on March 7, 2011 by Neil Garfield from http://www.livinglies.wordpress.com
Both the class action lawyers and the AG offices are looking for settlements that will cure the “foreclosure” problem. This is based upon the perceived benefit of getting the foreclosures either litigated or settled, SO THE “MARKET” CAN RESUME “FORWARD” MOTION. But what if the basic transaction was so defective as to be incapable of understanding, much less enforcement? We ignore the fact that the basic transaction was a lie, that lies are not enforceable and while they could be modified by agreement into enforceable written instruments (completely absent from the current landscape) the inescapable fact is that in order to do so, you will need the signature of borrowers on loans that are based upon fair market values, reality and set-off for the damages inflicted on the homeowners by the Great Securitization Scam.
So we start with the myth that there was a valid legal contract at origination, an assumption that upon examination by a paralegal, much less a first year law student, is patently untrue. Thus we proceed with the following ten (10) lies that form the foundation of our impotent financial and economic policies in the Great Recession triggered by the housing crisis:
1. VALID MORTGAGE TRANSACTION: There was a loan of money, but not by either the payee, the mortgagee, the trustee or anyone else that is mentioned in the closing papers or the foreclosure papers filed anywhere. That is why the pretenders would rather play with the word “holder” than “creditor.”
2. LEGAL MORTGAGE TRANSACTION: Even if the right parties were at the table, the transaction was illegal because of appraisal fraud, underwriting fraud, Securities Fraud and Servicing Fraud.
3. LEGAL LOAN: Even if the right parties were at two different tables, the transaction was illegal because of ratings fraud, securities fraud, common law fraud, predatory loan practices and servicing fraud.
4. KNOWN CREDITOR: Neither the investor who was the source of funds, nor the investment banker who only committed SOME of those funds to loan transactions, nor the borrower (homeowner) even knew of the existence of each other. After the “reconstituted” bogus mortgage pools that never existed in the first place, payments by insurance, credit default swaps, and federal bailouts, it is at the very least a question of fact to determine the identity of the creditor at any given point in time — i.e., to whom is an obligation owed and how many parties have liability to pay on that transaction either as borrower, guarantors, insurers, or anything else? The dart board approach currently used in foreclosures and mortgage modifications, prepayments and refinancing has generally been frowned upon by the Courts.
5. KNOWN OBLIGATION AMOUNT: The amount advanced by the Lender (investor in bogus mortgage bonds) was far in excess of that amount used by intermediaries to fund mortgages — the rest was used to create synthetic derivative trading devices and charge fees every step of the way. Part of the difference between the funding of the residential loans and the amount advanced by the lender (investor) is easily computed by applying the same formula used to compute a yield spread premium that was paid to mortgage brokers under the table. By obscuring the real nature of the loans in the mix that offered (sold forward without ownership by the investment bank with the intent of acquiring he mortgages later) a 6% return promised to an investor could result in a yield spread premium of perhaps 12% if the loan was toxic waste and the nominal rate was 18%. Thus a $900,000 investment was converted into a $300,000 loan with no hope of repayment based upon a wildly inflated appraisal. Payments by servicers, counterparties, guarantors, insurers and bailout agencies were neither credited to the investor nor to the obligation owed to that investor. Since there was no obligor other than the homeowner according to the documents creating the securitization scam infrastructure, the borrower was part of a transaction where he “borrowed” $900,000 but only received $300,000. Third party payments made under expressly and carefully written waivers of subrogation were not applied to the amount owed to the investor and therefore not applied to the amount owed by the borrower. The absence of this information makes the servicer “accounting” a farce.
6. VALID ACCOUNTING BY ALL PARTIES: Continuing with the facts illuminated in the preceding paragraph, both mortgage closing documents and foreclosure documents are devoid of any reference to the dozens of transactions carried out in the name of, or under agency of, or as constructive trustee of the investor who as lender is obliged to account for the balance due after third party payments. So far, because, as so many people have complained, Wall Street is controlling the message and people are believing it. We don’t want to believe our government has changed because that would mean we would be required to do something about it. The fact remains that the mortgage statements, notices of delinquency and notices of default are ALL WRONG. They fail to account for payments made to the creditor. Just because they were stolen from the lender, that doesn’t mean that payments received from other obligors on the liability owed to the investors should not be credited. Those in the Madoff scheme learned that if they received more than they put in, the “profit” they made was NOT theirs to keep — they had to give it back to restore the victims who were still in the position of being the victim of a loss resulting from fraud. The same holds true for the investors in bogus bonds and the same holds true for homeowners. Payments made to the investors (or their agents) who advanced money that was eventually used to fund homeowner loans MUST be credited to those investors and must be allocated to the loans, reducing the balances due. This has never been done in any mortgage, whether the payments are current or not. When it is done, both the investors and the homeowners will be far better off than they were before and the economy will be back on solid footing.
7. WINDFALLS TO BORROWERS VS WINDFALLS TO PRETENDERS: MIKEY DID IT! Like 3 year olds trying to get the heat off themselves, the players on Wall Street, the pretenders who faked having mortgages when they sold the mortgage bonds, the pretender lenders who faked the value and terms of the loans and the property, the STORY is that if the homeowners get any relief, the economy will stall further, and the homeowners are suddenly going to become some sort of elite class of wealth conferred by the taxpayer and government policy. As ridiculous a story as that sounds, more people than not actually believe it because they keep hearing it. That story doesn’t survive the first peek under the hood let alone drilling down on an analysis of the transaction in which they received the “benefit” of a loan that in actuality put them into generations of being enslaved by debt. Every one of those transactions resulted in money in coming out of the pocket of the so-called borrowers, who were in fact unwitting investors in a PONZI scheme. The ONLY parties getting a “FREE HO– USE” are those who are foreclosing without ever having made or purchased a loan. The WINDFALL OCCURS EVERY DAY ANOTHER FORECLOSURE SALE OCCURS WHEN A NON-CREDITOR WITH NO MONEY IN THE DEAL BIDS IN THE HO– USE AT AUCTION WITH A “CREDIT BID” (I.E., NO MONEY). The way Wall Street tells it, 80 million transactions occurred at the sudden behest of scrupulousness greedy borrowers who came up with the most exotic, highly sophisticated economic history. Which sounds real to you, that homeowners understood the mountain of paper they signed at closing or that Wall Street depended on both investors and homeowners NOT reading and NOT understanding the mountain of paperwork, the exotic financial instruments, and the highly sophisticated PONZI scheme operating by control rooms that were under shells being used in a shell game of mammoth proportions? How many times in history did tens of millions of Americans get a windfall from a Wall Street scheme?
8. ACTUAL LOSS VS. PAPER LOSS: You’ll notice in the legal cases that the pretenders are careful to talk about words like “holder” and “holder in due course” and possession of the note. They scrupulously avoid the word “creditor” because THAT describes the party who actually is losing money on the “lender” side of the transaction. That turns out to be the investors (pension funds etc.) who advanced trillions of dollars for a couple of extra points on the rate of interest income. NOT ONE CREDITOR IS FORECLOSING OR CLAIMING ANYTHING AGAINST A HOMEOWNER. NOT ONE CREDITOR IS COLLECTING MORTGAGE PAYMENTS FROM A HOMEOWNER. NOT ONE CREDITOR HAS A WRITTEN AGREEMENT WITH ONE HOMEOWNER REGARDING THE LOAN OF MONEY IN WHICH THE CREDITOR GAVE ACTUAL MONEY TO THE BORROWER AND THE BORROWER AGREED TO PAY IT BACK ON SPECIFIED TERMS TO THAT CREDITOR.
9. LOSS ON MORTGAGE LOANS: Continuing with the thoughts carried forward from the last paragraph and all of the above, it is obvious that at no time in at least 96% of all foreclosures, and probably with all collections of monthly payments have any of the parties known to the “borrower” ever lost a penny on any transaction relating to the investor/lender or the homeowner/borrower. The courts, the media, lawyers, regulators, and policy makers continue to make this basic mistake. Virtually all “losses” reported were fabricated, and even when true did not result from default on mortgages but rather bad bets on securities RELATED to documentation (notes, mortgages etc.,) that were fabrications and sometimes forgeries that misrepresented the transactions as understood by the investor, lender and borrower/lender. In point of fact, the TARP money, insurance, counter-party payments, guarantor payments SHOULD have been disclosed to investors as lenders and SHOULD have been allocated to whatever part of the investor’s money was used to fund “loans.” The actual loss, if any, is not the principal value as shown on any promissory note, whether signed or not, but is the amount due AFTER DEDUCTIONS FOR PAYMENTS MADE BY BORROWER AND ALL OTHER PARTIES THAT MADE ACTUAL MONETARY PAYMENTS. To assume otherwise, would be reward the pretenders with ill-gotten gains from fraudulent transactions. The analogy that comes to mind is the theft of money from someone and then going to the horse-track, and making money on the bets because you shot all the horses but one, and then counting the losses on other bets that were much smaller, but used to hedge in case somehow one of the horses that was shot, won anyway. The money given at the betting window is not a loss to the person from the money was stolen and the winnings from the bets at the very least should go toward giving back the money that was stolen.
10. KNOWN DECISION-MAKERS: Given the fact that there are no agents whose accountability to the investor puts them at risk, the ONLY true decision-makers for purposes of modification, enforcement or settlement are the investor/lenders and the homeowner/borrower. Using the service companies as intermediaries for modification or settlement of predatory and fraudulent transactions is an absurd strategy using parties without any authority or even the required information to determine the amount due. If the investors elect to pursue claims against individual borrowers it should be done through an authorized receiver whose objective is to make the investor whole and credit the borrowers accordingly to the extent that the recoveries are allocable to the alleged loans. In that sense, the HAMP program and every contested and uncontested foreclosure involves the wrong parties and creates defects in the chain of title throughout the country. The same holds true for mortgages that are NOT in foreclosure and are “current”, which is to say, are being overpaid because of their receipt of payments from third party sources. The failure to require the true decision-makers and all the parties who EVER had an interest in the flow of principal or interest or investment income derived from the advance of funds by investors is a failure of profound importance because it compounds title breaks in the chain of title, and continues to destabilize the marketplace. Far from presenting a threat to the housing market and the economy, the settlement of legitimate claims would stabilize the market and re-distribute, to the extent possible ill-gotten gains returning the money and wealth to their rightful owners. This would return a substantial amount of purchasing power to those most likely to use it to stimulate the economy. The mythology spin from Wall Street that it is better to get the foreclosures completed is a fabrication and is leading people, like lemmings, toward the edge of a cliff creating a brand new fall, from which we cannot recover.
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For those of you who think that Foreclosuregate that we are living through right now can be compared to a Nuclear Disaster, listen to the experts.
Below is a link of one of the braves Attorneys fighting the fight for us and the rest of the Nation. I have not seen a better man who gets involve with the people and represent the people for what he believes and stands for, the United States Constitution.
http://mattweidnerlaw.com/blog/?utm_source=Matt+Weidner+Law+Blog&utm_campaign=65eda69739-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
If you are not like anybody, one who believes in justice, believes fighting for your rights is better than sitting still waiting for someone to do it first, so you can follow, please share this information with anyone who also believes in giving a fight before the pretender lender takes your home.
There is one section on one of the articles in this link, where the court clerk wrote to their local newspaper encouraging homeowners to check for their title search in the county records. This is something I had been telling all my clients and many times I am letting everyone know, to check for the custody of your title, the chain of title by simply going to the county records and ask for a copy of your title.
If you find out that in the records does not show the lender that you are paying your mortgage to, you are throwing your money away. Do you realize how many people bought their homes from 2000 to 2007 with many banks that are not longer in business?
Many of those banks filed for bankruptcy and got out of sight. Many of those banks were bought by the too big to fail with the bail out money from TARP, for example: Country Wide Home Loans, Merryl Lynch, and others were bought by Bank of America. Wachovia, ASC, and others were bought by Wells Fargo. Wamu and others were bought by JP Morgan Chase.
From 2007 to 2010 approximately more than 130 banks per year went out of business per the chair, Mrs. Blair from the FDIC Data.
Yes, many of these so called failed banks including my pretender lender, are now hiding inside of yet more foreign banks and are hiding inside of unsecured, not FDIC insured trusts. If you Google the name of the so called trust you can find them. It is not hard to see these mortgage’s are unsecured and should therefore should be able to be completely discharged in bankrupcy just like an unsecured credit card debt. These failed banks are deceptive but it is not impossible to get to the truth that these mortgage loans and MBS’s never really existed, they were born of no more than a mere speculation, and therefore, they could have never securitized a mere speculation, though they bundled them up and sold them as MORTGAGE BACKED SECURITIES. There are no SECURED liens and there never could have been any SECURED liens because the mortgage loans were a fraud and a fake. WHAT THEY DID WAS NO MORE THAN A GIANT PONZI SCHEME SWINDLE, Sheila Baird and the FDIC know this damned well. The FDIC are hiding the evidence by hiding these so called failed banks inside of different banks and unsecured, not FDIC insured trusts . The truth is really in plain sight. It is in the public recordings and it is in the cloudy, toxic titles. The proof is all through the fake mortgage loans starting even before the Origination Fraud up to today.
Wait till the country sees the fraud that is coming in due to Fidelity National Title, Coronet Title and other title companies that knowingly insured forged deeds from the fraudulent foreclosures whether due to Mers or a host of other scams
I sent a request for the note through ACe, and was fed.x the next day, however it didn’t have all of the requests and stated by who order and that they regretfully decline. I was refused modification after 20 months then told I could possibly modify original residence that is 200,000 less; however refused any assistance, then both loans formerly Countrywide BofA, being handled by Bac servicing, were sold to Federal Housing, then conviently changed hands with Fannie Mae at auction date. Then was informed that homes Fannie Mae handling were for minoritys and that I didn’t qualify? The one residence I had for 12 yrs, wasn’t even given an eviction notice, room mate was given cash for keys; agent that handled Fannie Mae sale was supose to walk the home with me, power washed entire home and yard, painted front door, touch up painting, this home was well maintained, was not blight, was painted inside and out 2 yrs. ago, retaining wall, tile from Italy, wall to wall plantation shutters; had given the older stove & refreigerator to someone too help me move from expensive home back to other home, now thrown out of original residence; back to home pending short sale. The loan on the home has been sold to Wells Fargo. When called Fannie Mae to report illegal way foreclosure and eviction was handled they were very rude, including their attorney; you have no rights, they were only concerned about the stove and refrigerator; the agent had walked the home with others and had communicated they would take money out of cash for keys for missing stove??? After 12 yrs. I am responsible for a stove&refrigerator??? only asked for a rate reduction; shutters are $9,000, repaired window cost of $328., replaced computer board to heater $900, one roommate got cash for keys 8 months ago, replaced garage door motor and openers $179.00, changed locks $159.00, utilities ran approximately $400. a month, lawn was mowed weekly, that is another $100.00 expense; unable to rent due to pending modification; room mate give cash for keys had not been charged since November, he was paying $700 for the master bedroom, had entire home to hisself on most occasions, he gave me $200,00 to cover utilities and then split with cash for keys, According to California law room mate was to be given that opportunity, however the owner was also to be given an opportunity, on fixed income ssdi, once again had to barter to move all furniture back to home now without refrigerator & stove; to reconnect phone is $50.00, to reconnect dsl, and dtv is another cost factor, the last time I transfered dtv was charged 328,00, not a new customer, plus I physically moved everything at the spend of lghting since he had originally said 3 day notice to quit, which isn’t true, in the state of California at age 62 you get 30 days, after almost completing the home, he illegally entered on 4/13/11, was locked out, instead of being honest; to cover his error he made me out too be a villian, they were incredibly rude, when everything if falling apart rudeness from the federal government was the last thing I suspected, so purchasing a bad loan and throwing homeowners on the street shouldn’t be a suprise to anyone, the sad thing is most of us can’t afford legal counsel, and all we get are numerous phone calls, pretending assistance, and it is all just a come on for giving someone your checking account numbers, even aarp, fair housing, and this is California??? I have sent at least 4 online complaints to Federal, banking and whoever would listen, the day after they took my home a person called from the bank saying she needed to help with my modificatioN??? when I shared I had already lost my home, and was now sitting in the one with short sale pending, her comment was…….oh so I need to hurry up the short sell??? ………are they really that stupid??No ..they care not too listen. So to those of you that walked along time ago, congradulations you might now qualify for a cheap home, most likely the one you paid 75% over value and walked away from. For the remainder of us who are hanging by a thread to keep our homes, or whatever we have worked so hard to acquire, I would suggest you take a good look, if they have lead you along for 12 mo.+ you are now so far behind; just what can they do for you? Unless you own only one home with a decent job, they prefer that you walk, quit wasting your time and making yourself physically ill, middle America doesn’t stand a chance against these banks.
Forgot too mention, that my room mate had not been charged rent since November, works at the Soledad Prison, gave $200 to cover utilities?????prior to leaving unannouced, cash for keys.
anntrummerttraci, Wow, I’m afraid that your story is now the new normal in America, but something has to be done people have to unite, organize, and protest other wise, worse things will be coming, We need to push back, fight use all resources available to us and don’t quit, Good Luck and fight back!
Is there a public listing of who are the owners/members of the board for MERS?
In some research I’ve been doing, I have read if a home owner ask for a letter from
their mortgage holder showing they hold both the wet ink paper for the note and the
deed of trust they will be taken to court. The mortgage holders are using the excuse of
the home owner trying to default on their mortgage by way if deceit. In some cases the
mortgage holder is calling the loan in. I would assume the mortgage holder is doing this
to hide the fact they do not have possession of either the original note or the original
deed of trust.
my prediction is that millions are going to finally be made aware their mortgages are not
being held by the holder of those documents, and the mortgage holders cannot guarantee
a clear title to the property they are buying. Ever. The mortgage holders are going to be
quick and slick in taking these properties to foreclosure before this is exposed, leaving the
banks in possession of many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of properties that will
never be legally sold because the servicers do not have the correct wet ink paper work
and never will. I expect that fraud, perjury, and forgery are going to be a hot commodity for
those involved for awhile, while the citizens are cheated and stolen from by rampant greed.
There is a list…
HOW MA DOIN BABE?
Many counties refused to accept the MERS scheme over the years. My home state of SC had 2 counties that adamently opposed recording the docs but were later “FORCED” to accept them. MERS is owned by 29 various big banks & title companies. Their covenant states that “you have to be a mortgage bank or directly related entity to be one of the 29 shares, and if any choose to sell their share, then it has to be sold back to the ole gang???
They can bounce one file/ notes back and forth among their den of theives w/o changing any “endorsed in blank” title work……..What a scam????
MERS use to boast about their holding over 60% of the mortgage files in the US on their website…..I bet they wish it would all go away now that milllions of alleged borrowers are asking the courts for a “lawful” answer?? [not some jargon that the judge makes up and hopes it will support the banks]
GET THE ROPES…………