What Can Be Done and What Has Been Done RE: A State Wide Moratorium on Foreclosures

(Originally posted July 3, 2010)

As I sit here on this 4th of July weekend to write this article and reflect on what is happening in this once great nation, it saddens me that it has gotten this bad…

If you really take a step back and evaluate where all this madness has taken us, it can really hit you hard…

How did we let things go so far??? 4closureFraud dot org

We, as a nation, as the people of this nation, need to take back what has been stolen from us.

Again, what is happening here was no accident. It was the biggest ponzi scheme ever perpetrated in the history of the world.

There are many many reports to back up that claim but you will not find any in the mainstream media. No, the mainstream media is owned by the same players that orchestrated the biggest heist in the history of the world…

Well, I for one refuse to sit back and let this crisis happen without doing everything in my power to make a difference.

Have I? 4closureFraud dot org

I like to think so…

Since I decided to do whatever I could to change the foreclosure paradigm, amazing things have happened with the help of a very special core group…

A group of Foreclosure Fraud Fighters that has emerged out of Florida with a power to be reckoned with.

We have done amazing things, and I truly believe, without our efforts, Florida would have a completely different landscape.

Now, I am not saying Florida is anywhere close to where it needs to be, but it is a start.

If we do not keep up the fight, and hard, I am afraid of what the future will bring. 4closureFraud dot org

WITH ALL WE KNOW, WITH ALL THE COURTS NOW KNOW, WITH ALL THE FRAUDS PRESENTED, WITH ALL OF THE INVESTIGATIONS STARTED, HOW CAN THE JUDGES OF THIS STATE GRANT SUMMARY JUDGMENTS AT ALL???

With that said, I would like to present a possible solution to the Foreclosure Crisis in Florida…

Below are quotes from an AFFIRMED opinion from the SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES…

RE: FORECLOSURE CRISIS
(emphasis added by me)

The Act provides that, during the emergency declared to exist, relief may be had through authorized judicial proceedings with respect to foreclosures of mortgages, and execution sales, of real estate; that sales may be postponed and periods of redemption may be extended. The Act does not apply to mortgages subsequently made, nor to those made previously which shall be extended for a period ending more than a year after the passage of the Act (Part One, ¬ß¬†8). There are separate provisions in Part Two relating to homesteads, but these are to apply “only to cases not entitled to relief under some valid provision of Part One.” The Act is to remain in effect “only during the continuance of the emergency…

So it is possible for the courts to protect the people instead of disposesing them… 4closureFraud dot org

The Act declares that the various provisions for relief are severable; that each is to stand on its own footing with respect to validity. Part One, ¬ß¬†9. We are here concerned with the provisions of Part One, ¬ß¬†4, authorizing the District Court of the county to extend the period of redemption from foreclosure sales “for such additional time as the court may deem just and equitable,” subject to the above described limitation. The extension is to be made upon application to the court, on notice, for an order determining the reasonable value of the income on the property involved in the sale, or, if it has no income, then the reasonable rental value of the property, and directing the mortgagor

to pay all or a reasonable part of such [p417] income or rental value, in or toward the payment of taxes, insurance, interest, mortgage . . . indebtedness at such times and in such manner

as shall be determined by the court.

Invoking the relevant provision of the statute, appellees applied to the District Court of Hennepin County for an order extending the period of redemption from a foreclosure sale. Their petition stated that they owned a lot [p419] in Minneapolis which they had mortgaged to appellant; that the mortgage contained a valid power of sale by advertisement and that, by reason of their default, the mortgage had been foreclosed and sold to appellant…

because of the economic depression appellees had been unable to obtain a new loan or to redeem, and that, unless the period of redemption were extended, the property would be irretrievably lost, and that the reasonable value of the property greatly exceeded the amount due on the mortgage, including all liens, costs and expenses.

On the hearing, appellant objected to the introduction of evidence upon the ground that the statute was invalid under the federal and state constitutions, and moved that the petition be dismissed. The motion was granted, and a motion for a new trial was denied. On appeal, the Supreme Court of the State reversed the decision of the District Court.

It is this judgment, sustained by the Supreme Court of the State on the authority of its former opinion, which is here under review.

The state court upheld the statute as an emergency measure. Although conceding that the obligations of the mortgage contract were impaired, the court decided that what it thus described as an impairment was, notwithstanding the contract clause of the Federal Constitution, within the police power of the State as that power was called into exercise by the public economic emergency which the legislature had found to exist.

The court said: 4closureFraud dot org

In addition to the weight to be given the determination of the legislature that an economic emergency exists which demands relief, the court must take notice of other considerations. The members of the legislature come from every community of the state and from all the walks of life. They are familiar with conditions generally in every calling, occupation, profession, and business in the state. Not only they but the courts must be guided by what is common knowledge. It is common knowledge that, in the last few years, land values have shrunk enormously. Loans made a few years ago upon the basis of the then going values cannot possibly be replaced on the basis of present values. We all know that, when this law was enacted, the large financial companies which had made it their business to invest in mortgages had ceased to do so. No bank would directly or indirectly loan on real estate mortgages. Life insurance companies, large investors in such mortgages, had even declared a moratorium as to the loan provisions of their policy contracts. The President had closed banks temporarily. The Congress, [p423] in addition to many extraordinary measures looking to the relief of the economic emergency, had passed an act to supply funds whereby mortgagors may be able within a reasonable time to refinance their mortgages or redeem from sales where the redemption has not expired.With this knowledge, the court cannot well hold that the legislature had no basis in fact for the conclusion that an economic emergency existed which called for the exercise of the police power to grant relief.

Sound familiar??? 4closureFraud dot org

Justice Olsen of the state court, in a concurring opinion, added the following:

The present nationwide and worldwide business and financial crisis has the same results as if it were caused by flood, earthquake, or disturbance in nature. It has deprived millions of persons in this nation of their employment and means of earning a living for themselves and their families; it has destroyed the value of and the income from all property on which thousands of people depended for a living; it actually has resulted in the loss of their homes by a number of our people and threatens to result in the loss of their homes by many other people, in this state; it has resulted in such widespread want and suffering among our people that private, state, and municipal agencies are unable to adequately relieve the want and suffering, and congress has found it necessary to step in and attempt to remedy the situation by federal aid. Millions of the people’s money were and are yet tied up in closed banks and in business enterprises.

How about that??? 4closureFraud dot org

We approach the questions thus presented upon the assumption made below, as required by the law of the State, that the mortgage contained a valid power of sale to be exercised in case of default; that this power was validly exercised; that, under the law then applicable, the period of redemption from the sale was one year, and that it has been extended by the judgment of the court over the opposition of the mortgagee-purchaser, and that, during the period thus extended, and unless the order for extension is modified, the mortgagee-purchaser will be unable to obtain possession, or to obtain or convey title in fee, as he would have been able to do had the statute [p425] not been enacted. The statute does not impair the integrity of the mortgage indebtedness. The obligation for interest remains. The statute does not affect the validity of the sale or the right of a mortgagee-purchaser to title in fee, or his right to obtain a deficiency judgment if the mortgagor fails to redeem within the prescribed period. Aside from the extension of time, the other conditions of redemption are unaltered. While the mortgagor remains in possession, he must pay the rental value as that value has been determined, upon notice and hearing, by the court. The rental value so paid is devoted to the carrying of the property by the application of the required payments to taxes, insurance, and interest on the mortgage indebtedness. While the mortgagee-purchaser is debarred from actual possession, he has, so far as rental value is concerned, the equivalent of possession during the extended period.

In determining whether the provision for this temporary and conditional relief exceeds the power of the State by reason of the clause in the Federal Constitution prohibiting impairment of the obligations of contracts, we must consider the relation of emergency to constitutional power, the historical setting of the contract clause, the development of the jurisprudence of this Court in the construction of that clause, and the principles of construction which we may consider to be established.

Emergency does not create power. 4closureFraud dot org

The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency.

While emergency does not create power, emergency may furnish the occasion for the exercise of power.

Although an emergency may not call into life a power which has never lived, nevertheless emergency may afford a reason for the exertion of a living power already enjoyed.

Undoubtedly, whatever is reserved of state power must be consistent with the fair intent of the constitutional limitation of that power. The reserved power cannot be construed so as to destroy the limitation, nor is the limitation to be construed to destroy the reserved power in its essential aspects. They must be construed in harmony with each other. This principle precludes a construction which would permit the State to adopt as its policy the repudiation of debts or the destruction of contracts or the denial of means to enforce them. But it does not follow that conditions may not arise in which a temporary restraint of enforcement may be consistent with the spirit and purpose of the constitutional provision, and thus be found to be within the range of the reserved power of the State to protect the vital interests of the community.

The reservation of state power appropriate to such extraordinary conditions may be deemed to be as much a part of all contracts as is the reservation of state power to protect the public interest in the other situations to which we have referred. And if state power exists to give temporary relief from the enforcement of contracts in the presence of disasters due to physical causes such as fire, flood or earthquake, that [p440] power cannot be said to be nonexistent when the urgent public need demanding such relief is produced by other and economic causes.

It is manifest from this review of our decisions that there has been a growing appreciation of public needs and of the necessity of finding ground for a rational compromise between individual rights and public welfare. The settlement and consequent contraction of the public domain, the pressure of a constantly increasing density of population, the interrelation of the activities of our people and the complexity of our economic interests, have inevitably led to an increased use of the organization of society in order to protect the very bases of individual opportunity. Where, in earlier days, it was thought that only the concerns of individuals or of classes were involved, and that those of the State itself were touched only remotely, it has later been found that the fundamental interests of the State are directly affected, and that the question is no longer merely that of one party to a contract as against another, but of the use of reasonable means to safeguard the economic structure upon which the good of all depends.

It is no answer to say that this public need was not apprehended a century ago, or to insist that what the provision of the Constitution meant to the vision of that day it must mean to the vision of our time. If, by the statement that what the Constitution meant at the time [p443] of its adoption it means today…

“We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding, a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and, consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.” Id., p. 415. When we are dealing with the words of the Constitution, said this Court;

we must realize that they have called into life a being the development of which could not have been foreseen completely by the most gifted of its begetters. . . . The case before us must be considered in the light of our whole experience, and not merely in that of what was said a hundred years ago.

Nor is it helpful to attempt to draw a fine distinction between the intended meaning of the words of the Constitution and their intended application. When we consider the contract clause and the decisions which have expounded it in harmony with the essential reserved power of the States to protect the security of their peoples, we find no warrant for the conclusion that the clause has been warped by these decisions from its proper significance, or that the founders of our Government would have interpreted the clause differently had they had occasion to assume that responsibility in the conditions of the later day. The vast body of law which has been developed was unknown to the fathers, but it is believed to have preserved the essential content and the spirit of the Constitution. With a growing recognition of public needs [p444] and the relation of individual right to public security, the court has sought to prevent the perversion of the clause through its use as an instrument to throttle the capacity of the States to protect their fundamental interests. This development is a growth from the seeds which the fathers planted.

Applying the criteria established by our decisions we conclude: 4closureFraud dot org

1. An emergency existed… which furnished a proper occasion for the exercise of the reserved power of the State to protect the vital interests of the community. The declarations of the existence of this emergency by the legislature and by the Supreme Court… cannot be regarded as a subterfuge, or as lacking in adequate basis… the economic emergency which threatened “the [p445] loss of homes and lands which furnish those in possession the necessary shelter and means of subsistence” was a “potent cause” for the enactment of the statute.

2. The legislation was addressed to a legitimate end, that is, the legislation was not for the mere advantage of particular individuals, but for the protection of a basic interest of society.

3. In view of the nature of the contracts in question — mortgages of unquestionable validity — the relief afforded and justified by the emergency, in order not to contravene the constitutional provision, could only be of a character appropriate to that emergency, and could be granted only upon reasonable conditions.

4. In the absence of legislation, courts of equity have exercised jurisdiction in suits for the foreclosure of mortgages to fix the time and terms of sale and to refuse to confirm sales upon equitable grounds where they were found to be unfair or inadequacy of price was so gross as to shock the conscience.

5. The legislation is temporary in operation. It is limited to the exigency which called it forth.

Judgment affirmed. 4closureFraud dot org

HUGHES, C.J., Opinion of the Court

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES


290 U.S. 398

Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell

APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF MINNESOTA


No. 370 Argued: November 8, 9, 1933 — Decided: January 8, 1934

Welcome to the Greatest Depression…

Please educate everyone you know on these issues… 4closureFraud dot org

Please share this with every friend, media outlet, social networking group, website, blogger, attorney, politician and judge that you can.

Tell them that there are other solutions available to sort all this out besides the current methods of summary judgments to disposes entire communities…

With all that is now known about what has been done, the frauds that have been perpetrated on the people of this country, I couldn’t see how there could be any another way than a temporary moratorium on foreclosures until all this can be “sorted out” and the parties responsible for this crisis are prosecuted.

~

STOP THE MADNESS
STOP THE FRAUDS
STOP THE FORECLOSURES
STAND UP AND SAY NO MORE!!!

~

Happy 4th of July Everyone…

~

Full Opinion and Syllabus below…

~

Michael Redman

4closureFraud.org

~

Syllabus – Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell

 

Opinion – Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell