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OCC Foreclosure Reviewer: “Independent” Reviews Were Controlled by Banks, Which Suppressed Any Findings of Harm to Foreclosed Homeowners

You simply must read this post if you care at all about the rule of law or can stand to see the gory mechanisms by which “regulation” has now become a fig leaf for criminal corporate conduct.

Reader Luxtexente submitted this comment yesterday, describing his experience as a Claim Reviewer for one of the 14 servicers, in theory working under the direction of Promontory Group and the OCC. He makes clear, contrary to other banks, which hired very junior people who had little understanding of real estate law and foreclosure procedures (see Adam Levitin and Abigail Field for examples) or foreclosure review firms who held themselves out as experts but have yawning gaps in their knowledge, that he and many of the other reviewers he worked with were very well qualified to screen servicer records. He describes how these reviews were systematically gutted.

Remember, the review firms were supposed to be independent, selected according to criteria set by the OCC and paid for by the banks, but supposedly not accountable to them. We had dismissed that idea early on as ridiculous. From a May 2011 post:

Let’s see…who chose these reviewers? The banks. Who is paying their bills? The banks. Who is a potential future client if all goes smoothly? The banks. And Walsh seriously expects us to believe the reviewers are independent, even before we get to the rampant conflicts?

But as Luxtexente tells us, it was much worse than that. It wasn’t simply that the consulting firms airbrushed out unflattering findings so as not to ruffle their current and hoped-for future meal tickets. The banks were actively involved in overseeing the project and the results were shameless rejection of any and every possible basis for borrowers getting recompense. He provides numerous examples of unquestionably abusive conduct, such as foreclosing on homeowners in non-judicial states without advertising the notice of sale as required by law, or failing to send a notice of acceleration. Enough of the reviewers understood state law requirements that they would find many, often over a dozen, violations on a single file. So how did the bank and the OCC conspire to solve this problem? They redefined the review process so as to omit matters of law. I am not making this up.

This is what corruption looks like at the operational level. I suggest you read this piece closely; it’s chock full of damning tidbits. For instance, Luxtexente gives us one reason why the cost of this process got to be so high: he and his colleagues were being paid early on to do nothing.

From Luxtexente:

Read it here…

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