www.phillipsgarcia.com Part III of Carlin Phillips Explaining the Robosigning Foreclosure Crisis How do I know if I have been robosigned and what can we do about it? Find the other two parts on our youtube channel www.youtube.com Video Rating: 0 / 5
South Carolina Bankruptcy Attorney Showell Blades leads a 90-minute seminar on Chapter 7, Chapter 11, and Chapter 13 bankruptcy trends and procedures.
Anthony DeLuca from Bankruptcy Law Firm Deluca & Associates educates on the bankruptcy process, how to file bankruptcy, the difference between the types of bankruptcies, like chapter 7 bankruptcy and chapter 13 bankruptcy Video Rating: 0 / 5
LAS VEGAS (KSNV MyNews3) – The notary who signed tens of thousands of false documents in a massive robo-signing scandal case was found dead in her home on Monday.
The notary, 43-year-old Tracy Lawrence, was supposed to be in court at 8:30 Monday morning for her sentencing hearing. When her attorney did not hear from her for more than an hour, Sr. Deputy Attorney General Robert Giunta asked for a bench warrant to be issued for Lawrence. The judge denied the request.
Police were sent to Lawrence’s house to check on her after her lawyer expressed concern for her client’s well-being. They found her body inside her home.
Metro Homicide Detectives are working currently the case. It is unclear if her death was due to natural causes, or if it was a suicide.
Detectives said this afternoon that they have ruled out homicide as a cause of death.
Last Monday, Lawrence pled guilty to only one criminal charge of notary fraud.
Lawrence came forward earlier this month and admitted that she had notarized around 25,000 fraudulent documents as part of a foreclosure fraud scheme.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: Investors lost $ 700 million in one deal while Citi made $ 160 million. The loss to investors was intentional, knowing with full appreciation of the consequences. They weren’t acting as an intermediary bank or broker, they were just acting as a common grifter. The proposed settlement was $ 285 million with no admission of any of the facts supporting the case and no restitution — i.e., giving back the money they stole. Now multiply that deal 25,000 times and you get the full scale of the securitization scam that is ripping apart the economies of this nation and most nations of the world. The amount exceeds the gross national product of several countries combined including our own.
There is no greater threat to our national security than the power wielded by the Banks and what they are willing to do with that power. For many Americans the damage is already done — their lives destroyed by the exact same tactics deployed against “smarter” people who manage institutional investment funds. For the rest, the next waves are coming and those who thought they were immune from the crisis or affected only slightly are in for a rude awakening. The risk rises every day of an unruly explosion of anger unemployed and underemployed population that can’t afford to put a roof over their heads, eat decent food, and get proper medical care.
The answer from the SEC is that the Banks are too big to fight against. The Banks have greater resources. We have a trillion dollar military budget allegedly for national security but we have no money to assure domestic security and tranquility? The answer from the federal reserve is non-interest loans of $ 7 trillion to the same crooks that started the whole mess and stole the money, property and futures of every American and future generations. The answer from the U.S. Treasury has been direct infusion of money into the same institutions who cheated, lied, and stole money from the taxpayers, investors and homeowners.
In any ordinary case of fraud, restitution is the norm. Then come the penalties, civil and criminal. Let anyone of you do anything remotely similar to what the Banks did and you will end up in jail with most of your assets seized to make good on restitution. Look at Madoff and other cases where receivers and trustees were appointed to decide on how to divide the restitution payments and how to collect up the assets.
Changing the rules as a result of the size of the fraud is the rule of men, not the rule of law. If we are not a nation of laws then we are nothing more than a banana republic with dictators running the country. If the SEC is stating the policy of this country that it won’t enforce the laws against the Banks because they lack the resources to prosecute then the country has surrendered its sovereignty to the Banks. UBA, not USA.
Judge Rakoff is the lone voice in the wilderness of chicken-hearted Judges and lawyers who won’t go for the jugular to save their own country from banksters who have siphoned off the life-blood of the country and are now using our weakened condition against us. Look to history. This can only end up one way — a general strike or uprising of people who force change when they can’t eat anymore and can’t find a place to live. This isn’t a revisit to the Great Depression, it is a coup engineered by the Banks who have taken control of the country, its policies, and its direction.
President Obama needs to come out of his ivory tower and engage the Banks in a fight to the death, with or without the direct help of congress. There are enough laws, rules and regulations to enforce that will take care of the situation. The people know it, understand it and want it. If Obama won’t give the people what they want then he can kiss his second term good-bye.
FROM JUDGE RAKOFF’S ORDER:
“According to the S.E.C.’s Complaint, after Citigroup realized in early 2007 that the market for mortgage backed securities was beginning to weaken, tigroup created a billion-dollar Fund (known as “Class v Funding IIIU) that allowed it to dump some dubious assets on misinformed investors. This was accomplished by Citigroup’s misrepresenting that the Fund’s assets were attractive investments rigorously selected by an independent investment adviser, whereas in fact tigroup had arranged to include in the portfolio a substantial percentage of negative projected assets and had then taken a short position in those very assets it had helped select….
“…Citigroup knew in advance that it would be difficult to sell the Fund if Citigroup disclosed its intention to use it as a vehicle to unload
hand-picked set of negatively projected assets, see Stoker Complaint…
“…this would appear to be tantamount to an allegation of knowing and fraudulent intent (“scienter,” in the lingo of securities law)…
“Finally, in any case like this that touches on the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives, there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth. In much of the world, propaganda reigns, and truth is confined to secretive, fearful whispers. Even in our nation, apologists for suppressing or obscuring the truth may always be found. But the S.E.C., of all agencies, has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges; and if fails to do so, this Court must not, in the name of deference or convenience, grant judicial enforcement to the agency’s contrivances.”
Editor’s Note: One more thing (although there are many others that could be added here): Why is it so hard for America to accept that the investors were defrauded in the same scheme that sold bogus financial products to homeowners who are now evicted out of their homes. Why are we picking up one end of the stick and not the other. Why are we blaming the victims on one end of the stick and blaming the banks on the other? Where is the case for fraud in the execution, fraud in the inducement, damages and restitution for homeowners?
It is a fair bet that virtually 100% of those who signed mortgage papers had no inkling that they were issuers of paper that would be used as securities, valued as securities and treated as securities and that therefore they would be liable not only as Payors under the so-called notes, but as issuers in a fraudulent securities issuance scheme about which they had neither knowledge nor even access to knowledge.
If you track the 51 cases so far in which the SEC found this type of fraud, you see the same pattern over and over again. By what standard of conduct that will guide us in the future as to our behavior, will we be able to look into the face of homeowners who were tricked into signing papers in loan derivatives that burgeoned from a selection of 4-5 in 1974to 450 possible loan products in 2003?How can we justify blaming them and expect anything other than chaos in the marketplace as a result?
In a world where victims are “deadbeats” (if they are individuals) and thieves are the center piece in the halls of power, there are no standards that we can depend upon — just the expectation that some small group of people might tell us that what we had we don’t have anymore because they said so. Nothing could undermine confidence in the commercial markets than that — and yet the media, the government and big business and Banks are pursuing exactly that policy with an obvious end result undermining the very structure of our government, our society and our morality. Money has now made its own morality and is the alter at which we now worship above all else. Do we submit?
The plan administrator for the once-storied, now-defunct Coudert Brothers law firm cannot receive final adjudication in bankruptcy court for its state-law “unfinished business” claims against ten law firms that took over representation of Coudert’s clients, a federal judge has ruled.
The breakfast clowns, including Tatelbaum, far left, and wife Kitty
Charles “Chuck” Tatelbaum’s gig as a clown in the 85th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was a piece of toast.
The Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP bankruptcy attorney and his wife were part of a group of “breakfast clowns” who followed the Pillsbury Dough Boy balloon in last Thursday’s parade in Manhattan. Tatelbaum was a piece of toast with a pat of butter on his head, while wife Kitty was a stick of butter.
“It’s one thing to be a clown that looks like a clown,” Tatelbaum said Monday in an interview with Bankruptcy Beat. “We’re clowns that look like toast and butter.”
The Florida attorney, whose practice also covers business litigation, said he was able to don his red nose thanks to his many years of doing legal work for Macy’s. But first, he and his wife had to attend “Clown U.” At the workshop, held for about three hours in Manhattan on Nov. 12, the professionals of Big Apple Circus trained new and returning clowns on how to make funny sounds and faces (and how not to scare kids). Tatelbaum said participants also had to take a “clown pledge” to always be happy, show up on time and never use a cell phone in the parade.
“It was somewhat tongue-in-cheek and somewhat serious in that they really wanted you to understand that you were making a commitment,” he said.
Tatelbaum said the extremely well-organized festivities got started at 5 a.m. Thanksgiving morning, when the couple joined approximately 800 clowns in reporting for duty at the New Yorker Hotel near Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square. That’s where clowns donned their costumes and makeup before a bus dropped them off near the parade’s starting location.
Once the parade began at 9 a.m., Tatelbaum estimated that it took about an hour and a half to travel the nearly three-mile parade route, but he’s not quite sure.
“I was totally lost in the euphoria of what I was doing. You have no concept of time,” he said.
Being a clown involves interacting with the several million people who gather on Manhattan’s sidewalks to watch the parade, he said. The Tatelbaums’ group of breakfast clowns included four other toast clowns, three other sticks of butter and two fried eggs who rode on tricycles. Tatelbaum said the group doled out high-fives, confetti, and, most important, smiles.
“Everybody’s yelling ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ and ‘I love toast,’” he said. “The kids loved it, and adults are saying, ‘Hey, toast, are you French? Are you whole wheat? Are you rye?”
After removing their makeup and giving back their costumes, the Tatelbaums found themselves enjoying an untraditional, albeit delicious, Thanksgiving dinner of black cod and sizzling rice at a Korean restaurant. They didn’t miss the turkey.
“It was worth it,” he said.
If Macy’s offered the couple a chance to reprise their clown duties next year, would they do it again?
HELLO IT’S ME, Citi c/o FEDERAL HOME LOAN CORP dba Fannie Mae in all matters related to Assumption of loans and Assignment of Loan – proper address for your Good-Bye Letter
CitiMortgage, Inc.
P.O. Box 183040
Columbus, OH 43218-3040
18 States: DE, DC, GA, IL, IN, KY, MD, MI, NJ, NY, NC, OH, PA, SC, TN, VA, WV, WI
CitiMortgage, Inc.
P.O. Box 689196
Des Moines, IA
50368-9196
33 STATES: AL, AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, DT, FL, HI, ID, IA, ME, KS, LA, MA, MN, MI, MO, MN, NB, NH, NM, ND, NV, OK, OR, RI, SD, TX, UT, VT, WA, WY
LOAN PAYMENTS
CitiMortgage has two payment addresses for First Mortgage payments, depending on in which state the
property is located. Please refer to the following chart to determine the proper address for your Good-Bye
Letter.
When sending loan payments for overnight delivery, use this address:
CitiMortgage, Inc.
Attn: Payment Mail Opening
4740 121st St
Urbandale, IA 50323-2402
IMPORTANT TERMS IN AN ASSUMPTION & ASSIGNMENT AGREEMENT>
ASSIGNEE: ex: DBTCo
DEPOSITORY TRUST CO as Indenture Trustee Purchaser of Note
Assigned Loans = Residential Mortgage Loans
Assignor: (National Banking Assoc as Indenture Trustee Seller Note)
Depositor:(Wiill be a shelf company c/o REMICs Purchaser & Seller)
Servicer: (Will be a shelf company Servicer of default)
USCo as Master Servicer: (Important: Not a Lender)
e.g. Aurora Loan Service not a lender presented now dba Aurora Bank FSB to get around this truth!
e.g.,CitiMortgage, Inc Home Mortgage
Loans Retail Servicer, PO BOX 8855 Springfield OH 45501 also
dba
Insurance Center
CitiMortgage, Inc.
PO Box 7706
Springfiled OH
Assumption of Loans ‘originated by’ Citibank NA
First Mortgage Loans serviced by CitiMortgage Inc.
c/o citigroup.com
CitiMortgage, Inc. Its Successors and/or Assigns CitiMortgage Loan # ______. P.O. Box 7706. Springfield, OH 45501. Combo Second Mortgages Hazard/Flood
CORRESPONDENT MANUAL 102
FULFILLMENT SERVICE TEAM
Assist Correspondents loan information, suspense, purchase, wire, purchase advice, post funding reconcilation, underwriting scenarios. Correspondents should use Fulfillment Service Team to optimize business relationship with Cit.
National Client Services Team for Correspondents 800-967-2205 program parameters, pricing,.
Use National Client Services team to expand business relationship.
pre-purchase pricing
post-purchase pricing, purchase wire, purchase advise or post purchase reconcilation
Special Programs including BONDS, CalPERS or Verterans Land Board… 866-517-8329
Interested in becomming an approved Correspondent with Citi ?
Central Time
CITI ADDRESSES
Please use the following addresses when submitting credit packages, underwriting suspense conditions, closed
loan files, and audit suspense conditions to Citi:
Citibank, N. A.
Attn: Correspondent Operations
1000 Technology Dr.
Mail Station 904
O’Fallon, MO 63368-2240
Web Address
The Correspondent web site address is: correspondent.citimortgage.com.
Correspondent Research Services
After Citi has purchased your loan, Correspondents may use the New Loan Reconciliation Transmittal in the
Exhibits Section and submit a written request with backup documentation to corrpurchadj@citi.com by fax to
866-527-1435. The Correspondent Research Services phone number (800) 967-2205, Option 2
Borrowers with questions should contact Customer Service directly at (800) 283-7918.
Re-assignment Requests
To request a re-assignment back to the correspondent (after an initial assignment to Citi and Citi is NOT going
to purchase or service the loan), send written or emailed request to:
CitiMortgage, Inc
Document Processing – MS 321
Attention: Assignment Team
1000 Technology Drive
O’Fallon, MO 63368-2240
EMAIL: Assignment.Requests@citi.com
Please include a fully completed Assignment for Citi to execute and attach supporting back up documentation–
security instrument and/or recorded assignments. Provide your company name and the name and contact
numbers in the event there are questions.
Post-purchase Funds Reconciliation
Once Citi has purchased the mortgage loan and the Correspondent realizes they are holding excess funds that
must be applied to the customers account, Correspondents must complete Correspondent Transmittal Form
(Exhibit 42) detailing the specific fund application instructions. Once complete, the form, including funds, must
be sent to the following address:
CitiMortgage, Inc.
4740 121st Street
Urbandale, IA 50323
Attn: Exception Payments, MC 1156-7
Final Document / Trailing Documents
After Citi has purchased a loan from the Correspondent, all final recorded or trailing documents and final title
policies must be sent, as they are received but no later than 120 days after purchase to:
CitiMortgage, Inc
Attn: Document Processing, MS 321
1000 Technology Drive
O’Fallon, MO 63368-2240
An Outstanding Document Report is generated on a monthly basis and posted to the website at
correspondent.citimortgage.com. This report will keep you updated on final documents still outstanding.
Requests for return of recorded documents may be directed to the Document Processing address noted
above. Be sure to provide the Citi Loan Number and Property Address in your request.
Tax Bills/Tax Payments
After Citi has purchased a loan from the Correspondent, any tax billings or tax payments received on behalf of
borrower accounts should be sent to:
CitiMortgage, Inc.
Tax Department
P.O. Box 23689
Rochester, NY 14692Hazard Insurance Policies and Endorsement Letters
First Mortgage Transactions Second Mortgage Transactions
CitiMortgage, Inc., Its Successors and/or Assigns Citibank F.S.B., Its Successors and/or Assigns
Citi Loan # xxxxxxxx Citi Loan # xxxxxxx
P.O. Box 7706 P.O. Box 7807
Springfield, OH 45501 Springfield, Ohio 45501
Flood Insurance Policies and Endorsement Letters
CitiMortgage, Inc.
Its Successors and/or Assigns
Citi Loan # xxxxxxxx
P.O. Box 7706
Springfield, OH 45501
Private Mortgage Insurance Certificates and Endorsement Letters
CitiMortgage, Inc.
Its Successors and/or Assigns
Citi Loan # xxxxxxxx
P.O. Box 790057
St. Louis, MO 63179-0057
Client Administration
Any fees billed from the Client Administration Department, such as Early Payoffs, Early Payment Defaults, Pair
Offs, DU, etc. are posted on the web on the “Billing Fee” report page the first business day of each month. An
email is sent out advising fees have been updated to the web. Email questions regarding fees to: cmiclientadmin@citi.com.
Mailing Address to submit billing payments: Wire Instructions for billing payments:
Citi Correspondent Lending Bank Name: Citibank, NA
ATTN: Client Administration Dept Bank Address: 99 Garnsey Rd
1000 Technology Drive, MS 800 Pittsford, NY 14534
OFallon, MO 63368-2240 ABA#: 021000089
Account Name: Citibank, NA – Correspondent
Lending
Account #: 30792918
ATTN: Client Administration
CitiMortgage Customer Service
After Citi has purchased the loan, borrowers with questions should contact Customer Service directly. These
customer service phone number(s) may be provided to your borrower:
First Mortgage and Fixed Rate Second Mortgages – (800) 283-7918
Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOC) – (800) 685-0935
EDITOR’S NOTE: OK the last round of stress tests was a PR stunt to assure the world that the US finance system was not falling apart when in fact it was and did fall apart and we are dealing with the cover-up phase now. But there is a new round of stress tests that makes some real assumptions and makes real demands upon the Banks to fess up on their true financial condition. That is bad news for the major Banks, especially Citi and BOA, whose assets largely don’t exist.
Frankly I don’t expect BOA to last to the end of this year in its present form and by end of 2012, I don’t believe it will exist at all. Same for Citi. Both were given far too much leeway — in part because of the intransigence and insubordination of Geithner who ignored a direct order from the President to take over Citi long ago. Part related back to the Bush administration where some rough and tumble negotiations resulted in quick takeovers by BOA of Countrywide and Merrill Lynch, neither of which were anything better that a contagious disease.
So the claim that the regulators made them do it is not without merit. But that takes nothing away from the fact that the Banks, as they are currently constituted, are too big to manage, have too little capital to cover the heavy losses that are projected over the next few years, and really don’t have much going for them in terms of conventional banking activity. Breaking them up into smaller pieces and dividing up the remains into bite size pieces for smaller regional banks with a resolution authority to handle the assets that are claimed to exist, is really the only way to handle this, stop the housing crisis, stop the foreclosure crisis and bring economic recovery back through the return of lending to the average Joe who wants to start or expand his business.
More Vigorous Stress Test for Banks
By ANTONY CURRIE and EDWARD HADAS
FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
There’s good and bad news in the Federal Reserve’s decision to expand the scope of its annual stress test of the nation’s top banks. Given the deteriorating economic picture, submitting the 31 largest lenders to even more scrutiny than in the previous two years makes sense. So does putting the European exposures of the top six banks under the microscope. But the Fed’s latest move will leave many on both sides of the Atlantic unhappy.
Start with the United States angle. The Fed is expanding its stress test beyond the 19 largest banks to include another 12 with $ 50 billion of assets or more, including Discover Financial as well as the United States subsidiaries of several foreign banks like HSBC. Considering that several midsize banks landed in trouble in the last crisis, bringing them into the fold is overdue.
The Fed is making all 31 banks run some pretty depressing numbers through their models: an 8 percent contraction in the gross domestic product, the Dow Jones industrial average collapsing to 5,700 points by the middle of next year, and an unemployment rate rising above 13 percent by 2013. The six largest banks must demonstrate they can also withstand a euro zone crash that whacks European governments and financial institutions.
The test probably means few, if any, banks will be allowed to raise dividends or buy back more stock next year. Instead, they will have to hang onto their capital. And the test ought to make it much harder to cast aspersions on the creditworthiness of any bank that passes.
But the process will take time. Banks have until January to file their results and, based on this year’s exercise, results aren’t likely to be known until April. By that time, the United States and European crises that the Fed imagines could be under way. Pity the bank that is told to raise capital in such an environment.
Meanwhile, Europe looks set to suffer even more. American banks are already reining in their exposure to the euro zone. But the mere fact that the Fed is increasing scrutiny of their exposures could accelerate the withdrawal. That increases the risk that the stress possibilities become reality.
A Troubled Haven
By the standards of the euro zone, Germany is still a haven. But as the overall area keeps looking less safe, investors are starting to notice that, for all its strengths, Germany does lie within it.
On Wednesday, a German government bond offering was badly undersubscribed; bids were accepted for only 61 percent of the 6 billion euro issue. The norm is more like 90 percent.
The bonds that were sold yielded 1.98 percent, still comfortably low as far the government is concerned. But that was 0.1 of a percentage point more than the day’s low, and yields climbed another 0.09 percentage points later. By afternoon, the German paper, or bunds as they are known, yielded 0.24 percentage points more than comparable United States debt. Just a week ago, the gap was similar but in the opposite direction.
This is far from a sign of total panic. Even so, the trend is hard to deny and easy to explain. Investors are taking money out of the euro zone. The European Central Bank reported that non-euro area investors were net sellers of 52 billion euros of member government bonds in the third quarter, having bought 130 billion euros’ worth in the second. German bunds may be the safest European holdings, but as fear mounts they too begin to look unnecessarily risky.
The objective of shunning everything euro related is to stay out of the way of a possible euro collapse. Never mind that the exodus makes that collapse more likely: when investors want out, they run first and ask questions later. And Germany would suffer from a splintering of the euro. While the country would eventually be an economic success with its own currency, a disorderly euro breakup would trash both the financial system and the export business of the zone’s leading creditor and exporter.
European authorities have already missed many opportunities to calm investors down with relatively mild measures. One remaining possible move, resisted so far by Berlin, is for the euro zone to guarantee bonds issued by member nations. Even that would, in theory, dilute Germany’s strong credit a bit. But a disintegration of the euro zone would be far worse. The weak bund auction is a signal for the region’s politicians and central bankers to stop squabbling.
For more independent financial commentary and analysis, visit www.breakingviews.com.
When it comes to filing for bankruptcy, you face several options. Choosing the appropriate filing for your situation can seem difficult, as it often depends on the consumer’s type of debt, income, and property. While we’ll go over a few of the choices here, a local bankruptcy attorney can…
www.Savedme.com 800-728-3363 800-SAVEDME. Bankruptcy Attorney Jamie Ryke of the Second Start Bankruptcy Law Firm talks about the Truth about Bankruptcy. You can speak to him directly. Bankruptcy Attorney Jamie Ryke explains how long is the Chapter 13 bankruptcy payment plan
