Posts Tagged ‘Court
10000 foreclosure Tossed OUT – Maryland – Supreme Court – Mass, MERS No Right to Foreclose
Maryland Judge tossed out 10000 foreclosures – Mass Supreme Court Ruled, MERS no standing to Foreclose! Maryland it was a professor at University of Maryland with his students who sued and got the 10000 foreclosures TOSSED OUT! Everyone CALL YOUR UNIVERSITY – ASK THE LAW PROFESSOR TO SUE MERS IN THEIR STATE WITH THEIR STUDENTS! Seriously – Do it – WE CAN WIN! sherriequestioningall.blogspot.com
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Hi, this is Gen Hagen. Recently I invited all my clients and some prospective clients to attend a home seller’s seminar that a few were unable to attend. Since I didn’t want anyone to miss out on this information, I put together the following video. Although the research is national in scope, one needn’t go to far to extrapoplate New York State home price projections. I hope you find it of value: Today’s Home selling environment is trickier than ever… although home prices have gone down nationally by about 31%, home price declines here in Suffolk County have ranged from 2006 to as little as 8% declines in Babylon to 57% declines in Central Islip. So as you can see, home prices depend greatly in the town that your property is located within. Take a moment and pause this slide if you’d like to compare the rate of decline in your town.. Some would say that homes aren’t selling — but you know, they’re wrong. On Average 12630 homes are selling each and every day and another 8715 buyers are receiving a mortgage — every day! Lets take a look at historic national home prices — as you can see, the norm was about 3.6% for home price appreciation between 1987 and 1999, then during the bubble from the 1st qtr of 2000 to the 2nd qtr of 2006, prices increased 10.4% annually and then came the bust from the 3rd qtr of 2006 til today where home values have decreased on average 7.1% per year. Again, as I’ve said earlier, home values vary greatly from town to town and you should check …
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Supreme Court to consider secured lender credit-bidding rights
Ron E. Meisler and David M. Turetsky of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom discuss the current split among federal appeals courts over whether a debtor can sell its encumbered assets free and clear of liens without allowing objecting lenders to submit credit bids.
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State court fraud damages aren’t dischargeable, 6th Circuit rules
Two Chapter 7 debtors facing a state court fraud judgment for concealing known defects in a house they sold cannot discharge the debt in bankruptcy, a federal appeals court has held.
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Supreme Court hears farm sale tax dispute
The attorney representing two family farmers in a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service told the U.S. Supreme Court at oral argument in November that the Bankruptcy Code makes dischargeable the capital gains tax from a post-petition sale of a farm.
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Nevada Supreme Court Will Hear Question on Lack of Certification of Ownership of Loans
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“I can tell you I wrote the rules. … I know what they say,” Gibbons said. “You’re supposed to produce these documents and prove ownership here. You can’t just blow off (that) certification means nothing. It means a lot. It means that these people who sign these documents have a right to sign them (and are not) fictional people forging names.”
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARSON CITY — The Nevada Supreme Court weighed arguments Wednesday on whether U.S. Bank can foreclose on a Douglas County couple’s home even though not all required documents were presented during mediation.
Lawyers involved in the case said the court’s ruling could have wide repercussions on foreclosures in a state hard-hit by the collapse of the housing market.
Attorneys for Andrew and Lauretta Davis want justices to send the case back to Washoe County District Court for a hearing on whether documents handled by Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, were signed by an authorized officer and properly conveyed the Davis’ mortgage from the now-defunct Ownit Mortgage Solutions to U.S. Bank.
The couple’s attorneys claim MERS lacked the authority to assign the loan to the bank.
“The certification for this assignment was not produced,” attorney Mark Mausert argued before six of the high court’s seven justices. Chief Justice Nancy Saitta missed the session but is expected to listen to arguments before a ruling is handed down at a later date.
A lawyer for the lender countered that issues raised by the Davis’ attorneys go beyond the scope of Nevada’s Foreclosure Mediation program, and that disputes over the validity of documents should be addressed in a separate lawsuit.
“Courts across the country have repeatedly found MERS is in fact an appropriate entity to execute an assignment because that right is given to them in the deed of trust and agreed to by the borrower at the time the loan is originated,” said Kristin Schuler-Hintz, a lawyer for the bank.
Robert Hager, co-counsel with Mausert, said the court’s ruling could affect thousands of loans in Nevada assigned by MERS that are now in foreclosure.
At one point during Wednesday’s arguments, Justice Mark Gibbons asked Schuler-Hintz whether any proof was offered during the foreclosure mediation that the person from MERS who assigned the mortgage to U.S. Bank was authorized to do so.
Schuler-Hintz said that issue was beyond the scope of mediation, bringing a testy response from Gibbons.
“I can tell you I wrote the rules. … I know what they say,” Gibbons said. “You’re supposed to produce these documents and prove ownership here. You can’t just blow off (that) certification means nothing. It means a lot. It means that these people who sign these documents have a right to sign them (and are not) fictional people forging names.”
Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud Tagged: bankruptcy, borrower, countrywide, disclosure, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure offense, foreclosures, fraud, LOAN MODIFICATION, modification, quiet title, rescission, RESPA, securitization, TILA audit, trustee, WEISBAND 
Livinglies’s Weblog
Birmingham Bankruptcy: The difference between Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and Chapter 13 Debtor’s Court
A brief discussion about the differences between Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and Chapter 13 Debtor’s Court
Trustee asks Supreme Court to resolve payment-plan dispute
A U.S. trustee who blocked a bankrupt couple’s initial creditor repayment plan has joined in asking the Supreme Court to resolve a dispute among federal courts over whether bankruptcy laws require a minimum duration for plans under Chapter 13.
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Law firms win removal of ‘unfinished business’ claims from bankruptcy court
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.
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Massachusetts Court Refuses to Give Clear Title in Foreclosures
In earlier blogs I’ve mentioned some of the ways that homeowners can resist foreclosures. For at least a year some state and federal courts have favorably entertained homeowner arguments regarding shoddy paperwork, robo-signings, and the inability of those bringing the foreclosure action to “show me the note.”
As I’ve noted these decisions I’ve cautioned that it’s too early to know whether these decisions will be widely followed by other courts or whether these cases will be upheld–or tossed out–on appeal. This can be a problem when you are paying an attorney megabucks to advance your argument. Few of us want to sacrifice thousands of dollars to a lost cause.
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Refuses to Give Clear Title to Improperly Foreclosed Homes
Suddenly things have changed a whole lot–for the better from the homeowners’ perspective. Late last week the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court–the highest court in that state–unanimously decided that the foreclosures in the cases before it were improper because the all important notice of foreclosure was recorded and published before the banks bringing the foreclosures actually owned the mortgages by way of legal assignments from the original issuers of the mortgage.
In the Massachusetts cases, foreclosures had already occurred and the homeowners had moved out after the bank bought the property at the foreclosure auction. When the banks initiated the foreclosures, they had no proof of the chain of title showing that they now were the mortgage owners. For example, in one of the cases the original mortgage traveled through six different institutions including the initial issuer and the foreclosing bank.
After the banks decided to clean up their act–and after the foreclosures–they recorded what they alleged was proof of ownership with the local land records office. They then filed actions requesting that a judge issue a “quiet title” order–an order stating that the banks had proven clear title to the properties. Much to the surprise of the banks, the court refused to award them clear title, given that the foreclosure was legally deficient. The fact that the banks tried to correct the record after the foreclosures could not retroactively legitimize the foreclosures themselves or the titles to the property taken by the bank as a result.
The banks appealed this decision to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which affirmed the lower court and also ruled that the title held by the banks in the improperly foreclosed property was not clear title–that is, the banks had no legal claim on the property.
This Case Will Likely Affect Foreclosures Nationwide
The potential implications of this decision are staggering. It means, in essence, that an unknown number of homes that have been improperly foreclosed on by the nation’s mortgage lenders have title problems that may be difficult or impossible to clear up. This can only result in a brand new real estate crash of gargantuan proportions.
How important is the Massachusetts case? The way law works in the United States, once a major state’s highest court decides a new point of law, that decision quickly travels to other states where lawyers use it to achieve the same or similar result. Homeowners who are called on to invest in litigating their foreclosure will be much more willing to part with their money knowing that they have a Massachusetts Supreme Court arrow in their quiver. While every state’s foreclosure laws are at least somewhat unique, the basic premise of the Massachusetts case will likely be upheld by most courts that consider it–that is, a bank can’t legally foreclose on a mortgage if it can’t prove it owns it, and a bank can’t go back in time and undo an illegal foreclosure by obtaining a judicial declaration of clear title.
But in many cases litigation may not be necessary. Banks throughout the country are now on notice that the houses they still own as a result of foreclosure might well be worthless in that they won’t be able to prove ownership at the time the foreclosure was initiated and therefore won’t be able to pass clear title to prospective purchasers. And future foreclosures may be impossible given the chaotic state of mortgage-related records caused by the mortgage securitization process and sloppy bank practices. The only value banks may be able to glean from their huge stock of houses–whether before or after foreclosure–is whatever they can negotiate with the current owners.
Banks also will likely face class actions brought by thousands or hundreds of thousands of former homeowners who have been illegally foreclosed on. Investors are also likely to sue the banks for illegally jeopardizing their investments, and while banks may be forced to cut fire sale deals with homeowners, investors are unlikely to settle for anything less than they think they are owed. Undecided at present is what will happen to illegally foreclosed homes that have been subsequently purchased by buyers who had no reason to doubt the validity of their title. Will the invalid foreclosure apply to their title or will a doctrine known as “bona fide purchaser for value” invest the buyer with clear title? One thing for sure, the title to these properties is not as secure as was once thought, and the value of these properties may plummet even further because of a possible shaky title.
In closing, I offer a brief quote by concurring Justice Cordy:
“I concur fully in the opinion of the court, and write separately only to underscore that what is surprising about these cases is not the statement of principles articulated by the court regarding title law and the law of foreclosure in Massachusetts, but rather the utter carelessness with which the plaintiff banks documented the titles to their assets. There is no dispute that the mortgagors of the properties in question had defaulted on their obligations, and that the mortgaged properties were subject to foreclosure. Before commencing such an action, however, the holder of an assigned mortgage needs to take care to ensure that this legal paperwork is in order. Although there was no apparent actual unfairness here to the mortgagors, that is not the point. Foreclosure is a powerful act with significant consequences, and Massachusetts law has always required that it proceed strictly in accord with the statutes that govern it…..”
Nolo’s Bankruptcy & Foreclosure Blog
Supreme Court is asked to reiterate that plan trumps confirmation order
The daughter of the late oil magnate Marvin Davis is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her challenge to a ruling that departed from the century-old notion that a bankruptcy court’s confirmation order cannot alter the terms of the underlying reorganization plan.
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