West Valley Properties

GSEs: Banks Want A Piece; Also What To Do?

Will Wall Street steal away Fannie, Freddie? – By Steven Pearlstein – (Steven wants to keep those high paying GSE jobs in the DC metro area, and not have them shippped north to Wall Street – BC) –

Reshaping Mortgage Finance – Posted by Tom Lindmark – The reports that the nation’s big banks would like to be named as replacements for Fannie and Freddie:  … If you are rubbing your eyes and rereading this because you thought it said that the banks want to be able to originate mortgages and then stamp them with a government guarantee don’t bother wasting anymore time. That’s pretty much what they are proposing. …  Alex Pollock and Edward Pinto have crafted a proposal ()  for the American Enterprise Institute which pushes mortgage finance towards a private solution. Stick around for this battle. It’s going to be epic.  –

Other Mortgage Related News

But, But…It’s Guaranteed – By THOMAS G. DONLAN – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cut deals with the taxpayers’ money to save banks. –

Shamed Into Altering a Mortgage – By JOE NOCERA – … The case involved Lilla Roberts, the 73-year-old retired physical therapist I wrote about last month, whose home in Jamaica, N.Y., had been foreclosed on last summer by Bank of America without her knowledge and turned over to Fannie Mae, which was in the process of trying to evict her. With the help of a young public interest lawyer, Elizabeth Lynch, Ms. Roberts filed a lawsuit aimed at stopping the eviction and reversing the foreclosure, something Ms. Lynch conceded was a long shot. Ms. Roberts’s story — buttressed with ample documentation provided by Ms. Lynch — was both awful and emblematic of the whole foreclosure mess. … –

Mortgage Giants Leave Legal Bills to the Taxpayers – By GRETCHEN MORGENSON – Since the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taxpayers have spent more than $160 million defending the mortgage finance companies and their former top executives in civil lawsuits accusing them of fraud. The cost was a closely guarded secret until last week, when the companies and their regulator produced an accounting at the request of Congress - 

     On MERS:

Needless to say, the closer you get to MERS, the uglier it looks. (2 great charts plus outstanding presentation) MERS Exposed I: Process Expert Catalogues Fundamental Flaws – Yves Smith – Proposed legislation in Virginia, House Bill 1506, which if passed would eliminate the role of the electronic registry system MERS in that state by requiring every mortgage transfer to be recorded in the local courthouse, is having the salutary effect of exposing more information about this generally less than forthcoming company. –

(has transcript) MERS Exposed II: General Counsel Tells Whoppers in Testimony Before Virginia House – Yves Smith –

2 banks, 1 house – SI foreclosure shows paperwork nightmare – By CATHERINE CURAN – … Two banks, Home123 Corporation and US Bank, both lay claim to owning a house in Staten Island, according to a foreclosure filing. The original lender, Home123, is the mortgage holder on the county’s tax rolls, but US Bank and its servicer, Ocwen Loan Servicing, have filed the court papers, saying they have the right to the action. US Bank claims that they purchased the mortgage from Home123. But, the bank admits, “due to unforseen circumstances, the original Assignment of Mortgage and Endorsement Note were lost before they could be recorded.” … –

Judges to weigh mortgage document destruction – By Scot J. Paltrow – Federal bankruptcy judges in Delaware are due to hold separate hearings Monday on requests by two defunct subprime mortgage lenders to destroy thousands of boxes or original loan documents. The requests, by trustees liquidating Mortgage Lenders Network USA and American Home Mortgage, come despite intense concerns that paperwork critical to foreclosures and securitized investments may be lost. –

Spain’s Cajas to Reveal Real Estate Losses – EDWARD HARRISON – The Bank of Spain is to force the cajas, Spanish savings banks to reveal the extent of their property losses. The thinking behind this move is the same as the thinking that prompted the stress tests in both the US and Europe; officials believe that these exercises will demonstrate greater transparency and assuage investor concerns about escalating loan loss estimates for loans not yet written down. -

(easy to understand) Mass Hysteria – The Iabanez Decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court –

First Circuit Affirms in Part, Reverses in Part Nomura Subprime Securities Suit Dismissal – by Kevin LaCroix -  As a result of the First Circuit’s January 20, 2011 opinion, the plaintiffs in the Nomura Asset Acceptance Corporation mortgage-backed securities lawsuit have managed to revive a slender portion of their case, albeit on a rather precarious basis. –

Tags: Gse, Gse Legal