Foreclosure Defense Nationwide - Mortgage Foreclosure Help - Free Advice

Apparently the settlement that has not actually been finalized is a big win for the banks and a no win for homeowners.  This article from Foreclosure Defense Nationwide gives a few of the details as to how the home owners are actually getting shafted again.  The money that will be available is already being ear marked to help fill the holes in state budgets rather than be used to help and protect homeowners.  It is unbelievable what the banks have pulled off again and how they have gotten away with so much criminal activity.  So much for government protection.  

We have been receiving literally dozens of e-mails from homeowners inquiring as to what effect the bank settlements with various attorneys general will have on their foreclosure cases. Answer: NONE, for several reasons.
First, the Attorney General claims were just that: claims by attorneys general against the banks. Private litigants were not parties to the litigation, so they are not parties to any settlement. In fact, it has already been reported that the settlements have no effect on and do not preclude an individual pursuing legal relief against a lender.
Second, the settlements are not even finalized yet. They have to be filed in court, and once they are, the states which filed the lawsuits will be free to enact whatever procedures, processes, requirements, etc. they wish as to whether a homeowner “qualifies” for any settlement proceeds. As we all know from the loan mod scam, this process can take months or even years, and there are a million ways that a homeowner can be found to ultimately not “qualify”.
Third, and perhaps most revolting and insidious, is that several of the states have ALREADY announced that portions of the settlements will be diverted to state budgets. Specific instances include Wisconsin’s announcement that it plans to use $25.6 million of the settlement money to “plug holes in the state’s budget”, while Missouri has announced that it plans to put $40 million of the settlement money into the state’s “general fund”.

So, once again, the homeowners get nothing. In fact, it has been separately announced that because the attorney general lawsuits have been resolved that the banks will be ramping up individual foreclosures, obviously now because they will not have state governments and attorneys general examining what they do. Sad, but unfortunately true.

Foreclosure Defense Nationwide - Mortgage Foreclosure Help - Free Advice

The Permanent Foreclosure Crisis and Obama's Refinancing Obsession - Credit Slips

 Here is a sensible look at the foreclosure crisis with a few reasons why the politics of housing is so ridiculous.  There are no solutions to the problem that have perpetrated on the public by the banking criminal and the Federal Government.  The lowering of interest rates and refinancing does nothing to help most underwater homeowners and it does little to lower payments.  The risk of the perpetual stagnating real estate market are becoming very high.  As we have seen housing prices drop again this past year, we are on the verge of destroying the golden goose that has provided for so much of America's prosperity in the past 50 years.  It is amazing how uninterested the parties that be are in fixing the real problems that have plagued the housing industry for the past few years. 




The Permanent Foreclosure Crisis and Obama's Refinancing Obsession - Credit Slips

The Permanent Foreclosure Crisis and Obama's Refinancing Obsession

posted by Alan White

For the umpteenth time, President Obama has announced that his solution to the foreclosure crisis is to encourage "responsible" homeowners to refinance at lower interest rates. Adopting the Tea Party rhetoric and blaming home buyers who got houses in 2006 for their inability to foresee what few economists foresaw, Obama has steadfastly refused to push for principal reductions and payment suspensions for homeowners behind in payments, lest their luckier neighbors who bought at lower prices become resentful. As a result, he continues to offer help to homeowners who need it least.
Behind the rhetoric is an important policy choice: who will bear the billions of mortgage losses that have yet to be flushed out of the system. Principal reduction modifications for defaulted borrowers would distribute the losses among taxpayers (via Fannie and Freddie), private investors and banks (who hold non-GSE loans), and give underwater homeowners some relief. More importantly, principal modifications mitigate the aggregate losses to the system while accelerating the necessary deleveraging. Refinancing current borrowers does nothing to prevent the huge deadweight losses from continuing foreclosures, at 50% loss severities, on homes whose owners are delinquent. Choosing to do no more for the 7 million or so delinquent mortgage debtors means maximizing losses to those homeowners, but also to taxpayers and investors. It would certainly help to continue driving down home prices, which does benefit new first-time buyers, but at a huge aggregate cost.
In fact, as conservator of the nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal government could make the needed modifications of delinquent mortgages happen with a stroke of the pen, more or less. Instead, the Administration proposes the dubious strategy of loading up the FHA portfolio with 4% mortgages at 125% loan-to-value ratios, thus continuing the process of transferring future mortgage losses from banks to taxpayers, and amplifying those losses, while letting the foreclosure crisis continue, just as Mitt Romney proposes. Nothing about the refinancing strategy moves forward the process of realigning mortgage debt to home values. Instead, the strategy relies on the doubtful proposition that home values will soon return to rising at their pre-2007 clip.
Pacta sunt servanda and the housing market and broader economy be damned.

Game Over: California Attorney General Breaks From “50 State” Mortgage Settlement « naked capitalism

A major blow the the 50 state mortgage settlement with the big banks occurred today as California pulls out of the talks stating that they could not accept the terms. It is beyond me how any state could accept the terms that would give the banks a free pass for all the fraudulent activity that has gone on the past few years. If the Obama administration would stop pushing so hard to give the banks a free pass there actually may be some progress that could occur. The people seem to be catching on to the facts that just about everyone got screwed by the banks and banking system this go round. Anyone who thinks other wise either works for the banks or has their head buried in the sand. We are finally seeing a bit of media coverage of the anger that is simmering across the country at our government for abandoning the people and siding with the banks. It has been a disgusting turn of events that have shown criminal bankers leaving their posts to join the White House administration and to advise the President. Yes it is true. After driving the country into the worst economic crisis ever bank leaders have been give positions in the inner circle of the White House. Corruption has gone from Wall Street to Washington and the big money is controlling both. Until we see justice for the people and we see people held accountable rather than being given billions in bonuses our government will have a credibility problem. Obama has already shown his true colors and now is trying to figure out how to fool enough voters to get re elected. He is not the President of the people. He is the President for the corporate class and elites from Wall Street and else where.
Here is a bit of the story from Naked Capitalism.

We’ve been saying for months that the 50 state attorney general settlement was not going to happen. Despite the vigorous efforts by people on the side of the Federal regulators involved in the negotiations and Tom Miller’s (the AG leading the negotiations’) office to make it seem as if the deal was moving forward, the content of the reports showed otherwise. There was a huge gap between the positions of the banks and even the bank friendly position of the state AGs at the table and the banking regulators. Like the Vietnam War, where negotiations of two fundamentally opposed dragged on till one side capitulated, there was not going to be a settlement that was anything other than an abject sellout with a 11 figure payoff to mask that fact. And there were too many attorneys general who were already troubled by the terms of the deal that Miller had put forward for that to happen.
Now that Kamala Harris, the California state attorney general, has officially abandoned the talks, they don’t mean much, at least from the state side. The departure of such a big state, in population, foreclosure exposure, and Electoral college terms, along with other states (New York, Delaware, Nevada, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Minnesota, likely Arizona) means any settlement has limited practical meaning from the state side and even less credibility. It also considerably raises the odds of other states bolting. And needless to say, this is a major repudiation of the Obama Administration “let’s sweep foreclosure fraud under the rug” strategy.
It’s also worth noting that Credo led a major campaign in California to pressure Harris to seek better terms or else abandon the talks. We’ve been generally critical of the left in the US, but it’s important to distinguish that our criticism is of what is probably best thought of at the “establishment left” or the “Rubin/Hamilton Project/Blue Dog/Third Way” let, which is pro corporate but less aggressively so than the right so as to maintain some credibility with the traditional Democratic base. There are some groups like Credo which stand for a just society and are effective operationally which are gaining traction as more people recognize that the Democratic party only occasionally stands up for their economic interests.

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