BREAKING!!! FOX NEWS TALKS ABOUT MERS, MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS!!! MERS LOOPHOLE MAY PREVENT FORECLOSURES!!! RE: Homeowners’ Rebellion: Could 62 Million Homes Be Foreclosure-Proof? In fear of losing your home? Good news … there is a loophole in the system that could keep you right where you are! So what’s the secret? Watch Attorney Bob Massi’s solution below, and may we suggest a paper and pen to jot down all the details. ~ “The Curse of the MERS” ~ Homeowners’ Rebellion: Could 62 Million Homes Be Foreclosure-Proof? Over 62 million mortgages are now held in the name of MERS, an electronic recording system devised by and for the convenience of the mortgage industry. A California bankruptcy court, following landmark cases in other jurisdictions, recently held that this electronic shortcut makes it impossible for banks to establish their ownership of property titles—and therefore to foreclose on mortgaged properties. The logical result could be 62 million homes that are foreclosure-proof. Mortgages bundled into securities were a favorite investment of speculators at the height of the financial bubble leading up to the crash of 2008. The securities changed hands frequently, and the companies profiting from mortgage payments were often not the same parties that negotiated the loans. At the heart of this disconnect was the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, a company that serves as the mortgagee of record for lenders, allowing properties to change hands without the necessity of recording each transfer. MERS was convenient for the mortgage industry, but courts are now questioning the impact of all of this financial juggling when it comes to mortgage ownership. To foreclose on real property, the plaintiff must be able to establish the chain of title entitling it to relief. But MERS has acknowledged, and recent cases have held, that MERS is a mere “nominee”—an entity appointed by the true owner simply for the purpose of holding property in order to facilitate transactions. Recent court opinions stress that this defect is not just a procedural but is a substantive failure, one that is fatal to the plaintiff’s legal ability to foreclose. That means hordes of victims of predatory lending could end up owning their homes free and clear—while the financial industry could end up skewered on its own sword. The latest of these court decisions came down in California on May 20, 2010, in a bankruptcy case called In re Walker, Case no. 10-21656-E–11. The court held that MERS could not foreclose because it was a mere nominee; and that as a result, plaintiff Citibank could not collect on its claim. The judge opined: Since no evidence of MERS’ ownership of the underlying note has been offered, and other courts have concluded that MERS does not own the underlying notes, this court is convinced that MERS had no interest it could transfer to Citibank. Since MERS did not own the underlying note, it could not transfer the beneficial interest of the Deed of Trust to another. Any attempt to transfer the beneficial interest of a trust deed without ownership of the underlying note is void under California law. In support, the judge cited In Re Vargas (California Bankruptcy Court); Landmark v. Kesler (Kansas Supreme Court); LaSalle Bank v. Lamy (a New York case); and In Re Foreclosure Cases (the “Boyko” decision from Ohio Federal Court). (For more on these earlier cases, see here, here and here.) The court concluded: Since the claimant, Citibank, has not established that it is the owner of the promissory note secured by the trust deed, Citibank is unable to assert a claim for payment in this case. The broad impact the case could have on California foreclosures is suggested by attorney Jeff Barnes, who writes: This opinion . . . serves as a legal basis to challenge any foreclosure in California based on a MERS assignment; to seek to void any MERS assignment of the Deed of Trust or the note to a third party for purposes of foreclosure; and should be sufficient for a borrower to not only obtain a TRO [temporary restraining order] against a Trustee’s Sale, but also a Preliminary Injunction barring any sale pending any litigation filed by the borrower challenging a foreclosure based on a MERS assignment. While not binding on courts in other jurisdictions, the ruling could serve as persuasive precedent there as well, because the court cited non-bankruptcy cases related to the lack of authority of MERS, and because the opinion is consistent with prior rulings in Idaho and Nevada Bankruptcy courts on the same issue. Earlier cases focused on the inability of MERS to produce a promissory note or assignment establishing that it was entitled to relief, but most courts have considered this a mere procedural defect and continue to look the other way on MERS’ technical lack of standing to sue. The more recent cases, however, are looking at something more serious. If MERS is not the title holder of properties held in its name, the chain of title has been broken, and no one may have standing to sue. In MERS v. Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance, MERS insisted that it had no actionable interest in title, and the court agreed. An August 2010 article in Mother Jones titled “Fannie and Freddie’s Foreclosure Barons” exposes a widespread practice of “foreclosure mills” in backdating assignments after foreclosures have been filed. Not only is this perjury, a prosecutable offense, but if MERS was never the title holder, there is nothing to assign. The defaulting homeowners could wind up with free and clear title. In Jacksonville, Florida, legal aid attorney April Charney has been using the missing-note argument ever since she first identified that weakness in the lenders’ case in 2004. Five years later, she says, some of the homeowners she’s helped are still in their homes. According to a Huffington Post article titled “‘Produce the Note’ Movement Helps Stall Foreclosures”: Because of the missing ownership documentation, Charney is now starting to file quiet title actions, hoping to get her homeowner clients full title to their homes (a quiet title action ‘quiets’ all other claims). Charney says she’s helped thousands of homeowners delay or prevent foreclosure, and trained thousands of lawyers across the country on how to protect homeowners and battle in court. Other suits go beyond merely challenging title to alleging criminal activity. On July 26, 2010, a class actionwas filed in Florida seeking relief against MERS and an associated legal firm for racketeering and mail fraud. It alleges that the defendants used “the artifice of MERS to sabotage the judicial process to the detriment of borrowers;” that “to perpetuate the scheme, MERS was and is used in a way so that the average consumer, or even legal professional, can never determine who or what was or is ultimately receiving the benefits of any mortgage payments;” that the scheme depended on “the MERS artifice and the ability to generate any necessary ‘assignment’ which flowed from it;” and that “by engaging in a pattern of racketeering activity, specifically ‘mail or wire fraud,’ the Defendants . . . participated in a criminal enterprise affecting interstate commerce.” Local governments deprived of filing fees may also be getting into the act, at least through representatives suing on their behalf. Qui tam actions allow for a private party or “whistle blower” to bring suit on behalf of the government for a past or present fraud on it. In State of California ex rel. Barrett R. Bates, filed May 10, 2010, the plaintiff qui tam sued on behalf of a long list of local governments in California against MERS and a number of lenders, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, for “wrongfully bypass[ing] the counties’ recording requirements; divest[ing] the borrowers of the right to know who owned the promissory note . . .; and record[ing] false documents to initiate and pursue non-judicial foreclosures, and to otherwise decrease or avoid payment of fees to the Counties and the Cities where the real estate is located.” The complaint notes that “MERS claims to have ‘saved’ at least $2.4 billion dollars in recording costs,” meaning it has helped avoid billions of dollars in fees otherwise accruing to local governments. The plaintiff sues for treble damages for all recording fees not paid during the past ten years, and for civil penalties of between $5,000 and $10,000 for each unpaid or underpaid recording fee and each false document recorded during that period, potentially a hefty sum. Similar suits have been filed by the same plaintiff qui tam in Nevada and Tennessee. MERS is, according to its website, “an innovative process that simplifies the way mortgage ownership and servicing rights are originated, sold and tracked. Created by the real estate finance industry, MERS eliminates the need to prepare and record assignments when trading residential and commercial mortgage loans.” Or asKarl Denninger puts it, “MERS’ own website claims that it exists for the purpose of circumventing assignments and documenting ownership!” MERS was developed in the early 1990s by a number of financial entities, including Bank of America, Countrywide, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, allegedly to allow consumers to pay less for mortgage loans. That did not actually happen, but what MERS did allow was the securitization and shuffling around of mortgages behind a veil of anonymity. The result was not only to cheat local governments out of their recording fees but to defeat the purpose of the recording laws, which was to guarantee purchasers clean title. Worse, MERS facilitated an explosion of predatory lending in which lenders could not be held to account because they could not be identified, either by the preyed-upon borrowers or by the investors seduced into buying bundles of worthless mortgages. As alleged in a Nevada class action called Lopez vs. Executive Trustee Services, et al.: Before MERS, it would not have been possible for mortgages with no market value . . . to be sold at a profit or collateralized and sold as mortgage-backed securities. Before MERS, it would not have been possible for the Defendant banks and AIG to conceal from government regulators the extent of risk of financial losses those entities faced from the predatory origination of residential loans and the fraudulent re-sale and securitization of those otherwise non-marketable loans. Before MERS, the actual beneficiary of every Deed of Trust on every parcel in the United States and the State of Nevada could be readily ascertained by merely reviewing the public records at the local recorder’s office where documents reflecting any ownership interest in real property are kept…. After MERS, . . . the servicing rights were transferred after the origination of the loan to an entity so large that communication with the servicer became difficult if not impossible …. The servicer was interested in only one thing – making a profit from the foreclosure of the borrower’s residence – so that the entire predatory cycle of fraudulent origination, resale, and securitization of yet another predatory loan could occur again. This is the legacy of MERS, and the entire scheme was predicated upon the fraudulent designation of MERS as the ‘beneficiary’ under millions of deeds of trust in Nevada and other states. If courts overwhelmed with foreclosures decide to take up the cause, the result could be millions of struggling homeowners with the banks off their backs, and millions of homes no longer on the books of some too-big-to-fail banks. Without those assets, the banks could again be looking at bankruptcy. As was pointed out in a San Francisco Chronicle article by attorney Sean Olender following the October 2007 Boyko [pdf] decision: The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process. . . . The loans at issue dwarf the capital available at the largest U.S. banks combined, and investor lawsuits would raise stunning liability sufficient to cause even the largest U.S. banks to fail . . . . Nationalization of these giant banks might be the next logical step—a step that some commentators said should have been taken in the first place. When the banking system of Sweden collapsed following a housing bubble in the 1990s, nationalization of the banks worked out very well for that country. The Swedish banks were largely privatized again when they got back on their feet, but it might be a good idea to keep some banks as publicly-owned entities, on the model of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. For most of the 20th century it served as a “people’s bank,” making low interest loans to consumers and businesses through branches all over the country. With the strengthened position of Wall Street following the 2008 bailout and the tepid 2010 banking reform bill, the U.S. is far from nationalizing its mega-banks now. But a committed homeowner movement to tear off the predatory mask called MERS could yet turn the tide. While courts are not likely to let 62 million homeowners off scot free, the defect in title created by MERS could give them significant new leverage at the bargaining table. Ellen Brown wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Ellen developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how the Federal Reserve and “the money trust” have usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are webofdebt.com, ellenbrown.com, and public-banking.com. Forget about a class action suit. FYI: MERS was denied standing in the Nevada courts by Fed Judge Kent Dawson in Dec of ’09 that stemmed from a Bankruptcy case where Judge Linda Reigle (spelling?) was also involved. Since then, the pretender LENDERS / MERS, has reassigned the Promissory Notes to other beneficiaries like…RECON TRUST for BOA or National Default Services for Wachovia/Wells Fargo. I believe this is an attempt to circumvent to Dawson ruling about MERS. I also believe that most people will possibly realize that once your Mortgage is in the MERS system it should not matter who MERS reassigns it to. Once it’s in MERS, securitized and sold over and over again…it’s game over. Or is it? That’s NOT the whole story in building your defense. There are many other things that come into play … that’s why I believe that Massi recommended you have an attorney review your Mortgage docs to verify what ..if anything can be done. I believe, based upon what I’ve seen and discussed with 50 people here in Las Vegas that there is hope in fighting back against the FRAUD committed by the LENDERS. Yes! I believe the UCC does come into play here too. Try looking up ‘Holder in Due Course” … yes… “Real Party in interest” (they say they are … you must make them prove it … in court if need be) and try looking up ‘Misprisom of felony” … you’ll like that one too. The solution is out there but it is a damn tough fight trying to find it. As some others have noted here the Fed Reserve, the way money is created from our signature and then monetized over and over again when we signed that note…yeah…that all comes into play. Yes! I also believe that a CLASS ACTION Lawsuit against all these so called Govt and Banking entities would help alot of people … i.e. 62 million perhaps. I am looking for the NRS that actually allows the lenders to do what they’ve done. How have the violated the RICO statues or BK laws or Mail Fraud laws. I am looking for remedies that are based upon LAW to empower others with the knowledge and confidence to fight back and win this battle over your hard earned assets that Nevada lenders want to take away from you. So, fellow citizens on Nevada … there is a cry for freedom, justice and truth. Please educate yourself and share with as many people as possible. Don’t believe what the lenders tell you. You have been deceived … now that you’ve seen an attorney come out in public to exposed this … “the conspiracy theory”…is no longer a theory … it’s a fact! So, there’s just too much to yack about this subject … but that’s my 2 cents worth. KevinG: Even after Mitchell, I am still in court fending off an illegal attempt to steal, yes, steal my home by a loan servicer (at best) who has been aided and abetted by Mers. I have been at it for 2 1/2 years. None of this MERS stuff matters, especially if you live in Palm Beach County Florida. Im tired or reading all of these articles about how we may be so lucky to actually have something go in our favor. I have done my research and I know my loan has fraud all over it, front to back, left to right. In fact the frauds are now so easy to spot that I would be easily ready to defend my home in front of any judge that wants to make rulings based on the laws of this state or federally. problem is that our judge Sasser in Palm Beach County among other judges accross the country, decide that these issues are just small errors by the lenders and decide not to use any of the so called errors(fraud on the court) in coming to the conclusion that they (homeowners)owe someone so whats the point in prolonging the agony? They repeatedly ignore the law, they make the rules up as they go, they make decisions that conflict with prior rulings and other court decisions including state and federal supreme court rulings, they play in the same sand boxes as the lenders attorneys, they ignore the fact that most of the biggest foreclosure mills are under investigations for the florida attorney general, they dont care they are being sued from everyone for the frauds, they have invetsments in the same very trusts that the lenders are foreclosing on, they give you 3 minutes in court if your lucky, they deny access to the court rooms that we as tax payers pay for, they refuse to even look at homeowners motions becasue they already have made up thier mind that the lenders case will win before ever even considering the facts of the cases, they know if they follow the law on just one case then they have to follow the law on millions of loans. Our infamous Palm Beach County Foreclosure Judge Sasser gets to leave her infamous rocket docket spot in palm beach foreclosures to be a judge in other types of law, her replacement is a crimanl judge, to some people that may sound like a good upgrade becasue maybe this new criminal judge will notice the fraudalent acts being done and actually call it what it is and sanction these attorneys that bring this fraud into the court room and end it like some of our other great Judges that i read often are actually stopping the fraud in their courts, but my better thinking believes that this is just more smoke screens, there is so much other powerfull forces in Palm Beach that any one or 2 or 3 or 10 judges cant stop it without giving up thier careers as the new it. On the other hand, if he enforces the laws, it sure will be a bit harder for the fraud fighters to call out a judge for working for the fraudsters with him having a criminal judge backround. I do hope for the best and i reserve my option to make up my mind on this new development until we get to see if he indeed does his job of enforcing ther laws, but be very skeptical. Sorry to get off point here, but my point is simple. they are TOO big to lose this and they will take your house at all cost. your only hope is that you can afford to hire a great attorney who is willing to fight not just beasue of you but becasue of the bigger issues here and to do this for you at a reasonable fee, unfortunatly though as I read on another fraud fighters website, Matt Wieldners site, there was a post from someone like me leaving a comment like i am here, she was in the fight of her life to save her home but the lawyer wants $50,000 to help her. If this is true, we are in for a rude awakening, we will NEVER win, nobody can afford this cost to fight. I was convinced the best thing to do was fight, but i have lost so much faith in the palm beach county court system, in fact a few months back I was called for jury duty, when the judge called on me and asked if I had any reason i wouldnt be a good juror I said ” Your Honor, I would not be a good candidate to set upon this jury” he said” And sir can you explain your reason” and i said ” your honor, the palm beach county system is fefunk as the same as most of our legal system, lawyers fabricate evidence, judges prejudge and your honor if you would like I can be much more specific but in the intrest of respecting the court and the good citizens before you today, i will not, but I will state I will not find anyone guilty of any crime unless the crime is on film that has been forensically verified, i trust no one, especially the lawyers, and i would not be able to render a verdict based on any other evidence” he said ” thank you, please go down stairs and check out with the clerk, you are released from duty” the bigger issue here is that the courts are allowing this fraud, lenders fabricate evidence for one reason, to take your home, the judges know this absoluty for sure, no doubt about it, but they dont care, they allow it. I could understand the judges ruling with the lenders if the lenders were actually trying to help people modify the loans and then the homeowners dont play ball, but the lenders do NOTHING for us, we are in the batters box waiting to swing, but the lenders wont throw us a picth and unless the judges start enforcing the laws, this will be a very long baseball game, we will be a nation of renters, a nation of people that will eventaully snap and a 20th century civil war will break out. I want to fight but Im already feeling beaten. I think of the Spartans, they were few but very smart, very strong, stood up for what was right and they prevailed for a while, but they all died too, becasue they were defrauded by someone that they helped earlier,someone they trusted, they were defeated over greed, greed trumps all else, deal with it, live with it, wrap your head around it, becasue there is nothing you can do about it!!! sounds like the tax payer bailing out the banks, and they dont care, there greed has trumped the idea of helping us, they know deep down they should, but there bank accounts may take a hit so NOWAY will it happen. I HAVE A MERS ACCOUNT HOW DO I GO AFTER THESE CROOKS? PLEASE HELP ME. IS THERE A CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT GOING ON? I HAVE A “MERS” NUMBER. HOW DO I JOIN IN THE CLASS ACTION SUIT TO SUE THESE ——– AND THEY CALL US MORTGAGE BROKERS CROOKS! HOW DARE THEM What would happen to the economy if the 62million home owners walk away with free and clear titles…it would boost the sagging economy….homeowners can then have a chance to reacess their lives and their options for jobs etc and a future…the mortgage money can be put to better use…. Also, base on all that has bee uncovered…sounds as if they signatures of the homeowners made a fortune for the banks and the homeowners should be compensated…do they owe us money?…Your thoughts…. If there is a note holder somehwere…the note is no longer effective….that is why some have ‘notes’ but deny they have them and only at a crucial time in pending foreclosure they may produce or reproduce one…the suddenly found lost note…once securitized, there is no longer a bona fide original note….any changes made to the note renders the original invalid… Good point. I’m of the opinion that these notes are not negotiable at all. I think they are all non-negotiable as the original drafting doesn’t have the verbiage “pay to the order” of “pay to bearer”. Sure they stamp on that afterwards but that only makes the instrument negotiable between subsequent holders. By equities I mean set-off of the principal and interest on the debt owed with the profits gained from the negotiations of said note. Profits were made on these notes. There is no doubt thee maker has an equity interest in that profit. Ref your statement: the promissory notes are not really negotiable instruments…au contraire…they ARE the creation of capital in the USA…by vertue of a stroke of a pen…WE CITIZENS create the capital through prommisory notes (notes, checks, etc). All the “Lenders” do is convert it into a draft! (a security!) Read up on Debt Capital Creation..another name for our monetary system…Federal Reserve… Notes…? 1933…? Wouldn’t Americans be rudely awakened (and really angry) if they really knew how our money is created! …That non-performing asset (“defaulted” prom note) is the PENNER’s asset…not the “Lender’s” … Offset (is another word for bailout)…ALL citizens have a RIGHT to claim the offset !! They just don’t-cause they do not know how!…Stuff THEY do not want you to know and don’t teach in school! It may well be that MERS cannot hold the status of note holder. Accordingly it can neither foreclose nor assign the note to another party. However this does not mean that where MERS acts as custodian of the note, no other party holds the note.The ultimate question is who is the note holder and how is ownership proved. One way ot answer this question is through the chain of mortgage title. It is, however, incorrect to conclude that it is the only way to establish entitlement to the status of note holder. The UCC implies that there are other avenues of proof of note holder status, such as proof that a party is legally entitled to receive the payments provided by the note.The Bankruptcy court has provided another path where a note holder can produce evidence that it is the “real party in interest”. It is premature to suggest that the debt represented by notes held by MERS is forfeit. Bout damn time! I’ve been railing about these MERS for a few of years now. It is a mechanism designed to hide the negotiation of the promissory note. It has nothing to do with registration fees. It is designed to facilitate a back door secondary currency system in which the FED doesn’t have to put up the collateral to circulate more of it’s notes. It’s a giant money laundering scheme. Understand bills of credit and income taxes and you will have the why. A landmark ruling in a recent Kansas Supreme Court case may have given millions of distressed homeowners the legal wedge they need to avoid foreclosure. In Landmark National Bank v. Kesler, 2009 Kan. LEXIS 834, the Kansas Supreme Court held that a nominee company called MERS has no right or standing to bring an action for foreclosure. MERS is an acronym for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, a private company that registers mortgages electronically and tracks changes in ownership. The significance of the holding is that if MERS has no standing to foreclose, then nobody has standing to foreclose – on 60 million mortgages. That is the number of American mortgages currently reported to be held by MERS. Over half of all new U.S. residential mortgage loans are registered with MERS and recorded in its name. Holdings of the Kansas Supreme Court are not binding on the rest of the country, but they are dicta of which other courts take note; and the reasoning behind the decision is sound. The development of “electronic” mortgages managed by MERS went hand in hand with the “securitization” of mortgage loans – chopping them into pieces and selling them off to investors. In the heyday of mortgage securitizations, before investors got wise to their risks, lenders would slice up loans, bundle them into “financial products” called “collateralized debt obligations” (CDOs), ostensibly insure them against default by wrapping them in derivatives called “credit default swaps,” and sell them to pension funds, municipal funds, foreign investment funds, and so forth. There were many secured parties, and the pieces kept changing hands; but MERS supposedly kept track of all these changes electronically. MERS would register and record mortgage loans in its name, and it would bring foreclosure actions in its name. MERS not only facilitated the rapid turnover of mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, but it has served as a sort of “corporate shield” that protects investors from claims by borrowers concerning predatory lending practices. California attorney Timothy McCandless describes the problem like this: “[MERS] has reduced transparency in the mortgage market in two ways. First, consumers and their counsel can no longer turn to the public recording systems to learn the identity of the holder of their note. Today, county recording systems are increasingly full of one meaningless name, MERS, repeated over and over again. But more importantly, all across the country, MERS now brings foreclosure proceedings in its own name – even though it is not the financial party in interest. This is problematic because MERS is not prepared for or equipped to provide responses to consumers’ discovery requests with respect to predatory lending claims and defenses. In effect, the securitization conduit attempts to use a faceless and seemingly innocent proxy with no knowledge of predatory origination or servicing behavior to do the dirty work of seizing the consumer’s home. . . . So imposing is this opaque corporate wall, that in a “vast” number of foreclosures, MERS actually succeeds in foreclosing without producing the original note – the legal sine qua non of foreclosure – much less documentation that could support predatory lending defenses.” The real parties in interest concealed behind MERS have been made so faceless, however, that there is now no party with standing to foreclose. The Kansas Supreme Court stated that MERS’ relationship “is more akin to that of a straw man than to a party possessing all the rights given a buyer.” The court opined: “By statute, assignment of the mortgage carries with it the assignment of the debt. . . . Indeed, in the event that a mortgage loan somehow separates interests of the note and the deed of trust, with the deed of trust lying with some independent entity, the mortgage may become unenforceable. The practical effect of splitting the deed of trust from the promissory note is to make it impossible for the holder of the note to foreclose, unless the holder of the deed of trust is the agent of the holder of the note. Without the agency relationship, the person holding only the note lacks the power to foreclose in the event of default. The person holding only the deed of trust will never experience default because only the holder of the note is entitled to payment of the underlying obligation. The mortgage loan becomes ineffectual when the note holder did not also hold the deed of trust.” [Citations omitted; emphasis added.] MERS as straw man lacks standing to foreclose, but so does original lender, although it was a signatory to the deal. The lender lacks standing because title had to pass to the secured parties for the arrangement to legally qualify as a “security.” The lender has been paid in full and has no further legal interest in the claim. Only the securities holders have skin in the game; but they have no standing to foreclose, because they were not signatories to the original agreement. They cannot satisfy the basic requirement of contract law that a plaintiff suing on a written contract must produce a signed contract proving he is entitled to relief. The banks arranging these mortgage-backed securities have typically served as trustees for the investors. When the trustees could not present timely written proof of ownership entitling them to foreclose, they would in the past file “lost-note affidavits” with the court; and judges usually let these foreclosures proceed without objection. But in October 2007, an intrepid federal judge in Cleveland put a halt to the practice. U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Boyko ruled that Deutsche Bank had not filed the proper paperwork to establish its right to foreclose on fourteen homes it was suing to repossess as trustee. Judges in many other states then came out with similar rulings. Following the Boyko decision, in December 2007 attorney Sean Olender suggested in an article in The San Francisco Chronicle that the real reason for the bailout schemes being proposed by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was not to keep strapped borrowers in their homes so much as to stave off a spate of lawsuits against the banks. Olender wrote: “The sole goal of the [bailout schemes] is to prevent owners of mortgage-backed securities, many of them foreigners, from suing U.S. banks and forcing them to buy back worthless mortgage securities at face value – right now almost 10 times their market worth. The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process. “. . . The catastrophic consequences of bond investors forcing originators to buy back loans at face value are beyond the current media discussion. The loans at issue dwarf the capital available at the largest U.S. banks combined, and investor lawsuits would raise stunning liability sufficient to cause even the largest U.S. banks to fail, resulting in massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of Fannie and Freddie, and even FDIC . . . . “What would be prudent and logical is for the banks that sold this toxic waste to buy it back and for a lot of people to go to prison. If they knew about the fraud, they should have to buy the bonds back.” Needless to say, however, the banks did not buy back their toxic waste, and no bank officials went to jail. As Olender predicted, in the fall of 2008, massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of Fannie and Freddie were pushed through by Henry Paulson, whose former firm Goldman Sachs was an active player in creating CDOs when he was at its helm as CEO. Paulson also hastily engineered the $85 billion bailout of insurer American International Group (AIG), a major counterparty to Goldmans’ massive holdings of CDOs. The insolvency of AIG was a huge crisis for Goldman, a principal beneficiary of the AIG bailout. In a December 2007 New York Times article titled “The Long and Short of It at Goldman Sachs,” Ben Steinwrote: “For decades now, . . . I have been receiving letters [warning] me about the dangers of a secret government running the world . . . . [T]he closest I have recently seen to such a world-running body would have to be a certain large investment bank, whose alums are routinely Treasury secretaries, high advisers to presidents, and occasionally a governor or United States senator.” The pirates seem to have captured the ship, and until now there has been no one to stop them. But 60 million mortgages with fatal defects in title could give aggrieved homeowners and securities holders the crowbar they need to exert some serious leverage on Congress – serious enough perhaps even to pry the legislature loose from the powerful banking lobbies that now hold it in thrall. Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her earlier books focused on the pharmaceutical cartel that gets its power from “the money trust.” Her eleven books include Forbidden Medicine, Nature’s Pharmacy (co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker), and The Key to Ultimate Health (co-authored with Dr. Richard Hansen). Her websites arewww.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com.BREAKING VIDEO!!! FOX NEWS DISCUSSES MERS –
COULD 62 MILLION
HOMES BE FORECLOSURE PROOF?
Here We Go!
CALIFORNIA PRECEDENT
WHAT COULD THIS MEAN FOR HOMEOWNERS?
CRIMINAL CHARGES?
BY THEIR OWN SWORD: MERS’ ROLE IN THE FINANCIAL CRISIS
AXING THE BANKERS’ MONEY TREE
4closureFraud.org
Comments
12 Responses to “BREAKING VIDEO!!! FOX NEWS Discusses MERS – Could 62 Million Homes be Foreclosure Proof?”
Thats for fools and intellectually lazy bums who deserve nothing.
Do your home work and file a statement of claim against the bank.
Offer to pay them first in the direct and immediate exchange of the original instrument of indebtedness in its original form.
Once the bank has defaulted to your offer to settle and pay then file suit.seeking double what the bank claims you owe them.
Whats so difficult about that??
You should contact me. Those of us who have chosen to duke it out should share and compare notes here in Nevada. Soon.
Also,technically, and in the final analysis the true owner is the homeowner…
Also, most of the promissory notes are not really negotiable instruments as they carry conditions…they were poorly prepared and if no one notice that flaw…then they get away with it…check out the terms carefully…who takes the time to read the note?
Also…make sure the mortgage date and the note date are the same…and both together when in question…
Your thoughts….
It is is still non-negotiable against the maker and is to be treated as a simple contract with all the equities and defenses available to the maker as he would have against the original party.
LANDMARK DECISION PROMISES MASSIVE RELIEF FOR HOMEOWNERS AND TROUBLE FOR BANKS
Eliminating the “Straw Man” Shielding Lenders and Investors from Liability
The Potential Impact of 60 Million Fatally Flawed Mortgages
Sunday, 19 September 2010
WE REPORTED THIS 1-2-3 YEARS AGO.
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Ellen Brown, September 19th, 2009
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The Potential Impact of 60 Million Fatally Flawed Mortgages
The banks arranging these mortgage-backed securities have typically served as trustees for the investors. When the trustees could not present timely written proof of ownership entitling them to foreclose, they would in the past file “lost-note affidavits” with the court; and judges usually let these foreclosures proceed without objection. But in October 2007, an intrepid federal judge in Cleveland put a halt to the practice. U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Boyko ruled that Deutsche Bank had not filed the proper paperwork to establish its right to foreclose on fourteen homes it was suing to repossess as trustee. Judges in many other states then came out with similar rulings.
Following the Boyko decision, in December 2007 attorney Sean Olender suggested in an article in The San Francisco Chronicle that the real reason for the bailout schemes being proposed by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was not to keep strapped borrowers in their homes so much as to stave off a spate of lawsuits against the banks. Olender wrote:
“The sole goal of the [bailout schemes] is to prevent owners of mortgage-backed securities, many of them foreigners, from suing U.S. banks and forcing them to buy back worthless mortgage securities at face value – right now almost 10 times their market worth. The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process.
“. . . The catastrophic consequences of bond investors forcing originators to buy back loans at face value are beyond the current media discussion. The loans at issue dwarf the capital available at the largest U.S. banks combined, and investor lawsuits would raise stunning liability sufficient to cause even the largest U.S. banks to fail, resulting in massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of Fannie and Freddie, and even FDIC . . . .
“What would be prudent and logical is for the banks that sold this toxic waste to buy it back and for a lot of people to go to prison. If they knew about the fraud, they should have to buy the bonds back.”
Needless to say, however, the banks did not buy back their toxic waste, and no bank officials went to jail. As Olender predicted, in the fall of 2008, massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of Fannie and Freddie were pushed through by Henry Paulson, whose former firm Goldman Sachs was an active player in creating CDOs when he was at its helm as CEO. Paulson also hastily engineered the $85 billion bailout of insurer American International Group (AIG), a major counterparty to Goldmans’ massive holdings of CDOs. The insolvency of AIG was a huge crisis for Goldman, a principal beneficiary of the AIG bailout.
In a December 2007 New York Times article titled “The Long and Short of It at Goldman Sachs,” Ben Steinwrote:
“For decades now, . . . I have been receiving letters [warning] me about the dangers of a secret government running the world . . . . [T]he closest I have recently seen to such a world-running body would have to be a certain large investment bank, whose alums are routinely Treasury secretaries, high advisers to presidents, and occasionally a governor or United States senator.”
The pirates seem to have captured the ship, and until now there has been no one to stop them. But 60 million mortgages with fatal defects in title could give aggrieved homeowners and securities holders the crowbar they need to exert some serious leverage on Congress – serious enough perhaps even to pry the legislature loose from the powerful banking lobbies that now hold it in thrall.