From our friends at ProPublica, and article by Marian Wang:
While they may be conducting their own investigations, federal prosecutors and national bank regulators for the most part aren’t the ones leading the investigation into the foreclosure mess. At least that’s the perception—one that’s reinforced when Elizabeth Warren, Obama’s head of consumer financial protection, says her money is on a 50-state investigation by the states’ attorneys general. The New York Times’ Joe Nocera, for instance, has said that the handful of federal investigations into the subject are “not going to amount to a hill of beans.”Why such low expectations for the feds? A piece in the Washington Post today may shed some light (emphasis added):
As foreclosures began to mount across the country three years ago, a group of state bank regulators suspected that some borrowers might be losing their homes unnecessarily. So the state officials asked the biggest national banks for details about their foreclosure operations.
When two banks—J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo—declined to cooperate, the state officials asked the banks’ federal regulator for help, according to a letter they sent. But the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees national banks, denied the states’ request, saying the firms should answer only to inquiries from federal officials. In a response to state officials, John Dugan, comptroller at the time, wrote that his agency was already planning to collect foreclosure information and that any additional monitoring risked “confusing matters.”
But even as it closed the door on state oversight, the OCC chose itself not to scrutinize the foreclosure operations of the largest national banks, forgoing any examination of their procedures and paperwork. Instead, the agency relied on the banks’ in-house assessments. These provided no hint of the problems to come until they had tripped the nation’s housing market, agency officials later acknowledged.
The music video in the background of this 2007 YouTube video was made in response to the 1992 housing bubble implosion. It makes you wonder, will we ever learn?
And, here’s Megadeth with “Foreclosure on an American Dream,” Guess no one listened. (Lyrics)
Rhiannon “Rhi” Bowman is an independent journalist who contributes snarky commentary on Creative Loafing’s CLog blog four days a week in addition to writing for several other local media organizations. To learn more, click the links or follow Rhi on Twitter.
This article appears in Nov 9-15, 2010.
Questionable mortgage activity and fraudulent foreclosure is IMPOSSIBLE without an Officer-of-the-Court (a lawyer) filing civil, as well as bankruptcy judicial pleadings! And the current Congressional hearings on Hearing on Mortgage Services and Foreclosure Practices should include a THOROUGH probe of the LETHAL role of lawyers regarding mortgage and real estate repossessions! Otherwise, investigative hearings exclusive of the very lawyers who file court pleadings has appearances of a dog and pony show.
Lawyers are required to prosecute legal claims by means of law, rather than predilections! Even if / when mortgage lenders instruct lawyers to file inappropriate or unlawful documents, a LAWYER is obligated to advise what can and cannot be lawfully done!
For a very LONG time people such as Professor Elizabeth Warren, Professor Katherine Porter, and Gretchen Morgenson-NY Times (and even me!) have sounded alarms about PREDATORY, sometimes irreparable outcomes from UNREGULATED, IGNORED debt collection ILLEGALITIES.
Our nation’s mortgage crisis has finally caused serious pondering of factors that indicate a mammoth creature (I’m certain it is the judicial elephant!) might be the driving force for this incredible Banking debacle! For myself, and people who ask me to help, I HOPE a graphic TRUE STORY, spelling out methods that judicial systems are utilized to accomplish fraudulent real estate conveyances, and unlawful collections, is a catalyst for needed CHANGE. The epitomizing foreclosure story is found here:
Foreclosure Fraud Assault – A Cry For Help http://newsblaze.com/story/20101116120222nnnn.nb/topstory.html
“A foreclosure that entails savagery, fraud, corruption, greed, intrusion, peril, trauma, desolation, shocking deviation from established law and court rules and procedures, and reprisals for whistleblowing and for not relinquishing one’s home to sham foreclosure is a riveting story worth being told.
The victim’s painful story comes with a plea for humanity to rise to a duty of raising awareness, and not merely for the sake of aiding this one victim. It is for the sake of calling attention – and hopefully “making a difference” by requiring lawmakers to make changes in what appears to be third-world judicial systems of shocking perversion and inequality, harmful to the entire economy.
Encapsulated in the story “Foreclosure Gang Rape,. . .,” the victim’s graphic details of years of harm from lawyers, judges, and banks summed up as ‘gang rape’ is commensurate with defilement, exploitation, humiliation, bigotry, betrayal, invasion, revilement, assault, depredation, torture, despoliation, stigmatization, maltreatment, denigration, ruin, pillage, ransack, intrusion, and racism.
Wells Fargo turned over the modified loan debt to a foreclosure mill debt collection lawyer who used a defunct lender’s identity to foreclose, as well as demand unfair fees. At some point after foreclosure had been filed, the victim discovered that the modification consisted of a contract between the homeowner and a fictitious lender. . .”