I mean, as Marcy Kaptur recommends, if you're being foreclosed on, just tell the forecloser "Show me the note.". Then challenge it. As S&L debacle enforcer William Black points out, the process of slicing and dicing [securitizing] the mortgages was so sloppy, and so riddled with fraud, that "the purchasers of securitized instruments (not just mortgages) do not even have the loan file data."
But take it one step further: IIRC, homes are American's major asset class, even today.
[The following will show that I know no nothing about personal finance, as well as knowing nothing about high finance. Maybe somebody better at this (Paul) can work through the implications of having the titles unclear to a large percentage of American's major asset class.]
But if there are no records on file, that means the titles aren't clear.
So, if most of your net work is your house, and the title to your house isn't clear, is any transaction based on that net worth enforceable? (I mean, it all comes down, doesn't it, to "We can take your house." But if it's not clear who actually has title to the house, how exactly is the taking to be accomplished?)
Maybe somebody can explain to me why the logic if "jingle mail" doesn't apply to all contracts?
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CBS Saturday evening had this story about homeowner who
won't benefit from the Obama/Dem mortgage asistance plan. About two minutes, and near the top of the broadcast interestingly.
The family had catastrophic healthcare costs for their daughter's rare illness and took out a second mortgage for which the interest rate ballooned. Initially, the mortgage holder said it was willing to modify the mortgage, but when the Obama plan came out with no requirements for mortgage holders to do so it reneged, per the homeowners.
Thank you, Ellen Tauscher, et al; you did well for the banksters.
Intriguiging statistics: WH projects 7 million homeowers will be helped by the plan, but other experts say only about 1.5 million will receive help. The Bush HOPE plan said it would aid 400,000 homeowners but only 312 have received help through it as of January. Now, this is broadcast news with no citations or links (grrrr). No transcript yet that I could find.
If you're lucky when you watch the video, you'll get the dachshund Honda commercial. Cuuuute. I even played it again to try to see the dog/tennis ball things again.
Title Is Different Than Note (Info for Lambert)
At least mine always has been. The title is in my name and on file with the State. It's the property record and forms the basis for the property taxes as well as legal ownership of the land. You have a title regardless of whether you have a mortgage.
What's all fucked up are the loan documents (separate from the legal title to the house). These are sometimes referred to as "the note." Generally, when you take out a mortgage, the loan documents give the lender a lien against your title. Basically, the bank is a secured creditor in that if you don't pay, they get your property (this differs from unsecured creditors like credit cards, they don't get specific property if you can't pay, they have to sue you and try to recover from whatever assets you may or may not have and they will be behind any secured creditors for that specific property). The lien is usually filed against your title with the State to provide a public record. But the title is still in your name.
Now, maybe there's a way this can benefit the banks, but it seems to me their greed got the best of them and there's a giant fucking hole in their scheme* if whoever ended up owning the mortgage can't prove they own the mortgage.
Let's walk this through:
I buy a house for $500,000 and owe $480,000 on it. I sign a loan document with Bank A that states I'll repay it over time and if I can't, then they get my house through foreclosure. They file a lien on my title showing that I owe them $480,000 and that I used my property as security.
Then things get interesting. The bank slices and dices my mortgage, selling it off as part of a package to Bank B and then it moves again and again, going all over the world, being packaged and re-packaged. In the end Bank C buys it. But because of the greed and the desire to make a quick buck, all my loan documents got left behind somewhere and there's nothing specifically saying that Bank C owns my loan in particular.
Now I get laid off and can't make the payments. Bank A can't foreclose, it sold my mortgage. I probably have a letter that says it sold it to Bank B. Only Bank B doesn't own it anymore either. Bank C owns it (it paid for it), but can't prove it owns it because it doesn't have any loan documents and lord knows where they got lost in all the selling and re-selling of the note.** Bank C files for foreclosure. I say, great, prove I owe you the money. Bank C can't prove I owe it any money, so it can't foreclose. It's screwed.
What's unclear isn't the title, it's the lien. The one potential pitfall for the title holder is that when I go to sell, it could be difficult for me to get the lien removed if the holder of it is unclear.
At least that's my understanding of it. Others probably know more.
* Of course, this all depends on who's scheme it is. It's very likely that the end owner of the loans is a victim of fraud in that they paid more than the underlying loans were worth. In that case, they're more of a victim than a schemer. And the "they" is all the middlemen who sold it to them who probably don't care if they can foreclose or not.
** And since there's probably layers on layers of fraud as the note moves through the system, it's probably in someone's best interest that Bank C never see the loan documents.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
I vote for layers and layers of fraud
Worth a post, BD. So far as I know, nobody's writing on this (or pushing Marcy Kaptur's idea, either).
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
It Is A Question Worth Asking
Just why did all those loan documents disappear? I doubt it was just sloppiness. It's easier to sell nothing for something if you lose the evidence of its true worth.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Read today
about a person who was foreclosed on by Bank C, in the above comment. Even though she had been paying Bank B, where she had been told to send payments, who took her money for a loan they had sold. She was not in arrears to Bank B.
I suspect this person could be in court for years getting this mess straight.