Tag Archives: Foreclosure

Washington State Supreme Court: MERS Cannot Foreclose

The Washington state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that MERS cannot foreclose on delinquent homeowners.

In a unanimous opinion, the Washington Supreme Court said that Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) can’t begin a foreclosure itself because it doesn’t hold the note the homeowner signed with the lender. The ruling means banks or other noteholders will have to initiate foreclosures instead of relying on MERS.

Banks will still be able to foreclose, but they must take the action themselves.  Foreclosures will still happen and will likely take a bit longer and be a bit more expensive.

Will this be another nail in MERS’ coffin?

Read more here.

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Recent Foreclosure Laws do More Harm Than Good

When Reuters finally figures something out we should all sit up and take notice.

Reuters has discovered that the blizzard of foreclosure laws, which were intended to solve the foreclosure problem actually caused more harm than they did good.

Nevada’s AB 284 is the case in point.  When AB 284 went into effect foreclosure action ground to a halt.  The banks were fearful of doing what needed to be done.  Consequently, the needed cure was delayed and the crisis was prolonged.

Notice of Default Filings

The government caused the foreclosure crisis.  And now the government set out to fix the crisis.  And whenever the government gets involved we can be sure that the government’s solution will be much worse than the original government induce problem.

When legislators attempt to protect the homeowner who hadn’t paid his bills they actually harm the lender and anyone that may want to get a loan in the future.  Why would a lender make a loan where the legislature could just declare that the loan never needs to be repaid?

“Many state laws that stretch out the period for legitimate foreclosures result in no added benefit for the homeowner and produce harm to the housing finance system and to neighborhoods,” said Alfred Pollard, general counsel to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, at a House of Representatives oversight hearing in March.

Ricky Beach, a Reno real estate agent thinks the law killed the market in the Reno-Sparks area.

Ricky Beach, a real estate agent in Reno, Nevada, said the new law, AB 284, “has pretty much killed the market here.” The lack of foreclosure activity has led to a dearth of inventory, he said, with the number of homes for sale in the area down to 778 today from more than 1,700 in September.

And,

“The bill did nothing to solve the crisis – it’s just prolonged it,” Beach said. “Sooner or later the banks will work out how to deal with the law. And then foreclosures will hit the market, and prices will crash back down.”

Malik Ahmad, a Las Vegas attorney agrees:

Malik Ahmad, a Las Vegas foreclosure defense lawyer who has spent the last six years trying to help vulnerable borrowers deal with unscrupulous banks, said the law had completely changed his view of the nature of the crisis.

“This law has become a mockery,” Ahmad said. “I am now turning down clients every day who I know have no intention of ever trying to pay their mortgage. They just want to stay in their homes for free. And that is a bad situation for everyone, lenders and homeowners.”

Read more here.

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Being a Real Estate Agent Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

Who’da thunk? Realtoring can be dangerous to you health.

Apparently, unhappy clients have expressed their disappointment by getting physical and have even caused fatalities.

Did they really expect their short sale to sell for 30% above the market?

Read more: http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2012/05/01/attacks-against-real-estate-professionals-surge

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MERS Wins One in Nevada Too

It looks like MERS has won another case, this time in Nevada. In the case of Volkes vs. BAC Home Loans Servicing the court ruled in favor of the defendant.

The Nevada Supreme court ruled that the MERS assignment was valid.

It was not clearly erroneous for the district court to determine that
the MERS assignment was valid.

The appellants also claimed BAC did not participate in mediation in good faith, but that claim was apparently not included for judicial review.

Apparently this link is to an unpublished order, and cannot be considered precedent.

Read the order: http://www.buckleysandler.com/uploads/104/doc/volkes-v-bac-2-24-12.pdf

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MERS Wins Case in Kentucky

The U.S. Court for the Western District of Kentucky, Paducah Division, has ruled in favor of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. (MERS). The case was filed against MERS by the clerks of two Kentucky counties where they sought to collect the recording fees that the banks avoided by using MERS.

Kentucky law, like most other states specifies that when a loan is assigned the holder of the loan must record the assignment within 30 days. It appears to me that MERS did NOT comply with Kentucky law and may still face some consequences. But, the judge ruled that the county clerks had no standing in the case because the law was designed to protect the property owner, not the clerks.

First, the county clerks are not members of the class of persons the General Assembly intended to protect by the recording statutes cited by Plaintiffs. Here, the class of persons intended to be protected by Kentucky’s land recording system consists of existing lienholders seeking to give notice of their secured status; prospective purchasers and creditors seeking information about prior liens; and owners of property seeking release of liens once debts are paid off.

And:

The purpose of the statutes cited by Plaintiffs is to assure that liens are discharged when an underlying loan is paid off, to give subsequent purchasers and lenders notice of recorded liens, and to allow creditors to give notice of their secured interest in the property.

The suit was dismissed with prejudice.

Read more: http://nationalmortgageprofessional.com/news28486/legal-action-against-mers-dropped-kentucky

And the ruling: http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?page=1&xmldoc=In%20FDCO%2020120221C28.xml&docbase=CSLWAR3-2007-CURR&SizeDisp=7

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Freddie Mac Lied to the Nation

If you ever bought or even tried to buy a short sale you are aware of the problems and difficulty in completing the transaction.  You might have wondered, “how could the banks be so obstinate?”

We now learn that even though the banks may have been difficult to work with, much of the problem came from the government in the name of Freddie Mac.  “But, I thought the government wanted to help us,” you say.

Freddie went out of their way to paint the investors as the enemy.  They issued policy letters describing potential mortgage fraud with the intention of making the investor out to be the criminal.  The only problem was that Freddie itself was the real fraudster.

The truth is that Freddie Mac actually placed their bets against the housing crisis actually ever getting solved.  Freddie made money whenever they were able to stop a short sale.  Freddie benefited whenever the rest of us lost.

For more than a year, Freddie Mac has adopted numerous policies designed to prevent the private purchase of toxic assets and forced servicers to enforce these policies. Demands for unreasonable offers on short sales, delays in processing short sales, affidavits preventing resale of their properties after being rehabbed and deed restrictions on real-estate-owned properties restricting resale price are among the myriad obstacles private buyers face in trying to buy Freddie’s inventory.

Besides delaying the unwinding of the troubled entity, several of these policies may in fact be illegal. Restricting the ability of private buyers to resell their properties and attempting to dictate resale value constitute unreasonable restraint on alienation. In plain English, once Freddie sells one of its toxic assets, it has no standing in future transactions related to the property.

Freddie has attempted to justify these policies through a taxpayer-funded media campaign arguing that the act of buying, rehabbing and reselling a property constitutes a crime and is inherently an act of fraud. Both Freddie and Fannie Mae have worked with enforcement officials to convince them of this lie. To the embarrassment of these enforcement officials, Freddie left out one important detail: Every time it stopped a short sale, Freddie made money.

Read more: http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_96/john_grant_end_freddie_mac_policies_against_private_market-212409-1.html?pos=oopih

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Foreclosure Activity Likely to Increase This Year

We can expect a large increase on foreclosure activity this year. At least, that’s what the LA Times thinks. Foreclosure activity has been suppressed because the lenders have been focusing on getting their act together. Here in Nevada they face an added burden of AB 284 which forces them to certify that all their paperwork is in order.

But, they are beginning to work through their backlog so we can expect an increase in activity.

The state’s difficulties were reflected in RealtyTrac’s report, which showed California with the third-highest incidence of foreclosure filings in 2011, behind only Nevada and Arizona.

Analysts also expect CA to stabilize quickly due to their fairly fast timeline. Nevada, on the other hand, is hampered by the effect of AB-284.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-foreclosures-20120112,0,7066381.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fbusiness+%28L.A.+Times+-+Business%29

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Foreclosure Starts are Down Across the West

Foreclosure starts are down all across the West Coast for December. Reduced filings were reported in California, Nevada and Washington. Nevada showed drops of 14%.

According to ForeclosureRadar the drops were due to the closing of trustee sale locations in California. Riverside County passed an ordinance prohibiting solicitation on all County property. California law only specifies that the location must be within the County where the property is located and must be published in the Notice of Sale. Nevada law states

2. All sales of real property must be made:
(a) In a county with a population of less than 100,000, at the courthouse in the county in which the property or some part thereof is situated.
(b) In a county with a population of 100,000 or more, at the public location in the county designated by the governing body of the county for that purpose.

Here in Reno trustee sales are conducted on the steps of the Court House on Virginia Street.

The slow down in Nevada was attributed to AB 284 which established new foreclosure rules requiring the lender and trustee to certify that they have done everything correctly.

“Nevada’s new foreclosure rules appear on track to bring a near complete halt to foreclosures in that state,” said Sean O’Toole, founder and chief executive officer of ForeclosureRadar.

“In the near term this will certainly help homeowners who were facing foreclosure, eviction, and potentially deficiency judgements. Longer term, we believe there will be unintended consequences for the state as business declines for the many real estate related companies that would normally service, resell and finance those foreclosures.”

Read more: http://www.housingwire.com/2012/01/13/foreclosure-starts-drop-across-the-west-coast?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+housingwire%2FuOVI+%28HousingWire%29

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Foreclosure Rate Heat Map for Nevada

We know that Nevada leads the nation in foreclosures but seldom with little supporting data.

This heat map from RealtyTrac shows the foreclosure data for Nevada county by county. One out of 177 housing units received a foreclosure filing in December, 2011. Washoe County had one for every 318 housing units. Surprisingly, Lyon County even topped Clark county with 1 for every 144 units. All this compares with 1 for every 634 units nationwide. Check it out.

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Unemployed Borrowers Get Break from Fannie Mae

New guidelines from Fannie Mae followed similar guidelines from Freddie Mac on forbearance for homeowners that are unemployed and facing foreclosure. The loan servicer can grant six months forbearance without the GSE’s approval.

If the borrower is still unemployed Fannie Mae can approve an additional six months forbearance. After that the lender and borrower must consider other options.

The borrower is expected to repay the lost payments over a longer period. But in reality, in many cases the forbearance would simply amount to one year free rent.

This follows a similar program last summer for FHA loans and loan modifications.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/business/unemployed-mortgage-holders-get-payment-extension.html

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