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General News    H2'ed 10/3/10

SHOCK THERAPY FOR WALL STREET: BANKING GIANTS SUSPEND THOUSANDS OF FORECLOSURES

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"Maybe this is like shock therapy. Maybe this will actually get the lenders to the table and encourage them to work out deals that are to the benefit of everybody."

--Economist Karl E. Case, quoted in the New York Times

The hits are coming fast and furiously. Major Wall Street mortgage lenders could soon be falling like dominos and looking again for handouts.

On September 20th, Ally Financial Inc., which owns GMAC Mortgage, the nation's 4th largest lender, halted evictions and resale of repossessed homes in 23 states. This was after a document processor for the company admitted that he had signed off on 10,000 pieces of foreclosure paperwork a month without reading them. The 23 states were all those where foreclosures must be approved by a court, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida and Illinois.

On September 24, Representatives Alan Grayson (D-FL), Barney Frank (D- MA) and Corrine Brown (D-FL) directed a letter to Fannie Mae questioning its use of "foreclosure mills," which were described as "law firms representing lenders that specialize in speeding up the foreclose process, often without regard to process, substance or legal propriety." The letter followed a report by the Florida attorney general's office in August that it was investigating three law firms that had allegedly fabricated documents in thousands of cases to obtain final judgments of foreclosure.

On September 24, California attorney general Jerry Brown asked GMAC to halt foreclosures in his state until the lender could prove it was complying with a law that prohibits lenders from taking steps to foreclose a home before making an effort to work with the borrower. California is a non-judicial foreclosure state, meaning foreclosures do not require the prior approval of a court.

On September 28, JPMorgan Chase said it was halting 56,000 foreclosures because some of its employees might have improperly prepared the necessary documents. All of the suspensions were in the 23 states where foreclosures require court approval.

On September 29, the Washington Post reported that a top federal bank regulator had directed seven of the nation's largest lenders to review their foreclosure processes, after learning about widespread mishandling of homeowner evictions. Besides JPMorgan Chase, they included Bank of America, Citibank, HSBC, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo. The Washington Post reported:

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Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including the best-selling WEB OF DEBT. In THE PUBLIC BANK SOLUTION, her latest book, she explores successful public banking models historically and (more...)
 

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