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WEEKEND DIGEST MAY 21 MAY 25, 2012

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition And Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

MONDAY MAY 21
VOTER ALERT! Letter To The Riverside County CA Superior Court Judges Editor's Note: Voters Please Pay Close Attention And Become Actively Involved In Local Judicial Elections Throughout The United States, In Efforts To Protect America's Property Rights From Further Injustice By Bank-Owned Judges. Spread The Word... The members of the Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Association (RCDDAA) write this open letter in response to. Many eligible borrowers foreclosure reviews passing up

2012

Months after the first invitations were mailed, only a small percentage of eligible borrowers have accepted a chance to have their foreclosure cases checked for errors and maybe win restitution. By April 30, fewer than 165,000 people had applied to have their foreclosures checked for mistakes about 4% of the 4.1 million who received letters about the free reviews late last year, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Florida foreclosure case could slam banks The Florida Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments Thursday in a lawsuit that could undo hundreds of thousands of foreclosures and open up U.S. banks to severe financial liabilities in the state where they face the bulk of their foreclosure-fraud litigation.

Fifth real estate investor pleads guilty to rigging foreclosure auctions A local real estate investor last week became the latest businessman to acknowledge guilt in a years-long conspiracy to rig foreclosure auctions to artificially depress prices by limiting competition. Steven J. Cox, 58, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Sherman Antitrust Act.

The Administration PR Securitization Task Force

Fail

on

the

Foreclosure crisis finally hatches a winner: mosquitoes Homes abandoned to foreclosures have given rise to an unexpected side effect that will only get worse this summer: stagnant swimming pools and overgrown yards transforming into mosquito breeding grounds. This year, early-season heat and rain could combine with predictions of an uptick in foreclosures to truly create the buggy summer officials dread.

Remember that mortgage securitization task force that would supposedly satisfy the publics deep yearning for some basic law enforcement by prosecuting the banks for securities fraud? Well, lately people have been pointing out that the task force isnt showing many signs of life, and is showing every indication of being slow walked by the Feds.

MERS in State and Federal Courts In the last newsletter, we addressed general standing issues in bankruptcy and other federal courts. Heres the next installment from the bibliography compiled for the Boot Camp by Robin Miller. One area in which standing issues regularly take center stage (or should) is in foreclosure actions involving MERS..

CT Woman Pleads Guilty To Ponzi Scheme, Deceived TARP Bank Brass lulled investors in with false promises that their money would be safe, said Christy Romero, Special Inspector General at SIGTARP. Little did the unsuspecting investors know that they were funding Brass personal expenses as she diverted the funds in part through her mortgage at a TARP recipient bank.

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This Edition Of The ForeclosureGate Gazette Contains Active Links

WEEKEND DIGEST MAY 21 MAY 25, 2012

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate Is A Public Service Homeowner Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

TUESDAY MAY 22
Struggling Homeowners Reluctant to Seek Help According to a survey conducted by Money Management International (MMI), struggling homeowners are reluctant to seek professional mortgage relief help. The survey found that half of respondents would first seek help from a family member or friend, followed by 26 percent who said they would see a lender and 13 percent from a housing counseling or mortgage relief program. Democratic Attorney General Candidates Talk Foreclosure, Republican Rivals Remain Silent The nation's attorneys general flexed their legal muscles earlier this year when they signed off on a $25 billion national mortgage settlement. Often overlooked in the commotion of the presidential contest, attorney general races in 10 states this year will decide who continues the work, at least at the state level, of investigating banks for financial misdeeds.

2012

Carpentersville looking to solve foreclosure issues But a local business owner, who has already bought and fixed more than 100 homes in the Meadowdale subdivision on the villages east side and continues to do so, says the village is wasting its time by putting in for the study, because in his opinion, hes slowly resolving the foreclosure problem himself.

St. Paul church hopes $1 donations will save it The Rev. Oliver White is making one last effort to save his East Side church from foreclosure, and it's a long shot. He's asking 200,000 members of the public to each mail $1 to Grace Community United Church of Christ $1 apiece by June. Otherwise, White said, his decision to take a stand in favor of gay marriage rights will have cost him and his small congregation their spiritual home on Forest Street in St. Paul.

Former Bank President Pleads Guilty To Bank Fraud The onset of the financial crisis was a crossroads for many bank executives, said Christy Romero, Special Inspector General at SIGTARP. Executives had the choice of writing off losses on bad loans or covering up those losses through fraud. Harper chose the latter and concealed the status of the loans from others at First Community Bank, from the banks regulators, and in the banks TARP application.

Foreclosures Are at a 4-Year Low, But Thats Not Necessarily Good News Filings also include scheduled auctions, when foreclosed homes go up for sale, as well as bank repossessions, when a delinquent homeowner gets kicked out of the property so that the bank can market it. While filings have been decreasing, foreclosure starts which include initial default notices and, in some states, foreclosure auctions have actually risen three months in a row, including a 7% rise in March over February.

Foreclosure Sales Slip In Riverside County CA Foreclosure sales in Riverside County continued their double-digit slide last month, reflecting a general decline in auctions statewide, according to a real estate tracking firm.

Lenders Again Dealing Credit to Risky Clients But as financial institutions recover from the losses on loans made to troubled borrowers, some of the largest lenders to the less than creditworthy, including Capital One and GM Financial, are trying to woo them back, while HSBC and JPMorgan Chase are among those tiptoeing again into subprime lending.

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This Edition Of The ForeclosureGate Gazette Contains Active Links

WEEKEND DIGEST MAY 21 MAY 25, 2012

ACADEMIA ADVERSARIES ADVOCATES BLOGOSPHERE LEGAL LEGISLATE OP-ED HOMEOWNERS NEWS ForeclosureGate Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

WEDNESDAY MAY 23

2012

Billion Dollar Bait & Switch: States Divert Foreclosure Deal Funds States have diverted $974 million from this years landmark mortgage settlement to pay down budget deficits or fund programs unrelated to the foreclosure crisis, according to a ProPublica analysis. Thats nearly forty percent of the $2.5 billion in penalties paid to the states under the agreement.

"These people think they have the force to come into my home and steal my property" Yolo County sheriff's were scheduled to evict the Ponce family from their east Woodland home early this morning, barring the intervention of members of Occupy Sacramento. Family matriarch Alma Ponce say late Monday, the family plans to occupy their residence until turned out by authorities.

Bank of America Foreclosure Backlash in Pasadena CA About 100 Occupy protesters, reports the Pasadena Star News, seeking to reverse an eviction gathered Tuesday outside the Pasadena house of a Bank of America executive in the San Rafael neighborhood. The newspaper said the home belonged to Raul Anaya, a B of A executive.

SEC faces settlements

heat

from

Democrats

over

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which polices corporations, can usually count on support from Democrats and a rougher reception from Republicans. But, on Thursday, the agency found an issue on which its traditional friends are its critics and its traditional critics are its friends.

SIGTARP Quarterly Report To Congress, April 25, 2012 One enduring legacy of TARP is criminal activity associated with the program. SIGTARP investigates crime related to TARP and actively supports the prosecution of individuals it investigates. SIGTARP has over 150 investigations underway related to TARP.

Do Gated Communities Threaten Society? The shooting death of Trayvon Martin has caused an epidemic of soul-searching in the United States. In the weeks since George Zimmerman pulled the trigger in that Florida gated community, it feels as though the entire nation has been busy trying to explain to ourselves what happened and why.

Flood of foreclosures to hit the housing market The settlement, agreed to by the nation's five largest mortgage lenders, is expected to speed up the foreclosure process by providing stricter guidelines for the banks to follow when repossessing homes. The banks involved include Bank of America, JPMorgan Ally Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo and Financial.

U.S. Standard of Living Has Fallen More Than 50% Using the year 2000 as the numerical base from which to "zero" all of the numbers, real wages peaked in 1970 at around $20/hour. Today the average worker makes $8.50/hour -- more than 57% less than in 1970. And since the average wage directly determines the standard of living of our society, we can see that the average standard of living in the U.S. has plummeted by over 57% over a span of 40 years.

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2012
THURSDAY MAY 24
Fighting Foreclosure Together Some Occupiers just want the banks to act more reasonably; others want to abolish capitalism. Most cruise to meetings on two wheels; others hate bike lanes. In Minneapolis, as in places across the United States, Occupy Our Homes has brought union members, anarchists, lawyers, grassroots organizers, democrats and veterans all under the same roof, united by a common goal of saving homeowners from eviction and full neighborhoods from displacement. Lawyers prey on foreclosure-facing homeowners in San Fernando Valley and beyond Suspecting fraud, the Van Nuys resident hired a lawyer to sort things out. That only made things worse. The attorney told her there was indeed fraud, and promised to sue the bank and get her a new loan. She paid him $8,000 upfront and he advised her to stop making her mortgage payments while the matter was being pursued in court.

CA AG Kamala Harris Rejects Governor Browns Attempt to Raid Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Funds California Attorney General Kamala Harris has responded to Jerry Browns bid to raid foreclosure fraud settlement funds through the back door by zeroing out the state support for the programs she has slated for the money to go.

Of Course Foreclosure Settlement Money Isn't Going to People With Foreclosures Foreclosed-upon homeowners who thought their state governments would deliver on promises to help victims of alleged foreclosure abuse may not get their bailout. As The New York Times reports, funds from the settlement between state attorneys general and five banks that the AGs claimed would deliver "as much as $25 billion in relief to distressed borrowers" are going elsewhere.

Scrutiny over allegations of inflated home prices In June 2006, Antioch residents Stacey and Darren Nash received an enticing letter in the mail from Discovery Builders. The one-page flier from the Seeno Homes company exclaimed, "NEW INCENTIVE ALERT!!!!" For the Nashes, that promotion led to the promise of a $100,000 incentive that would make their dream home affordable, according to their 2008 lawsuit.

Beware of 'Skin In The Game' Home Price Predictions For nearly two years, I have been warning in my articles posted on BUSINESS INSIDER that there is no housing bottom in sight. Ive been correct. Yet one analyst after another has been proclaiming that the housing bottom is finally here. This is nonsense! Many of these "experts" have skin in the game and hope to lure you back into the market.

Housing Data Disappoint ... Again So the latest housing number is kind of bad: 654,000 new units were started in March, 5.8 percent below the revised February numbers. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting something considerably higher. The median estimate of the 82 who ventured a guess was 705,000. Even the lowball forecast, 670,000, was too high.

So far, U.S. regulators have reacted passively to such moves Form must follow function. For financial regulation to be effective, it should focus on economic function, rather than legal form. If it doesnt, institutions will quickly find new forms that free them of regulatory constraints. What walks like a duck and quacks like a duck must be regulated as a duck, even if it is legally a goose.

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This Edition Of The ForeclosureGate Gazette Contains Active Links

ACADEMIA

ADVERSARIES

ADVOCATES

BLOGOSPHERE

LEGAL

LEGISLATE

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HOMEOWNERS NEWS

ForeclosureGate Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

2012
FRIDAY MAY 25
Fed releases foreclosure review plan for Ally The Federal Reserve released a plan between Ally Financial and third-party consultant Pricewaterhouse Coopers, hired to conduct the independent foreclosure review. The release also included an action plan from Citigroup, updating the Fed on its implementation of consent order requirements agreed to in April 2011. The Fed also included a letter from HSBC ($40.52 -0.03%) covering how the bank plans to implement single-point-of-contact requirements under the consent order.

Fed Releases Video on Foreclosure Reviews The Federal Reserve Wednesday posted a video on its website explaining how homeowners who were financially harmed by a mortgage foreclosure can apply for a free, independent foreclosure file review. The brief announcement reminds borrowers that, as part of the enforcement actions taken in April 2011 by federal banking regulatory agencies.

California widow sues Wells Fargo over foreclosure that pushed her husband to suicide For Oriane and Norman Rousseau, their hopes of keeping the modest California house that had been their dream home ended with a loud noise while Oriane was in the kitchen. She rushed to the bedroom, unsure of what had happened. But when the part-time nurse.

Fannie Mae Regulator (FHFA) California foreclosure bills

opposes

Foreclosure Photo Exhibit Sheds Light On Housing Crisis Eleven months after Brandie Barbiere stopped paying the mortgage on her Milliken, Colo., home, her husband found out when he returned from work to see their possessions piled on the front lawn.

A pair of controversial bills in the California Legislature that would give homeowners more rights to fight foreclosures is being opposed by the nation's principal home loan regulator. The Federal Housing Finance Agency on Tuesday.

Home construction may not help boost the economy in 2012 Builders began work on fewer homes than forecast in March, signaling a sustained industry recovery will take time to get underway. Housing starts dropped 5.8 percent to a 654,000 annual rate, less than the lowest estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and the least since October, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington.

Michael Lewis Interviews Himself: Boycott the Banks! What was your first reaction to the Occupy movement? Some blend of glee and relief. Glee because, by both temperament and occupation, I have a rooting interest in socially disruptive behavior. Relief because I had begun to think such protests might never happen.

Income of Rulers vs. the Ruled Washington is frequently accused of being elite and out of touch with ordinary Americans. Certainly the economic confidence numbers inside versus outside the Beltway support this charge.

In California, Economic Gap of East vs. West For decades, California has been seen nationally and by its own residents as a state divided into north and south, urbane tree-huggers versus carobsessed beach hoppers.

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