Truthout's Ellen Brown takes a close look at the many pieces surrounding the latest disclosures of missing and/or forged mortgage documents, examines the reasons behind it - and explains why the problem won't just go away:
By most reports, it would appear that the voluntary suspension of foreclosures is underway to review simple, careless, procedural errors - errors which the conscientious banks are hastening to correct. Even Gretchen Morgenson in The New York Times characterizes the problem as "flawed paperwork."However, those errors go far deeper than mere sloppiness; they are concealing a massive fraud. They cannot be corrected with legitimate paperwork, and that was the reason the servicers had to hire "foreclosure mills" to fabricate the documents. These errors involve perjury and forgery - fabricating documents that never existed and swearing to the accuracy of facts not known.
Karl Denninger at MarketTicker is calling it "Foreclosuregate." Diana Ollick of CNBC calls it "the RoboSigning Scandal." On Monday, Ollick reported rumors that the government is planning a 90-day foreclosure moratorium to deal with the problem.
Three large mortgage issuers - JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and GMAC - have voluntarily suspended thousands of foreclosures, and a number of calls have been made for investigations.Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray announced on Wednesday that he is filing suit against Ally Financial and GMAC for civil penalties up to $25,000 per violation for fraud in hundreds of foreclosure suits.These problems cannot be swept under the rug as mere technicalities. They go to the heart of the securitization process itself. The snowball has just started to roll.
Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism has uncovered a price list from a company called DocX that specializes in "document recovery solutions."
DocX is the technology platform used by Lender Processing Services to manage a national network of foreclosure mills. The price list includes such things as "Create Missing Intervening Assignment," $35; "Cure Defective Assignment," $12.95; "Recreate Entire Collateral File," $95. Notes Smith:
reating ... means fabricating documents out of whole cloth, and look at the extent of the offerings. The collateral file is ALL the documents the trustee (or the custodian as an agent of the trustee) needs to have pursuant to its obligations under the pooling and servicing agreement on behalf of the mortgage backed security holder. This means most importantly the original of the note (the borrower IOU), copies of the mortgage (the lien on the property), the securitization agreement, and title insurance.
How do you recreate the original note if you don't have it? And all for a flat fee, regardless of the particular facts or the supposed difficulty of digging them up.
All of the mortgages in question were "securitized" - turned into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) and sold off to investors. MBS are typically pooled through a type of "special purpose vehicle" called a Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit or "REMIC," which has strict requirements defined under the US Internal Revenue Code (the Tax Reform Act of 1986). The REMIC holds the mortgages in trust and issues securities representing an undivided interest in them.
Denninger explains that mortgages are pooled into REMIC Trusts as a tax avoidance measure, and that to qualify, the properties must be properly conveyed to the trustee of the REMIC in the year the MBS is set up, with all the paperwork necessary to show a complete chain of title. For some reason, however, that was not done; and there is no legitimate way to create those conveyances now, because the time limit allowed under the Tax Code has passed.
The question is, why weren't they done properly in the first place? Was it just haste and sloppiness as alleged? Or was there some reason that these mortgages could NOT be assigned when the MBS were formed?
Denninger argues that it would not have been difficult to do it right from the beginning. His theory is that documents were "lost" to avoid an audit, which would have revealed to investors that they had been sold a bill of goods - a package of toxic subprime loans very prone to default.
The Earls Fraudclosure (Greetings From the World of Franz Kafka)
I just finished watching the Earls family forcefully reclaim their home in SIMI Valley. Like many of you, I am feeling slightly uneasy about this story.
According to the WSJ, this family of eleven, bought a home for $500,000 in 2001 and later managed to refinance it to pull out cash. They fell behind on their monthly payments and at the time of eviction owed $880,000 on a no interest mortgage.
They say they tried to negotiate a loan mod with the lender and ran into a dispute over the amount owed (a disparity of $25,000 between what they believe they owed and what the bank said they owed). At that point they stopped making payments.
Where's the Note?
"The Earls say it’s unclear who owns the loan. Foreclosure documents list GRP Financial Services. HousingWatch says that the original lender was Washington Mutual Bank which became JPMorgan Chase. The loan went to Bank of America on the same day that Chase sent the homeowners a notice of default. The Earls argue that Chase never properly assumed the loan and thus did not have the right to sell it off. And in turn, the new investors, Conejo Capital Partners, did not properly purchase the property."
The Earls were thrown out of the house before they were able to find out who was right about the loan disparity and who in fact is the rightful payee of the mortgage. Notice how I say thrown out of "the house", not "their house." Why, because no one seems to know who the title holder is.
I don't know which makes me more uncomfortable in this instance, the predatory lending and collection tactics or the stereotypical borrower excess embedded in the Earl's home finances.
However, I do know what makes me extremely angry.
There is only one person who clearly had it right in the Earls' repossession media circus. The cop who stood by and said "this is a civil matter." It is a civil matter. Yet how is it possible that we have reached this subprime version of "LOST" without any form of judicial intervention to determine exactly what the facts are and who actually is right?
I said in my earlier post, as Americans we cannot allow ourselves to accept that the means can ever be justified by the ends. In the Earls case, I don't see a model lender or a model borrower. I see a bona fide dispute over confusing facts, yet the Earls were never able to get their day in court before they were thrown on the street, an American street!
I am reminded of the following excerpt from Franz Kafka's masterpiece, the Trial. Please read it:
BEFORE THE LAW stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: "If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him." These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet. The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts everything, but always with the remark: "I am only taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted anything." During these many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly; later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the doorkeeper’s mind. At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law. Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low toward him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man’s disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insatiable." "Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and, to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it."
Suffocatingly claustrophobic reading, no? Not something you would want to read every day. But every day we are now hearing and ready truly Kafkaesque mortgage fraudclosure stories. Yesterday, I was sent a link to a radio program describing how the Taliban are expropriating private homes in Afghanistan. Monday I made an uncomfortable comparison to fascism. Hyperbole?
This is America, everyone is supposed to be entitled to their day in court. It does not matter if you are a low life condo flipping subprime deadbeat or the Earl family; the cheesiest polyester clad subprime mortgage Talibani or JP Morgan Chase; in America you are supposed to be entitled to your day in court. This is the glue that holds America together. Yet apparently, that is not what is happening in cases like the Earls.
Justice is not being served. It is clear that our antiquated foreclosure system is not set up to handle Alan Greenspan's modern magical mystical wonderful securitized subprime foreclosure tsunami machine.
What will it take for Team O to finally understand this?
"They say ignorance is bliss...they're wrong" Franz Kafka
WB7
benchcraft company scam
Fox <b>News</b> Hits Ratings High With Rescue Coverage Of Chilean Miners <b>...</b>
Some 7.1 million viewers tuned into Fox News at 8 PM last night to watch the last trapped Chilean miner, Luis Urzua, making it safely to the surface. That was not only the cable news channel's largest audience in the hour this year but ...
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Welcome to Friday boys and girls. Enjoy today's Kansas City Chiefs news!
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Mavens
Social media has created a new vocabulary for small business, a vocabulary that encompasses not only marketing but networking and collaborating as well.
benchcraft company scam
Truthout's Ellen Brown takes a close look at the many pieces surrounding the latest disclosures of missing and/or forged mortgage documents, examines the reasons behind it - and explains why the problem won't just go away:
By most reports, it would appear that the voluntary suspension of foreclosures is underway to review simple, careless, procedural errors - errors which the conscientious banks are hastening to correct. Even Gretchen Morgenson in The New York Times characterizes the problem as "flawed paperwork."However, those errors go far deeper than mere sloppiness; they are concealing a massive fraud. They cannot be corrected with legitimate paperwork, and that was the reason the servicers had to hire "foreclosure mills" to fabricate the documents. These errors involve perjury and forgery - fabricating documents that never existed and swearing to the accuracy of facts not known.
Karl Denninger at MarketTicker is calling it "Foreclosuregate." Diana Ollick of CNBC calls it "the RoboSigning Scandal." On Monday, Ollick reported rumors that the government is planning a 90-day foreclosure moratorium to deal with the problem.
Three large mortgage issuers - JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and GMAC - have voluntarily suspended thousands of foreclosures, and a number of calls have been made for investigations.Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray announced on Wednesday that he is filing suit against Ally Financial and GMAC for civil penalties up to $25,000 per violation for fraud in hundreds of foreclosure suits.These problems cannot be swept under the rug as mere technicalities. They go to the heart of the securitization process itself. The snowball has just started to roll.
Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism has uncovered a price list from a company called DocX that specializes in "document recovery solutions."
DocX is the technology platform used by Lender Processing Services to manage a national network of foreclosure mills. The price list includes such things as "Create Missing Intervening Assignment," $35; "Cure Defective Assignment," $12.95; "Recreate Entire Collateral File," $95. Notes Smith:
reating ... means fabricating documents out of whole cloth, and look at the extent of the offerings. The collateral file is ALL the documents the trustee (or the custodian as an agent of the trustee) needs to have pursuant to its obligations under the pooling and servicing agreement on behalf of the mortgage backed security holder. This means most importantly the original of the note (the borrower IOU), copies of the mortgage (the lien on the property), the securitization agreement, and title insurance.
How do you recreate the original note if you don't have it? And all for a flat fee, regardless of the particular facts or the supposed difficulty of digging them up.
All of the mortgages in question were "securitized" - turned into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) and sold off to investors. MBS are typically pooled through a type of "special purpose vehicle" called a Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit or "REMIC," which has strict requirements defined under the US Internal Revenue Code (the Tax Reform Act of 1986). The REMIC holds the mortgages in trust and issues securities representing an undivided interest in them.
Denninger explains that mortgages are pooled into REMIC Trusts as a tax avoidance measure, and that to qualify, the properties must be properly conveyed to the trustee of the REMIC in the year the MBS is set up, with all the paperwork necessary to show a complete chain of title. For some reason, however, that was not done; and there is no legitimate way to create those conveyances now, because the time limit allowed under the Tax Code has passed.
The question is, why weren't they done properly in the first place? Was it just haste and sloppiness as alleged? Or was there some reason that these mortgages could NOT be assigned when the MBS were formed?
Denninger argues that it would not have been difficult to do it right from the beginning. His theory is that documents were "lost" to avoid an audit, which would have revealed to investors that they had been sold a bill of goods - a package of toxic subprime loans very prone to default.
The Earls Fraudclosure (Greetings From the World of Franz Kafka)
I just finished watching the Earls family forcefully reclaim their home in SIMI Valley. Like many of you, I am feeling slightly uneasy about this story.
According to the WSJ, this family of eleven, bought a home for $500,000 in 2001 and later managed to refinance it to pull out cash. They fell behind on their monthly payments and at the time of eviction owed $880,000 on a no interest mortgage.
They say they tried to negotiate a loan mod with the lender and ran into a dispute over the amount owed (a disparity of $25,000 between what they believe they owed and what the bank said they owed). At that point they stopped making payments.
Where's the Note?
"The Earls say it’s unclear who owns the loan. Foreclosure documents list GRP Financial Services. HousingWatch says that the original lender was Washington Mutual Bank which became JPMorgan Chase. The loan went to Bank of America on the same day that Chase sent the homeowners a notice of default. The Earls argue that Chase never properly assumed the loan and thus did not have the right to sell it off. And in turn, the new investors, Conejo Capital Partners, did not properly purchase the property."
The Earls were thrown out of the house before they were able to find out who was right about the loan disparity and who in fact is the rightful payee of the mortgage. Notice how I say thrown out of "the house", not "their house." Why, because no one seems to know who the title holder is.
I don't know which makes me more uncomfortable in this instance, the predatory lending and collection tactics or the stereotypical borrower excess embedded in the Earl's home finances.
However, I do know what makes me extremely angry.
There is only one person who clearly had it right in the Earls' repossession media circus. The cop who stood by and said "this is a civil matter." It is a civil matter. Yet how is it possible that we have reached this subprime version of "LOST" without any form of judicial intervention to determine exactly what the facts are and who actually is right?
I said in my earlier post, as Americans we cannot allow ourselves to accept that the means can ever be justified by the ends. In the Earls case, I don't see a model lender or a model borrower. I see a bona fide dispute over confusing facts, yet the Earls were never able to get their day in court before they were thrown on the street, an American street!
I am reminded of the following excerpt from Franz Kafka's masterpiece, the Trial. Please read it:
BEFORE THE LAW stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: "If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him." These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet. The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts everything, but always with the remark: "I am only taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted anything." During these many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly; later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the doorkeeper’s mind. At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law. Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low toward him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man’s disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insatiable." "Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and, to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it."
Suffocatingly claustrophobic reading, no? Not something you would want to read every day. But every day we are now hearing and ready truly Kafkaesque mortgage fraudclosure stories. Yesterday, I was sent a link to a radio program describing how the Taliban are expropriating private homes in Afghanistan. Monday I made an uncomfortable comparison to fascism. Hyperbole?
This is America, everyone is supposed to be entitled to their day in court. It does not matter if you are a low life condo flipping subprime deadbeat or the Earl family; the cheesiest polyester clad subprime mortgage Talibani or JP Morgan Chase; in America you are supposed to be entitled to your day in court. This is the glue that holds America together. Yet apparently, that is not what is happening in cases like the Earls.
Justice is not being served. It is clear that our antiquated foreclosure system is not set up to handle Alan Greenspan's modern magical mystical wonderful securitized subprime foreclosure tsunami machine.
What will it take for Team O to finally understand this?
"They say ignorance is bliss...they're wrong" Franz Kafka
WB7
benchcraft company scam
Fox <b>News</b> Hits Ratings High With Rescue Coverage Of Chilean Miners <b>...</b>
Some 7.1 million viewers tuned into Fox News at 8 PM last night to watch the last trapped Chilean miner, Luis Urzua, making it safely to the surface. That was not only the cable news channel's largest audience in the hour this year but ...
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Welcome to Friday boys and girls. Enjoy today's Kansas City Chiefs news!
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Mavens
Social media has created a new vocabulary for small business, a vocabulary that encompasses not only marketing but networking and collaborating as well.
benchcraft company portland or
benchcraft company scam
benchcraft company portland or
Fox <b>News</b> Hits Ratings High With Rescue Coverage Of Chilean Miners <b>...</b>
Some 7.1 million viewers tuned into Fox News at 8 PM last night to watch the last trapped Chilean miner, Luis Urzua, making it safely to the surface. That was not only the cable news channel's largest audience in the hour this year but ...
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Welcome to Friday boys and girls. Enjoy today's Kansas City Chiefs news!
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Mavens
Social media has created a new vocabulary for small business, a vocabulary that encompasses not only marketing but networking and collaborating as well.
benchcraft company scam
Truthout's Ellen Brown takes a close look at the many pieces surrounding the latest disclosures of missing and/or forged mortgage documents, examines the reasons behind it - and explains why the problem won't just go away:
By most reports, it would appear that the voluntary suspension of foreclosures is underway to review simple, careless, procedural errors - errors which the conscientious banks are hastening to correct. Even Gretchen Morgenson in The New York Times characterizes the problem as "flawed paperwork."However, those errors go far deeper than mere sloppiness; they are concealing a massive fraud. They cannot be corrected with legitimate paperwork, and that was the reason the servicers had to hire "foreclosure mills" to fabricate the documents. These errors involve perjury and forgery - fabricating documents that never existed and swearing to the accuracy of facts not known.
Karl Denninger at MarketTicker is calling it "Foreclosuregate." Diana Ollick of CNBC calls it "the RoboSigning Scandal." On Monday, Ollick reported rumors that the government is planning a 90-day foreclosure moratorium to deal with the problem.
Three large mortgage issuers - JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and GMAC - have voluntarily suspended thousands of foreclosures, and a number of calls have been made for investigations.Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray announced on Wednesday that he is filing suit against Ally Financial and GMAC for civil penalties up to $25,000 per violation for fraud in hundreds of foreclosure suits.These problems cannot be swept under the rug as mere technicalities. They go to the heart of the securitization process itself. The snowball has just started to roll.
Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism has uncovered a price list from a company called DocX that specializes in "document recovery solutions."
DocX is the technology platform used by Lender Processing Services to manage a national network of foreclosure mills. The price list includes such things as "Create Missing Intervening Assignment," $35; "Cure Defective Assignment," $12.95; "Recreate Entire Collateral File," $95. Notes Smith:
reating ... means fabricating documents out of whole cloth, and look at the extent of the offerings. The collateral file is ALL the documents the trustee (or the custodian as an agent of the trustee) needs to have pursuant to its obligations under the pooling and servicing agreement on behalf of the mortgage backed security holder. This means most importantly the original of the note (the borrower IOU), copies of the mortgage (the lien on the property), the securitization agreement, and title insurance.
How do you recreate the original note if you don't have it? And all for a flat fee, regardless of the particular facts or the supposed difficulty of digging them up.
All of the mortgages in question were "securitized" - turned into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) and sold off to investors. MBS are typically pooled through a type of "special purpose vehicle" called a Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit or "REMIC," which has strict requirements defined under the US Internal Revenue Code (the Tax Reform Act of 1986). The REMIC holds the mortgages in trust and issues securities representing an undivided interest in them.
Denninger explains that mortgages are pooled into REMIC Trusts as a tax avoidance measure, and that to qualify, the properties must be properly conveyed to the trustee of the REMIC in the year the MBS is set up, with all the paperwork necessary to show a complete chain of title. For some reason, however, that was not done; and there is no legitimate way to create those conveyances now, because the time limit allowed under the Tax Code has passed.
The question is, why weren't they done properly in the first place? Was it just haste and sloppiness as alleged? Or was there some reason that these mortgages could NOT be assigned when the MBS were formed?
Denninger argues that it would not have been difficult to do it right from the beginning. His theory is that documents were "lost" to avoid an audit, which would have revealed to investors that they had been sold a bill of goods - a package of toxic subprime loans very prone to default.
The Earls Fraudclosure (Greetings From the World of Franz Kafka)
I just finished watching the Earls family forcefully reclaim their home in SIMI Valley. Like many of you, I am feeling slightly uneasy about this story.
According to the WSJ, this family of eleven, bought a home for $500,000 in 2001 and later managed to refinance it to pull out cash. They fell behind on their monthly payments and at the time of eviction owed $880,000 on a no interest mortgage.
They say they tried to negotiate a loan mod with the lender and ran into a dispute over the amount owed (a disparity of $25,000 between what they believe they owed and what the bank said they owed). At that point they stopped making payments.
Where's the Note?
"The Earls say it’s unclear who owns the loan. Foreclosure documents list GRP Financial Services. HousingWatch says that the original lender was Washington Mutual Bank which became JPMorgan Chase. The loan went to Bank of America on the same day that Chase sent the homeowners a notice of default. The Earls argue that Chase never properly assumed the loan and thus did not have the right to sell it off. And in turn, the new investors, Conejo Capital Partners, did not properly purchase the property."
The Earls were thrown out of the house before they were able to find out who was right about the loan disparity and who in fact is the rightful payee of the mortgage. Notice how I say thrown out of "the house", not "their house." Why, because no one seems to know who the title holder is.
I don't know which makes me more uncomfortable in this instance, the predatory lending and collection tactics or the stereotypical borrower excess embedded in the Earl's home finances.
However, I do know what makes me extremely angry.
There is only one person who clearly had it right in the Earls' repossession media circus. The cop who stood by and said "this is a civil matter." It is a civil matter. Yet how is it possible that we have reached this subprime version of "LOST" without any form of judicial intervention to determine exactly what the facts are and who actually is right?
I said in my earlier post, as Americans we cannot allow ourselves to accept that the means can ever be justified by the ends. In the Earls case, I don't see a model lender or a model borrower. I see a bona fide dispute over confusing facts, yet the Earls were never able to get their day in court before they were thrown on the street, an American street!
I am reminded of the following excerpt from Franz Kafka's masterpiece, the Trial. Please read it:
BEFORE THE LAW stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: "If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the doorkeepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him." These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet. The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts everything, but always with the remark: "I am only taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted anything." During these many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly; later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the doorkeeper’s mind. At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law. Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a question he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low toward him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man’s disadvantage. "What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insatiable." "Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and, to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ear: "No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it."
Suffocatingly claustrophobic reading, no? Not something you would want to read every day. But every day we are now hearing and ready truly Kafkaesque mortgage fraudclosure stories. Yesterday, I was sent a link to a radio program describing how the Taliban are expropriating private homes in Afghanistan. Monday I made an uncomfortable comparison to fascism. Hyperbole?
This is America, everyone is supposed to be entitled to their day in court. It does not matter if you are a low life condo flipping subprime deadbeat or the Earl family; the cheesiest polyester clad subprime mortgage Talibani or JP Morgan Chase; in America you are supposed to be entitled to your day in court. This is the glue that holds America together. Yet apparently, that is not what is happening in cases like the Earls.
Justice is not being served. It is clear that our antiquated foreclosure system is not set up to handle Alan Greenspan's modern magical mystical wonderful securitized subprime foreclosure tsunami machine.
What will it take for Team O to finally understand this?
"They say ignorance is bliss...they're wrong" Franz Kafka
WB7
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Fox <b>News</b> Hits Ratings High With Rescue Coverage Of Chilean Miners <b>...</b>
Some 7.1 million viewers tuned into Fox News at 8 PM last night to watch the last trapped Chilean miner, Luis Urzua, making it safely to the surface. That was not only the cable news channel's largest audience in the hour this year but ...
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Welcome to Friday boys and girls. Enjoy today's Kansas City Chiefs news!
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Mavens
Social media has created a new vocabulary for small business, a vocabulary that encompasses not only marketing but networking and collaborating as well.
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Fox <b>News</b> Hits Ratings High With Rescue Coverage Of Chilean Miners <b>...</b>
Some 7.1 million viewers tuned into Fox News at 8 PM last night to watch the last trapped Chilean miner, Luis Urzua, making it safely to the surface. That was not only the cable news channel's largest audience in the hour this year but ...
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Welcome to Friday boys and girls. Enjoy today's Kansas City Chiefs news!
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Mavens
Social media has created a new vocabulary for small business, a vocabulary that encompasses not only marketing but networking and collaborating as well.
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Fox <b>News</b> Hits Ratings High With Rescue Coverage Of Chilean Miners <b>...</b>
Some 7.1 million viewers tuned into Fox News at 8 PM last night to watch the last trapped Chilean miner, Luis Urzua, making it safely to the surface. That was not only the cable news channel's largest audience in the hour this year but ...
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Welcome to Friday boys and girls. Enjoy today's Kansas City Chiefs news!
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Mavens
Social media has created a new vocabulary for small business, a vocabulary that encompasses not only marketing but networking and collaborating as well.
benchcraft company scam
Fox <b>News</b> Hits Ratings High With Rescue Coverage Of Chilean Miners <b>...</b>
Some 7.1 million viewers tuned into Fox News at 8 PM last night to watch the last trapped Chilean miner, Luis Urzua, making it safely to the surface. That was not only the cable news channel's largest audience in the hour this year but ...
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Welcome to Friday boys and girls. Enjoy today's Kansas City Chiefs news!
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Mavens
Social media has created a new vocabulary for small business, a vocabulary that encompasses not only marketing but networking and collaborating as well.
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Fox <b>News</b> Hits Ratings High With Rescue Coverage Of Chilean Miners <b>...</b>
Some 7.1 million viewers tuned into Fox News at 8 PM last night to watch the last trapped Chilean miner, Luis Urzua, making it safely to the surface. That was not only the cable news channel's largest audience in the hour this year but ...
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Welcome to Friday boys and girls. Enjoy today's Kansas City Chiefs news!
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Mavens
Social media has created a new vocabulary for small business, a vocabulary that encompasses not only marketing but networking and collaborating as well.
bench craft company reviews
A lot of foreclosure-ridden counties have gotten monies from the federal government in the form of grants and stimulus dollars. Many of these counties will use those monies to purchase and fix up some of the abandoned homes littering neighborhoods across the U.S. as a result of the foreclosure crisis.
As a foreclosure cleanup business owner, you can grow your business by vying for some of the specific contracts and general contracting opportunities that will be available as a result of your county's influx of federal government cash.
How to Capitalize Off Monies Trickling Down to Your County
To capitalize off the monies trickling down to your county, start by sending your County Commissioners, including and especially the Commission Chairperson, a letter congratulating them on the funds, or the pending funds.
Let them know your foreclosure cleanup company is poised to help them get homes back in market-ready condition quickly and within budget.
Sample Letter to Your Commission Chairperson
Here's a sample letter you can send to your county's Commission Chairperson:
Dear Chairman Smith:
Congratulations on the 14.5 million dollar pending grant from the federal government to assist with the foreclosure crisis in our county. I am a resident and business owner in Any County. My business is ABC Foreclosure Cleanup located in Any City.
I'd like to offer my company's services to get our distressed and abandoned homes back in shape and ready for the market. ABC Foreclosure Cleanup specializes in the clearing out and cleaning up of properties that have been foreclosed upon. One of the few formalized, one-stop-shops in the area, we are fully licensed and insured.
Services Offered: Clearing out and hauling away of debris; cleaning of properties; lawn maintenance; minor repairs including repairing sheetrock and repairing broken windows/doors; interior and exterior painting; inspections; boarding windows and doors; locksmith services; pressure washing, gutter cleaning, and winterization; and documentation services (before and after digital photos and video).
We currently work with realtors, mortgage companies, investors and landlords in our great city, and look forward to partnering with the county through your office.
I invite you and your colleagues to visit our website at [Website Address] for more information. You can reach me directly at [Phone Number] to schedule a meeting to discuss how we can assist Any County.
Thank you for consideration of my correspondence, and I look forward to working with your office in the near future.
Sincerely,
John Smith, CEO, ABC Foreclosure Cleanup
TIP: Address the letter to the Chairperson and copy all of the Commissioners on the correspondence so they know about your company.
How to Find Out What's Going On In Your Community
To stay abreast of what's going on in your county, watch the local news, read the local newspapers, and scour the internet to find out how much money your county has received (or will receive). Shortly after the first letter, send a follow-up letter to remind the Commissioners you are still poised to help out.
Not too long after that, follow-up with a phone call to any of your County Commissioners and try to get an informal meeting to discuss how your company can be of assistance to the county. These are our elected officials, and part of their duty is to "hear" local citizens.
Go to Local Commission Meetings
Find out when and where the meetings of the County Commissioners are held for your county and plan to attend. Most counties have public meetings regularly. When you attend one of these local meetings, stand up and ask a question when appropriate. For example, you may say, "I am John Smith from ABC Foreclosure Cleanup, and I have a question about ...." Then proceed to ask a question pertinent to the topic at hand.
Remember, the County Commissioners and the Chairperson will have gotten your letters and received your calls. When you stand up at the meeting, they will now see your face and associate it with the correspondence you will have sent them. You will likely be the only foreclosure cleanup company to have reached out to them consistently and formally, and now they will know your face (more often than not, unlike that of your competition).
People Like Doing Business with People They Know
People appreciate doing business with people they know and with business owners with whom they associate. Use the local Commission meetings to formally introduce yourself and your foreclosure cleanup business and to start the formal association process.
The next day after the formal meeting, send a handwritten Thank You card to each Commissioner and the Commission Chair. Thank them for the opportunity to have participated in the meeting the day before. Tell them you look forward to participating in future meetings offering your input and suggestions to continue to better your county and surrounding areas. Sign the card with your name, your business title and your business name.
One Step Closer
You will be one step closer to the federal grant and stimulus money trickling down to counties all across the U.S. Remember, your county needs your foreclosure cleanup company's services, so help them find you easily by corresponding regularly and by participating in the local Commission meetings.
Good luck with your foreclosure cleanup business.
Cassandra Black is the Author of How to Start a Foreclosure Cleanup Business: FREE Articles & Advice Blog, How to Start a Foreclosure Cleanup Business, How to Register Your Business with HUD & Other Government Contracting Agencies: One-Stop Resource to Locate Government Contracts, Pricing Guide for Foreclosure Cleaning & Real-Estate Service Businesses, How to Market Your Foreclosure Cleanup Business, the Foreclosure Cleanup Business Combo Estimate & Contract Form, (and other cleanup business forms) and the Housing Authority Master Contacts List with Bonus Search Tool. Cassandra is also the CEO of Foreclosure Cleanup, LLC, Real Estate Cleanup, Atlanta, GA, and an Investor & Landlord (TheCassandraGroup RE).
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Fox <b>News</b> Hits Ratings High With Rescue Coverage Of Chilean Miners <b>...</b>
Some 7.1 million viewers tuned into Fox News at 8 PM last night to watch the last trapped Chilean miner, Luis Urzua, making it safely to the surface. That was not only the cable news channel's largest audience in the hour this year but ...
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Welcome to Friday boys and girls. Enjoy today's Kansas City Chiefs news!
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Mavens
Social media has created a new vocabulary for small business, a vocabulary that encompasses not only marketing but networking and collaborating as well.
big seminar 14
Fox <b>News</b> Hits Ratings High With Rescue Coverage Of Chilean Miners <b>...</b>
Some 7.1 million viewers tuned into Fox News at 8 PM last night to watch the last trapped Chilean miner, Luis Urzua, making it safely to the surface. That was not only the cable news channel's largest audience in the hour this year but ...
Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 10/15 - Arrowhead Pride
Welcome to Friday boys and girls. Enjoy today's Kansas City Chiefs news!
Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Media Mavens
Social media has created a new vocabulary for small business, a vocabulary that encompasses not only marketing but networking and collaborating as well.
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