Sunday, December 9, 2007

Is this the real reason for the Paulsen Plan?

Bill Bonner of Rude Awakening writes about a court case involving foreclosure that has gone awry, at least from the point of view of the banks. I believe this is the reason for the urgency of passing this plan and reducing the need to go to foreclosure. I think they may not be able to foreclose because of sloppy paperwork. Go to the link and scroll down aways to find Bonner's byline. here is a small part:

…this case might be a bigger deal than people realized.

For his part, Judge Boyko showed little interest in the macro-economic
whereases. What he wanted to know was: Where are the mortgage documents? It
may be true that these people owe you money, he suggested, but we don’t take
a man’s house away from him without a valid mortgage contract. Not in the
sovereign state of Ohio anyway.

Deutsche Bank’s legal team looked at each other. Then, they looked in their
briefcases. The lawyers had plenty of documents, including some clearly
showing an “intent to convey the rights in the mortgages.” But as for the
mortgages themselves, they had none. Again, Deutsche Bank is hardly
exceptional. When a law professor studied foreclosure proceedings recently,
she found that in 40% of cases, the creditors either did not or could not
produce the vital documents, giving them the right to retake the houses.


Deutsche Bank’s legal team looked at each other. Then, they looked in their
briefcases. The lawyers had plenty of documents, including some clearly
showing an “intent to convey the rights in the mortgages.” But as for the
mortgages themselves, they had none. Again, Deutsche Bank is hardly
exceptional. When a law professor studied foreclosure proceedings recently,
she found that in 40% of cases, the creditors either did not or could not
produce the vital documents, giving them the right to retake the houses.

Apparently, the financial intermediaries who had bundled these 14 mortgages
together with thousands of others to create the Structured Investment Vehicle
(SIV) bought by Deutsche Bank had neglected to bundle in the actual mortgage
documents. Searching high and searching low, they could not be located.

I have yet to read much about this on page one though I did write about it in " Subprime the Energizer Bunny of Problems" on November 15th. Dennis Gartman wrote about this recently but it still seems to be on page 16. I suspect this issue is coming soon to a front page near you.

No comments: