Mortgage Law
New York Fed Faces House Subpoena Over AIG Bailout
January 13, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York may be forced to deliver documents related to American International Group Inc.’s government bailout after the chairman of a House oversight committee said he would issue a subpoena.
Edolphus Towns, the New York Democrat who runs the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said yesterday in a statement he would issue a subpoena for New York Fed records concerning the decision it made to fully reimburse AIG’s partners. Banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA were among beneficiaries of AIG’s rescue, called by lawmakers a “backdoor bailout” for financial firms.
The New York Fed, run by Timothy Geithner when AIG was rescued, had resisted since November calls to provide documents without a subpoena, Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the oversight committee, said yesterday in a letter.
Read more about the New York Federal Reserve…
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Congressional Delegation Requests Criminal Investigation
January 13, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Northern Colorado’s congressional delegation turned up the heat on former New Frontier Bank officials Tuesday, calling for a federal investigation into the bank’s collapse.
U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall along with U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate possible fraud connected to the April failure.
The bank was closed by federal regulators for unsafe and unsound banking practices leaving numerous businesses and farmers with loans they couldn’t refinance and without lines of credit crucial to run their businesses.
Read more about New Frontier Bank…
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
NY AG Cuomo Asks 8 Banks for Bonus Information
January 11, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Monday pressed the nation’s eight biggest banks to reveal how much they plan to pay out in employee bonuses for 2009.
Cuomo told reporters that he also wants to know how the size of the banks’ bonus pool would have been affected if the banks hadn’t received a taxpayer rescue at the height of the financial crisis in late 2008.
The fact-finding effort comes as Wall Street banks this month prepare to hand out near-record compensation for last year’s performance.
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Attorney General Secures Settlement with Mortgage Modification Company
January 11, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Idaho homeowners who paid a Westmont, N.J., company to help them obtain mortgage modifications will receive refunds totaling $19,710 as a result of a settlement agreement, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said.
The agreement with Best Interest Rate Mortgage Company LLC requires the loan modification company to repay 12 Idaho consumers and to stop operating in the state, according to a news release. Consumers should receive refunds from the attorney general’s office before June 15, 2010.
This is Idaho’s third settlement this year involving a mortgage modification business. Wasden is continuing investigations into several other mortgage modification companies and has filed lawsuits against Apply 2 Save Inc. and APS Northwest Idaho LLC.
Read more about mortgage modification companies…
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
City of Providence seeks to add fine to foreclosure law
January 11, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
By Philip Marcelo, Providence Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE — Banks or lenders that do not attempt to renegotiate mortgages with homeowners, as currently required by city ordinance, could now face a $2,000 fine, under amendments the City Council will consider at a special meeting on Thursday.
Vacant or abandoned homes would be exempt from the requirements, and lenders would also have more time to set up the city-mandated mediation sessions, according to the proposed amendments.
The new language would introduce substantive changes to a recently approved ordinance meant to slow the tide of foreclosures. The amendments require two votes of approval from the full council.
As it is written, the “foreclosure mediation ordinance” requires a meeting between lenders and homeowners prior to foreclosure. The goal of the meetings (moderated by an independent third party ) is to modify a mortgage so that a homeowner can remain in his or her home.
Any lender failing to comply with the requirements would not be able to have a deed of ownership recorded by the city Recorder of Deeds, a step necessary to complete the foreclosure process.
Mayor David N. Cicilline, whose administration developed the ordinance, says changes are being requested to address problems noted since the roll out of the new mandates in September.
One potential problem is the breaking of the chain of title if a bank or lender fails to comply with the ordinance. (Read more)
Two California Men Sentenced in Foreclosure Scam
January 8, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Two men from California have been sentenced for filing fraudulent bankruptcy petitions in Kansas to bilk homeowners who were facing foreclosure.
U.S. Attorney Lanny Welch says 43-year-old Isaac Yass, an Israeli who was living in Los Angeles, and 40-year-old Robert Andrew Blechman of Culver City, Calif., were sentenced Monday.
Read more about the foreclosure scam…
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Minnesota Dems Try Again with Foreclosure Bill
January 8, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson and Democratic legislators said Wednesday that they will try again this year to enact a foreclosure mediation bill vetoed last year by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Swanson, a Democrat, said struggling homeowners could still benefit from the legislation. It would give them the option of going to mediation with their lender to modify loan and interest terms before the lender could foreclose on the home. But it wouldn’t stop lenders from foreclosing.
Read more about the foreclosure mediation bill…
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Housing Agency Gets Money From Settlement with ‘Predatory’ Lender
January 6, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Neighborhood Housing Services of the South Shore has been awarded $100,000 to help homeowners avoid mortgage foreclosure, the state attorney general’s office said.
The grant money comes from a $10 million settlement the state reached in June with California-based lender Fremont General Corp.
Read more about the settlement…
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Mortgage Scheme Ends in Hefty 31-Year Sentence
January 6, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
In a packed courtroom, the first man convicted in Weld County under Colorado’s organized crime statute didn’t flinch as the years of his coming prison sentence began to add up.
Mark Strodtman, 52, was convicted Nov. 18 of 11 counts of felony theft, 11 counts of felony forgery and one count of racketeering under the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act for a mortgage scheme in 2006-07 involving a west Greeley subdivision. He was indicted in March 2008 and extradited to Colorado from Mexico, where he had presumably fled to avoid prosecution.
He showed no reaction Tuesday as Weld District Court Judge Marcelo Kopcow sentenced him to back-to back sentences: 24 years for the racketeering charge, four years for one felony theft charge and three years for a felony forgery charge.
Read more about the mortgage scheme sentence…
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank
December 30, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
To close out 2009, I decided to do something I bet no member of Congress has done — actually read from cover to cover one of the pieces of sweeping legislation bouncing around Capitol Hill.
The baby of Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, the House bill is meant to address everything from too-big-to-fail banks to asleep-at-the-switch credit-ratings companies to the protection of consumers from greedy lenders.
The bill supports the biggest banks. It authorizes Federal Reserve banks to provide as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. So much for “no-more-bailouts” talk. That is more than twice what the Fed pumped into markets this time around. The size of the fund makes the bribes in the Senate’s health-care bill look minuscule.
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
