Foreclosure victims begin receiving pitiful checks yesterday...guess what? insufficient funds

[xiamiam]

What a joke this is ..I know the checks started going out on Friday and many received checks yesterday so I read the comments section to discover that the checks sent out have insufficient funds. Insult to injury. I cant even begin to describe the anger. Homeowners will get 3.6 billion in cash payments and the independent review consultants who made $1500 an hour got 2 billion for less than 2 years of work which was scrapped as incompetent and poorly managed..
just when you think it cant get worse..
it does
the original news article is from The Nation but reposted at this site with comments from people who received checks but could not deposit due to insufficient funds

http://uprisingradio.org/home/2013/04/15/the-nation-foreclosure-review-report-shows-that-the-occ-continues-to-bury-wall-streets-bodies/

[Sekhmets Daughter]

1. I can understand the need to bailout AIG....

I have never been able to understand why they bailed out the banks without helping the homeowners. Sad to say...it was a failure of the Democratic Party...it cost them control of the house in 2010 and for, perhaps, the next decade.

This report adds more insult to injury than we should ever be willing to tolerate.

[tridim]

4. Bush bailed out the banks before Obama was in office.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20013452-503544.html

Just a minor point.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

7. Bush couldn't have bailed them out without

the approval of the House..... Paulson went to Nancy, she rallied the Dems...I watched the votes.

[tridim]

12. Why did you ONLY blame democrats?

Just an oversight?

[Sekhmets Daughter]

13. To some extent....

I expect better from our party. They allowed themselves, perhaps, to be railroaded by Paulson & Co. that is unforgivable when you consider the amount of money we have given the banks and the hardships of homeowners who lost their homes.

Don't get me wrong...I do NOT hold Bush harmless...

[sabrina 1]

31. If you remember, Congress first voted against the bailout. That was in response to the huge, it was

actually massive, response from the public when this was first made public. Reports said that representatives could not deal with the calls, emails etc. I know when I called my Rep his inbox was full, same with Nancy Pelosi and Reid. I watched some of the speeches on the floor and Kucinich was wonderful. For a brief few days after that vote, which was 'nay' to the bailout, I started to believe the people had power after all.

Then to our surprise, they were asked to go back and vote again. I couldn't believe it when enough of them changed their votes and approved Paulson's demands without any changes, including the part where he wanted no oversight.

Later when asked why Congress had changed its mind, one of our Reps told us that they were threatened. What was the threat and who threatened them, he was asked? Paulson was the one who threatened them, and the threat was that if they did not give him the money, there would be martial law.

I will not forget how they over-ruled the will of the people, how our own party leadership sucked up to Paulson as if he was a king, and awful let down people felt when the news was reported that Paulson was getting his check.

All of this was recorded in the documentary 'The Men Who Crashed The World' which was excellent but will make your blood boil if you haven't seen it already. We have no leadership when it comes to the banks, we are on our own.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

34. I've read several books on this subject.

your rep was not being particularly honest.... Martial law would indeed have resulted from massive bank failures all across the nation.

My complaint is not with the bailout per se, but the manner in which it was done...the too bigs are even bigger, there was no relief for the struggling homeowners, interest rates are still way too low which advantages the banks and hurts the people trying to save some money, or who have saved for years with little return. Congress acted foolishly, they chose between two sides, the people... who were clueless... and the those who were willing to kill off a dying middle class in order to enrich themselves. There was an alternative...a smarter solution, that helped those banks that needed it, but dismantled the too bigs, provided assistance to homeowners as a condition of gov't assistance...there are more. Even Paulson didn't foresee that the banks, having received billions, would continue to hoard the money and use it for their own profit, rather than lend it out to stabilize the economy.

Our congress critters are not only bought and paid for, most are too stupid to understand the largest, most important issues.

[bvar22]

9. Paulson with Co-Conspirators:

[CrispyQ]

35. Well fuck, that looks like two 'democrats' standing beside him.

I'd recognize Harry anywhere - he's the one with glasses.

[progressoid]

10. And supported overwhelmingly by Democrats (including Obama)

Just another minor point.

http://www.opencongress.org/vote/2008/s/213
http://www.opencongress.org/vote/2008/h/681

[tridim]

11. I was responding to a post that blamed ONLY Democrats.

I simply pointed out that that was not true.

[progressoid]

16. Oh, since you didn't make any reference to any other Democrats,

it seemed like you were only defending Obama.

"Bush bailed out the banks before Obama was in office."

[Marrah_G]

5. Because homeowners don't have a lobby to write the laws

Because that is who writes our laws. Not congress...lobbyists.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

8. It is aggravating beyond belief

that we have allowed our government to be taken over by a bunch of greedy thieves.

[tridim]

2. One or two people on one anonymous forum on an unknown website said "insufficient funds".

I wouldn't call that a trend yet. We'll see though.

[sabrina 1]

6. My friend was illegally foreclosed on in 2009. The 'law mill' that drove her out of her home, is now

closed. The value of her home was approximately $120,000. She is the widow of a veteran. The eviction notice arrived on Veterans Day.

Since then, thanks to ONE US Attorney whom she contacted, Schneidermann of NY, her case was included in the 'settlement'. She was offered, wait for it, $800.00 by the government office who is handling this 'settlement'.

Naturally she has refused. Because Schneidermann held out from signing the original agreement, which he was under enormous pressure to sign, she can still sue Steven Baum's crooked law mill, if he isn't bankrupt by now, and the bank Wells Fargo. But even that recourse was nearly taken away by an agreement with the banks pushed by our government.

She did not respond to the insult as she plans to sue for compensation for her home. So they sent the offer again early this year.

If this report is accurate, she would not have received it anyhow.

Great crimes were committed against millions of people like her and still, no one has been held accountable. She is one of the lucky ones who can now afford an attorney, but hundreds of thousands of others can not and will most likely be forced to take the pittance the government is offering them, and they may not even receive that now.

[tridim]

14. I have a check coming from the bank that illegally foreclosed on my home..

So I have skin in the game. I'll certainly report back. The bank never legally acquired my mortgage and thus had no right to foreclose. I can't afford to sue JPM Chase (almost nobody can), so this is the best chance I've got.

[Orrex]

15. The $800 isn't intended to compensate the value of the home

We should be receiving at least $600 or so for our foreclosed home. Nowhere near the value of the home or of what we had invested in it by the time of the foreclosure, but that's all we're getting.


While we were struggling with the foreclosure process and CitiMortgage was running interference, I recall reading that Citigroup itself was permitted to "restate" its quarterly earnings by something like $8 billion. So... We screw up $1000 and lose our house. Citigroup screws up eight billion and it's fine and dandy.

I'll take my $600. It's a lot more than ever expected to get out of them.

[sabrina 1]

21. I'm sorry you had to deal with this.

It is a horrible experience. As far as accepting the money, if her attorney advises her to do so and it will not stop the lawsuit in any way, she will. But so far she has ignored the requests for her to take it.

She expects to take as much from them as possible. I would not cry if everyone did and forced the break-up of these criminal operations once and for all.

[Orrex]

24. The pre-payout mailing that we got a week or so ago specifically addresses that, in fact

I don't have it in hand, but it clearly indicated that accepting the settlement doesn't preclude the foreclosed homeowner from pursuing further damages. She should (I hope) have received something similar, or I suppose that it might vary depending on who her lender was. If it'll help, I can scan it for you.

LMK.

[sabrina 1]

25. She did get that but didn't trust it I guess after all she went through initially.

Thanks for the response. She received the offer again a few weeks ago and did not respond again. I think this time they gave her until May. IF it really is true that it will not interfere with a lawsuit, I think she should take it.

[Orrex]

27. Here's a little bit more from the online source:

Borrowers receiving a payment as a result of the Agreement will not be required to sign a waiver of any legal claims they may have against their servicer as a condition for receiving payment. "

from Independent Foreclosure Review

Believe me, she has my sympathy, and I understand her apprehension!

[Xithras]

3. I hope not.

I received a piddling $300 check yesterday, and dropped it into my banks ATM last night. I was irritated at the small payout in the first place...I'll be furious if the stupid thing bounces.

[DarkLink]

17. Wouldn't the proper response be for the homeowners to get their homes back?

not $300

What the hell is going on in this country and why aren't millions of people going postal?

[ms.smiler]

20. DarkLink, I’ll attempt to answer your question.

Yes, you are correct in that in some states/situations a wrongfully foreclosed homeowner can sue for their property in addition to noteworthy money damages.

In general, wrongful foreclosure is good for 3 times or more of the value of the property. In such a lawsuit Breach of Contract & Slander of Title are also applicable and have their own equitable damages. Some of these lawsuits even include punitive damages.

Some homeowners who receive checks will assume the foreclosing party made some small insignificant error and go on with their lives. Others though will view their checks as confirmation of what they knew in their gut, that their homes were stolen from them.

Unfortunately, I do not expect our government to hold the banksters accountable for this massive fraud. It has been and remains my belief that it will be up to each homeowner to stand up for their rights and sue. Those who make such an effort should expect 7 figure settlements/awards.

I caught on to the fact that under the laws of my state, my mortgage was null and void only months after I signed the mortgage contract. My mortgage servicer even filed two invalid, robo-signed Assignments on my property. I spent months seeking suitable counsel and it cost me $2,500 to file a Quiet Title action in which I hope and expect to kick my mortgage to the curb.

Of course I wonder how many homeowners in my state were foreclosed when their mortgages were actually null and void under PA law.

It costs nothing to speak to an attorney on the phone. A good attorney will happily spend an hour or so talking with you in their office. Depending upon the attorney and the case, I’m sure many would agree to a share of the damages they obtain rather than payment from the homeowner.

Our Recorder of Deeds offices are actually crime scenes. Stored in counties across the country are the means to hold the banksters accountable.

The homeowners receiving these checks fortunately retain their rights and claims. How many homeowners will stand up, demand their rights and their 7 figure damages? Many I hope.

[sabrina 1]

22. My friend is planning to sue Wells Fargo for the loss of her home. She did not accept the miserable

$800 offered to her fearing it would prevent her from suing in some way. I am certain this terrible agreement made with the banks was to stop law suits and yet another bailout of the banks at the expense of the people whose homes were stolen, as hers was.

Did you ever find a good attorney to handle your case btw? And to whom did you have to pay the $2, 500 for a quiet title action and could you explain what that means?

Also, do you know what the statute of limitations is on filing a lawsuit after the foreclosure?

Good luck with your case. I hope people do fight back, since you are correct, our government will never hold them accountable so it is up to us.

[ms.smiler]

26. Sabrina 1, I understand your concerns.

I too worried that the checks might affect homeowners’ rights. I’m thinking now they are more of an admission and they would be supportive of a homeowner lawsuit.

I love that Senator Warren asked if the information gathered would be turned over to homeowners. Of course no decision was made on that point. The government is more interested in protecting the banks than helping homeowners.

My servicer filed two bogus, invalid and robo-signed Assignments on my property. Challenging the authority of the bogus MERS officers who signed those Assignments was an easy means to destroy those liens on my property and hopefully establish the mortgage a nullity.

Quiet Title generally costs $2,000 to $2,500 in attorney’s fees and is a good option for homeowners who aren’t in foreclosure.

I filed my lawsuit in 2011 and ordinarily it would have to gone to trial in 3 to 6 months. Our land court must be busy with Quiet Title actions because it’s 2013 and I’m still awaiting trial.

I’m eager to fix my Title and get to the next lawsuit with the money damages. Maybe it’s good though that this moves slowly because the Recorder of Deeds in the next county sued MERS and that case has already produced sound supportive rulings.

The Statute of Limitations varies on different aspects of law. I don’t know about wrongful foreclosure in particular but limitations on many things such as forgery begin upon the discovery of the wrongdoing. In some states a homeowner might sue under state law while someone in another state would sue under Federal law. Even if one thing is no longer a valid claim, something else remains a valid claim.

I’ve been telling my niece about these issues over the past few years and she always seemed to politely smile in response. This past year, she was served with a foreclosure on a commercial property. I dug into the lawsuit and the land records and explained the many fatal problems I found. A prominent business person gave her a terrific referral for an attorney. He dug in and found even more than I, including that the mortgage wasn’t valid in the first place. Case dismissed.


My niece came back to me saying her attorney told her everything I had told her. Well, imagine that!

Now Auntie is sitting here politely smiling thinking I told you so. Now I tease her that her settlement check will be larger than mine.

I wish your friend well with her lawsuit. A Wrongful Foreclosure suit is even easier than fighting foreclosure. If I were a bankster, I would live in fear of jury trials.

Occupy the court room, as a Plaintiff or a juror.

[sabrina 1]

29. Lol, thinking how lucky your niece was to have you around at that time. You gave me valuable

information when this all started and my friend thanks you. It has taken a while to begin to file the lawsuit, mainly looking for an attorney who has knowledge of all of this and also she has moved and wanted to be in her new home before getting into it. I saw on the attorney's website, the one I think we have found who appears not only to be very informed about these issues, but very passionate about them, on his website it said the statute on suits like this is six years.

I totally agree with you that banks live in fear of juries right now, which is why we wanted a trial attorney, one who is not afraid to go all the way to court and who has a reputation already of being more than willing to take a case to a jury.

Thanks for the information regarding the offer she received, It did seem clear that she would not be jeopardizing her case by accepting it but with these banks, you never know. I think her case is a good one. So they do they apparently. If they wanted to avoid law suits though, these puny offers were not the way to go. Although just from this thread I can see that some people are accepting the offers and probably do not want to or cannot go through a lawsuit.

I am sorry your case has been delayed so long but as you say, there are probably more and more of them every day. I am happy you got this far and with positive results. This week we are going to try to set up a consultation with the lawyer and hopefully he won't be too expensive.

As someone above said, the government is not going to help homeowners, they are clearly on the side of the banks, so it's up to the people themselves not to allow them to get away with what they did.

I was thinking about the woman who bought my friend's home from the bank. She may have a problem in the future when she tries to sell the house as it is almost certain the transfers, which included two Mers transfers over the years, were not legal.

Thanks for the info on the cost of the quiet title. Hopefully the attorney will handle that.

Let me know if anything happens on your case and as soon as my friend gets hers going I will let you know.

I believe this settlement provided some money for legal assistance also, but I'm not sure about that. I hope so.

I'm happy too that your niece was able to get her situation taken care of. I'm sure she has a newfound respect for her 'auntie' right now.

Occupy the courts, yes, that's we are going to do!

[sammytko]

30. Is it a wrongful foreclosure because they were making payments on time, but for some

Reason the property was taken away?

How is this possible?

[sabrina 1]

32. In some cases, quite a few actually, when people realized they might have problems keeping up their

mortgage payments, after maybe losing their jobs, they applied for a mortgage adjustment until things returned to normal for them. There was a program set up by the President under which people could do this. I believer there were several criteria and if they met all of them, this program was designed to help people stay in their homes. It was part of trying to help 'Main Street' after we bailed the culprits who crashed the economy.

Bear with me, because this part is almost unbelievable. After applying for a mortgage adjustment, homeowners were often told not to make any mortgage payments while their cases were under review. This is what happened to my friend btw and at first I didn't believe her. She was one month behind when this started, after her husband died. She qualified under the President's act and expected no real problems. However, after not hearing back from the bank, after writing, calling and being ignored for a few months, she became nervous about not paying and sent a check for the amount she was requesting as her payment. They returned her check. They contacted her to tell her mortgage HAD been adjusted. And this is the unbelievable part, they RAISED her payment.

Shortly after that, they began foreclosure proceedings. I won't go into all that happened before she finally lost her home but I will say, she was TRICKED into not paying and falling behind, they refused her payment and then went after her.

In the beginning when she was telling me this, I'm ashamed to say I thought she had handled something wrong, that she was confused. I couldn't believe that they would refuse payment, that they would RAISE the payment for someone who had applied for a reduction. And that they would not speak to her at all all of which pushed her out of her home.

Shortly afterwards I saw people on TV and like my friend, most were NOT behind in their payments, but were struggling and wanted an adjustment. In every case what happened to my friend, happened to them. They were told NOT to pay while waiting for their case to be addressed. When it was, their payments were RAISED, then they were told they were 'behind' for non-payment, when it was the bank who told them not to pay.

I realized then that my friend had done nothing wrong, that she had been scammed into foreclosure by the bank, and also found out that this was widespread. To try to avoid foreclosure she took the advice of Rep. Kaptur and others and demanded to see the note. She was ignored. At that point she discovered that her mortgage had been transferred twice by Mers, and there probably WAS no note. Robo signing was exposed around that time and we realized this was why the law mill handling her case refused to talk to her and even her attorney at all.

She lost her home as did so many others. Two years later her situation changed drastically for the better. A year ago she was contacted by the OCC telling her her foreclosure had been reviewed and she was entitled to a settlement. She did not trust them. They contacted her again and offered her a check for $800 dollars which she ignored.

We believe now she may never have legally owned the home, the bank that foreclosed in her Wells Fargo, most likely did not hold the note. Notes were destroyed by MERS and her home had been transferred twice by MERS. Now it was more than just her application for a modification. It was about whether she or the bank, ever legally owned it.

This situation has been repeated over and over and was part of the scam that lost people their homes. The Govt's attempt to deal with it after the whole scam was exposed, robo-signing, MERS, pushing people out of their homes etc, knowing the Banks were in big trouble, once again, facing perhaps millions of lawsuits, was to try to get a settlement with the banks and to prevent all the States' Attorneys who were preparing to take action against the banks, from doing so. They conjured up what this OP is about, getting the banks to pay for a settlement to give money back to people, like my friend and I guess, hope lawsuits would go away.

All of the US Attorneys finally agreed to discard their plans to prosecute the banks in return for this settlement, except NY's US Attorney, Schneiderman. He wanted a guarantee that homeowners' right to sue would NOT be taken away in any settlement. After refusing to budge on this, they agreed.

My friend is suing Wells Fargo. She has not accepted the insulting money they offered her. It simply added insult to injury.

The law mill that handled her case and drove her out of her home, run by Steven Baum, is closed. He is under investigation by the US Attorney and may have been prosecuted already, I know he has been named in a huge class action suit of thousands of people whose homes he foreclosed on.

And yet, with evidence of all this fraud and deception, not one bank has been held accountable. So now it's up to the people to sue them and force them to do what our govt refused to do, pay back the value of their homes to those they cheated out of them.

That is just one way in which many people lost their homes. There are others, but this is one I am familiar with.

[ms.smiler]

33. Sammytko, fraud more than anything explains wrongful foreclosure.

The long version explanation is here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2412603

Next, I’ll try for a short version. Yes, some homeowners were wrongfully foreclosed even though they made their payments. (It’s sad but I actually view those homeowners who make their monthly payments as those in pre-foreclosure.)

Strangely, Bank of America seems to specialize in foreclosing on homes that don’t even have mortgages. So, you can wonder now how that is possible.

But what is common to nearly all of the foreclosures the past several years is that the party who brought the foreclosure action had no standing, no right to foreclosure on the property.

Moreover, regardless of the actual owner of the debt, the property no longer legally secured the debt.

And it takes fraud, plenty of fraud, forgery, perjury, robo-signing, notary fraud, fraud upon the court, fraudulent accounting and documents, etc. to prosecute a foreclosure, presenting unsecured debt as supposed secured debt while simulating supposed ownership of the Note.

[sakabatou]

18. We should have bailed out the populace, not the banks.

[pa28]

19. Who administers the payouts?

I'd hope the settlement would be paid out to a third party trust who would then forward checks to the claimant. However, if individual banks are responsible for paying parties they've harmed this story could be true.

If that were the case the agreed payouts would become nothing more than a cost for the bank. They could just force victims to collect through the legal system or spend days on end being transferred on a phone tree. I'm sure many receiving a smaller settlement would just determine it wasn't worth it.

Some of the larger payouts, for people current on their bills whose homes were foreclosed anyway got up to 125k. Hopefully they don't have a second nightmare in front of them.

[sabrina 1]

23. As far as I know, third party 'contractors' were supposed to be hired to manage the payouts. But

according to the Nation's article, the Banks were allowed to hire their own contractors, making the notion of a 'third, neutral party' a joke.

The OCC sent out notices to those they decided were eligible for a payment last year. It came on a piece of paper that didn't look very official so we looked it up. It was official but the amount offered to my friend was $800. We assumed it was a joke. She plans to sue for the theft of her home.

Iow, they are acknowledging that people were cheated out of their homes and are offering them a pittance to make them go away and try to save the banks from lawsuits.

It is really unbelievable frankly, that they would do this AFTER acknowledging that homes were stolen. Another finger to the people while the Banks receive billions for their corruption.

I wish we had a government that recognized the laws of this country. The whole thing is like a pyramid scheme. And the people are being crushed by those at the top, over and over again and with the help of our own government.

[pa28]

28. Bookmarking this thread and looking around for some other sources.

Ideally the banks would pay the DOJ and the treasury would dispense the settlements. However, in the real world we all know that an incorporated third party has to stand in middle and take a slice of the pie and that's what I was assuming would take place.

Of course if the banks set up their own third parties the name on the bounced check would be the new creditor. Not JP Morgan or Wells Fargo.

[ms.smiler]

36. Rust Consulting apologizes.

Some early payment recipients were told that their checks could not be cashed due to insufficient funds. Rust can verify that $3.6 billion is available to be cashed or deposited.

"We apologize to anyone who experienced problems trying to cash their checks. We are working hard and communicating with the banking regulators, the servicers, and other banks to ensure those issues are not repeated," Rust Consulting Senior Vice President James Parks said. "We want to assure the public that checks we have mailed under the Independent Foreclosure Review Payment Agreement process are valid."

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/2013/04/16/4779791/independent-foreclosure-review.html#storylink=cpy

In my opinion, the low amounts of the checks are to suggest minor harm to homeowners when in fact great harm was done to them. Plus, I imagine the banks have no desire to enable and fund the litigation they should face in our courts.