HSBC

Another Deployed Soldier Illegally Foreclosed On

April 23, 2012 By Steve Dibert Leave a Comment

Minnesota National Guard member lost his home while serving in Iraq.

Mark Brunswick, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Army Staff Sgt. Phillip Harry learned his house had been foreclosed upon and sold in a letter forwarded to him while he was serving in Iraq.

Harry, a member of the Minnesota National Guard, filed suit on Friday against his mortgage company, alleging the company violated a federal law protecting service members from losing their homes while they are deployed.

Reflecting a convergence of two major social issues: the home foreclosure crisis and the return of thousands of members of the military from Iraq and Afghanistan, attorneys for Harry are seeking to have the suit certified as a class action, saying hundreds of service members are likely to have faced the same situation.

The U.S. Treasury launched an investigation last year into 10 leading banks that may have illegally foreclosed on the mortgages of almost 5,000 members of the U.S. military, some of them activated to duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The suit filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota accuses Illinois-based HSBC Mortgage Services of violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, signed into law in 2003 as a way of easing the economic and legal burdens on military personnel called to service.

The suit alleges that the company has foreclosed on service members’ mortgages while they were on active duty and evicted them and their families without giving them a chance to challenge the foreclosures in court. It also alleges that HSBC recklessly filed papers that said Harry was not a member of the military at the time of the sale, when a simple check of public records would have shown he was serving overseas.

“There is no excuse for a sophisticated, multi-national bank like HSBC to ignore these laws and foreclose on our soldiers’ homes while they are away serving our country,” said Vildan Teske, one of Harry’s attorneys. “Our service members deserve better.”

Asked for comment Friday, a spokesman for HSBC North America said it is company policy not to respond to pending lawsuits.

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Filed Under: Mortgage News Tagged With: economic meltdown, financial crisis, foreclosure, foreclosure crisis, foreclosure defense, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure help, foreclosure rescue, HSBC, Minnesota National Guard, Mortgage Crisis, mortgage fraud, mortgage help, mortgages, SCRA, servicemembers civil relief act, Staff Sgt. Phillip Harry

Feds To Crack Down On Firms Not Included In Mortgage Settlement

April 2, 2012 By Steve Dibert Leave a Comment

JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG, NY Times\

Federal regulators are poised to crack down on eight financial firms that are not part of the recent government settlement over homeforeclosure practices involving sloppy, inaccurate or forged documents.

Last week, a senior Federal Reserve official recommended fines for these additional firms, raising questions about how deep foreclosure problems run through the banking industry.

In addition, judges, lawyers and advocates for homeowners say that people are still losing their homes despite improper documentation and other flaws in the foreclosure process often involving these firms.

The eight firms cited by the Federal Reserve — HSBC’s United States bank division, SunTrust Bank, MetLife, U.S. Bancorp, PNC Financial Services, EverBank, OneWest and Goldman Sachs — should be fined for “unsafe and unsound practices in their loan servicing and foreclosure processing,” Suzanne G. Killian, a senior associate director of the Federal Reserve’s Division of Consumer and Community Affairs, told lawmakers last month in a House Oversight Committee hearing in Brooklyn.

The recommendation is the culmination of an investigation begun nearly two years ago over accusations that bank representatives had been churning through hundreds of documents a day in foreclosure proceedings without reviewing them for accuracy, a practice known as robo-signing.

Some see the Fed’s recommendation as an attempt to push these firms to agree to the terms of the broader mortgage settlement involving the state attorneys general and federal officials. During those settlement talks, federal regulators contacted other institutions in hopes that they would also agree to the terms, according to people briefed on the negotiations.

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Filed Under: Mortgage News Tagged With: economic meltdown, EverBank, Federal Reserve, financial crisis, foreclosure, foreclosure crisis, foreclosure defense, foreclosure fraud, foreclosure help, foreclosure practices, foreclosure rescue, foreclosures, Goldman Sachs, Housing Crisis, HSBC, illegal foreclosures, Metlife, mortgage backed securities, Mortgage Crisis, mortgage fraud, mortgage help, Mortgage Settlement, mortgages, OneWest, PNC Financial Services, robo-signing, SunTrust Bank, U.S. Bancorp

Judge Schack Tells Congress Illegal Foreclosures Create Constitutional Crisis

March 20, 2012 By Steve Dibert Leave a Comment

Kerri Panchuk, Housing Wire

A New York state judge known for taking it to the banking industry says foreclosures, in many cases, are riddled with shoddy document handling, assignment issues and ownership questions on mortgage notes.

New York State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Schack made those statements to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Monday.

Schack told the panel that foreclosure filings in Kings County, New York, soared from 3,500 filings or less per year to 7,000 annual filings after the housing bubble burst in 2007. The judge said opinions from his court and other benches need to be made in accordance with the law and not for the sake of “expediency.”

Schack highlighted the Second Circuit’s Bank of New York v. Silverberg decision, which held an assignee of a lender who never functioned as the actual holder or assignee of the note lacked standing to begin a foreclosure.

In discussing that case, Judge Schack said “the law must not yield to expediency and the convenience of lending institutions. Proper procedures must be followed to ensure the reliability of the chain of ownership, to secure the dependable transfer of property, and assure the enforcement of the rules that govern real property.”

In a 2009 profile on Shack in The New York Times said the judge “fashions himself a judicial Don Quixote, tilting at the phalanxes of bankers, foreclosure facilitators and lawyers who file motions by the bale.”

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Filed Under: Mortgage News, New York Tagged With: economic meltdown, financial crisis, foreclosure, foreclosure crisis, foreclosure defense, foreclosure help, foreclosure help new york, foreclosure rescue, foreclosures, Housing Crisis, HSBC, illegal foreclosures, illegal foreclosures in New York, illegal new york foreclosures, Judge Schack, loan modification, mortgage backed securities, Mortgage Crisis, mortgage fraud, mortgage help, mortgages, new york foreclosure fraud, new york foreclosures, new york fraud, new york mortgage fraud, robo-signers, robo-signing, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Baum’s Demise Leaves Hudson Valley Homeowners In Limbo

February 19, 2012 By Steve Dibert Leave a Comment

Cathey O’Donnell, Lohud.com

New York’s largest foreclosure firm, which once handled thousands of cases in the Lower Hudson Valley, will officially close Monday, but it has left a trail of questions and frustrated property owners caught in legal limbo.

The Steven J. Baum PC law firm, based in Amherst, N.Y., originally was retained for more than 600 foreclosure cases that remain active in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam. In all, Baum’s firm has handled more than 4,000 cases in the three-county region since 1999, court records show.

But last year, the firm announced its official closing, scheduled for Feb. 20, after it came under scrutiny from state and federal agencies for “robo-signing,” or mass producing foreclosure documents without verifying whether they were accurate.

“The problems Baum’s firm left this state with are just beginning,” said Susan Chana Lask, a Manhattan attorney. “The new firms taking over his files need to take time to figure out and correct what he did.”

That means homeowners face longer delays and could owe more money in accrued interest, penalties or fines while their cases drag through an already overburdened state and federal court system.

“This is a real problem,” said Derek Tarson, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Rockland. “I’ve really noticed it at the foreclosure settlement conferences where I have clients who show up but there’s no representative from the bank.”

Read more here

Filed Under: Mortgage News, New York Tagged With: economic meltdown, fannie mae, financial crisis, foreclosure, foreclosure crisis, foreclosure defense, foreclosure help, foreclosure help new york, Foreclosure Mill, foreclosure rescue, foreclosures, freddie mac, Gross, Hogan's Heroes, Housing Crisis, HSBC, illegal foreclosures, illegal foreclosures in New York, illegal new york foreclosures, Linda Orlans, loan modification, mortgage backed securities, Mortgage Crisis, mortgage fraud, mortgage help, mortgages, new york foreclosure fraud, new york foreclosures, new york fraud, new york mortgage fraud, Polowy & Orlans LLC, robo-signers, robo-signing, Steven J. Baum

Another Deployed Soldier Illegally Foreclosed On

Minnesota National Guard member lost his home while serving in Iraq.

Feds To Crack Down On Firms Not Included In Mortgage Settlement

Judge Schack Tells Congress Illegal Foreclosures Create Constitutional Crisis

Baum’s Demise Leaves Hudson Valley Homeowners In Limbo

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