Earlier this year, five of the country’s biggest banks agreed to cough up $25 billion because they’d routinely fleeced their own customers and wreaked tremendous economic havoc along the way. The nationwide foreclosure settlement was an extraordinary moment for JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and GMAC because it brought the banks as close as they’ve ever come to taking ownership of the foreclosure fraud they’ve sewn throughout the housing market. But the foreclosure settlement’s second act, now playing out in a Boston courthouse, shows that the landmark settlement hasn’t actually changed the way the banks think about other people’s homes.
The banks might be $25 billion lighter, but in Boston, they’re still trying to shrug off the duty to follow foreclosure law.
Comments
The only entity who should complain about those foreclosures is the one who held the notes at the time of foreclosure, not the essentially "squatters" who agreed to pay a mortgage but instead lived there free for at least two years. It is this mentality that even though they didn't pay their mortgage they should be entitled to keep the house that prevents responsible homeowners from being able to refinance because the bank wants to recoop the loss of the deadbeat with the responsible borrower's higher interest rate. And to feel bad that they had to pay their own moving expenses? Ridiculous...victim mentality...
And yet, Romney, Ryan, AND BROWN support the right of these banks to do this.
I think everyone who cares about the rule of law should be horrified at the banks' use of fraudulent documents, deceitful misrepresentations of loan modification programs, etc. All of us -- even those of us who have never owned a home -- have the right to complain when banks try to turn civilization into a financial "wild west." The laws are there for a reason. Everyone should be required to follow them -- even big banks.
Chrisie, that may be one of the dumbest pieces of "rational" thinking on the foreclosure fiasco that I have seen. You cannot foreclose on something you do not own. If you do, you are the thief. That would be the banks in this case. Squatters? Learn what the law is before you put both feet in your mouth.
Maybe it's time some of these crooks actually get prosecuted in CRIMINAL court and go to jail. Noting like three square's a day in Walpole, er, Cedar Junction, to open their, um, eyes. They issue here is the avoided recording the mortgages they had purchased to avoid paying state recording fees to the county registries of deeds. They committed fraud, and what they did they get for it, a slap on the wrist. Putting a few of them in jail is the only way to get their attention, but no one has the stones to do it.
Good article, but something's missing. What? THE NAMES OF THESE BANKS! Give us a list of the banks that have done wring, and we will withdraw our business from them.