Joseph Smith, the monitor of the National Mortgage Settlement has reported that the five major banks have officially fulfilled the consumer relief obligations of the National Mortgage Settlement. He further reported that the banks have provided more than $50 billion of gross relief, which allegedly equates to more than $20 billion in credited relief. Smith … [Read more…]
Well, the 2014 tax lien sales in Arizona are complete. I attended the Pima County tax lien sale where over $10 million dollars of tax liens were sold over the course of two days. What was readily apparent from the beginning is that investors looking to fetch high interest rates on tax liens were going … [Read more…]
The Arizona Court of Appeals (Division 2) recently issued an opinion regarding the extent to which parties must be noticed in a tax lien foreclosure action. In this case, the subject real property (the "Property") was owned by Robert and Carri Anderson. The Property had a first position Deed of Trust, securing the Promissory Note. The … [Read more…]
The Arizona Court of Appeals (Division 1 in Maricopa County) just issued an opinion entitled Helvetica v. Pasquan, which addresses the scope of Arizona’s anti-deficiency protections in the judicial foreclosure (non-trustee’s sale) context. The first issue the Court addressed is whether refinancing a purchase money loan forfeits a borrowers’ anti-deficiency protection, to the extent that … [Read more…]
Pima County just finished up its 2012 tax lien sale. Pima County offered up nearly 14,000 tax liens over the two day live auction. One thing was readily apparent this year – the competition for these liens was stiff. The influx of private equity money into the Pima County sale was obvious. Competition for $500 … [Read more…]
Arizona will receive $1.6 billion of the purported $25 billion joint federal-state settlement with the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers for their role in wide-spread servicer and foreclosure abuses. Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne’s decision to join the broad settlement also means that his office has reached an agreement with Bank of America over allegations … [Read more…]
Democrats on the House oversight committee have apparently been pushing to subpoena the Federal Housing Finance Agency ("FHFA") to obtain an analysis looking at what effects principal reductions would have on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As HousingWire has reported, FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco has long defended the agency’s policy of keeping Fannie and … [Read more…]
A new federal federal task force, dubbed the "Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group" led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has sent subpoenas to the 11 largest financial institutions in the past few days as part of its investigation into possible residential mortgage-backed securities fraud. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman who was cast off the central … [Read more…]
Fourteen U.S. mortgage servicers and their affiliates are making available a free, "impartial" Independent Foreclosure Review process (website – Independent Foreclosure Review) to certain of their borrowers, as part of certain consent orders entered into with federal bank regulators, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), and … [Read more…]
The Mortgage Electronic Registration System ("MERS") is increasingly under attack from multiple angles. MERS describes itself as "an innovative process that simplifies the way mortgage ownership and servicing rights are originated, sold and tracked." Created by the real estate finance industry, including many of the largest lenders and Fannie Mae, MERS allegedly "eliminates the need … [Read more…]