Yesterday,   the Sunday of the 2012 Martin Luther King Holiday,   this article crossed my desk:

Northwest Trustee Services Squeezes More Profits From Home Foreclosures with One-stop Model

It seems Northwest Trustee Services and their “sister” lawfirm Routh Crabtree Olsen (RCO for those in the know – perhaps our own little David Stern,  our own little mill?),  was singing about how happy they are because they are bullish on the destruction of hearth and home throughout their little empire of the Inter-mountain West,  Alaska and Hawaii.  In it,  Stephen Routh,  exclaims “There’s misery coming” and then spends the rest of the article bragging about how he intends to make $erious hay from bringing it to a community near you.  You can almost hear his hands rubbing with glee as he counts the money he will make from providing ALL the services a foreclosing party might wish to utilize from substitute trustee services,  to law firm services,  process service,  rental and property management to the main thrust of the story,  how he is buying up small community newspapers so he can pocket the money currently being spent in newspaper advertisements.  Can’t leave a trick on the table,  doncha know?  It seems there is money in Mi$ery. Continue Reading »

I sat in on a phone call today between a highly trained attorney and three different $10 an hour employees of RUST Consulting in Minneapolis MN.  We wanted to get some information on this new and improved government cheese program called the OCC’s Independent Foreclosure Review.  It was quite the laugh as I listened to the attorney pretend he was a distressed,  angry,  and at times tearful and fearful homeowner.  Here is what we found out.

This is a game show.  They won’t say that,  but to these jaded eyes what we are looking at is no different than talent scouts scouring the countryside looking for contestants for the new season of “American DreamZ,  DreamZ with a Z”  and what a snoozer it is.  It’s your opportunity for more voluntary auto-humiliation at the hands of the very ones who have been tormenting you up to this point.  It wouldn’t surprise me to see this as a new reality TV show where the audience can vote on the amount of award to the contestants.  Can’t you just see the contestants (homeowners) jumping up and down clapping their hands hysterically as they get their piece of the Government Cheese? Continue Reading »

“It was the best of times,  it was the worst of times,  it was the age of wisdom  it was the age of foolishness,  it was the epoch of belief,  it was the epoch of incredulity,  it was the season of Light,  it was the season of Darkness,  it was the spring of hope,  it was the winter of despair,  we had everything before us,  we had nothing before us,  we were all going direct to Heaven,  we were all going direct the other way  -  in short,  the period was so far like the present period,  that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received,  for good or for evil,  in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Those iconic words from Charles Dickens in 1859 opened “A Tale of Two Cities”.  It is there where we meet Madame DeFarge and experience her knitting.  Madame DeFarge is the wife of Monsieur DeFarge,  the Wine Shop keeper who is also a leader in the underground just prior to the French Revolution.  His wife’s knitting keeps the record of the grievances of the common people against their “betters”.  When the terrible retribution comes,  it is her knitting which calls forth the guilt. Continue Reading »

gave the (…eviction post foreclosure)  process only to a `person entitled to the premises,’ which required him to prove that he was entitled to this possession, and which said that the defendant should have judgment if the plaintiff failed to prove his right to possession.” Id. at 37. In 1879, legislation was enacted specifically directed at those attempting to gain possession who had acquired property pursuant to foreclosure of the mortgage by sale. See id., citing St. 1879, c. 237.  (BONY v. BAILEY MA Supreme Court)

That came from a case from the Massachusetts State Supreme Court and it really brought home the magnitude of the chaos upon which we are on the precipice.  The case was on appeal from the land court springing out of an unlawful detainer action.  The bank was trying to tell the homeowner to get out and the homeowner appealed saying the bank didn’t have a lawful foreclosure and hence,  not the true landlord.

The court agreed and sent the case back to district for further proceedings.

If this is the case,  then it calls into question every land relationship we have.  If title turns out to be irretrievably broken (as in – proven in court by a preponderance of evidence – even though we all know it to be true),  then why does a renter pay the landlord?  At all?  The landlord doesn’t own the building;  his title has been blown to smithereens.  The guy just says he owns it,  the record which he says makes it his is totally blown.  He ain’t the landlord.  He ain’t nobody.  He’s just a schmoe.   Right now there are people being arrested and thrown in jail for renting foreclosed and empty houses just by saying they are the landlord.  It’s crazy.      Continue Reading »