THE NEIL GARFIELD SHOW

Here is what almost everyone is getting wrong and why it matters: In the run up to the mortgage meltdown, investment banks were described as taking foolish risks, buying loans that were likely or even guaranteed to fail. It’s true, some investment banks that were not in on the grand scheme did exactly that and Lehman might have been one of them, Bear Stearns another. But for the TBTF banks it was...

Today with Bill Paatalo we will discuss the Illinois Supreme Court case of Financial Freedom Acquisition LLC (One West Bank, N.A., Appellee) v. Standard Bank and Trust Co et al., Appellant. This case has many elements of interest to our listeners, and established the following legal points:  1. Illinois Land Trusts can be treated as consumers for purposes of the TILA rescission statute;  2. An Obl...

Stop thinking about investors as beneficiaries under a REMIC Trust (PSA), a Deed of Trust, mortgage, note, debt or anything else when it comes to residential mortgage loans --- which may or may not be "loans" in any conventional sense. Just like we have torts without a name as long as you can plead duty, breach and proximately caused damages, we might  have a similar situation here with an agreeme...

Citi companies, as Elizabeth Warren has pointed out a number of times, deserve to be broken up into little tiny inconsequential pieces. The presence of the name “CitiMortgage”) without any entity directly tied to it, has led to direct malfeasance and corruption even in Florida courts. “CitiMortgage” is named by foreclosure mill attorneys as the “Plaintiff.” And Citi subsidiaries pass around the mo...

  Yes listeners well know that it is continuing the mantra of judges all around the nation in non-judicial and judicial foreclosure cases alike: Where is the Harm? to you the 'borrower'. Well one judge did find great harm to a party subject to a judicial foreclosure in Florida, in the case of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Riley, which case we have discussed previously on the Show. See Neil's blog post...

All foreclosure cases are on life support. In all cases you need to do the proper investigation, analysis and legal research. But the key component is persuasive presentation. In banks vs. homeowner the banks win on persuasive presentation. Tonight we talk about how to lose and how to win. The banks start off with a case that cannot be won if all facts were known and applicable law was used. The b...

Today we discuss on the West Coast Foreclosure show with Bill Paatalo a civil lawsuit in which Nationstar Mortgage LLC is suing various defendants for essentially subverting Nationstar's ostensibly valid interest in the subject properties. This suit, short title Nationstar v. Patrick Joseph Soria, et al, seeks to use the power of a full-blown Defendants' asset freeze to shut down the efforts of De...

Tonight we talk about how to deal with legal presumptions and how much proof you need to undermine the presumptions and thus force the foreclosing party (if it exists at all) to prove its case with real evidence, testimony and documents that are valid and authenticated. Based upon 12 years of experience with this issue I have concluded with complete certainty that the named foreclosers are pretend...

Charles Marshall will discuss today two seminal unlawful detainer (UD) cases, in which respectively in each case the lower Court there found per usual for the institutional UD Plaintiiff against the 'former' homeowner who was foreclosed on by an instutiional trust, aka 'lender-in-succession'. Yet on appeal of the UD judgment, in both these separate cases, the appellate courts reversed the judgment...

Yes the bane of California-based litigators both attorneys and those in pro per is MERS, and the way Caifornia courts State and Federal routinely allow MERS assignments to be sanitized and made legitimate, notwithstanding the many issues with same assignments, from robo-sigining, to non-compliant declarations getting around the hearsay rule, to self-dealing and double-dealing. Well now we have Bll...

Tonight we talk about mediation and modification. It turns out that mediation, if played properly, can be an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the dubious authority of anyone to initiate foreclosure, or appear at mediation. As for mediation most people do not realize that mediation is an extremely potent tool for homeowners. What you want is an order that commands all parties to be present with...

Today on the West Coast Foreclosure Show we discuss two Plaintiff's lawsuits where the Courts do the right thing, at least partially. One case, out of Massachusetts, Starkey v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, et al., addresses our not-so-good statutory friend the FIRREA framework at issue, as here, in so many cases where 'assets' of Washington Mutual were transferred to Chase via the corpora...

STOP COMPLAINING AND ATTACK HEAD ON If bias were the basis for challenging a decision there would be no final decisions. The losing party would always shout bias and the decision would go into limbo. Our judicial system recognizes that judges are human beings and that all human beings have biases and preferences. The question is not whether the bias exists; it is whether the bias caused the judge...

  Bill Paatalo joins Attorney Charles Marshall today to provide more info and intell re the "LSF9 Master Participation Trust", rightly considered by Bill to be a straw man hiding the machinations of US Bank to obfuscate chain-of-title issues in loans ostensibly legally connected to US Bank trusts. As part of our continuing expose on this issue, we will revisit the Wells Fargo v. Riley case, the Fl...

Tonight Charles Marshall is on to discuss one of his favorite if unpleasant topics: Institutional Bias in the foreclosure arena directed at Homeowners. There are many layers and associated pieces to this situation, which I will discuss on the show: - Institutional bias of the lenders, servicers, securitized trusts, sale's trustees, etc; - institutional bias of the alphabet soup Government agencies...

You have already achieved the goal. At this point you can argue that you asked for the identity of the holder in due course and they were unable or unwilling to provide the information. The confusion emanates from the fact that a holder can sue on the note if it has the right to enforce the note, which right must come from the creditor.  But the apparent rebuttable legal presumptions run against y...

In the December 2017 Florida judicial foreclosure case of Wells Fargo Bank v. Riley, Court holds after trial that Defendant homeowner prevails and keeps his home due to three legal theories, the first and paramount one that the Plaintiff Wells Fargo on behalf of a Chase Trust, had unclean hands for through a key witness dissembling at trial (and failing to prove) that the 'Chase Trust' had possess...

Whether you can sue for damages is one question. Whether the rescission had the effect of removing the jurisdiction, right or authority to dispossess you of title is another. And whether title ever changed is yet another. Yes you can sue for damages if not barred by a statute of limitations. Yes authority is vitiated by operation of law regardless of the status of litigation. And NO, title never c...

While the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)  unanimously (9-0) put to bed all of the arguments against the effectiveness of a notice of rescission under 15 U.S.C. §1635, Jesinoski v. Countrywide Home Loans, 135 S. Ct. 790 (2015), all inferior and lower courts have been ruling the other way. Any dispute raised by anyone, even if they have no legal standing to do so, is taken as an excuse...

Shrinking Legal Presumptions Charles Marshall, California attorney and Bill Paatalo, private investigator, discuss the implications of two Hawaii cases that are mirroring other decisions across the country. Hawaii Schranz Case Hawaii St. John Case The above links go to two recent Hawaii cases dealing with legal standing. The fundamental fact of law is that standing must be ACTUAL NOT PRESUMED. Spe...

There is a great deal of conflict and confusion in the world of foreclosure defense about the prospect of modification. It is obvious that approvals are random only to create the impression that an entire system devoted to foreclosing on as many homes as possible is purportedly attempting to work with homeowners. We all know that we are dealing with entities who have no right, title or interest to...

Charles Marshall and Bill Paatalo return to discuss the structure and content of foreclosure cases.  (1) What facts really matter? (2) How do you stop fabricated evidence from being admitted in evidence? (3) What is the difference between forgery and robosigning? (4) Death of a Salesman: What happens when the "lender" on the note and deed of trust is no longer in business? (5) How do you persuade...

Tonight I will discuss the central point of of false claims of authority to enforce the note, and inferentially the authority to enforce the mortgage. In 2008, I called to confront a lawyer about the false claim of being authorized to enforce the note and mortgage, his reply to all my questions was “We’re a holder.” No matter what I said or asked, that was his answer. He was relying upon a careful...

        Bankruptcy Code Section 362 covers the automatic stay which occurs whenever a borrower-debtor files a BK A recent blog post by Neil on Neil's Livinglies blog breaks down well how consumer BK filers and their associated attorneys would do well to be proactive in bringing sanctions motions for violations of the automatic stay. On today's show we will go over how the stay works, when it appli...

It is always a pleasure to speak with an attorney who is an ardent advocate for consumers. And it is good to know they are out there even though everyone is complaining about not finding an attorney. Dan wins cases and motions because he fights every step of the way — but like every good litigator he thinks about the case before he writes or says anything. Here the note was sent for endorsement AF...