$120 million settlement reached over faulty foreclosure practices
Illinois will get more than $4 million out of a $120 million settlement between 46 states and a Florida-based business, stemming from allegations that the firm engaged in pervasive “robo-signing” of foreclosure documents and other faulty servicing practices while servicing struggling homeowners’ loans. The 46 attorneys general reached the settlement after an investigation into Jacksonville, Fla.-based Lender Processing Services Inc. and its subsidiaries — LPS Default Solutions and DocX, all of which primarily provide support to banks and mortgage loan servicers, Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office said.
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Is this the year Wall Street completes its purchase of Florida’s Court System?
by Chip Parker, Jacksonville Bankruptcy Attorney For the fourth year in a row, an anti-consumer, Anti-American bill, backed by the very powerful mortgage servicing industry, is cruising through the Florida House of Representatives, and this time, it looks like it could actually become law! It has already passed through a very important committee.
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The Ugly Truth About America’s Housing “Recovery” — It’s Wall St. Buying Homes to Rent Back to Their Former Owners
by: Shabnam Bashiri Every day, it seems a new report comes out praising the ongoing housing recovery. In Georgia, home prices are up 5 percent over last year, a year in which we also had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. Seems a little odd, doesn’t it? Don't foreclosures usually drive down the market?
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This Is Housing Bubble 2.0: David Stockman
Many have named a U.S. housing recovery as a bright spot in a so-called broader domestic economic recovery. And data seems to support this analysis, despite a slowdown in sales momentum at the end of the year. Existing home sales in December were up 12.8% from the same time in 2011, with the total number of sales in 2012 rising to the highest level in five years, according to the National Association of Realtors. Meanwhile, the annual price for existing homes also jumped to the highest level since 2005, with the median price of a home up 11.5% in December from the same period in 2011.
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Freddie Mac’s Diabolical Solution to Oregon’s Recording Requirement: Locate and Destroy the Assignment
One of the most hotly contested issues in Oregon foreclosure law is whether lenders who do not obtain written assignments of trust deeds can foreclose non-judicially. While other lenders fret about their missing assignments, Freddie Mac has taken a different approach. Freddie instructs servicers to destroy them prior to foreclosure.
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Queens Middle Class Foreclosures
A new wave of foreclosures is hammering middle-class homeowners in Queens. Southeastern Queens neighborhoods such as St. Albans have been reeling since 2008, when the first wave of the foreclosure crisis hit, ensnaring many low-income homeowners with subprime loans. Filings fell in 2011, but a dramatic spike in the 2012 foreclosure rate is spreading the pain to middle-class residents with higher-quality loans.
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Mary Jo White’s Latest Conflict of Interest
By Jonathan Weil Here’s the big question for Mary Jo White: If she becomes chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, where will her interests lie? With the public that pays her salary? Or with the people handing her the big bucks? White is the white-collar defense lawyer and former U.S. attorney nominated by President Barack Obama to lead the SEC. Her financial disclosures say that upon leaving New York-based Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, the law firm will give her $42,500 a month in retirement pay for life, or more than $500,000 a year.
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Illinois Supreme Court hands out new foreclosure rules
Chicago Business Journal The Illinois Supreme Court issued new rules to change foreclosures in the state that will affect Cook County's 77,000 pending foreclosure cases, according to a report by the Chicago Tribune. Set to take effect by June 1 at the latest, the rules, which took nearly two years to develop, primarily aim to protect borrowers, the Tribune said, by putting a burden on the lender to show that more avenues toward a resolution have been explored with the borrower before the lender can seek a foreclosure judgment. However, the Tribune added, this is not expected to speed up the foreclosure process in Illinois, which takes an average of 697 days to complete.
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Banks Are Big In All The Wrong Places: Seven And A Half Things To Know
The Huffington Post | By Mark Gongloff Posted: 03/07/2013 7:45 am EST | Updated: 03/07/2013 11:21 am EST Science has determined that people need to know 7.5 things per day, on average, about the world of business. You can't argue with science. Lucky for you, The Huffington Post has an email newsletter, delivered first thing every weekday morning, boiling down the day's biggest business news into the 7.5 things you absolutely need to know. And we're giving it away free, because we love you, and also science. Here you go:
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