Hat tip to everyone who sent in the MA court ruling on foreclosures, which should expedite settlement talks – here’s an excerpt from cnbc.com:
95 percent of troubled borrowers currently do not contest their foreclosures, Paul Miller of FBR tells me. He sees this less about the specific case as the perception of this case:
“If you see more and more of these headlines, many people might look at this and say ‘I can get my house free and clear if I just contest the foreclosure and get a favorable judge that sides on my side. All of the sudden I have a free mortgage.’ That’s not what’s going to happen in this case,” Miller said in an interview. He believes these two homes will eventually go to foreclosure.
In fact, this Massachusetts case may not be exactly as the headlines are screaming.
The American Securitization Forum, immediately after the ruling, put out a statement saying, “The ASF is pleased the Court validated the use of the conveyance language in securitization documents as being sufficient to prove transfers of mortgages under unique aspects of Massachusetts law.
Importantly, unlike the lower court, tithe Court also said assignments of mortgage can be executed in blank, as long as a complete chain of transfers can be shown through the applicable deal documents.” ASF says those documents were not introduced in the lower court and that the lower court would have ruled otherwise if they had.
“The ASF is confident securitization transfers are valid and fully enforceable,” concludes the ASF’s Executive Director, Tom Deutsch.
Can someone translate the above statement to English?
I’m not an expert, realtor, banker, or even a blogging bank basher for that matter but I did see this the other day from nakedcaptialism.com
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/01/asf-lies-yet-again-brazenly-asserts-that-ibanez-ruling-validates-reliance-on-psa-for-transfers-blank-assignments.html
Other than the post title, one of the things I noticed was this bit:
[Judge] Grants also wrote “that a conveyance of real property, such as a mortgage, that does not name the assignee conveys nothing and is void; we do not regard an assignment of land in blank as giving legal title.”
In summary, I suggest that if someone plans on taking advice from the ASF, a little homework and a few grains of salt might be good to consider before making a final decision that relies on what the ASF is saying.
the decision is viewable at http://www.scribd.com/doc/46475942/Ibanez-Decision