Tag Archives: Dave Krieger

October 15, 2022 · 8:35 PM

Nationwide foreclosures are up over pre-pandemic levels

(BREAKING NEWS/OP-ED –) Attom Data (which supplies information to RealtyTrac®) has released a fairly comprehensive report which indicates that foreclosure starts are up 167% from a year ago! What’s worse is that the average time to foreclose nationwide has decreased 4% from a year ago, which can only mean that the banks and their mortgage loan servicers have become more aggressive in their foreclosure processes.

California, Florida, Texas, Illinois and New York led the pack out of 233 metropolitan statistical areas. Markets seeing a lower decline in foreclosure starts were Tulsa, Kansas City, Birmingham, Minneapolis and Cincinnati. In sum total, 92,634 properties had foreclosure filings, whether it be default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions. Lenders repossessed 10,515 properties from American homeowners during the third quarter of 2022. The reason, according to an Attom Data spokesman, was because borrowers were leveraging their equity and selling their homes and downsizing rather than risking an equity loss due to foreclosure.

The report is here:

u.s.-foreclosure-activity-continues-to-increase-quarterly-attomDownload

ANALYSIS: Now, let’s figure out why there is an uptick in foreclosure activity.

The foregoing figures are only for the third quarter of 2022; thus, we have to factor in similar amounts for the first two quarters and the last quarter, which, taking into consideration the average third quarter numbers, the total figure for the year would be somewhere around 370,000 homes this year. If you look at the rates during the 2009-2016 foreclosure crisis, which totaled 10.2-million homes seized, the total foreclosure numbers are coming in at around 4.45-million that can be expected over the next 7 years. That’s nearly 50% of the previous total of homes seized during the first foreclosure crisis. And you can bet that BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street (major institutional investors) will be buying these homes up and converting them into rental properties. How’s that for turning this country into a nation of renters? Clouded titles and all.

What has happened to the U.S. economy since the beginning of the decade?

Up until January of 2021, America had it good. We were energy independent. Gas prices were low. Grocery prices were low because the cost of shipping goods to market was lower. The supply chain was functioning at about 50% due to the pandemic but largely because people were too afraid to go to work because of media fearmongering. They would have rather stayed home and lived off the government dole than go back to work, post-pandemic. So, in short, it would appear the “chickens are coming home to roost” (as it were.

When the pandemic actually hit (March 17, 2020), Americans bought into the government’s crap hook, line and sinker. It became impossible for many to go to work and some were able to make arrangements to work from home. Many lost their jobs out of fear they would catch COVID-19 and die and didn’t bother showing up for work. Foolishly, state governments bought into the lies about mask wearing, social distancing, business closures and finally the jabs (delivered by and through the media, which promoted it as a vaccine, when in fact they weren’t). Over 220-million Americans received at least 2 jabs before many in that population either suffered adverse effects or death. I would anticipate that not only did the hospitals get rich (at $300,000-$600,000 per patient) due to government incentives, but Americans who refused the jab due to government mandates lost their jobs and thus, were unable to pay their mortgages. Despite the moratoriums, those days of grace would soon end and the foreclosure mills were all too happy to jump on the foreclosure bandwagon.

Unfortunately for most Americans, they continue to remain ignorant as to the fact that most of their mortgage loans were securitized. One of my associates has been fighting his foreclosure for over 13+ years and when ordered to pay attorney’s fees to the other side’s lawyers, he wrote a specific payment check to the REMIC (an acronym for Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit), which is what accepted all of these securitized loans, allegedly, and also very untimely. Here’s the attorney’s fees check:

Notice anything interesting about how the checks were made out? They have yet to be cashed … because the REMIC is closed and has been since 2007. If this isn’t proof in the pudding, I don’t know what is.

The Court agreed that since the Plaintiff was the REMIC, the check should be made payable to them, for in turn, the REMIC would turn around and pay their customary attorney’s fees for litigation expenses. Unfortunately, one can’t cash a check that has a restrictive endorsement when the payee doesn’t exist.

This is what the bank’s attorneys don’t like … a real smart ass. And I mean he’s smart. He’s done his homework. The attorneys in his case were clearly retained by the mortgage loan servicer, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., who has no contract with the borrower. You see why they’re frustrated with this case? Wells Fargo isn’t the only mortgage loan servicer committing fraud on the courts, filing on behalf of the closed REMIC either.

I am currently working on a California bankruptcy case which has posited similar research results. In that case, the REMIC trust settled with the investors, which means that no one suffered a financial loss and it’s clear the servicer is trying to steal the house from the bankruptcy court. Bankruptcy judges do not like fraud on the court, especially by officers of the court. The only way that this case has a good outcome is if the owners can defeat the motion to lift stay with enough factual information and witnesses to overcome the other side’s objections. Because I managed to conjure up witnesses (an attorney and a former bank lawyer who handled foreclosures for a major financial institution), things might not go well for the other side’s lawyer.

I still do chain of title assessments and consult trial attorneys on foreclosure matters. The foregoing issues are certainly playing into the statistics seen above. But what’s worse, when these people are being served with notice, rather than fight to stay in their homes until they can come up with a Plan B, they just pack up and move, just like they did during the first foreclosure crisis in 2008. And herein lies the rub.

History does indeed repeat itself. Only this time, homeowners may be getting smarter.

For more information, you can visit the Clouded Titles website.

Please email us through the site if you’d be interested in attending a foreclosure defense workshop later this year.

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August 28, 2022 · 9:49 PM

The Justice System has FAILED us!

(OP-ED)–The opinions expressed herein are that of the author’s only and should not be construed as legal advice.

It is unfortunate that the conservative thought process has to be jarred by liberalism … and just when we were starting to get ahead.

It’s even more unfortunate that the manner in which we conduct ourselves in the legal realm has been totally obliterated by the justice system, made up of elite oligarchs who only look out for their own pensions and care not about the people that can’t afford justice. These judges will listen to the banks before they listen to the people affected by the contract they signed.

My latest machination involves the affidavit that was issued by a “special agent” from the federal whatchamacallits, which was totally redacted by the justice department, which has sought to (indirectly) attack every Christian conservative in the name of liberalism. When one can forum shop for a judge to get a warrant signed … a warrant that would further divide America because of its very nature in attacking a former president who actually did produce positive results, (despite all of the attacks against him during his tenure in office), this justice system has failed us.

The higher elites in power have seen fit to find a Trump-hating judge to do their dirty-work in an attempt to keep Trump from running for office again. If the warrant is proven to be nothing more than hearsay, which I suspect it is, then the judge sitting on the Trump case is no better than the robed types that sit in foreclosure courts across the country, listening to banks’ attorneys, who don’t possess the note, say, “Take it from me, Your Honor, we own the note.” at face value and give the banks whatever they want, when in most cases, the lender (a REMIC trust), no longer even exists.

Foreclosure defense attorneys haven’t helped matters much. Half of them don’t even know how to argue a foreclosure matter or a forcible detainer action, half of them don’t understand that the REMIC’s investors may have been paid in full, which means the servicers are double and triple dipping on homeowners (borrowers) by claiming they represent the REMICs when they know too damned well, the REMICs are closed and were closed one year past their start-up date. These attorneys are also “officers of the court”. They know how to behave when in the “temple”. Singing Judas’s.

The attorneys that do know foreclosure defense are equally flustered because borrowers come to them, stating, “Hey, I’ve got a great case! You should represent me for free!” This kind of entitlement behavior, coupled with that of judges who just want to shove their size 9 (example) shoes up the foreclosure defense attorney’s ass every time he/she comes into court, has caused a number of the good attorneys to either stop doing foreclosure defense or quit practicing law altogether. Many wonder about the other half of the foreclosure defense attorneys and what makes them so special when they play “the delay game”. The judges know it. The attorneys know it. The borrowers don’t get it.

This is false hope. To think these attorneys can’t tell the court that the other side hasn’t proven it has standing to foreclose because the other side hasn’t proven the Plaintiff (and its investors) have been harmed, is beyond belief.

The simple question of … “If the house is sold Your Honor, who gets the proceeds?” goes right by the wayside. Or, in the alternative (as we know by example), you get a smart-ass judge that answers that question for the bank (or the servicer’s attorney), as “Pay me, I’ll figure it out.” This is when you know the court is corrupt because the judge has turned out to be an asshole.

Ever been to a rocket docket? I have. It’s pretty damned scary. Mar-A-Lago raid or no Mar-A-Lago raid, a whole courtroom of homeowners gets cleared out (totally foreclosed on) with maybe 2 cases held over for trial out of all of the 300 cases coming before that court on its weekly docket. The judges have been ordered by their superiors to “clear the docket”, no matter who they shit on. That, does not make them a great judge. In fact, it makes them a shitty judge. When a judge rules against a homeowner based on emotion and hearsay from the lender’s attorney and its fully-trained lying witness, you have bad justice.

This is why this go-round of foreclosures is going to be even tougher of a nut to crack … all because the justice system has been perverted by the entitled elite, the crooked banks whose noses are clear up the judges’ asses and the good ‘ol boy club (the Bar) who threatens attorneys with disbarment for standing up to a judge.

Any judge that will sign an affidavit based on hearsay and then allow the affiant’s name to be redacted from view of those whom he has accused, speaks ill of not only the affiant, but the prosecutor and the judge as well. Mar-A-Lago is only the tip of the iceberg. Trump is not in foreclosure. Trump has not been screwed over by the banks. The raid gave him impetus to run again because nearly 80+ million voters to attempted to return him to office a second time now feel disenfranchised. Judges won’t hear a majority of the fraudulent election claims and that puts the entire system into a quandary.

Here’s a final thought … what would happen if you wrote a check to the REMIC for the full amount you owed and made it a restrictive endorsement only to the REMIC? Chances are, it’d never get cashed because the REMIC no longer exists. A borrower in Florida did just that, twice, and his check (for attorney’s fees), paid to the REMIC itself using a restrictive indorsement, as directed by the court, still hasn’t gotten cashed. Makes you wonder why more folks haven’t used that tactic.

What would the failed justice system do to “fix” that to “out” the very entities that will screw them in the process?

The C & E on Steroids! is a must if you’re NOT in foreclosure YET, but you suspect some shady shit going on in the land records.

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August 23, 2022 · 8:09 PM

Crowdfunding as a means of foreclosure defense

(BREAKING NEWS) — The link below just launched … prefaced by this email:

I just launched the Crowdfunding Campaign for Raising Legal Fees for Fighting the Foreclosure Monster.

You are the first to see it!  Can you send it out to your list, with a note that I am working with you to Help You with Your Battle, and I will come in to take over the Education and Fundraising for APON.

I need to raise $25,000 to have Al West Attorney w/ Dave Krieger attack on our Quiet Title Defense; Robert Janes – Fighting the Foreclosure Machine write the legal papers, and Ken Carlson’s team write the Unlawful Detainer Defense.  I have spoken with all of them.

All of these documents will be made available to our APON Interns, and our backers for this initial campaign.

Let’s DO THIS!

Teresa Moore

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-cover-legal-fees-for-saving-homes?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer

Take this info for what it’s worth … it’s a novel idea worth investigating.

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May 19, 2022 · 9:41 AM

Winning an FCRA case on the back end of a foreclosure … on appeal in the 9th Circuit

gross-v-citimortgage-inc-et-al-9th-app-cir-no-20-17160-may-16-2022Download

(BREAKING NEWS, OP-ED)– The author of this post is a paralegal and consultant to attorneys on foreclosure defense and consumer issues. The case posited above is for your educational benefit only and any commentary presented here does not portend to convey any legal advise whatsoever.

The U.S. District Courts never cease to amaze this author given the blatant facts and allegations presented by the Plaintiff (Gross) in his FCRA case against CitiMortgage, Inc. The lower court justices nearly always rule for the banks no matter what. Could it be because the federal judges are vested in these banks and are conflicted out? This is why Judicial Watch puts out a list of financial records (those that have been obtained) of the federal court system’s judges’ for all to see and review (at the following link): https://www.judicialwatch.org/judge . And the cause and effect situation expressed here is exactly why we have appellate courts. The downside to this equation is the amount of money the Plaintiff had to spend litigating it before the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

CASE NOTES

Understand that Gross (the Plaintiff) lost his home to foreclosure and to add insult to injury, Defendant CitiMortgage, Inc. (as the second lien holder in a deed of trust state) used the three major credit bureaus as a punching bag against Gross, tagging his credit reports with erroneous, derogatory trade line items showing Gross being multiple times delinquent when in fact, the second mortgage was extinguished in the foreclosure under Arizona law. Gross challenged Citi’s behavior after disputing it with the three credit bureaus, all of which supported Citi’s continued erroneous reporting of derogatory information on Gross’s credit reports. The lower court dismissed all other defendants from the suit except Citi and then ruled in Citi’s favor. Gross then appealed the matter to the Ninth Circuit.

This 13-page ruling goes into great detail on the purpose of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and what it allows a consumer to do in the way of litigation. The author found this case useful in providing enough detail to overcome a 12(b)(6) dismissal in the way that prima facie evidence is discovered or provided at the onset of the case. The case was reversed and remanded back for a jury trial. Thus, the U.S. District Court judge in this case (Roslyn O. Silver) is going to have to deal with it the way it should have been done in the first place.

AUTHOR’S COMMENTARY

The author specifically wrote a book called The Credit Restoration Primer (now in its 5th Edition) for a reason. It is still highly likely that 85% of information being reported on a consumer’s credit report is erroneous and disputable under the law. This is why the author also included all of the dispute letters he used to rid his credit file of unwanted and erroneous information so as to further his future exploits.

It is sad that the banks and third-party debt collectors continue to beat up on consumers like they do, given the fact America is facing a “social credit scoring system” if the current powers that be continue to push their liberal, leftist, Marxist policies. Italy is already in the process of implementing such a system and this will not bode well for those under its iron fist.

Given the current scenarios, it would be wise to check on your credit reports often (pull them twice a year) and make sure that all negative information is disputed, especially if it’s erroneous. In Gross’s case, he was trying to get another mortgage and Citi’s erroneous and derogatory information plagued any attempts by him to “move forward” after the loss of his property. While this case certainly serves as a learning curve, it also presents a sad history of how the banks continually screw consumers at every turn, when “we” all just want to “get ahead in life”.

On another note, according to recent reports, GenZ’ers are getting themselves into a lot of credit card debt, all this in the face of not wanting to work and live at home with their parents. This author could only wonder what mommy and daddy would say when the dunning phone calls start coming during the dinner hour about junior’s delinquent credit card bills. With the rising cost of homeownership and rising mortgage interest rates, this stupid reliance on credit cards to finance these impudent pups’ spending habits are likely to implode and wreak future havoc on American society. No pot to piss in and yet they all vote for politicians that give them handouts from a government that was not designed to give handouts.

The author is a nationally-syndicated talk show host on The Power Hour. See him live at the Clay Clark’s Reawaken America Tour in Myrtle Beach, SC by clicking on this link!

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May 2, 2022 · 10:06 AM

Quiet Title Actions, Multiple Scenarios and Suspected Court Overreach

(BREAKING NEWS, OP-ED) — The author of this post is a paralegal and trial consultant to attorneys on chain of title issues. The article is designed to educate and is not to be construed as legal advice or to attempt to draw any legal conclusions of law.

A Supreme Court of Iowa case came into my inbox this morning and after reading its 14 pages, it became a relevant topic for discussion here.

In this suit, the tax deed holder (ACC Holdings LLC), twice tried to sue the owner of record (Rooney). The Iowa Rules of Civil Procedure only allow for two “bites at the apple” (IRCP 1.943) and the second voluntary dismissal operated as an “adjudication on the merits” (in other words, by dismissing its own case twice, it blocked the Plaintiff from suing a third time by creating case law, based on a third filing of the same claim). One would begin to wonder exactly what the attorneys for the Plaintiffs were thinking.

You can read the case file here:

acc-holdings-llc-v-rooney-sup-ct-iowa-no-21-0479-apr-29-2022Download

A lot of different ideas came to mind.

First, the property owner could have set up a payment plan with the County Treasurer to pay his past due tax bills, but didn’t.

Second, even failing to set up a payment plan, when the homeowner’s property went up for tax deed sale, the homeowner even had a 90-day chance to redeem the property; yet, he didn’t do that either. Most folks would look upon this guy as a tax cheat who should get his comeuppance.

Needless to say, the investor/Plaintiff obtained a tax deed. Anyone playing this game (like the author) knows that you have to quiet the title in order to make the property marketable. Instead, the Plaintiff served the homeowner with a notice to quit, followed up by a small claims court forcible detainer action, alleging the homeowner was a tenant at sufferance after the issuance of a valid tax deed.

This time, the homeowner fought back by moving to dismiss the Plaintiff’s claim based on the small claims division not having jurisdiction over tax deed actions. The fact the homeowner fought back caused the investor/Plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss its action, but not before filing its second action in district court (instead of small claims court). The mistake the Plaintiff made was using the same, previously-dated, notice to quit that had accompanied the first petition and after seeing the mistake, voluntarily dismissed the second forcible detainer action, which triggered the Rule of Civil Procedure, making a third action moot.

Third, rather than read the Rules of Civil Procedure, the investor/Plaintiff filed a third action for forcible detainer in the district court with a new 3-day notice to quit attached. The homeowner, whose attorney knew what was going on with the IRCP, filed an answer asserting 3 defenses. As usual, no matter how many valid arguments a homeowner might posit, the district court judge doesn’t care and awarded the homeowner’s property to the investor/Plaintiff. The homeowner appealed and the Supreme Court reversed and remanded with instructions, but not without a gob of explanation.

Fourth, a lot of analysis (worth the read) went into the rendering of this opinion. There are some genuine “nuggets” in the analysis that any homeowner looking at quiet title/tax deed issues should examine.

Fifth … and most shockingly … the Iowa Supreme Court sua sponte, took it upon themselves to bring up the discussion of a quiet title action in the form of a question. If this isn’t a “tip-off” to the investor/Plaintiff, what is? However, Pages 10 – 14 had more “teeth” in it for the investor/Plaintiff’s attorneys to chew on. You can bet they won’t make the same mistake twice after reading the Court’s ruling, which dismissed the Plaintiff’s case with prejudice.

Sixth, NOW … the Plaintiff’s attorneys can use this case material as a reference to bring a quiet title action, wherein the Court even ruled that the Plaintiff could bring such an action. By legally posturing the entire case for the Plaintiff, one must ask whether or not the Court exceeded its judicial boundaries by “stepping outside” of the case to submit its own remedy which benefitted the Plaintiff in its future endeavors to evict the homeowner (who claimed he had a disability).

Disability or no disability, one could have made a deal with the taxing authorities to make payments on the tax debt, even at the rate of $100 a month. Now, due to the Court’s “extended ruling” sua sponte, the disabled homeowner is soon going to be kicked to the curb with all of his possessions. Given this Court’s nature as well as the nature of the lower courts, don’t be surprised if the Plaintiff’s attorneys don’t ask the homeowner to pay attorney’s fees when they prevail in court, using the Supreme Court’s template as their basis to quiet title.

Sadly, one must also consider why the homeowner decided to fight (and retain counsel) instead of paying his taxes (which would have been considerably less expensive). Part of the problem with many homeowners is the misguided effort to fight the wrong battle. It would have been better to pay the taxes than pay an attorney and lose the home anyway.

One must also ask … is it worth taking the matter to the Supreme Court of the United States and asking the nation’s highest “conservative” Court whether the Supreme Court of Iowa’s extended ruling violated the civil rights of the Defendant homeowner for educating the Plaintiff’s attorneys in how to obtain the Property? Nope. This homeowner couldn’t afford it anyway. It’s over $15,000 just to file the damned case in the U.S. Supreme Court and there’s no guarantee the Court will hear the case anyway.

And this is why these scenarios are put forth. Homeowners in trouble generally do not pay their hazard insurance or property taxes. That’s the first sign they’re in financial straits. And this is one way that the investors are going to grab up properties to rehab them and turn them into rental properties, which brings to the forefront this author’s key argument that this nation is being turned into a nation of renters because of the lack of homeowners’ financial education.

It is for this reason the author wrote the book Clouded Titles.

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