The Foreclosure Mess Could Last for Years
The dimensions of the foreclosure crisis keep expanding. Lenders and loan servicers including JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial are facing an explosion in homeowner lawsuits and state attorney general investigations of claims of falsified mortgage documents. Lawmakers in both houses of Congress have called for investigations. And procedural mistakes in the handling of mortgage documents have clouded titles establishing ownership of the homes, a problem that could plague both buyers and sellers for years. "This is going to become a hydra," says Peter J. ...

Texans for Public Justice Report: Perry Reaps $17 Million from his Political Appointees
Governor Rick Perry has received $17 million in campaign contributions from his political appointees and their spouses, according to a new report by Texans for Public Justice.   One out of every $5 raised by Governor Perry since 2001 has come from appointees or their spouses. Read the new report at Texans for Public Justice.

Walking away with less
...deal is called a short sale, and it's sweeping the country. In these deals, a lender allows a troubled borrower to sell a home for less than what's owed on the mortgage. Completed short sales have more than tripled since 2008, and 400,000 of these deals are projected to close this year, according to mortgage research firm CoreLogic. The giant mortgage financier Fannie Mae approved short sales on 36,534 home loans it owned in the first half of the year, nearly triple the number in 2007 and 2008 combined. Freddie Mac, its sister company, approved 22,117 in the first half of 2010, up from a mere 94 in the first half of 2007.

U.S. Mortgage-Fraud Totally Out Of Control
A flurry of news items demonstrates that this epidemic has gotten so out of control that Wall Street banks are literally acting like there are no laws, at all. Shortly after a preliminary report that Ally Financial (the "mortgage unit" of GMAC) had suspended foreclosures in 23 U.S. states due to defective/fraudulent foreclosure procedures, two other news items emerged on this fraud-factory...There have been only 40% as many convictions of this white-collar fraud as during Wall Street's last crime-wave in the 1980's and 1990's – despite the fact that this crime-wave is (much) more than ten times larger. In other words, a white-collar criminal committing mortgage-fraud today is less than 5% as likely to be imprisoned for his crimes compared to 15-20 years earlier.

Conn., Calif. join probe of Ally
Attorneys general in Connecticut and California ordered Ally Financial's GMAC mortgage unit to freeze all foreclosures within their borders, joining a growing list of states investigating whether the firm and other lenders improperly kicked people out of their homes. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on Monday accused Ally of using "defective foreclosure documents" in its filings and said he ordered the moratorium "to forestall horrendous, illegal harm against homeowners." California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. on Friday called Ally's document review process a "sham."

Drywall Flaws: Owners Gain Limited Relief
...so far the relief has been negligible. Most insurance companies have yet to pay a dime. Only a handful of home builders have stepped forward to replace the tainted drywall. Help offered by the government "€” like encouraging lenders to suspend mortgage payments and reducing property taxes on damaged homes "€” has not addressed the core problem of replacing the drywall. And Chinese manufacturers have argued that United States courts do not have jurisdiction over them.

Some Harris County Habitat for Humanity homeowners face foreclosure
Skyrocketing escrow fees and escalating mortgage payments have some low-income homeowners pointing a finger of blame at a Harris County chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Residents of the Cherie Cove subdivision in northwest Harris County blame the nonprofit agency for creating conditions that could force some families out of their homes.

Lanham man accused of taking tens of thousands of dollars in payment for homes that were never built 
The Maryland Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division has ordered Lanham-based homebuilder, Derek A. McDaniels, and his Lanham-based company, McDaniels Homes, to pay more than $500,000 in restitution to consumers and penalties to the state, Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler said in a press release. McDaniels must pay $448,830 back within 45 days to the 10 families who originally filed complaints with the Attorney General's office, according to the order. The Druitts are not on that list because they filed their complaint at a later date, but McDaniels was also ordered to pay back any family who can prove they paid him or his company for a home that was never built.

How to test your home for Chinese drywall
How to test your home for Chinese drywall starts with identifying whether your home meets certain criteria for being at-risk. According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), reports have been filed from 38 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa and Puerto Rico from residents who believe their homes have been adversely affected by the presence of drywall imported from China. The majority of these reports came from residents of the state of Florida. Other reporting states include California, Wisconsin, Texas and the New England region.
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Some Houston Habitat for Humanity homeowners face foreclosure
HOUSTON"€”Skyrocketing escrow fees and escalating mortgage payments have some low-income homeowners pointing a finger of blame at Habitat for Humanity. Residents of the Cherie Cove subdivision in northwest Harris County blame the nonprofit agency for creating conditions that could force some families out of their homes.

Thousands of Ohio gas customers living with defective pipes 
More than 17,000 defective gas pipes have been installed in Ohio. Now the installer -- Columbia Gas of Ohio -- is checking each location to see if there are any issues of leakage...The thickness of the pipe wall is what's in question. Texas-based Polypipe was the manufacturer, Columbia says the pipe wasn't allowed to cool thoroughly enough, leaving the wall of the pipe thinner than normal.

FHA: Banks Should Share Fannie, Freddie Bailout Costs
The nation's largest banks have an obligation to pay some of the cost for bailing out mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because they sold them bad mortgages, a government regulator said Wednesday. Edward DeMarco, the acting director for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said the banks this summer have refused to take back $11 billion in bad loans sold to the two government-controlled companies, in written testimony submitted for a House subcommittee hearing Wednesday. A third of those requests have been outstanding for at least three months. DeMarco said the banks have a legal obligation to buy back the loans and called the delays "a significant concern." He said the government may take new steps to force those buybacks if "discussions do not yield reasonable outcomes soon."

Blind arbitration: A system that ignores reality in setting public worker contracts must change
Just in time for the new school year: the confounding math of binding arbitration, where two plus two equals … whatever an arbitrator says it equals "€” and taxpayers must make up the difference.  Why are New Jersey taxpayers suffocating? Binding arbitration is Exhibit A. Arbitrators are supposed to weigh taxpayers' ability to pay, but often don't. It's a rigged game, and should be scrapped.

Executives with criminal records slip through FHA crackdown, documents show
A crackdown on reckless mortgage lenders by the Federal Housing Administration has failed to root out several executives with criminal records whose firms continue to do business with the agency in violation of federal law, according to government documents, court records and interviews. The get-tough campaign has also been hamstrung because, even when the FHA can ban mortgage companies for wrongdoing or an excessive default rate, the agency does not have the legal power to stop their executives from landing jobs at other lenders, or open new firms.