Tag Archives: RMBS

The foreclosure paperwork gaffe at GMAC Mortgage has garnered heavy attention from the highest legal counsels in states across the country, and at least one attorney general is pressing charges. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday against GMAC Mortgage and Ally Financial, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray accuses the loan servicer and its agents of filing fraudulent affidavits in an attempt to mislead Ohio's courts. He is seeking a preliminary foreclosure injunction, $25,000 for every violation, and consumer restitution.

Three major mortgage lenders have halted foreclosures in states where the process is handled through the court system after suspicions surfaced that employees did not follow legal procedures in preparing the required documentation. These paperwork problems are widely expected to draw out the already devastating foreclosure crisis in the affected areas. We've dug a little deeper to provide a list of the states where judicial foreclosures are the standard and that are most likely impacted by the foreclosure suspensions announced.

Ambac Financial Group, Inc. opened a lawsuit against Bank of America Corp. over improperly underwritten loans the company says the bank's Countrywide unit used to induce it into purchasing mortgage-backed securities. After reviewing 6,533 of the 268,000 loans it insured for Countrywide, Ambac found that 97 percent of the reviewed loans didn't follow the underwriting guidelines Countrywide said it used to assemble loans.

It's no secret that the volume of distressed residential properties is weighing heavy on U.S. housing markets and prolonging any meaningful recovery. Of even greater concern is the industry's growing backlog of homes that need to be liquidated and resold but have yet to make their way to the market. Standard & Poor's has just released a new report in which it estimates that the principal balance of this shadow inventory now stands at $460 billion and will take the industry about 41 months to clear.

Legislation to stabilize the foreclosure crisis through the federal government's conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday. The Housing Opportunity and Mortgage Equity (HOME) Act would require Fannie and Freddie to allow borrowers to refinance their mortgages by locking in today's record-low interest rates for longer fixed-term loans. The legislation would affect up to 30 million mortgages held or backed by the two GSEs.

UCM Partners, a private, minority-owned fixed income investment boutique, recently announced the one-year anniversary of its Opportunistic Mortgage Strategy Fund. The fund currently has approximately $60 million in assets under management, and UCM Partners reports that it exceeded its absolute return target of 12-15 percent by more than double in its first year.

The law firm of Gibbs & Bruns LLP says its institutional investor clients have issued binding instructions to Bank of New York, serving as trustee, to open an investigation of ineligible mortgages behind more than $26 billion of residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) issued by subprime lender Countrywide. The firm's clients hold more than 25 percent of the voting rights of the RMBS in question, and can demand the repurchase of mortgages that did not conform to required representations and warranties.

Rock-bottom interest rates and less-than-encouraging economic data have kept mortgage-backed securities (MBS) investors worried about what the government could do next to prop up the ailing housing market, with the latest concern stemming from a recent announcement by Freddie Mac, according to Barclays Capital. The GSE has issued a new servicing guide detailing an ""easy refinance"" option with loan-to-value ratios up to 95 percent and $2,000 cash back to the borrower. Barclays says the program ""is everything but new.""

MountainView Capital Holdings recently announced that it has acquired the fixed income broker-dealer arm of the bankrupt commercial real estate lender Capmark Financial Group. Capmark sold off its North American loan origination and servicing businesses to Berkadia Commercial Mortgage at the end of last year, and its real estate equity advisory subsidiary, Capmark Investments, to Trecap Partners in March 2010.

Tampa, Florida-based ProVest, a provider of foreclosure services, has named Jim Ward president. Ward, who previously held the position of vice president of operations, will be responsible for business development, as well as information technology and operations.