Kamala Harris Comes Through: CA Out Of Big Banks Deal!
Kamala Harris Is My Hero, Too
This is terrific news: Kamala Harris, California’s Attorney General, has heard the people of this state, suffering under the worst mortgage and real estate crisis since the Great Depression. She has opted out of the proposed settlement of the 50 states Attorneys General with the Big Banks. That settlement, rumored to be about $25 billion, is really small potatoes and would have been a disastrous conclusion of their investigation. $25 billion would barely settle the monetary issues for California alone, not to mention the other 49 states. In addition, the banks are seeking to limit all their legal liability in return for the meager settlement. Despite the support of the Obama administration,hoping to end financial uncertainty with this settlement, Harris has decided that California will pursue a separate investigation and, if possible, make a separate settlement with the Big Banks.
Other States Are Reluctant To Sign
Harris follows in the footsteps of Eric Schneiderman of New York who has launched a wide-ranging investigation of the activities of the Big Banks which include Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial. Other states have also signaled their displeasure with the proposed deal which, if rumors are correct, allots a huge windfall to the Big Banks and a meager settlement to the states. Besides New York and California, Delaware Massachusetts, Kentucky and Minnesota, along with our hard-hit neighbor, Nevada have all signaled intense dislike of the proposed deal.
California, already one of the worst foreclosure states in the nation, recently made headlines again when foreclosures jumped 55% in one month as BofA, a prime supplier of SoCal mortgages during the “bubble years” via Countrywide, prepared to “dump” more seized homes on an already-bloated real estate market. Stockton, CA is especially at risk for there, it is estimated, 1 in every 7 homes could be foreclosed in the near future. Likewise, Nevada’s Las Vegas is suffering from an especially difficult and long-lasting crisis as estimates say that 75% of Las Vegas homes are underwater and could potentially be foreclosed.
Fraudulent Mortgage Practices
As indicated in a previous post, some of the most notorious fraudulent practices of the Big Banks, such as robo-signing, continue despite their public exposure. Since California is a non-judicial state, meaning foreclosures do not have to be approved by a judge or, indeed, by anyone, fraudulent foreclosures are harder to spot. Judicial states, in general, are the ones which have brought such practices to light. Given the huge number of foreclosures in California, though, it stands to reason that large numbers of these were not legitimate. Victims of such practices should have the help of the state’s top lawyer, the attorney general, to help them seek redress. Except in rare cases, it is prohibitively expensive for individuals to launch suits against Big Banks. That should not give the Big Banks carte blanche to commit wholesale fraud against California mortgagees.
What Does This Mean For Distressed Homeowners?
The most likely scenario now with both New York and California posing uncomfortable questions to the Big Banks while launching probing investigations into mortgage abuse is that the 50-state deal will collapse. The Big Banks will have to live with uncertainty. Will they be brought to the bar for their crimes? How much will it cost them? Will heads roll? And the Big Question for Big Banks: will profits suffer? will stock prices dive? Few have much sympathy left for the banks, so, aside from Timothy Geitner and Henry Paulson, few will really care.
The outcome for the distressed and already-foreclosed-upon homeowner, though is a different story. With multiple ongoing investigations, quick relief in the form of monetary settlements is not in the cards. It is really, though, to everyone’s advantage to dig deeper into this morass of abuse. If the fraud is papered over, then, equally obviously, it will happen again. If the banks made trillions by fraud and nobody cares to demonstrate the modus operandi, then they will continue to behave in the same way. Showing the crime and punishing the criminal: That is the basis of our judicial system and it is a vital necessity in this case.
Some of the more flagrant practices are already known, publicized, and yet continuing. Big Banks could regulate themselves in order to regain public confidence. This is, apparently, what was expected of them after the 2008 bailout which seems to have been offered with no strings whatsoever. Did they regulate themselves? For those imprisoned in Siberian ice caves for the past 4 years, the Big Banks went right back to business as usual. Congress needs to regulate our messed-up financial sector. The sooner, the better if we are ever to get out of this nightmare.
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