Why You Need to Understand the Truth and How to Use It to Successfully Defend Foreclosure Cases

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You don’t need to believe me. You don’t need proof that what I am saying is true. You have every right in every court to file demands for discovery relating to the existence and ownership of the debt. Ask any lawyer or any judge. They will affirm this to be true. And ask any accountant. The debt exists only if someone maintains a current ledger entry on their own books of record that shows they paid value for the underlying obligation, along with having supporting documentation (proof of payment). If they didn’t pay value then they don’t own it — under both accounting rules and the laws of every jurisdiction.

Everyone is complaining about why homeowners are not winning more cases. They all seem to have their own specific grievance theory about lawyers, judges, regulators etc. But the real problem is the homeowners themselves. They simply won’t accept the fact that a claim filed against them has absolutely no merit.

So the first thing they do is admit the existence of the debt, the existence of delinquency, the existence of default, and then they go on to explain why they should be let out of what they have already admitted was a legitimate debt that is unpaid  — contrary to the agreement they signed. After losing the case, homeowners claim bias and any other theory that distracts from their own personal responsibility for their loss.

No judge is a mind reader or an investment banker. Acting as though a judge should be a mind reader or an investment banker is foolishness.

If the claim filed against you arises as a result of a claim of securitization of a debt, the claim is false. There was no securitization of debt. There was no sale of any debt. There is no authority arising from the securitization of debt. The document submitted by a self-proclaimed servicer both irrelevant and inadmissible as evidence in court — but only if a timely objection is raised. That is how the system works.

The same thing holds true when the named claimant is not a trustee. In most cases, the transaction was still the reference point for securitization, to wit: the issuance and sale of securities. And those securities were not conveyances of any right, title, or interest in any debt, note, or mortgage. So the fact that the securities were bets on data contained in discretionary reports issued by the” investment bank” posing as “Master Servicer” does not mean the debt was sold. It wasn’t. Like the supposed “REMIC Trustee” the named claimant has no loss and in fact has no interest in the outcome of litigation — except as a profiteer.

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This is reminiscent of the repeated reports to the SEC of wrongdoing by Bernie Madoff. The reports were regarded as too absurd to be true on the scale that was reported — until 10 years later when Madoff himself admitted all charges and was sent to prison. Just because a lie is a whopper doesn’t mean that it can be turned into truth. Eventually, financial historians are going to see “Securitization” for what it is — a PONZI scheme. Nothing was securitized.

It is understandable that Homeowners are a bit put off by the apparent complexity of securitization. But it becomes much simpler when you realize that securitization never occurred. The securities that were issued and sold to investors did not represent ownership of any debt, note, mortgage, or payment.

It is also understandable that homeowners are not well-versed in court procedure, the burden of proof, or the rules of evidence. And it is even understandable for homeowners to assume that their debt still exists. We can’t expect homeowners to understand what has been completely concealed from them.

Because of limited judicial resources, the courts were forced into running roughshod over the rights of homeowners — solely because of the assumption that the debt existed and that somehow the money proceeds of the forced sale would find its way into the hands of investors who had directly or indirectly purchased the transactions that were labeled as loans.

• Removing the assumption of an existing debt the homeowner who properly and timely files a denial of claims and or who files affirmative defenses should be permitted to rebut the legal presumptions arising from apparently facially valid documentation and to contest the actual facial validity of such instruments.
• Removing the assumption of an existing debt requires the trial court to treat discovery demands seriously rather than as an annoyance.
• Removing the assumption of an existing debt requires the trial court to strictly apply existing law instead of inventing new law.

If a lawyer meets a prospective client who admits liability, the lawyer is going to look for other means to protect the client from enforcement. If a lawyer admits liability on behalf of his client the judge is going to consider technical factors in the enforcement of the liability. But the judge is not going to deny enforcement on the basis that the liability does not exist. If the homeowner and the lawyer failed to bring that issue up, then it is not an issue that will be litigated. Those are the rules. That is not bias.

There is nothing more basic to a foreclosure action than the existence and ownership of the underlying obligation. Homeowners and their lawyers have made the mistake of trying to prove the true facts of securitization or lack thereof. But all they really need to do is challenge the presumptions raised by the allegations and exhibits of the claimant — during the process of discovery. They fear this path because they fear the claim is real.

The problem is that neither homeowners nor their attorneys are going to do that. Instead, they are going to look for a magic bullet in the form of technical deficiencies of the allegations or exhibits. This almost guarantees that the judge will order foreclosure, a sale will occur and the homeowner will be evicted. How would you feel if somebody owed YOU money and they got out of it by poiinting out some minor technical deficiency?

You don’t need to believe me. You don’t need proof that what I am saying is true. You have every right in every court to file demands for discovery relating to the existence and ownership of the debt. Ask any lawyer or any judge. They will affirm this to be true. And ask any accountant. The debt exists only if someone maintains a current ledger entry on their own books of record that shows they paid value for the underlying obligation, along with having supporting documentation (proof of payment). If they didn’t pay value then they don’t own it — under both accounting rules and the laws of every jurisdiction.

Please Donate to Support Neil Garfield’s Efforts to stop Foreclosure Fraud.

But the burden is on the homeowner to raise the objections. The burden is on the homeowner to deny the allegations and challenge the exhibits. If the homeowner fails to timely raise the issues in proper form, then the debt does exist for purposes of litigating the case — even if there is no debt in real life. Courtrooms are not real life. All courtroom decisions are legal fictions in which the judge’s finding of fact is final even if it differs from the real world. If it were otherwise, courts could not work and no disputes would be resolved — ever. 

Your expectation that lawyers and judges should know about all of this is misplaced. The only people who would know this information for a fact are people like me. I was an actual practicing investment banker and I was physically present in the room when the seeds of the current scheme of securitization were discussed way back in 1970.

When I later read that someone figured out a way to separate the debt from a “mortgage-backed security” I understood completely what that meant and how it would be misconstrued by homeowners, lawyers, judges, and regulators. The Wall Street banks gambled that the sheer magnitude of their lie would overcome any objections. They were right.

But they don’t have to be right for future litigation. And that is why I am filing amicus briefs and drafting petitions for rule changes in all 50 states. Eventually, courts are going to have that moment when they realize what is going on. That day will be moved closer by you acting on what I say here on these pages.

Please Donate to Support Neil Garfield’s Efforts to stop Foreclosure Fraud.