Make no mistakes about this, in Ocwen, the regulators are taking on the ringleaders of the 1% and for once it looks like Wall Street are running for cover.
Benjamin Lawsky and his outstanding team at the DFS, NY have Ocwen in a bind. After careful research, DFS have highlighted various problems with Ocwen's processes that pushed borrowers into foreclosure. The DFS have also highlighted conflict of interest in Ocwen's relationship with Altisource.
To understand what the borrowers have been up against in Ocwen, I am quoting a case from the New York Post:
"Eartha Smith, 75, a former fire department nurse who retired on disability, tried to get a modification on her $131,000 home loan in 2009, according to her lawyer, Peter Gleason.
Gleason received a letter from Ocwen on either Jan. 18 or 19, 2010, demanding financial information, pay stubs, bank statements and tax forms in order to modify the terms of Smith’s mortgage, he told The Post.
But the letter — which Ocwen said should be returned “as quickly as possible”— was dated Aug. 29, 2009, according to a copy of the letter provided to The Post. That’s about five months before he received it, according to Gleason.
“They put us through hell,” Eartha’s daughter, Evette, told The Post. “She’s a senior — she can’t get a modification to own her own home.”
Evette, who has power of attorney for her mother, took a leave of absence from school to help her mother fight Ocwen.
Ocwen sent thousands of letters to clients denying them a loan modification and giving them 30 days to appeal, Lawsky’s office said. Those letters were backdated more than 30 days, making it impossible for homeowners to modify their mortgages and increasing the likelihood of default.
“Ocwen’s indifference to such a serious matter demonstrates a troubling corporate culture that disregards the needs of struggling borrowers,” Lawsky said.
The Smiths have made 16 appearances at Brooklyn Supreme Court since 2009, and are still fighting the company to get the interest rate on their home loan lowered to 4 percent from 6.75 percent.
“They’re playing games,” Gleason said. “If you miss a deadline in this madness, they turn around and say that defendant failed to respond, move toward a summary judgment, and move toward eviction.”"
The Scavengers Of Wall Street
--------------------------------
One day I received a call from a woman. She was trying to reach someone from my team at Altisource to check the progress of her "deed-in-lieu of foreclosure" request. When a borrower for some reason cannot be offered a loan modification and no short sale offer has been approved by the loan servicer, the homeowner can sign a deed transferring the ownership to the lender/investor and walk away hoping the lender does not pursue a deficiency judgment. However, there is one catch - a deed-in-lieu does not wipe out encumbrances like junior liens unlike a foreclosure so lenders prefer to foreclose on the loan unless the title to the property is clear.
I looked up the title report and found an HOA lien. I asked her if she would pay if I could negotiate a reduced settlement amount with the HOA. Her answer made me wish I hadn't asked. She said she was pregnant and left alone to deal with her fate. The HOA had, in the past, garnished her wages and she had no savings left to settle the HOA dues. She was poor but she was brave. You have to be brave to deal with a situation where you are about to lose your home. You don't know where you'll be living next. Perhaps under a bridge. Even if you somehow try to get back on your feet, you'll have judgments to deal with. There she was, this brave woman, not only about to face this ordeal all by herself but also about to bring a baby into a world where almost everything is linked to money and that was the one thing she lacked.
We were able to get the HOA to waive off 85% of the dues and Altisource to pay the remaining 15%. Altisource agreed to pay because it was less than what they would have had to pay to the HOA post foreclosure. She thanked us and walked away into an uncertain future, handing her home on a plate to Altisource Residential, L. P. (ARLP Trust).
You may think that deeds-in-lieu and foreclosures are means through which a lender recovers part of the money it has advanced. However, I knew something that many people didn't. Altisource had just managed to acquire her home for a lot less than what it was worth. It was not loss mitigation. It was a very profitable deal. Welcome to the worst side of the financial world. Allow me to introduce the scavengers of Wall Street.
The Men Behind Ocwen and Altisource
-----------------------------------------
William Erbey identified in the 80's that there was a segment of borrowers who were more likely to default than others. They were low income homeowners who were barely able to make their monthly repayments. William Erbey created ways, utilizing deliberately-flawed technology and other means, to push these borrowers into foreclosure and sell the foreclosed homes. When questions were raised about the software Ocwen used and how Ocwen were offering employees incentives to push borrowers into foreclosure (ex. Ron Davis' testimony in Sealy Davis vs Ocwen), he spun off the technology and real estate businesses into a new company, Altisource, and located it in Luxembourg.
Wilbur Ross is a member of and has served as the 'Grand Swipe' (ringleader) of the notorious Wall Street secret society 'Kappa Beta Phi'. Erbey purchased Homeward from Ross and immediately inducted him into Ocwen's board. They got along like a house on fire. Ross was a 'scavenger among scavengers' and had many political connections. It is quite likely that Ross's connection with Blackrock's CEO Larry Fink came in handy when Blackrock threatened to sue Ocwen along with PIMCO. Wilbur Ross was rewarded for publicly backing Erbey. In July, Ocwen repurchased shares worth $72.3 million at a price significantly higher than the present market price from Wilbur Ross. No doubt Ocwen management was well aware of the investigations against them and the impact it would have on the stock's market price. Despite that, company funds were used to reward Wilbur Ross.
Leon Cooperman has been termed as the 'Pope of the 1%' and holds no less than 2,584,007 shares of Ocwen Financial Corporation as per the 13F filed on 08/14/2014. “Lawsky should be ashamed of himself,” Leon Cooperman, founder of the investment firm Omega Advisors, has said in the past on the Ocwen issue. “He’s acting as a politician to advance his personal interest, not doing his job as a regulator.”
Another key man in all this is Orin Kramer, a major fundraiser for the Obama 2012 campaign in New York. Kramer introduced Erbey to various influential Democrats like Austan Goolsbee.
The New Yorker reported in its October 2012 edition about a dinner which included Al Gore, Leon Cooperman, Orin Kramer and Antonio Villaraigosa among others, "Kramer, the hedge-fund manager and Obama fund-raiser, was quiet, but others in the room were enthusiastic. Villaraigosa gave Cooperman his direct phone number. Barry Sternlicht, the founder of the W hotel chain, and an Obama donor in 2008, said that he agreed totally with Cooperman. Scaramucci, the organizer of the dinner, told me the next day that the guests had witnessed the “activation” of a “sleeper cell” of hedge-fund managers against Obama. “That’s what you see happening in the hedge-fund community, because they now have the power, because of Citizens United, to aggregate capital into political-action committees and to influence the debate,” he said. “The President has a philosophy of disdain toward wealth creation. That’s just obvious, O.K.? We talked about it all night.” He later said, “If there’s a pope of this movement, it’s Lee Cooperman.”"
You name the bank, from Wells Fargo to Citi, from BONY to BoA and they have a relationship with Ocwen. Top dogs like the Capital Group and Vanguard have a share in the Ocwen pie.
Clinching Evidence
---------------------
In his letter to Ocwen general counsel Timothy Hayes, Lawsky said an Ocwen employee had alerted a compliance executive to backdating problems about a year ago, and raised the issue again after being ignored for five months, yet the company failed to launch an appropriate investigation.
Lawsky, who runs the New York Department of Financial Services, demanded that Ocwen "fix its systems without delay."
This past June, a monitor discovered a 2012 letter, backdated 41 days, denying a loan modification. The company told the regulator over the summer it discovered the issue in April or May of 2014. It said it involved around 6,100 letters and it had changed its system to fix the problem.
"Each of these representations turned out to be false," Lawsky said in his letter.
Ocwen has faced more intense supervision from the New York regulator since February, when its proposed purchase of servicing rights on $39 billion of mortgages from Wells Fargo & Co was indefinitely halted.
Lawsky has also questioned Ocwen's business ties to affiliates, as has the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The servicer disclosed that the SEC has been looking into its restated financials as well.
The New York regulator and the SEC have been coordinating parallel probes, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person was not aware of any federal authorities looking into the backdating. Spokespeople for both agencies declined comment.
Michael Bresnick, former director of President Barack Obama's Financial Fraud Task Force, said the U.S. Department of Justice might become interested in examining whether the backdating violated federal civil fraud laws.
"A central issue will be whether this was simply an isolated mistake ... or part of a larger scheme to defraud homeowners," Bresnick said.
The CFPB, an agency started at the behest of Elizabeth Warren, is also looking into and discussing the future course of action as are the Attorneys General.
Elizabeth Warren has also written to the GAO seeking a study of the non-banking loan servicing industry and the threats posed to the consumers.
What happens next will be very closely watched. Will justice be served or will Ocwen manage to get away with another gentle slap on the wrist?
Learn more -
Kappa Beta Phi - http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/i-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html
Cooperman's Dinner Party - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/08/super-rich-irony
