AG Reaches Agreed Judgment with Mortgage Rescue Company
Already outraged homeowners are now furious with the Texas Attorney General’s office for going easy on two brothers FOX 4 found running a mortgage rescue company. They were supposed to be helping struggling homeowners but the brothers were accused of helping themselves instead. The two faced enormous penalties but that’s not what happened when it was all said and done... FOX 4 wondered how the restitution would be divided and how the Attorney General decided on $25,000.00. We also wanted to know why $90,000.00 of the $110,000.00 penalty was abated. Since no one from the Attorney General’s office would sit down with us and answer our questions on camera, we caught up with assistant attorney general, Andrew Leonie in Dallas. Leonie worked on the Bailey brothers’ case. He just happened to be speaking at a summit on combating loan scams. The media was invited.

Big Gifts to G.O.P. Groups Push Donor to New Level
Now Mr. Rove and his party are benefiting from his old friend’s largess once again, as new federal disclosure reports this week showed that Mr. Perry has given $7 million since September to American Crossroads, the conservative group Mr. Rove helped start. Mr. Perry was the group’s biggest donor. Mr. Perry, 77, has long been a major donor to Republican candidates, with significant contributions to George W. Bush’s campaigns for Texas governor and his presidential races, as well as to Republican groups and causes. But his donations to American Crossroads, which has been become a major force this election season in pushing Republican candidates, along with $4 million to the Republican Governors Association this year, put Mr. Perry in another stratosphere as a conservative version of George Soros, the patron of liberal causes. ... Mr. Perry’s company was drawn into a long controversy over the liability issue when a couple claimed a Perry Homes house was defective. ...in March a jury ordered Perry Homes to pay $58 million in damages.

Coalition Presents Testimony to Interim IGR Committee
A Coalition of Homeowners and Homeowner Organizations for HOA Reform in Texas.  Senator West, Chair of InterGovermental Relations and committee members heard testimony on regulation of abusive HOA organizations.  Founding Members: Texas Homeowners for HOA Reform, Inc.    HomeOwners for Better Building and Texas Housing Justice League

Join HOA Reform Coalition and View Video of Interim Hearing

SA Home Builder Hit With Warranty Complaints
In March, the Defenders illustrated Mike Urzendowski's problems with his Stonewall Custom home: A cracked driveway and stucco, and flashing that allowed rain to come inside the house. Another StoneWall customer ..."The one thing I want is the house I paid for," said Lisa Forsyth, who moved into her StoneWall home last year.  Now, Forsyth said her home has cracks in the tile, in the patio, the brick archways and the driveway.  She said only duct tape keeps her bedroom door from blowing open and that StoneWall will not honor its warranty even after an inspector's report and a lawsuit. "I want the defects corrected; I want to come home to a house where I can raise my family in a safe, happy manner," Forsyth said. Related article: Man Asks For Settlement From Homebuilder 

Developer broke restriction by selling to speculators, Stuart condo association says
As a condition of sale, buyers had to sign a deed restriction that said they must occupy the condominium as their primary or secondary residence for at least one year. But Centex sold units to investors who did not occupy the units... The suit also alleges numerous inadequacies in design and construction, including landscaping, plumbing, irrigation and drainage, potable water system, fire hydrants, downspouts, sidewalks, sunken pavers, entrance gates and roadways. Some of these flaws are in violation of the Florida Building Code or city ordinances, the suit said.

WSJ: B of A to resubmit foreclosure docs by Oct 25
San Fransico - (MarketWatch) -- Bank of America Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!bac/quotes/nls/bac (BAC 12.30, -0.03, -0.24%) said it plans to have new paperwork submitted to courts to resume foreclosures in 23 states by Oct. 25, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday in its online edition, citing a bank spokesman. Some 102,000 foreclosure actions are affected, according to the Journal. So far, the bank has found no instances of finding documentation where a foreclosure should not have gone through, the Journal reported
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Texas Joins Mortgage Foreclosure MultiState Group
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today joined the Mortgage Foreclosure Multistate Group, a coalition of 49 attorneys general, state-level mortgage regulators and bank oversight agencies that will jointly review improper foreclosure processing procedures...thousands of documents were reportedly signed electronically, the states will review whether the signer actually confirmed the facts contained in their affidavits. The workgroup will also review whether foreclosure paperwork was signed outside of the presence of a notary public, contrary to state law. Both judicial and non-judicial foreclosures will be subject to the workgroup’s review.

How Countrywide Covered the Cracks
ON June 27, 2006, Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, was about to close its books on a record-breaking six-month run. The housing market was on fire and Countrywide’s earnings were soaring. Despite all the euphoria inside the company, some executives noticed that Angelo R. Mozilo, the company’s brash and imperious chief executive, seemed subdued... Another Countrywide product that concerned Mr. Mozilo was its so-called 80/20 loan, named for the fact that the combination allowed a borrower to receive money covering 100 percent of a home’s purchase price. Mr. Mozilo had become worried about these loans in the first quarter of 2006, when HSBC Bank, a buyer of Countrywide’s 80-20 loans, began forcing the lender to repurchase some that HSBC contended were defective. “In all my years in the business, I have never seen a more toxic product,” he wrote to Mr. Sambol in an April 17, 2006, e-mail cited by the S.E.C. “With real estate values coming down ... the product will become increasingly worse.”

Pulte-Centex - Class-action possibility increases interest in Sun City stucco lawsuit
Lawyers representing a Sun City Hilton Head couple suing for allegedly defective stucco work say interest in the lawsuit has increased following a state Supreme Court ruling allowing homeowners to seek class-action status....stucco problem in Sun City is widespread. An engineer hired to inspect a sampling of about 250 homes found the stucco could have been improperly applied in all 2,500 homes.

Angelo Mozilo, other former Countrywide execs settle fraud charges
Angelo R. Mozilo, who as head of home-loan giant Countrywide was at the center of the housing boom and bust, agreed Friday to pay a record fine as part of a $73-million settlement of a government fraud lawsuit over the lender's near-collapse.  "Mozilo's record penalty is the fitting outcome for a corporate executive who deliberately disregarded his duties to investors by concealing what he saw from inside the executive suite — a looming disaster in which Countrywide was buckling under the weight of increasing risky mortgage underwriting, mounting defaults and delinquencies, and a deteriorating business model," said Robert Khuzami, the SEC enforcement chief. All of the $73-million settlement will go to former Countrywide shareholders, including $25 million that Bank of America has agreed to pay as part of a $600-million settlement with investors.

Countrywide's Mozilo to pay $67.5 million settlement
The whopping fine was announced at a court hearing before U.S. District Judge John Walter in Los Angeles. "Mozilo's record penalty is the fitting outcome for a corporate executive who deliberately disregarded his duties to investors by concealing what he saw from inside the executive suite," Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said in a statement. What Mozilo kept to himself, said Khuzami, was "a looming disaster in which Countrywide was buckling under the weight of increasing risky mortgage underwriting, mounting defaults and delinquencies, and a deteriorating business model."...The SEC accused only Mozilo of insider trading, alleging that he sold millions of dollars worth of Countrywide stock after he knew the company was doomed.

Countrywide’s Mozilo settles SEC charges
According to court filings, Mozilo agreed to repay $45 million in profits, and $22.5 million in civil penalties, stemming from charges filed against him by the SEC last year. The SEC alleged that Mozilo and former Countrywide executives David Sambol and Eric Sieracki misled shareholders about the quality of loans on the company’s books. In addition, Mozilo was charged with selling company shares based on inside knowledge of the company’s troubles.

Major U.S. Banks Investigated For Foreclosure Fraud
With well over a million homes being repossessed, 2010 is shaping up to be a record year for foreclosures in the U.S. But there are serious questions about the way many have been carried out, and now prosecutors are investigating whether some of the country's largest banks committed fraud.

More Foreclosures Suspended, Congress Requests Investigation Into Alleged Fraudulent Practices
Now Congress is getting in on the act.  Last week Representatives Alan Grayson, Barney Frank, and Corrine Brown wrote a letter to Fannie Mae requesting that the mortgage giant review the firms it uses to process foreclosures, especially several of those that are currently under investigation in Florida for fraud.  Yesterday Senator Al Franken requested Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder conduct an investigation into the “filing of false affidavits in foreclosure proceedings“.

Wall Street Plays Dr. Jekyll to Avoid Court
When duped investors set out to make themselves whole after a fleecing by a broker, the American way is to hustle them off to a private court run by Wall Street. It’s a tradition that was set in stone when the Supreme Court in 1987 said that, if an investor signed an agreement to arbitrate, the sorry loser is out of luck if he ever wants a day in court... In spite of the obvious advantage Wall Street gets by having one of its own on dispute panels, there are political reasons that industry types might actually support Finra’s proposal: forces that are threatening mandatory arbitration altogether. The Dodd-Frank Act has the SEC looking into whether arbitration contracts are in the public interest; the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 had raised questions on the issue even before Dodd-Frank passed.