Seth Leventhal, executive editor of this blog, has been following the saga of Vincent Ofor for quite some time.  Followers of this blog will recall that Ofor sought to void a mortgage by arguing that his signature on a power of attorney was not properly notarized.  He signed in NYC, but his signature was notarized […]

In late September, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard oral argument in Casey v. North American Savings, 8th Cir. File No. 09-1096, on an issue of federal preemption in the context of the regulation of federal lending institutions and today the court issued its ruling. It is a case of first impression with […]

Last October, this blog predicted a win for MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration System) and yesterday, the Minnesota Supreme Court continued this blog’s “undefeated” record in the risky world of making predictions on the outcomes of pending cases. In short, in a 6-1 decision (Page, J., dissenting), the Minnesota Supreme Court held that “transfers of the […]

A large number of lender defendants bought FirstPlus Bank loans (a California lending institution, now defunct) and were sued by a putative plaintiff’s class under Missouri’s Second Mortgage Loans Act in Missouri state court (which places limits on closing costs and fees in connection with second mortgages). Plaintiffs removed the case to federal court. Lenders […]

It is common if not universal for loan documents to provide for attorneys’ fees for costs of enforcement in the event of default but also somewhat common for courts to be reluctant to award fees — often finding some way to deny requests or discount them substantially, for example. Judge Donovan Frank, however, in this […]

In an earlier post, this blog covered a case decided today by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, reversing the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota. In the earlier post, I opined that the District Court’s decision elevated form over substance and the Eighth Circuit appears to have reached the same conclusion.

Since at least 2007, some in the the mortgage lending industry have been concerned that the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (“HMDA”), which mandates data reporting regarding loan applications and loan terms, would be used by plaintiffs’ counsel as supposed evidence of racially biased mortgage lending decisions or mortgage lending terms. Yesterday, while not mentioning […]

The so-called subprime mortgage meltdown has not only resulted in the shutdown of hundreds of mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers in Minnesota and across the country. Another consequence has been a rash of enhanced state and federal laws intended to crack down on what were viewed as sharp practices by the mortgage lending industry that […]

The Sunday New York Times Op Ed page, urging federal legislation, praises Minnesota’s 2007 mortgage legislation while pointing out that it is limited to state-chartered banks (well, not really — it covers mortgage brokers and others as well). See, e.g., Minn. Stat. 58.13 (Standards of Conduct for Mortgage Originators and Servicers). Minnesota attorneys Prentiss Cox, […]

A huge obstacle to resolving the U.S. credit crisis appears to be the securitization of loans, which results in a “slicing and dicing” of loans, with one party servicing a particular loan (and servicing rights bought and sold for any particular loan multiple times) and other parties as investors in the loan. With so many […]