Comments

1
This is a victory for so many groups, anarchists, anon-archists, socialists, not to mention SAFE which put out the call.

This is how you bring your mother-fucking A-game.
2
Typo in the first sentence. that not hat.
4
That is AWESOME, AND WHAT about all the other EVICTIONS? Are WE doing anything about those? I do find it interesting though that in the last two big battles, ie this one, and the City Light CEO pay controversy. That the Mayor has come to the rescue both times.. very interesting?

Further more why don't we just do some eminent domain. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/busine…
5
I thought the Sherrif`s Department did evictions.
6
Interesting story. If Barton was not a disabled vet, should he be evicted?
7
@The Fonz:
Wall Street would like NOTHING MORE than for Seattle to approve eminent domain. What the non-profits who are pushing eminent domain are NOT TELLING ANYONE is that a HEDGE FUND called Mortgage Resolution Partners is behind that whole eminent domain nefarious scheme. And the non-profits who *act* like they are for stopping foreclosures? Yeah, they aren't. You see, they are pushing a WALL-STREET-BACKED initiative=eminent domain. If they can convince the city government to seize the homes then WALL STREET comes in and provides NEW MORTGAGES which means more Wall Street MONEY and of course, Wall Street tosses a bone to the non-profit who is slathering over in the corner just waiting for the pay-off. Who in their right mind would advocate to provide the GOVERNMENT with more power to seize homes? Do YOU trust your government? I sure as hell don't! There is a LOT of money to be made in the un-winding of foreclosure and the f*cking non-profits are slithering by just waiting to prey on the unfortunate. It disgusts me.

AND ALSO the non-profits are pushing the Foreclosure Fairness Act mediation programs which ALSO is paid out by the BANKS. The banks have to pay $250 for every Notice of Default they serve in this state. And guess who reaps the rewards??? If you guessed the slithering NON-PROFITS, you would be correct. All those "free" housing counselors are paid by the BANKS. Nothing in life is free, or didn't you learn that already???

So, I must ask you, do you really think these non-profits who are acting like they want to stop foreclosures, really want to stop that gravy train? Why don't you ask 'em? Why don't you ask 'em why they've blocked every piece of homeowner legislation that has been written and lobbied EXCEPT of course, the Foreclosure Fairness Act where they get MONEY.
8
@5, they do, but apparently they gave up. The SPD can toss people out for trespassing, and if this couple has not paid for a long enough time and the bank legally owns the house now, they're trespassers.
9
And no, I am not on the side of SPD or the banks. But if we're going to change this, it has to be done by changing laws, or by an appeals court decision (not a trial court). Constant protests won't do it.
10
And if you're not a vet...you're STILL SCREWED!!!!
11
Awesome! Im gonna refi the house, spend the cash on partying and traveling - then say FUCK IT! Im not paying the mortgage! And I STILL get to keep the house.

this truly is AMERICA! FREE SHIT FOR EVERYONE!
12
Showing eminent domain to banks is like showing a red flag to a bull. Wall Street in collusion with Fannie and Freddie have bullied various jurisdictions including Seattle into abandoning the mere exploration of eminent domain as a viabile approach to principal reduction by threatening to make mortgages unobtainable in any jurisdiction that implements eminent domain as a solution to the foreclosure crisis.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/busine…

13
@Mud Baby,
Hahahahahahahahahahahahhahaahhhahahahaha.
Freddie and Fannie do not want eminent domain because the banks DUMPED all the toxic mortgages on them! But the BANKERS are behind the eminent domain push. And the slithering non-profits are colluding with the bankers because they also have been promised MONEY. Look up Mortgage Resolution Partners. THEY ARE A HEDGE FUND. So, don't let Washington CAN fool you. The bankers want the municipalities to go along with this nefarious scheme.

It's BULLSHIT. And so is Washington CAN'T.
15
As there is considerable misunderstanding about how the Loan-generation and foreclosure system works, and the posters here start to put in what are basically Calvinist arguments about "you did not pay, so you should be foreclosed and evicted," herewith a short tutorial:

The retail borrower obtains a loan and signs documents; among others, a "Note," and a "Deed of Trust," or mortgage. Except, the money that funds the loan (wired from a warehouse line of credit to the closing agent) is being fronted by someone else, not on the documents; that unknown party is the real Lender. The outfit whose name shows up on the Note as the "Lender" is emphatically not the Lender. All that outfit is doing is renting out its name as a bare nominee, and they have no funds at risk. So, from the start, the loan Note does not describe the transaction, and is not evidence of the transaction, which is with others. So that Note cannot be enforced (except by a judge who is either asleep or profoundly stupid).

The money in that warehouse line of credit came from an outfit on wall Street, which obtained the funds from some offshore pension fund chasing returns greater than the 0.1% offered on T-bills. So, Wall Street offers those guys say 3%, for certificates in a "Trust" that is supposed to then go fund the Notes. except, those advanced funds from the pension funds are never deposited into some bank account controlled by the Trustee of the Trust, and instead go into the general fund of the Wall Street outfit. So, the Trust is "unfunded."

The Street bank then loans out some of the money at say 6% via the warehouse line to the retail customer, who pays that 6%$ on the Note. But here is where it gets cute: 3% of say one million is 30K; to generate that 30K you only need to send along 500,000 down the pipeline. What happens to the OTHER 500,000? Why, that gets swallowed up by the bank as "fees." And that is why Goldman Sachs can afford to pay out $38 Billion in executive bonuses while the rest of the country is going broke.

Except, to sell these deals, the Certificates had to be AA or AAA. To get those, the Street bought credit-default insurance policies (using the Loan borrower's cash, from the closing). The insurance policies, from say AIG, or MGIC, or AMBAC, or Radian Insurance, would pay on the 91st day after default. So: the retail customer does not pay, and the insurer pays all the principal and interest, so the Note is now FULLY PAID. Yes, it is not paid by the retail borrower, but who cares? It is a bank, and they don't care if the Note is paid by YOU or by your rich aunt or by some insurer.

Bottom line: the borrower is never actually in default - the insurer pays when he does not. Try to grasp this. there is no default. Ever. This vet was nevver in default; it is all a charade.

But the now-paid Note has no "home;" it is not stamped PAID by the lender. It sits in some vault. That is just too tempting. So, the shysters come along and take the Paid Note and go appoint themselves a Substitute Trustee (because the real trustee is never going to go along with this cute fraud) and then go "foreclose" and kick out the homeowner and sell the house. the fresh funds go to the bonus pool of the scammers. Nobody knows the difference - because nobody knows about the insurers, and the insurance payments to the certificate holders that discharged the Note.

Do try to understand this, folks: you are all be screwed by Wall Streeters. Those Notes are all insured and fully paid off. All of them.
16
There are a lot of "bank screwed me over" examples, but this certainly isn't one of them. This couple has lived in the house for decades, pulled out 450K cash via refis, stopped making payments in 2011, refused to sell, got 100K from the foreclosure auction, refused to move out after someone else bought it (not a bank), and are now trying to milk public sympathy.
17
@16 beat me to it. These people are not victims. And continuing to rally people around them is offensive to actual victims.

@GuyFawkes is one of those types who always believe they've found a loophole to get out of paying taxes, bills, etc. How's that working out for Wesley Snipes?
18
@11, @16, @17

Sounds like the Bartons are the poster child to show how the system works just fine. People who try to game the system (being polite) should eventually get caught. They've got their >$500 k so they can move someplace they can afford. It may be an emotional drain but they had plenty plenty of time.

I'm not sure what the Mayor means when he says "Let the judicial process works." The now-owner could only have received eviction notice from a Court. But it doesn't cost Murray anything (in fact he gains from the Ansel Herz crowd) to give the Bartons more time to exploit the situation, so he does.
19
Guy @15 -- You don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know where to begin....

+ When a loan is made by a lender with a warehouse line, it's made by that lender and they are named on the note. They may sell the loan 30 - 60 days later, but the original loan is indeed in that lender's name with that lender's (albeit borrowed) funds.

+ That lender sure does have risk. If the a defect is found in the loan (and LOTS of them were found), the loan gets pushed back to the original lender. This put a huge percent of lenders out of business.

+ Most mortgage backed securities did not generate AAA ratings via insurance. They accomplished this via tranches where the AAA bonds got first rights to payments. But they didn't set aside enough loss coverage.

+ Explain to the bond holders of the mortgage backed securities that they really didn't take any losses. I'm sure they will be relieved and update their financial statements.

+ There most certainly is default if the borrower doesn't pay regardless if the bank got the principal paid off. Thats the fucking definition of default as stated in the note.

+ if the insurer pays off the note, the insurer is entitled to take the property. But, they generally just let the bank manage that.
20
Dr. Short,
These Wall Streeters bought un-subrogated insurance. What that means is the insurance co cannot attach a *claim* to the collateral. Hence, the bottoming out of people like AIG and AMBAC.

And of course, these un-subrogated payments are off-balance sheet, so they never show up should anyone get loan level data.
21
BTW, I NEVER said the investors to the MBS did not get screwed. Why do you think Boeing had to force it's pensioners to take a hair cut? There ain't any money, People. That's the big cabal. The Streeters stole from BOTH the homeowners AND the pension managers. And the Streeters continue to say, "The pension managers were "sophisticated investors" and the homeowners are "deadbeats"" All that rhetoric to make sure no one sees the light of day and calls the Streeters just what they are: Common Street Thugs.
22
repost from the old thread:

Known facts of the house/sale/mortgage (taken from public records): Bought before 2000 (amount paid not immediately available) Refi in 2005 - BofA Refi in 2006 - American Home Mortgage and GMAC. And the kicker: an assignment of rents - meaning it wasn't owner occupied at the time... Refi'd in 2007 with a $456k 1st and 207.5k 2nd (that's more than $650k debt - waaaaay more than they would have paid pre-2000) BS fillings in 2011 trying to assert the the mortgage holders could not prove they had the paperwork and therefore the mortgages were invalid (after multiple refis? - don't think so...) Got an NTS (notice of trustee sale) in 2012, then early 2013, then again in late 2013 Sold at the foreclosure auction for $646k (wow!) in April.


This was totally some steeple fingers banker stealing from a disabled vet though, he should be able to get the slate wiped, keep all the money and stay. Its not like this isn't a view house, in a nice desirable neighborhood with buried power lines, that the owners extracted half a million dollars out of, that was legally sold to another owner. They totally deserve to keep it.

The socialist knee-jerks have run amok here, they might want to catch their breaths and see if this poster boy checks out.
23

SLOG is now promoting Single Family Home ownership and eschewing crazy density and transit?

Snowballs in hell...
24
To: Supreme Ruler of the Universe:
SLOG supports anything that is non-profit "Chopp." That's a fact.
25
Guy @20

You're confusing a credit default swap with mortgage insurance. If the principal and interest on a loan is paid by an insurer at default (as you asserted), it's mortgage insurance and, in those cases, the insurance contracts of the major mortgage insurers allow them the option to pay off the loan and take the property.

The credit default swaps were un-subrogated, but they protected the bond holder (or speculator), not the lender.
26
No, DrShort,
That is what they want you to think. These insurance policies or swaps, if you'd like, were paid the 91st day of non-payment. Why do you continue to hear "my lender told me I had to be three months in behind on payments before they would help me out with HAMP"???

In addition, the "lender" continued to sell this defaulted debt on the secondary market. The "debt" has never been on the books. Ever.
The servicer, or crook as I like to call them, is just the middle-man making bets against the borrower and the certificate holders. Why do you think Wall Street is the only game in town with any money? Why do you think they can continue to pay themselves princely bonuses? They are scamming both sides.....because that is what they do best.
27
"That is what they want you to think."

said every crackpot ever.
28
Guy @26

I stand by my original statement. You don't know what you're talking about.
29
DrShort @28
And I now believe you are part of the Streeters who are scamming both the homeowner (or in your verbiage "deadbeat") and the certificate holders (or "sophisticated investors who should have known better"). So, that leaves only the: Common Street Thug.

Guess where you fit?
30
@29

Guy, why don't you take the cape off, climb down off the roof of that shed, and tell us exactly how you acquired those superhuman powers of perception?
31
drshort, you have disagreed on the facts with the Catholic fundamentalist terrorist. Therefore, you must be a villain.

The logic is inescapable.
32
I am going to make another call out to Attorney General Ferguson-

Mr. Bob Ferguson,
You have the power of the Court and the will of the people behind your decision regarding unlawful trustees. You can stop one of the largest unlawful entities doing business in our State: Quality Loan Service Corporation of Washington.

In the Klem v. Washington Mutual case, Judge Barbara Mack issued an Injunction and Stipulation Order allowing for your office to act should Quality Loan Service Corporation of WA violate their duty of good faith after the injunction was put in place.

On June 13, 2014, in Snohomish County Superior Court, Judge George Bowden signed a Findings of Fact ruling in the Brevick case that specifically found that Quality Loan Service Corporation of WA violated their duty of good faith.

The populace is waiting for you to uphold your campaign rhetoric which was you would "hold powerful interests accountable who don't play by the rules. The average person can't hire an attorney to fight those banks. They have the attorney general." Yet, this unlawful behavior was brought to your attention on June 13th, and your office has done nothing.

Talk is cheap, Mr. Ferguson. Talk is cheap.
33
@3

Ansel definitely saw the comments you mention, and has obviously made a deliberate choice to leave those facts out of his essays on this topic.

This isn't reporting. This is what The Stranger will sometimes refer to as "advocacy journalism."

There are other terms for it, but they're quite a bit less flattering.
34
@18, what Murray meant was that the couple have a court case filed. That's the judicial process.

GuyFawkes, you'd be more believable if you didn't sound so paranoid. We know what the banks do; we don't need lectures about how the system is cooked. However, as the cooked system works, if people don't pay on their mortages for a certain amount of time, legally they are in default, and they can be foreclosed on. All your protestations about crooked banks are true but irrelevant.
35
Sarah,
Please read: http://stafnetrumbull.com/wp-content/upl…

That case involved a man who simply wanted to PAY OFF HIS MORTGAGE. When he asked to whom he owed, the bank (servicer) would not provide proper evidence of to whom he should pay. So, this man was not in default, had enough cash to pay off his loan, wanted to pay the proper party, but the entity he was paying wouldn't provide the accounting evidence of to whom he owed the debt!

You all believe in the world of George Bailey, we are not living in that world any longer.

Can any one of you tell me why you are supporting the bank crooks when even our government has shown that they are crooks? Someone answer that question please. Especially you, Sarah.
36
Man inherits paid-for house (read other stories, he lived here since he was two; this is his parents' house that he got when they died). Whatever chicanery bankers may have rendered, it wasn't some initial mortgage that some poor souls signed to get a slice of the American dream.
37
@33
I used to listen to the catcalls about Ansel's low-quality work and I used to ignore it and made excuses such "He's just a kid," "He's been busy w/ homework" etc.

But these posts on the Barton eviction make me see that Ansel simply doesn't care about facts if they don't support his opinion.

The irony is that there may indeed be examples of egregious foreclosures, maybe even right on Cap Hill. But that would require work.
38
How do the editors let ansel publish this shit? This fucker cashes out and has more money than most of the sloggers combined and somehow he is a victim deserving of our sympathy?

This clown totally gamed the system and ansel and his pint sized crew of activists have totally missed the real story (again). What a fucking embarrassment.
41
One of my favorite parts of reading Ansel's posts is seeing how much he can bend himself in knots to keep the facts of the case hidden when they do not match the narrative he wants the story to tell.

Anyone else notice that there are basically no details at all in either of the posts? Does not take a genius to figure out way.
42
GUYS stop TYPING in CAPS for EMPHASIS you LOOK LIKE YOU HAVE MENTAL ISSUES
44
My biggest relief reading these comments, is that the Barton's have a lawyer, so they don't have to rely on legal advice from wannabe lawyers who post in Stranger blogs. The comments are interesting, but it is astonishing to read comments from the self-appointed know-all experts and mind readers who purport to know everyone else's motives and declare that everything everyone else is doing that is not in line with their thinking is evil (how do you sleep at night?) There are many good people in Seattle and beyond who are trying strategies to help the Barton's and others. Glad the Barton's get to stay in their home for now, they seem like good people.
46
All the trolls claim they're scammers, without providing anything to back that up. Case closed I guess.
47
@46 Public records.
48
@DrShort is 100% correct. "Credit Default Swaps" and "Mortgage Insurance" are two completely different things. Credit Default Swaps are complex and difficult to understand. By DrShort's statements, I would say that he or she has a firm grasp of Credit Default Swaps.

The guys that did Credit Default Swaps and won, actually took a ton of money out of the hands of Wall Street investors. They were the voices of reason, betting against the entire mortgage industry, and hardly anyone believed them until it was too late for all the but the most savvy investors.

Credit Default Swaps were super bad ass to be a part of during the recession. Exciting times to be an investor.
49
@46

And the point has been made repeatedly that Ansel should do some reporting and get the facts out there. Yes, only allegations have been made by several people here and no one has challenged them.

If Ansel, or anyone, thinks that the Bartons are not scammers, then go ahead and get the facts out.
50
And I notice that my totally polite comment/question @3 has now been pulled for trolling. What utter BS.
51
@18,

Do those people look like they have half a million sitting in a bank? That money is gone; I guarantee it.

@34,

That they have a court case filed is completely irrelevant to their eviction. They also only filed after the actual owner of the property went to court to get an eviction. If the foreclosure is illegal (which it isn't), at this juncture, the Bartons can only seek redress and compensation in the courts. The house is lost, and they need to accept reality and move out.
52
Sounds like the sheriff's office did the eviction, and then gave up removing the former owner, leaving him on the street. Former owner can't get back into the house, and protesters want to undo everything. Maybe they brought their checkbook.
53
@52- Except that the former owners did get back into the house. Protesters busted the locks that the sheriff's office put on (breaking and entering) and they went back in (trespassing). So now they're illegal squatters in a house someone else bought from the bank.

The SPD would never have been called upon to evict- that's the sheriff's job. The sheriff's office says they did their job and the crimes that took place after are a matter for the SPD.

What's tragic about all of this is that there's enough information available as a matter of public record to know that these people aren't innocent victims. And once this whole circus plays out, there will be that much less public support for the person who really is a victim.
54
@53
Totally true.
"And once this whole circus plays out, there will be that much less public support for the person who really is a victim."
That's why I am so angered by Ansel's bad "reporting".
55
@50 I suspect, now that Index Newspapers, LLC has hired a "Social Media Manager," the SMM has to show that it's actually doing its job, and failing to meet its quota deleting spam comments (that must be a hell of a quota to fill), deletes polite and informative comments. I had a comment deleted as it was "threatening": it wasn't, it was a copy and paste of Seattle Municipal Courts Public Records.

I understand wanting to limit litigation by disallowing specious rumors and unfounded hearsay, but the vogue of blog managers deleting information that is from public records or SPD Blotter makes no sense to me.
56
Nice post............. charity begins at home so each and every individual has to contribute some amount of their labor to make your state a safer place to live in as the homeless need to get a roof to cover their body. Until the individual would stretch their hand to help the needy people a government can not do anything without a good citizen so now time has come to contribute your shares along with the government. http://www.grouphomeriches.com/
57
Interesting story. If ex-soldier was not a disabled, should he be evicted?

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