I saw the 3rd installment of The Mummy with my son recently and he opined immediately after the movie ended that “it was just about the worst movie he had ever seen.”

When you look around at every institution involved in the mortgage process, after seeing this prolonged bad movie, it’s especially interesting that, other than enforcement authorities (Like FBI and attorney generals), no one is doing anything about reparations for the rampant fraud and sloppy underwriting that likely adds up to billions. I find this a continual source of amazement.

A legal precedent may be in the making within the title industry:

>Ticor Title, one of the largest title insurance firms in the country, is suing Countrywide Home Loans, the nation’s largest home lender, saying it shouldn’t have to pay out on a title policy because of Countrywide’s gross negligence.

In other words, title insurance companies may begin to go after mortgage lenders who were negligent in their underwriting. In other words, it is simply the low hanging fruit to help offset significant losses.

Here is the case that was the last straw for Ticor.

>The case that Ticor has drawn a line in the sand over concerns a $360,000 first mortgage on a graystone Victorian in the Kenwood neighborhood on the South Side. The story of that loan was told in a front-page Tribune story in February, several weeks after a clothed, mummified male corpse was discovered in the boarded-up house by a real estate speculator who had purchased the property from Countrywide in a foreclosure auction.

I wonder if an appraiser inspected the property at anytime? Good grief. (This AP appraisal article should have been written back in 2005 when the industry was screaming about appraisal pressure.)


One Comment

  1. Edd C Gillespie August 19, 2008 at 10:42 am

    I’d say the pot is calling the kettle black on this one, but I do think if there is going to be honest progress in enforcing meaningful underwriting and appraising it will be wrought in civil litigations.
    The government has pretty much convinced me the best it can do is to rename yet another copy of the existing regs or come up with another study to define the problems.
    Face it guys the lenders are not going to accept risk of loss when there is money to be made and insurance companies simply don’t pay.
    If anybody is going to make sense out of the current system it will be the civil courts, but not in this case. Countrywide will eventually settle with Ticor for some figure neither one likes, but after the lawyers are paid.

Comments are closed.