Bob Hurt Rant Against Sloppy Legal Writing

Dear Legal Writer:

I take exception to the typos and grammatical errors, especially in legal writing.  They confuse me and make the documents hard to read. And that means they probably bother the judge, just another way of prejudicing him against the Defendant.

Look at the paragraph fragment below and tell me how anyone knows exactly what it means.  Do you mean to say that because the IRC requires withholding agents (WA) to withhold only for NRA and FC, and the WA sign the 1042 under PoP, and the WA know the Defendant is NOT an NRA or FC, then the WA commit perjury in signing it?  Who are the correct parties?  Did you mean "parties that withhold" instead of "parties that withholding?"  Did you mean that subtitle A does not apply to NRA or FC, or does not apply to the Defendant? 

"[Lawyer] refused to explain the unambiguous Statutes of the United States codified in Title 26 including "gross income" in § 61, "adjusted gross income" in § 62, "taxable income" in § 63, "withholding agent" in 7701(a)(16), "taxable year" in § 7701(a)(23), "taxable year" and "taxable income" required for the "tax tables" for individuals computation in § 3 and if people act as "withholding agents", then according to Form 1042, they must file knowing full well that the parties that withholding money from in Subtitle A and forwarding it under § 7701(a)16) are not the correct parties identified in Subtitle A."

You see, ambiguous paragraphs like this might try hard to make a great point, but they lose the point because of bad grammar and unclear expression. 

I saw several confusing expressions and wrong word choices in such paragraphs in the associated pleading.  And I cannot think of a time when crystal clarity and accuracy have greater importance than when lack of clarity or accuracy might result in alienating a judge against the Defendant. 

Have you ever considered employing an editorial service?  I know someone who might do the service for you.  You write it, get the editor to massage it into clear, correct English, and THEN you send it to the Defendant for filing.

I encourage you to encourage authors to proofread, spell check, and eliminate passive voice from their legal writing, and to use to-be verbs only when expressing identity.  The writing will then torture fewer readers with its ambiguity.  It will also let them know that the writer deserved his high school diploma.

Try not to get mad at me for criticizing your legal writing.  I consider it atrocious, not because you make bad points, but because you make so many sentence structure, grammar, and word form errors, like writing "the parties that withholding money from in Subtitle A."

It seems evident that you meant "the parties that are withholding money from in Subtitle A." Even that would misuse the word "are" because you need no helping to-be verb, and should omit it altogether. 

For example, you should have written "the withholding agent imposters withhold Subtitle A money..."  That would have made clear the nature of the "parties" who posed as a withholding agent.  It still would not have explained what you meant by "money from in Subtitle A."  You failed to make that point or explain its significance in the paragraph. 

Your writing needs to express your points UNMISTAKABLY, without allowing the reader to feel confused or unable to learn what you mean.

My Rules:  Writing for Clarity

If I crafted such legal papers, I would do the following:

1. Write ONLY in active voice.
2. Eliminate non-identity to-be verbs (be, being (gerund), am, is, are, was, were).
3. Order the phrases and words in every sentence like this:
1. Subject
2. Verb
3. Object
4. Amplifying phrases. 
   
4. Limit sentences to 15 or 20 words.
   
5. Write numbered items in sequences of more than two items, and sometimes with two, to make a point. 
   
6. Limit paragraphs to thought modules of three or fewer sentences, and absolute no more than five sentences. 
   
7. Check spelling.
8. Go back and read sentences for clarity and for obedience to the above rules, and correct them accordingly. 
   

I would do all of that because:

• I don't want my writing to make readers falter and wonder what I meant;
• I want the reader to focus on my arguments and meanings, not my lack of literacy;
• I don't want the reader, particularly the judge, to doubt my arguments because he sees my sloppy writing as an indication of
  
• irrational thinking,
  
• sloppy or deficient legal research,
• disrespect for the reader in general and the judge in particular;
• I don't want others in the "movement" to see me as an arrogant bumpkin who disrespects the one thing most attorneys learn in college and law school - how to write coherent thoughts accurately, concisely, and in proper English.
  

Sloppy writing has an even worse effect on the judge than showing up in court ungroomed and in filthy, smelly attire.  Why?  Because it undoes all of your clients' good grooming and manners.  They can appear dressed to the nines, and speak with dignity and respect, only to have the judge see the legal writing as hurried, sloppy, careless, and disrespectful.  And it gives pro se litigants a worse reputation.

I have told many lawyers and legal writers to omit passive voice and non-identity to-be verbs.  They ignore me, of course, partly out of habit, but also out of ignorance.  They don't seem willing to admit that their writing could have far greater verve and accuracy, and come more alive in active voice.  You can write better than they by heeding my counsel in this matter. 

Maybe this will make my point better:

Attention to the points above MUST BE PAID, but only if LIFE IN YOUR WRITING IS WANTED.

(try to rewrite that sentence according to my rules and see how you like it)
--

Bob Hurt            Blog 1 2   f  t   2460 Persian Drive #70 Clearwater, FL 33763 Email Call: (727) 669-5511 Law Studies: Donate   E-Letter Subscribe Learn to Litigate with Jurisdictionary

 

How can you write off Odious Debt like Greece will?

"Odious Debt" Has Finally Arrived: Greece To Write Off "Illegal" Debt

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/08/2015 21:24 -0400

It was back in June 2011 when we first hinted that the time of Odious Debt is rapidly approaching.

As a reminder, this is what Odious Debt is: In international law, odious debt is a legal theory which holds that the national debt incurred by a regime for purposes that do not serve the best interests of the nation, should not be enforceable. Such debts are thus considered by this doctrine to be personal debts of the regime that incurred them and not debts of the state. In some respects, the concept is analogous to the invalidity of contracts signed under coercion.

Today, nearly four years later, Odious Debt is now a reality in Greece, where Zoi Konstantopoulou, the head of the Greek parliament and a SYRIZA member, released two videos which have promptly gone viral, designed to promote the investigative parliamentary committee to look into the circumstances surrounding the signing of the country's two bailout agreements that led Greece to implement its austerity measures.

Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-08/odious-debt-has-finally-arrived-greece-write-illegal-debt

You can, in effect, get the court to write off  your odious debt, if you can prove that you got SCAMMED in your mortgage transaction.

You have only one way to find out if you got scammed:

Obtain a Professional Comprehensive Mortgage Transaction Examination.

For details, see http://MortgageAttack.com

Fact checking Natural Born Citizen

I question the accuracy of the below message in regard to the assertion of the third paragraph.  Minor v Hapersett (https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/88/162) case dealt with the question of whether a woman citizen could vote in Missouri.  It did not seek to discover the conclusive meaning of natural born citizen, and the Court confessed doubts about the common-law meaning in its dicta.

"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their [p168] parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. The words "all children" are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as "all persons," and if females are included in the last they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea."

In the very next paragraph, the Court went on to describe how Congress had extended whatever the Common Law had actually meant by natural born citizen.

"Under the power to adopt a uniform system of naturalization Congress, as early as 1790, provided "that any alien, being a free white person," might be admitted as a citizen of the United States, and that the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under twenty-one years of age at the time of such naturalization, should also be considered citizens of the United States, and that the children of citizens of the United States that might be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, should be considered as natural-born citizens. ^[n8]"

The court seemed to conclude, as I do, that Congress could firm up (change) the meaning of natural born citizen in order to comply with common sense.  As an example, Congress addressed the question of whether a child born of citizen parents outside the USA had natural born citizen status.

However, I can imagine circumstances in which US Citizen parents could give birth to a child in a foreign land having a culture and government utterly alien and inimical to those of the USA.  Such a child could hardly help developing deep-seated loyalties to the land, culture, religion, and people of birth.  I know that something similar happened to Barack Hussein Obama, and he has confessed as much in his writings and behaviors. That is why so many American, with good reason in my opinion, doubt his loyalties.

The whole purpose of the natural born citizen prerequisite to serving as US President consists of ensuring the people of the USA that a foreign power has not influenced the President to become detached from or disloyal to the USA and its people. It has NOTHING to do with the right of a putative citizen to serve as President.  It has everything to do with protecting the nation and its people from foreign influence on the chief executive.

Supporting laws should accomplish that purpose.  If they do not, such as by giving way to the modern concept of political correctness that would let any foreigner become President, they are bad laws.

Read the Wikipedia article on Natural Born Citizen.  You might enjoy it.  And then you might wonder how so many experts could wallow in such confusion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural-born-citizen_clause

I think you will find much more enjoyment in Jon Roland's analysis, specifically with respect to Barack Obama's eligibility for the Presidency (and read his comments below the article):

http://www.constitution.org/abus/pres_elig.htm

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: d
Date: Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 3:39 AM
Subject: Your Fact checking

Seems like you need to take your articles by line and "fact - check" your own journalism, or lack thereof(of journalism).

You stated twice that the supreme court never has ruled on 'natural born citizen" which isn't true, so you shouldn't rely on statements of others but do some 'journalism'.

In 1875 the US sup Ct in Minor v Happersett looked back at the founders meaning of the term and ruled that to be Natural born one had to have citizen parents(note the s). This is standing precedent having never been overturned. Also note, no Act may overrule the Constitution, only an amendment.

If two citizen parents were not required for 'Natural Born Citizen' status then there is no possible logical reason for the adoption clause in Article 2 Section 1. All the founders were charter citizens with non-citizen parents because the country did not exist when their parents gave birth to them. And there were many citizens at that time who were born on U.S. soil but not to citizen parents for the same obvious reason. The only distinguishable difference between the "citizens at the time" and a "natural born citizen" is the citizenship of the parents at the time of birth. The founders knew it would take a generation to produce the first 'Natural Born Citizen' born on U.S. soil from parents who were citizens to produce a candidate free from any direct foreign birthright allegiances. The founders needed to include the charter citizens in order to have Presidential candidates (themselves) until a 'Natural Born Citizen' could be available for candidacy. At the time of the adoption there were only two groups of charter citizens available for the candidate pool...native born citizens (born on U.S. soil to non-citizen parents) and naturalized citizens (those born abroad). If either of these groups were eligible to hold office as President then there would be no reason for the adoption clause nor would there be a need to distinguish 'Natural Born Citizens'. And to those who would suggest that the adoption clause was because the 'soil' was British before the adoption and that it was strictly a matter of jus soli, the article would read 'no person except a native born citizen' instead of 'no person except a natural born citizen' as it was well understood and a part of the language of the day to regard a person born on the soil a native born citizen.

The Constitution followed Vattel's, The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758). Emmerich de Vattel wrote "The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as a matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. THE COUNTRY OF THE FATHERS IS THEREFORE THAT OF THE CHILDREN.Book 1 Chapter 19, section 212.

 

For a historical note:President Chester Arthur faced a challenge by those who believed his father was not a citizen when Chester was born. Before the authorities could seize them Arthur took all his family documents and burned them in his back yard effectively covering up the fact of his ineligibility to hold office. Would he have done this if he didnt believe this would have made him ineligible? It was only recently in 2009 that a researcher found documentation which confirmed that Arthur's critics were right about his ineligibility because his father was not a citizen at the time of Chester's birth.

Currently Santorum(Italian father), Jindal(Indian parents), Rubio(Cuban parents), Cruz(Cuban father), are NOT Natural born citizens, nor is Obama(British father). 

Clinton pushed Affordable Housing to get the Stupid to vote Democrat

Pelosi managed Financial Crisis Report to Cloak the Ugly Truth

I have provided here a table showing recent US Presidents.

Recent Presidents of the United States
President	Political Party	Dates in Office
Franklin Delano Roosevelt	Democratic	1933–45
Harry S. Truman	Democratic	1945–53
Dwight David Eisenhower	Republican	1953–61
John Fitzgerald Kennedy	Democratic	1961–63
Lyndon Baines Johnson	Democratic	1963–69
Richard Milhous Nixon	Republican	1969–74
Gerald Rudolph Ford	Republican	1974–77
Jimmy Carter	Democratic	1977–81
Ronald Wilson Reagan	Republican	1981–89
George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush 41)	Republican	1989–93
Bill Clinton	Democratic	1993–2001
George Walker Bush (Bush 43)	Republican	2001–09
Barack Hussein Obama	Democratic	2009–

ALL of the Democrat Presidents have worked for laws seeming to help predominantly poor sections of the population, such as by protecting them in obtaining jobs, housing, food, transportation, phones, education, and loans for mortgages and education and businesses.  More modern Republican presidents have contributed to that effort as well.

But, as we stagger to sort out and understand the confusing burden of myriad laws and financial debacles, we should not focus on the poor as the source of the problem.  The actual source lies in the circles of the filthy rich and political power brokers who OWN and manipulate elected officials, particularly the President and Congress, and including jurists.

And they have done their worst damage to the United States and its citizenry when a Democrat President AND Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress ruled the land.

Johnson spearheaded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Fair Housing Act of 1968, to reduce discrimination against Negroes.  Regarding the Civil Rights Act Johnson quipped:

"I'll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years." —Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One. (Ronald Kessler, 1995, Inside the White House). Read more.

Ford championed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 to end discrimination against minorities and women; and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA) to make certain that lenders inform borrowers about the details of their loan and rights of redress.

Carter pushed Housing and Community Development Act of 1977 (also known as the CRA or Community Reinvestment Act)  to reduce discrimination against Negroes attempting to buy or rent housing, or work in a financial institution, or obtain education loans.

Bush 41 signed the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 to reform the banking industry in the wake of the S&L scandals, and the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act of 1990 so "that every American family be able to afford a decent home in a suitable environment," and the Resolution Trust Corporation Reform Act of 1991 to ensure every minority neighborhood with a failed bank could get another bank to serve them. 


Clinton signed the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994, which repealed restrictions on interstate banking, and the backlash against ensuing mergers and acquisitions, caused banks to spin off subsidiaries for lending in poor minority neighborhoods.  Clinton's push against "redlining" a discriminatory but laudable practice that avoided subprime lending (lending to those unlikely to repay) violated the tried and true practice of banks to lend only to creditworthy borrowers, not to deadbeats. In 1995, the OCC, FED, FDIC, OTS even gave advice on how to minimize risk when making subprime loans, and these recommendations ultimately replaced the related federal regulations.

Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Blilley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 to repeal portions of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933 which had established the FDIC and separated the functions of commercial and investment banks and insurance companies, and prohibited commercial banks from trading in certain stocks.  This action, the culmination of the error of appointing Andrew Cuomo to oversee HUD, set the stage for a financial crisis free-fall - the predatory lending disaster that collapsed jobs, real estate prices, and homeowner equities across the land, and caused millions of home mortgage foreclosures.

Wikipedia provides this enlightenment on the CRA

"In the fall of 1999, Senators Dodd and Schumer prevented another impasse by securing a compromise between Sen. Gramm and the Clinton Administration by agreeing to amend the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (12 U.S.C. ch 16) to allow banks to merge or expand into other types of financial institutions. The FDIC related provisions of the new Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, along with the addition of sub-section 2903(c) directly to Title 12, insured any bank holding institution wishing to be re-designated as a financial holding institution by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System would also have to follow Community Reinvestment Act compliance guidelines before any merger or expansion could take effect.^[57]

"At the same time the G-L-B Act's changes to the Federal Deposit Insurance Act would now allow for bank expansions into new lines of business, non-affiliated groups entering into agreements with these bank or financial institutions would also have to be reported as outlined under the newly added section to Title 12,§ 1831y (CRA Sunshine Requirements), to satisfy Gramm's concerns."^[58][59]

This directly precipitated the financial crisis of the past decade, and I believe we head for a new one as banks have begun making more subprime loans.

In 2010 the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission studied the issues and presented a report (http://fcic-static.law.stanford.edu/cdn_media/fcic-reports/fcic_final_report_full.pdf).  Before you put yourself to sleep reading it, read the article I have duplicated below which explains why it has obscured many truths for political expediency.

I shall summarize the real problem.

Financially irresponsible people become POOR.  Even potentially financially responsible people may become BROKE because of an investment unforseeably gone bad as they learn how to make money the earnings of money they invest in an enterprise or scheme.  But the poor usually suffer from the handicap of STUPIDITY.  80 million people, a quarter of the US population, are so stupid they cannot graduate from high school.  These people are destined for poverty, and in a free society, that IS as it SHOULD BE.  Even Jesus said "The poor will always be with us."

Stupid people are nearly always financially irresponsible and poor because they make stupid choices because they cannot evaluate relative importances or solve problem well.  They can study, but they don't quite get it.

They do understand one thing.  They flat-out LOVE ANY politician who promises them more rights, privileges, benefits, money, or FREE STUFF without demanding responsible behavior or honest work as a prerequisite, OR in return.

ALL of these Acts that all of these Presidents signed into law which protect poor people and help them get loans are INSANE and constitute INSTITUTIONALIZED CRIME. 

Laws that increase the taxes of productive people or make a business unprofitable to help unproductive people constitute legalized PLUNDER.  These laws make poor people happy as a clam if they get their share of the plunder.

But let us swivel our heads in the other direction for a moment at who really benefits from these corrupt laws:  the OWNERS of banking and investment concerns.  These men and women OWN and CONTROL lobbyists, legislators, and the President to the extent they must in order to make enormous profits and control resources.

THEY have engineered the financial system, the banking system, the money system.  They have engineered the crises that lead to ever more control.  They have encouraged endless no-win wars and they finance all the combatants as they see fit.  They have engineered the system of open borders and unrestrained immigration and procreation of ever more stupid people so that the stupid offspring will vote for their giveaway programs such as subprime loans (a free house for a while), free food stamps, free housing, free education, free everything for the poor and corrupt, turning the entirety of the impoverished people of the land into a polyglot cauldron of criminals.

Affordable housing?  If government wants affordable housing, it must create appraisal guidelines, not leave it up to appraisers, such that the most important factor is INCOME CAPITALIZATION, not manipulated market value.  That is precisely what the banking and finance industry wants  - they want to know how to get their money back.  So should homebuyers.  And the main way to do that is to answer this question with numbers that reveal a profitable deal: 

1. "At what price can I buy this house that will allow me to make the payments from the rental income or other business use?"
2. "What will it cost me to replace this house if it burns down the day after I buy it?"
3. "Is the present market value a manipulated value - such as by very low interest rates, snob appeal, etc, and does it compare favorably to similar houses similarly situated?"

Modern appraisals valuate the properties in the opposite order from the above.  That fact, more than population pressure, has caused a house worth $15,000 in 1956 to rice in market value to $1,000,000 in 2015.  Only decades of rigged appraisals could account for that rise in value.

Take note also, that federal legislation making it easier for deadbeats to buy houses has had the effect of rigging prices because subprime borrowers don't care how much the house costs so long as they can get it.  That makes sellers raise prices.

Securitization? Securitization provides a real benefit to investment profiteers because it lets all classes of investors buy mortgage backed security certificates and receive interest on them which comes from interest borrowers pay on mortgages. 

This practice has existed in the USA for hundreds of years, but it only became broadly popular during Clinton's reign.  Once the financial minds worked out the formulae for the pooling and servicing agreements, they set up the trusts and started buying loans.    Lenders would arrange to sell the loans to the trust mechanism as soon as the ink dried on the paper, so to speak.  Lenders bought the money at the Fed discount window, then made the loan deal, earned their discount points, and their 2% to 5% profit on sale of the note, plus they earned the down payment if any.  They felt no repercussion for making a predatory loan because they sold it immediately.  So they did not have to worry about the borrower defaulting. 

That meant they didn't care if mortgage brokers lied about the creditworthiness of the borrower, or if the appraiser lied about the value of the house, or if the title company screwed up the paperwork.

Think about this.  In the old days, back in the early 1970's, borrower could only get a fixed interest 30-year loan with 20% down, or 10% on a VA loan. Now because of dereliction in Congress, borrowers can get a zero-down 40-year interest-only loan with a balloon a few years hence.

People SHOULD simply save their money and pay cash.  Maybe Congress should outlaw mortgage loans for all but the most affluent. 

All of this liberty.  Minimal responsibility. 

Dear President and Congress:

If you want poor stupid people to own a house, YOU BUY IT FOR THEM with your own money.

Bob Hurt, 727 669 5511

P.S.  Dear Reader:

If you or a loved one or friend suffer the after effects of a predatory loan, visit and read http://MortgageAttack.com, then call me.  There's only one reliable way to beat a crooked lender:   find out how the lender injured you, then SUE.

BH


http://www.redstate.com/2015/01/24/report-financial-crisis-commission-report-rigged-punish-banks-protect-democrats/

Report: Financial Crisis Commission report rigged to punish banks and protect Democrats

By: streiff (Diary)  |  January 24th, 2015 at 06:00 PM  |  12

Back in 2009, which is the political equivalent of a geological epoch, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) was established to investigate what led to the general apocalypse of the financial markets in 2007-2008. It has long been suspected that the fix was in and the commission followed the Alice in Wonderland formula of "Sentence fist! Verdict afterwards."

In a just-released book, former FCIC member Peter Wallison says that a Democratic Congress worked with the commission's Democratic chairman to whitewash the government's central role in the mortgage debacle. The conspiracy helped protect some of the Democrats' biggest stars from scrutiny and accountability while helping justify the biggest government takeover of the financial sector since the New Deal.

Wallison's sobering, trenchantly written "Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World's Worst Financial Crisis and Why It Could Happen Again" reveals that the Democrat-led panel buried key data proving that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and other federal agencies pushed the housing market over the subprime cliff. The final FCIC report put the blame squarely on Wall Street.

The commission was run a long time Democrat operative, fixer, and crony of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)11% with his own checkered history in real estate development funded by the taxpayers. Some key bullets from the book.

• GOP members were authorized zero staff. Democrats had a staff of 80.
• GOP not informed of witnesses, interview times, or allowed to examine or cross-examine them.
• Democrat witnesses were not under oath (not sure what difference that makes to tell you the truth).
• Angelides concealed information from GOP members.
• GOP members received a 900-page draft report only eight days before it went to the printer.
• A 43,000 word dissent was cut down to 9,000 words by Democrats.

What is most instructive is that the Dodd-Frank Act was passed in July 2010, six months before the FCIC released its report. This clearly demonstrates that the Democrats already knew what they wanted to do in way of regulating the finance industry. Even though the federal mortgage entities, Fannie and Freddie, were the epicenter of the financial market meltdown they and HUD were left untouched. Again demonstrating that this cash cow used to prop up big city Democrat machine politicians was too valuable to be reformed.

The new Congress should take a hard look at Dodd-Frank. It has become a regulatory behemoth that exerts a demonstrable drag on the economy. Fannie and Freddie are back up to their old tricks and we may be on the verge of another housing bubble bursting:

Contrary to the prevailing view that only borrowers with pristine credit records can get a mortgage these days, many risky loans are still being made. A new index published by the International Center on Housing Risk at the American Enterprise Institute measures this risk month by month, based on about three-quarters of all home-purchase loans extended across the country. And the index clearly shows that many of today's mortgages would not perform well under stressful conditions. This conclusion holds for the nation as a whole and for nearly every state individually, California included.

Here's why. In recent months, fully half of all the home loans covered by the risk index had a down payment of 5% or less. With so little money down, those borrowers would be underwater with only a modest decline in housing prices. In addition, for nearly half of the recent loans, borrowers' monthly payments on their mortgage and other debt exceeded 38% of their pretax income, the traditional threshold for acceptable payment burdens. Such borrowers could find it difficult to make their monthly payments if they came under even moderate economic stress, such as a temporary layoff or a reduction in work hours.

The Federal Housing Administration is the prime source of this risk. It now guarantees more than a quarter of the newly originated home loans, and it does so with little regard for risk. Under the banner of expanding homeownership, the FHA provides risky loans to households that often lack the resources to make the payments if anything goes wrong.

Like most anything else the Democrats touch, the FCIC was corrupt to its core. It's inquiry was deeply dishonest. The report was structured to protect Democrat interests and punish industries the Democrats wished to demagogue.

--

Bob Hurt            Blog 1 2   f  t   2460 Persian Drive #70 Clearwater, FL 33763 Email Call: (727) 669-5511 Law Studies: Donate   E-Letter Subscribe Learn to Litigate with Jurisdictionary

 

CFPB adopts plan to publicly disclose consumer complaint narratives

The CFPB needs to make it easy for consumers to complain about what the lender or servicer did, such as by providing a stock set of complaints with check boxes beside them, and allow consumers to fill in any additional details.

Boxes for each of these (for example)

• Servicer Force-Placed hazard insurance on my property
• I already had insurance that had not expired and complied with requirements
• Force-placed insurance company charged more than my previous policy, so obviously the servicer did not submit it for competitive bidding:
• 1.5x or less
  
• between 1.5x and 2x
  
• between 2x and 3x
• between 3x and 4x
• between 4x and 5x
• 5x or more
• Servicer did not alert me of the expiration of the hazard insurance policy or the need to renew it.
• Servicer lied about terms of loan mod
• Servicer told me I'd have to miss payments in order to qualify for loan mod
• Servicer strung me along for months without making a determination of whether or not to provide a loan mod.
  
• Servicer claimed to lose paperwork I submitted
• 1 time
• 2 times
• 3 times
• 4 or more times
• Servicer failed to provide me with notice of acceleration or intent to foreclose
  

etc.  These should come from typical complaints people file.  YOU could help by providing a comprehensive list of items you know about.

People get an extra benefit of such a table of complaints and exacerbations lies.  It alerts them to issues that could arise, and it helps them to think back to whether it happened or not, so they can include EVERY worthy THING in the complaint.

CFPB Monitor - CFPB adopts plan to publicly disclose consumer complaint narratives

---

CFPB adopts plan to publicly disclose consumer complaint narratives Posted: 20 Mar 2015 07:22 AM PDT Trevor R. Salter The CFPB has adopted its controversial proposal to publicly disclose consumer complaint narratives in its Consumer Complaint Database.  Its plans for disclosing the narratives are set forth in a final policy statement.   According to the Federal Register document announcing the policy statement, the CFPB will not disclose any narratives for at least 90 days after the statement's publication in the Federal Register.  In the notice's supplementary information, the CFPB states further that it will not disclose narratives "until sufficient time has elapsed to allow the Bureau to adequately complete and assess" various actions needed to implement the policy statement, such as modifying its website, online complaint intake form and company web portal. Consistent with its proposal, the CFPB will not publish a complaint narrative unless the consumer has given consent by checking an opt-in form that the CFPB plans to include in the submission phase of the complaint process.  A consumer can withdraw his or her consent at any time by informing the CFPB and the narrative will be removed from the database.  (In response to a commenter's concern that companies might require non-disclosure agreements from consumers creating an account, the CFPB states that it "would likely look disfavorably upon agreements that require a consumer to withdraw his or her consent to have a narrative published as a condition of settlement.") The policy statement indicates that the CFPB "intends to apply to all publicly-disclosed narratives a robust personal information scrubbing standard and methodology" to address the risk of re-identification, which is modeled after the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Safe Harbor Method.  The CFPB does plan to disclose 5-digit zip codes next to narratives, except were the population in the zip code contains fewer than 20,000 people.  (In such cases, the CFPB plans to disclose the 3-digit zip code unless the 3-digit zip code population is less than 20,000.) The CFPB's proposal would have allowed companies to submit an unstructured narrative response to appear next to the consumer's narrative.  In response to industry comments that legal, business and reputational concerns would limit a company's ability to provide meaningful public-facing unstructured responses, the CFPB will provide companies within the company web portal a "set list of structured company response options" and a company will have the opportunity to recommend which option, if any, it would like included as a public-facing response.  The list is intended to relieve companies from having to assess "what level of detail will address a complaint while protecting confidential information."  A company will not be required to provide a public-facing response, and while the CFPB states that it generally plans to adopt a company's recommended response, it reserves discretion "to assess whether there are good-faith bases for the recommendations." With regard to the timing of posting a consumer narrative and a company response, the CFPB plans to disclose the narrative when the company provides its public-facing response, but not later than 60 days after the complaint is routed to the company.  (The CFPB's complaint system gives companies 15 days to provide an initial response to a complaint and 60 days to provide a final response.)  This timing is intended to guarantee that a public-facing response, if provided within the 60 day period, will be disclosed contemporaneously with the consumer narrative. We share industry's disappointment with the CFPB's action.  From the time the CFPB first announced its plan to publicly disclose complaint data, we have had concerns about disclosing unverified date.  The CFPB's decision to disclose consumer narratives only exacerbates those concerns. We take little solace in the CFPB's comment in the policy statement's supplementary information that this concern is sufficiently addressed by its disclaimer on the complaint database that "we don't verify all the facts alleged in these complaints but we take steps to confirm a commercial relationship between the consumer and company."  We doubt many consumers, even if they read the disclaimer, will appreciate what that means for a complaint's validity and will continue to assume that a complaint is true because it is being published on a government website.  In other words, complaints will take on an unwarranted level of credibility by virtue of them appearing on the CFPB's website. The CFPB prides itself on being a data-driven agency.  Its disclosure of consumer narratives is the antithesis of being data-driven.  Instead, the CFPB will be publishing anecdotes much in the same way as an Internet gripe site. To address industry comments that the complaint database should include positive feedback in conjunction with complaint narratives, the CFPB also issued a notice and request for information about "the potential sharing of consumer compliments about providers of consumer  financial products and services and more information about a company's complaint handling."  Comments on the RFI are due on or before 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.  In the RFI, the CFPB describes two potential avenues for sharing positive feedback: by providing more information about a company's complaint handling and by collecting and providing consumer compliments independent of the complaint process. With regard to complaint handling, the CFPB is seeking information on potential ways it could "record, calculate, standardize, short, share, and visualize the data" associated with complaints "in ways that reveal positive company behavior."  Among the potential metrics suggested by the CFPB are total number of complaints by product and issue and timeliness and speed of responses.  The CFPB also seeks comment on adding a consumer feedback process to its complaint system that would allow a consumer to rate a company's handling of his or her complaint. With regard to soliciting, collecting and sharing compliments, the CFPB asks for comment on expanding its "Tell Your Story" feature on its website to share compliments and establishing a new database to take and publish compliments.