The 'Judicial Don Quixote' on the Foreclosure Frontlines
This morning the Times ran a profile of Brooklyn State Supreme Court Judge Arthur M. Schack, who “fashions himself a judicial Don Quixote, tilting at the phalanxes of bankers, foreclosure facilitators, and lawyers who file motions by the bale.” Schack is known for tossing out foreclosure motions on technicalities: “Justice Schack, like a handful of…
This morning the Times ran a profile of Brooklyn State Supreme Court Judge Arthur M. Schack, who “fashions himself a judicial Don Quixote, tilting at the phalanxes of bankers, foreclosure facilitators, and lawyers who file motions by the bale.” Schack is known for tossing out foreclosure motions on technicalities: “Justice Schack, like a handful of state and federal judges, has taken a magnifying glass to the mortgage industry. In the gilded haste of the past decade, bankers handed out millions of mortgages—with terms good, bad and exotically ugly—then repackaged those loans for sale to investors from Connecticut to Singapore. Sloppiness reigned. So many papers have been lost, signatures misplaced and documents dated inaccurately that it is often not clear which bank owns the mortgage. Justice Schack’s take is straightforward, and sends a tremor through some bank suites: If a bank cannot prove ownership, it cannot foreclose.” Schack, who is Brooklyn born and bred, began crossing swords with banks over foreclosures in 2007, when they started to spike here. “Banks had given out loans structured to fail,” he says.
A ‘Little Judge’ Who Rejects Foreclosures, Brooklyn Style [NY Times]
Photo by steakpinball.
Its not rocket science. You have NO proof you own the mortgage (re;sloppy, shoddy, unprofessional, unethical, reckless book-keeping) and you still want to step up and take a persons home??? Why should a home owner pay a bank that can’t even prove it owns the loan? Perhaps thay don’t. Pay the person with the paperwork. It’s the law. This judge is upholding the LAW. Any bank stepping up to the plate without proper standing should be slapped with a frivilious lawsuit charge. And they had the legal guns to file proper paperwork, they just got greedy.
Back from meetings. This debate lost its logical integrity a few hours ago. I can no longer articulate the opposite position, and I doubt that’s a failure of my reading comprehension.
ENY: As I said earlier my problem is with the judge, not you, so I’m happy to bury the hatchet on this. That being said, if you are saying I am in some kind of a “crazy” group you can go fuck yourself.
Late to the party here, but I’m in agreement with I disagree, and therefore in the same camp with ENY, bxgrl, slopey, etc. (no surprise there) I thought he/she gave a concise and reasoned explanation to the judge’s rulings. The law should apply equally to the bank as well as the mortgage holder. Cases where mortgages are traded like popular baseball cards to the point where the mortgage holder has no clue who even hold their paper are designed to obfuscate, mystify and otherwise result in providing maximum profit for each successive holder, forgetting that people’s lives are involved. Everyone seems to have forgotten that we are not trading stock, or even playing 3 card monte. Real people’s homes are on the line. The difference between being a productive member of a community, or homeless with your family in the street,is something more of these bankers need to be aware of, it isn’t just about money. Every care should be taken to make sure that every last resort has been taken, every avenue explored before a property is foreclosed upon.
That is very different from rendering decisions from the bench that will be overturned in appeal. The judge would be doing no one a favor there, and I agree that that is not helping anyone in the long run. I’m not a lawyer, I just ate at the law school dining hall occasionally in college. That taught me that I did not have the argumentative personality necessary for courtroom success.
brownstoner “facts” = “opinion” and that’s a fact.
what if said “facts” are from brownstoner.com?
I have difficulty with someone getting their facts form “redstate.com.” And for the record, if it were “Bluestate.com” I’d feel the same way.
Got it, slopefarm – and I agree. You’re also in the non-crazy group.
ENY — Did you lump me in the crazy group? Perhaps it was my lawyerly tone that threw you off.
I agreed with the judge putting banks to the test on foreclosures. I agreed with lechacal on the judge’s rhetoric, but only because it opens the judge up to accusations of bias and undermines the legitimacy of what might otherwise be sound decisions. I would rather the judge write decisions to which a politically conservative lawyer like lechacal would react along the lines of “I would have come out with a different result, but given the recited facts of the case, the outcome is consistent with existing law.”
BTW, I meant to write “white shoe” at 2:00. Sorry for any confusion.
I’m no lawyer (I am actually) but to the extent that many homeowners of limited English or limited education were misled and bamboozled (by mortgage brokers/agents/the What) about what they could afford, and what they would be paying in two and three year’s time after their rates reset (that they didn’t know about), their “intent” should be qualified.