Chase Home Finance Sucks
Chase Home Finance LLC Sucks

By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN (AP) – 17 hours ago

LANSING, Mich. — Democrat Virg Bernero said Thursday he’ll stop the state from doing business with banks that won’t lend in Michigan if he’s elected governor.

He specifically mentioned Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., PNC Financial Services Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co., criticizing them for refusing to participate in the state’s Helping Hardest Hit Homeowners Fund.

Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm has appealed to the same banks to join the federally funded program, which would provide financial assistance for homeowners struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments.

Bernero also said the banks should be helping more Michigan small businesses get access to the credit they need to expand and hire more workers.

“We are being robbed of our recovery as a result of the lack of capital,” Bernero told reporters after unveiling his plan to about a dozen Lansing residents during a campaign stop at a downtown coffee shop. “If Wall Street doesn’t want to do business with us, then we won’t do business with Wall Street.”

The Lansing mayor also repeated his proposal to have Michigan follow the lead of North Dakota and open a state-owned bank that could make low-interest loans to businesses and college students.

Among the banks Bernero said are benefiting from state business is JPMorgan Chase, which he said the state pays to manage a fund relating to the state’s cash flow.

But the state has far more ties to the banks than Bernero mentioned. As of Wednesday, the State of Michigan Retirement Systems had $650 million in common stock holdings in banking firms Bernero criticized, about 1.4 percent of the total, Treasury spokesman Terry Stanton said.

That included $246 million in stock in Bank of America, $163 million in Citigroup, $135 million in JPMorgan Chase, $88 million in Wells Fargo and $17 million in PNC.

Michigan Bankers Association spokeswoman Gail Madziar wasn’t impressed with Bernero’s proposal to lock out the banks.

“He should be providing a plan to show the ways he would bring jobs to Michigan and go from that point of view rather than attacking businesses already here,” she said.

A spokesman for Bernero’s Republican rival, Rick Snyder, also criticized Bernero for not coming up with better ways to help Michigan’s economy recover.

“There’s a credit crunch all over and that’s an issue that has to be dealt with … (but) the populist platitudes won’t create a single job here in Michigan,” spokesman Bill Nowling said. “Rick has made it very clear we are not going to attack businesses. There has been far too much of that from the Democratic side of the ledger.”

By SAM SCOTT
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 3:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 10:25 p.m.

John Knott had reason to celebrate Thursday.

Not only did he turn 65, but he walked out of Sonoma County Superior Court with new hope of avoiding the foreclosure that has dogged him for more than year.

Knott is the first participant in a court program aimed at settling the rash of lawsuits filed by people who are suing to fight foreclosure.

Instead of costly litigation, the court is trying to set the stage for a solution by calling both sides to an informal settlement conference prior to trial.

Superior Court Judge Elaine Rushing, who led development of the program in her role as supervising civil court judge, said judges were not erecting roadblocks to legitimate foreclosures. Rather, she said, banks are often as eager as homeowners to avoid a property seizure.

“If we can find a way that lenders’ needs are satisfied and borrowers can stay in their homes, that is what we’d like to see,” she said.

How well the program works remains to be seen.

Attorney Richard Abbey, a longtime representative of local banks, said it was a noble idea that faced long odds of success.

Many mortgages have been aggregated and sold to investors, making it virtually impossible to get permission to modify loans, he said.

And the fundamental question of taking a house someone can’t afford and making it into one they can afford doesn’t have a simple remedy, especially so deep into the foreclosure process.

“It just ain’t that easy to solve the substantial issues,” Abbey said.

But on Thursday, Knott left the program’s first such conference, held before Superior Court Judge Mark Tansil, feeling he was on the road to a solution, even if it still remained out of grasp.

JPMorgan Chase did not modify the terms of the defaulted loan. But the bank’s attorney did agree to a framework for subsequent discussions, a big difference from the way things have been, Knott said.

“It’s exactly what I expected and hoped for,” he said.

For over a year, Knott said he has gotten nowhere in efforts to modify the $1 million loan that his mother took out against the house in 2007, a year before her death.

About $700,000 of the loan was used to pay a previous mortgage. Much of the balance was used for home care for his infirm mother in her final days, he said.

Knott and his brother struggled first to get the bank to recognize they had assumed responsibility for the loan after she died. The communication problems got worse as they looked for a modification to reduce the interest rate, which is over 7 percent.

JPMorgan Chase, which took over the loan when Washington Mutual went bankrupt, repeatedly lost the mountains of paperwork Knott sent over, he said.

“They have got more documentation than were needed for the Louisiana Purchase,” Knott said.

While Knott tried to negotiate with the bank, the threat of foreclosure never stopped. Since July 2009, the home that Knott helped build as a teenager was scheduled for auction nine times, only to have the sale averted at the last minute each time.

In July, he and his brother sued Chase and filed for a temporary restraining order to prevent the last of the scheduled auctions. That put them on the path to Thursday’s conference.

A spokesman for JPMorgan Chase in San Francisco declined comment on the case, as did the bank’s attorney as he left the courtroom.

But the conference apparently resulted in new interest in negotiating.

David Bush, Knott’s attorney, said the judge’s presence Thursday was a crucial change from earlier attempts at resolving the issue. The bank said it would come back with firm answers on modification by the next court date on Oct. 26, Bush said.

“The presence of a third party with authority really made the difference,” he said.

The next foreclosure settlement conference is scheduled for today. It also involves JPMorgan Chase.

You can reach Staff Writer Sam Scott at 521-5431 or sam.scott@pressdemocrat.com

After several months of slowing in the housing market, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday its pending home sales index rose 5.2% in July – a modest improvement in a market that has struggled since government tax credits went away.

According to the industry trade group, its pending home sales index increased to a reading of 79.4 based on contracts signed in July compared with NAR’s downwardly-revised reading of 75.5 in June.

The rise in pending home sales was considerably better than market expectations, which were for pending home sales to come in flat for the month of July.

Since the first-time home-buyers tax credit expired in April, the housing market has dramatically slowed as demand for future real estate was artificially moved forward through government tax programs. While it was widely expected to see housing market activity slow, the pace of the slowdown has been much more dramatic than what was expected.

The industry group’s index remains down 19.1% from this same time a year ago and nearly 30% from April’s high.

“Home sales will remain soft in the months ahead, but improved affordability conditions should help with a recovery,” said NAR’s chief economist Lawrence Yun in a statement. “But the recovery looks to be a long process. Home buyers over the past year got a great deal, and buyers for the balance of this year have an edge over sellers.”

NAR’s pending home sales index is based on contracts signed and are still subject to successful financing and closing on the property in question.

Regionally, pending home sales in the Northeast rose 6.3% but remain down 21.1% from a year ago, NAR said. In the Midwest, sales increased 4.1% but are down 15.6% from last year. Pending home sales in the South were up 1.2% but are down 15.6% from last year and sales in the West rose 11.6% but are down 17.6% from July 2009.

NEW YORK — JPMorgan Chase Bank spent $1.52 million during the second quarter to lobby the government regarding the financial regulatory overhaul and other issues.

That’s a 14 percent drop from the $1.76 million the New York-based bank spent a year earlier.

For the first six months of the year, JPMorgan Chase spent $3.03 million on lobbying as banking regulations came to the forefront of the national agenda.

That means it spent more on lobbying in the first half of the year than any of the other top 10 banks that received money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, in late 2008 and early 2009.

JPMorgan Chase received $25 billion in loans under the program, which was paid back in June 2009.

Chase lobbied the government about banking system and market reforms; regulations on credit and debit card transaction fees; mortgage modification issues and the rural housing loan program.

The financial regulatory overhaul President Barack Obama signed in July included new rules on a variety of banking operations.

The bank also lobbied on issues related to small business lending, on proposed “cap and trade” policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other energy policies and on various trade and tax matters, including proposed taxes on the financial services industry, according to the report it filed July 20.

The bank lobbied Congress, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Treasury, Commerce and State departments in April through June.

Thomas Koonce, who worked for Rep. Brad Miller, the House Judicial Committee Democratic staff and former Rep. Stephen Neal, is among those registered to lobby for JPMorgan Chase, said the report filed with the House clerk’s office.

BY PHILIP RILEY,
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF

Published: Monday, August 30, 2010 at 6:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 9:21 p.m.

Barbara Caswell’s home in rural west Petaluma was a labor of love. From the placement of trees to the artwork inside her house, she designed and built the plot with meticulous attention to detail to be an extension of the natural environment.

But now Caswell is being evicted from her home after starting a loan modification process with Bank of America that quickly morphed into a foreclosure that could not be stopped. In an all-too-familiar story, Caswell and her family came on hard times and tried to modify their home loan, but even after her husband got a job that allowed them to resume payments at a higher rate, the bank would not take their money to stop the foreclosure process.

“The loan modification process is their responsibility and they are not respecting it,” said Caswell. “It’s almost inhumane.”

After being asked to submit hundreds of pages of records in an attempt to get a modification and later to stop foreclosure, the bank sent them an eviction notice on June 14.

“You think you will save your house after doing one more thing,” said Caswell. “I thought it was a matter of working hard enough. But it doesn’t matter what you do.”

Caswell and her husband bought their Haverfield Lane home in 1992 and raised their daughter on the rural plot of land. Caswell, who worked designing houses before her industry, was hit hard by the recession, designed three other homes nearby on the six-acre subdivision called Haverfield Park.

“I dreamed it up and I created it,” she said. “It was the pride of my career.”

But financial trouble hit Caswell and her husband in 2008, and in October of that year, they called Countrywide Financial, which was later taken over by Bank of America, for a loan modification. The company told them to start the loan modification process by intentionally missing two months payments and sending a letter of hardship. They did just that, going into arrears before sending in financial documents to show their situation. Bank statements, tax returns and letters were then submitted with no response from the bank about whether a modification would be considered.

In December 2008, Caswell’s husband lost his job. For months, Caswell could not find any work in the housing industry, and was forced to take odd jobs.

“For that year, we really had to get by on very little,” said Caswell.

They continued to make modification requests, but the bank was either unresponsive or made unreasonable demands about their modification request, she said. They were told that documents that they submitted had expired after 60 days, but they took longer than 60 days for the bank to process. The bank claimed that numerous documents were lost and had to be submitted again. Caswell went into bank branches to try to speak with someone about the lack of transparency, but they always referred her to a call center.

“You never talk to the same person,” she said.

In November 2009, the bank filed to foreclose on their house. Caswell continued to submit documents and recently her husband got a better job than he had had before they went into arrears. They applied to continue payments at a higher rate than they had paid before, but the bank refused.

“We obviously have been making a good-faith effort,” said Caswell. “They have not.”

Now the family’s possessions sit in storage. They are still applying to stop the foreclosure, but under the bank’s policies they can’t move their furniture in and can’t fully move out. They are now sleeping on a mattress on the floor while they await word on whether they will have to find another place to live.

Bank of America representatives did not respond to requests for comment about their loan modification program.

Throughout Petaluma and the country, similar stories have surfaced regularly.

“The communication is horrible,” Clark Rosen, a Petaluma Realtor, said about the large banks. “It’s really difficult to talk to anyone that will be helpful.”

“They’re huge institutions facing a huge problem,” said Rosen. “It’s like they’ve recognized that they are facing a problem so large that they chop it up into pieces and create outside contractors.”

But the complications posed by different institutions owning different pieces of the loan and different people all across the world processing portions each case are often insurmountable.

“It’s an institutional dysfunction,” said Rosen.

Beyond logistics, others see the delays as a deliberate tactic.

“I don’t know what the reason is, but it’s a tactic they’re using,” said Timo Rivetti, a principal with Keller Williams Realty. “Sellers are frustrated, buyers are frustrated; so are real estate agents, cities and counties.”

“Joe,” who recently sought a loan modification for Petaluma home but wished not to give his real name, said he first went to an advertised “home loan modification specialist” in December 2008. He paid $2,000 up front, but after four months, the company hadn’t done anything. It turned out to be a scam.

“Joe” then sought a loan modification from his bank, Chase, which asked him to fax 300 pages of financial documents. He did so six separate times, each time the bank claiming that they didn’t receive the papers.

“The modification was a joke,” he said. “It’s so obvious a stall tactic that even a child could see it.”

Eventually, he worked out a short sale on his home, and will lose $900,000. “At least we’ll be out from debt,” he said.

“I don’t understand it. How can it be more beneficial for a bank to foreclose on a home than keep a family in a home?” said Bertha Medina, a counselor at the California Human Development Corporation.

Many people now many allege that banks are drawing out loan modifications in an effort to push homes toward foreclosure, which can be actually be a financial benefit for them.

Although foreclosures can be costly for banks if they own the mortgage, the same is not true if they are merely the servicer of the loan. Unlike homeowners and lenders, loan servicers have no incentive not to foreclose. While completing loan modifications can be costly for servicers, foreclosure may not be, and could even provide profits.

A recent class-action lawsuit filed against Bank of America claims that the bank services more than 1 million mortgages that qualify for modifications, but that only 12,761 permanent modifications have been granted. The suit claims that the bank has a failure rate of 99.9 percent on loan modifications and contends that it is not meeting restrictions placed on bailout money received that was designed to encourage loan modifications.

“The fox is in charge of the henhouse in charge of lobbyists and legislation,” said Rivetti, who said that proposed legislative fixes have gotten nowhere.

“Many of my clients are well aware of the lawsuits going on,” said Medina. “The good news is that consumers are much more aware nowadays.”

Medina advised homeowners not to miss payments in an attempt to get a loan modification.

“If they are able to continue to make their mortgage, I recommend they continue to do so,” Medina said.

Most people think it is their own fault. It isn’t,” said “Joe.”

His advice for homeowners in his situation?

“Don’t do anything on your own. Hire an attorney.”

(Contact Philip Riley at phlip.riley@arguscourier.com)

Key word here people is offered. JPMorgan/Chase was paid by the Federal Government to give modifications. What they did was get paid up front and only did temporary modifications. Making people feel like Chase is helping us.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), previously accused of not modifying mortgages terms for struggling customers, has been defended by a Zacks Analyst Blog report showing otherwise.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) shares are currently standing at 36.42 as of 8/30/2010, which equates to a -0.20 – -0.55% change over the previous trading period.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s (NYSE:JPM) U.S. consumer and commercial banking arm Chase said on Wednesday that it has in fact offered more than 900,000 mortgage modifications since the beginning of 2009 in accordance with the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), in efforts to reduce home foreclosure rates.

The company has met 140,000 homeowners in face-to-face counselling sessions in the hardest-hit areas of home foreclosure.

NEW YORK — It’s getting tougher for savers to find a bank where they won’t end up paying to keep their money safe.

Average interest on savings, checking, money market and certificate of deposit accounts fell to 0.99 percent in July, the first decline below 1 percent in a decade, according to researcher Market Rates Insight. Banks have been raising fees and adding new ones, most recently in response to the financial services overhaul bill that became law July 21.

The result is that an increasing number of savers are seeing their deposit earnings eaten up by charges. That’s frustrating people such as Ken Ward, who recently passed on a savings account with a 0.01 percent interest rate at the Chase bank branch near his home in Wantagh, N.Y.

“We went to Chase because of the convenience,” said Ward, 57, a stock-loan trader who was helping his daughter find a place to tuck away $10,000. “But with those rates, we might as well put it in the mattress and then at least we won’t be charged any fees.”

Had they gone with the Chase savings account, it would have paid about $1 in annual interest. Potential fees included $4 if the balance fell below $300, $2 for each non-Chase ATM withdrawal and $3 for each withdrawal after making more than four withdrawals in a monthly statement cycle.

Ward said he and his daughter settled on a 13-month Chase CD paying 0.75 percent, and will look for a better alternative when it matures.

Chase’s interest payments reflect the low-rate environment created by the Federal Reserve, according to Greg Hassell, a spokesman for the bank’s New York-based parent, JPMorgan Chase & Co. The Fed has kept the overnight interbank lending rate target near zero since the end of 2008 to stimulate the economy after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings.

Unattractive rates and new fees may drive consumers to smaller banks and credit unions. Big banks, such as Bank of America — the largest lender by assets, No. 2 JPMorgan and No. 4 Wells Fargo may lose about 1 million checking accounts each, based on estimates by economic-research firm Moebs Services.

The average interest rate offered on a checking account by a credit union is 0.21 percent, according to Bankrate.com, a website that tracks bank products. That compares with 0.12 percent at the five largest banks and five largest thrifts in each of the 10 largest markets.

Almost 80 percent of the 50 largest credit unions offered free checking as of April, Bankrate.com data show, while unconditional free checking is no longer offered by Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo.

Consumers looking for higher rates may turn to online banks. DollarSavingsDirect.com, a division of Emigrant Bank, offers 1.2 percent for savings accounts with account balances of at least $1,000.

Another option, money-market funds, which aren’t backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., were averaging 0.04 percent as of Aug. 24, according to iMoneyNet Inc., a research firm that tracks money funds.

Investors can lock up their money for longer periods in U.S. Treasuries or savings bonds. Ten-year notes fell below 2.50 percent Tuesday for the first time since March 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. For investors buying now, the EE savings bond is paying a fixed 1.4 percent, according to savingsbonds.gov. These bonds can’t be cashed for one year and there’s a three-month penalty on interest earnings if redeemed within five years.

The Fed’s low rates have allowed commercial and savings banks to reduce their deposit costs. They paid $4.38 billion in interest on transaction, savings and money-market deposit accounts in the first quarter of 2010, a decline of 74 percent from the first quarter of 2007, according to SNL Financial, a bank research firm.

Another reason banks are cutting the interest they pay out is to recoup losses from federal legislation that limits overdraft fees, estimated to be about $15 billion annually, said Dan Geller, executive vice president of Market Rates Insight.

Average interest rates have been decreasing since the third quarter of 2007, when they were 4.23 percent, he said. When the overdraft provisions took effect for new accounts last month, there was “a sudden and accelerated drop,” Geller said. The rules require consumers to consent before banks automatically cover them when they have insufficient funds for debit or ATM transactions.

Changes such as caps on fees banks charge merchants for debit card transactions and the creation of a consumer financial protection agency to regulate products such as credit cards and mortgages will decrease banks’ profits and lead to new fees for consumers, said Tony Plath, a finance professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

“The days of 10 percent of customers subsidizing free checking for 90 percent of customers are over,” Plath said.

Higher fees have driven the average annual price of a checking account to $301, an 11 percent increase in the past five years, data from Moebs Services show.

“If you’re a restaurant and you can’t charge for the soda, you’re going to charge more for the burger,” JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said in a July conference call with analysts. For Chase customers, charges may come in the form of monthly fees and higher credit card rates, he said.

Wells Fargo customers will bear some of the burden for new financial regulation, CEO John Stumpf said in a July 22 interview. The bank, which is based in San Francisco and has the biggest U.S. branch network, introduced a new checking account in July with a $5 monthly fee, which can be waived if customers meet certain conditions.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has said he’s looking for ways to soften the impact of new regulations on revenue. Bank of America ended overdraft services Aug. 13 and is considering a tiered structure of charging for checking accounts, according to Anne Pace, a spokeswoman for the bank.

Bank of America’s rates for savings accounts range from 0.01 percent to 0.85 percent, Wells Fargo pays from 0.05 percent to 0.40 percent and Chase’s go from 0.01 percent to 0.75 percent, company spokesmen said. Rates may vary based on location, the size of the account and if other accounts are held at the bank.

Some financial institutions will charge monthly maintenance fees for checking accounts unless customers do certain things, such as maintain a minimum balance or make a specific number of debit transactions, said Chris Gill, director of the banking and professional services group at SNL Financial. Banks may charge customers for expedited payments or use of debit cards for online bill payments. They may tighten fee waiver policies and reduce the costs of existing programs, such as debit rewards, Gill said.

That doesn’t mean customers are just paying banks for storage, said Gill. The convenience of making payments using various methods and the backing of the FDIC are part of what consumers receive in exchange for putting their money in bank accounts, he said.

Submitted by Paula Duffy on 2010-08-28

If you’ve received an offer for a credit card in recent months called a “professional card” and you are not a small business owner, you are not alone. Banks are flooding the market with solicitations for these pieces of plastic that aren’t covered by the protections afforded in the Credit Card Accountability and Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009.

Banks such as Capital One, J.P. Morgan Chase and Citibank have mailed offers for these hybrid cards that until recently used to be dedicated to small business owners or corporate executives. In the first quarter of 2010, issuers mailed out 47 million professional offers, a 256% increase from the same period last year, according to research firm Synovate.

The Wall Street Journal reported that with a few small tweaks in the application, the offering banks no longer require specific information that would identify the consumer as the owner of a business. No one is screaming fraud, however, since the banks are not obligated to disclose that the cards are not covered by the terms of the Card Act of 2009. Some of the consumer protection items that do not apply to these kinds of cards are, controversial billing practices such as hair-trigger interest rate increases, shortened payment cycles and inactivity fees.
Professional Cards Are Not Covered by Consumer Protections of Card Act of 2009

Prior to the legislation taking effect, banks’ applications for professional cards asked prospective cardholders to provide the name of their company, the nature of the business, its address and its federal employer identification number. In the last sixty days, applications have been amended to ask for less specific data and have opened up eligibility to people who don’t own a business. The Journal reported that In the July mailing cardholders merely had to check a box that said “Yes, I am a business owner” or “Yes, I am a business professional with business expenses.”

Here are five things that separate the professional cards from those consumer cards covered by the Card Act of 2009.

Payments in excess of the minimum can be applied to balances with the lowest interest rates.

Terms of the agreement between the consumer and the bank are changeable without notice.

Payments can be demanded with fewer than 21 days after the latest invoice is sent to the card holder.

Large fees can be assessed if a card holder exceeds the credit limit.

If you have any doubt about whether an application for credit is covered by the Card Act, call the company that sent you the offer and ask for specifics. Record the date, time and the name of the person to whom you spoke to help you untangle a mess if you were given incorrect information.

Stay in touch with HULIQ NEWS on Twitter @HULIQ

Fighting Foreclosure Fraud BY SHARING THE KNOWLEDGE

http://4closurefraud.org/

Check it out some really good information if you have already been served from your mortgage company.