25.6% of U.S. households use conventional banks little or not at all… And Sheila Bair wonders why…
Read the whole LA Times article about citizen’s decline in the use of banking system.
JUDGE BLASTS BAD BANK, ERASES 525G DEBT NY Post Article about OneWest Bank
JUDGE BLASTS BAD BANK, ERASES 525G DEBT
By KIERAN CROWLEY, RICH WILNER and DAN MANGAN
Click on the link below to access the story.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/judge_kos_mortgage_to_slap_bank_28ZS1oW8Y58z6gu1AQbWMI
A Long Island couple is home free after an outraged judge gave them an amazing Thanksgiving present — canceling their debt to ruthless bankers trying to toss them out on the street.
Suffolk Judge Jeffrey Spinner wiped out $525,000 in mortgage payments demanded by a California bank, blasting its “harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive” acts.
The bombshell decision leaves Diane Yano-Horoski and her husband, Greg Horoski, owing absolutely no money on their ranch house in East Patchogue.
Spinner pulled no punches as he smacked down the bankers at OneWest — who took an $814.2 million federal bailout but have a record of coldbloodedly foreclosing on any homeowner owing money.
“The bank was so intransigent that he [the judge] decided to punish them,” Greg Horoski, 55, said about Spinner’s scathing ruling last Thursday against OneWest and its IndyMac mortgage division.
It erased up to $291,000 in principal and $235,000 in interest and penalties.
The Horoskis — who had been paying only interest on their mortgage — had no equity in the home.
Horoski, who had begged the bankers to let him restructure the loan, said, “I think the judge felt it was almost a personal vendetta.” Dealing with the bank, he said, was “like dealing with organized crime.”
OneWest said, “We respectfully disagree with the lower court’s unprecedented ruling and we expect that it will be overturned on appeal.”
It claimed it “has been extremely active in working with consumers on home loan modifications through the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program and other loan modification initiatives.”
The bank is owned by a private equity group that purchased the failed IndyMac bank.
Yano-Horoski, a college professor of English and cognitive reason, and Horoski, who sells collectible dolls online, bought their 3,400-square-foot, one-level house 15 years ago for less than $200,000.
In 2004, court records show, they refinanced, paying off their original mortgage with part of a $292,500 sub-prime loan from Deutsche Bank. They used what was left for health care and for his business.
The loan carried an initial adjustable interest rate of 10.375 percent, which soared to 12.375 percent.
It eventually ended up being either owned or serviced by IndyMac, and the bank sued the couple in July 2005 when they began having trouble making payments because of Horoski’s health problems.
After a foreclosure was approved last January, Yano-Haroski successfully asked for a court settlement conference.
Spinner excoriated OneWest for repeatedly refusing to work out a deal, for misleading him about the dollar amounts at stake in the case, and for its treatment of the couple over months of hearings.
OneWest’s conduct was “inequitable, unconscionable, vexatious and opprobrious,” Spinner wrote.
He canceled the debt because the bank “must be appropriately sanctioned so as to deter it from imposing further mortifying abuse against [the couple].”
The bank is involved in a similar case in California, where it’s trying to foreclose on an 89-year-old woman, despite two court orders telling it to stop.
kieran.crowley@nypost.com
Former IndyMac trustee files lawsuit against bank’s parent
FROM: http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_13816317
Former IndyMac trustee files lawsuit against bank’s parent
Ryan Carter
Posted: 11/18/2009 03:12:08 PM PST
A former trustee of defunct IndyMac Bank’s parent company has sued the bank’s former CEO and members of its board, claiming they “recklessly” mismanaged it even when they had chances to save it from one of the largest bank failures in U.S. history.
Alfried H. Seigel, formerly the trustee of IndyMac Bancorp Inc., filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles.
He claimed that the bank’s former CEO, Michael E. Perry, repeatedly ignored red flags about the bank’s financial problems. He squandered the bank’s assets, failed to supervise management and rejected investors’ offers that could have saved the bank. But a rubber-stamping board deferred actions to Perry, “utterly failing” to stop the actions that led to the bank’s collapse, Seigel alleged.
And the Stories keep coming!
It seems that Sheila Bair’s appearance at the Town Hall LA breakfast last week has re-ignited interest from the press in regards to the Uninsured IndyMac Depositors stories. Here are two more fabulous stories. Please leave comments under this post as well as where the stories are posted.
Ken the Bank Deals Guy – Uninsured IndyMac Depositors Ask FDIC Chairman for Help – Lessons To Be Learned {BankDeals}
Jay Walker – FBI eating IndyMac (and cheese) {AmericanChronicle.com}
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The Press Responds to Sheila Bair – Town Hall | LA
The press was out in force to hear Sheila Bair’s presentation at Town Hall | LA on October 27, 2009
Here are their reports:
E. Scott Reckard – FDIC’s Bair offers no comfort to uninsured IndyMac depositors {LA Times}
Karl Denninger – The FDIC Must Be Indicted {The Market Ticker}
Natalie Dolce – FDIC Chairwoman: ‘Too Big to Fail’ Must End {GlobeSt.com}
Jane Sasseen – The FDIC’s Sheila Bair: “There Will Be Losses” {Business Week}
Be sure to read all four stories!
FDIC’s Bair offers no comfort to uninsured IndyMac depositors
Town Hall LA held its latest “Industry Outlook Briefing” on Wednesday, Oct 28. Shiela Bair, Chairman of the FDIC was the keynote speaker. A group of IndyMac Depositors were in attendance and were allowed to ask questions of the Chairman. E Scott Reckard of the LA Times was also in attendance and published the following story yesterday:
FDIC’s Bair offers no comfort to uninsured IndyMac depositors
The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. delivered some bad news personally to uninsured depositors who lost money last year when IndyMac Bank crashed and burned, saying an act of Congress is their only hope for recovering their funds.
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Eggs…..and Sheila Bair: Breakfast with Town Hall, Los Angeles
It’s breakfast Wednesday morning, Oct 28, 2009 with FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair as the Keynote speaker.
See the story below from MarketWire and get your tickets if you want to join us.
LOS ANGELES, CA–(Marketwire – October 22, 2009) – An “Industry Outlook Briefing and Conversation with Chairman Bair” will be the focus of a TOWN HALL Los Angeles event hosting Sheila C. Bair, Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) on Wednesday, October 28, 2009, at The Regency Club. Bair will shed light on the present economy and financial system and take questions from the audience of Angelenos.
Among the FDIC’s current priorities, Bair has stated, “Resolution authority is clearly at the top of our list. Too big to fail needs to end.” Bair was sworn in as the 19th Chairman of the FDIC on June 26, 2006. She was appointed Chairman for a five-year term, and as a member of the FDIC Board of Directors through July 2013.
Prior to joining the FDIC, she was the Dean’s Professor of Financial Regulatory Policy for the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. While there, Bair served on the FDIC’s Advisory Committee on Banking Policy. In 2009 she was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people. In 2008, Chairman Bair topped The Wall Street Journal’s annual “50 Women to Watch List.” That same year, Forbes Magazine named Ms. Bair as the second most powerful woman in the world after Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Throughout its history, TOWN HALL has hosted numerous leaders in the world of finance, including Christopher Cox, Chairman, US Securities and Exchange Commission; Janet Yellen, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Comptroller General of the United States David Walker; and NASDAQ CEO Bob Greifeld.
One the Top 10 Leadership Forums in the nation, TOWN HALL Los Angeles has been a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization since 1937, supported by Angelenos, foundations and corporations who believe in open public discussion. We advocate for no side, represent no particular ideology and stand solidly in support of free speech, civility and a belief that knowledge is a priceless commodity. To learn more, visit www.townhall-la.org.
Is Sheila Bair jinxed??????
Sheila Bair, widely lauded for her cool regulatory head amid crumbling financial markets and a rising tide of bank failures, says she should stay out of government jobs. She said she’s jinxed.
FDIC Negligence… ?
We are all patiently waiting to hear the outcome of yesterday’s important hearings before the Honorable Judge Morrow yesterday in Federal Court. As soon as I am able to post some news for you all, I promise to get it up here.
Thank you for your patience.
Federal Court House Monday 10-19-2009
Greetings to all:
On Monday 10-19-2009, there will be two FDIC vs. Depositor cases heard; FDIC vs. Henry (Depositor) and FDIC vs. Tams (Depositor).
The Honorable Judge Margaret Morrow will hear these cases in the Federal Court in Down town Los Angeles, CA.
The cases will be heard at 10:00.
Honorable Judge Morrow will expect you to be prompt, quiet, respectful to the court if you expect to attend and hear proceedings.
If you decide to visit the courthouse, a good place to go is the pro se office, which will give you advice on filing in court on your own, as well as a packet of paperwork to fill in for filing a case, and represent yourself. It looks daunting. Get the papers, and the advice from the pro se office.
Give yourself time to park, and get through security screening to attend the court proceedings.
This can be a great day for all of us.
Please be respectful to the court, and to the judge, as well as the parties being heard.
Thank you.
Lisa