An amazing story has emerged in New York where Judge Arthur M. Schack has shaken up the banking industry, having the gall to actually check the paperwork presented to him in numerous cases of banks seeking to foreclose on homeowners.
Before I get into this, I want to say up front that people are responsible for their individual actions in relationship to any decisions they make, and when attaining mortgages, they had the responsibility to understand what was being offered them at the time of the sale.
The line so far as it relates to the loans offered to a seemingly large percentage of people is they never understood what the terms of the loans really meant. While I don’t doubt a with a small percentage that was true, as the excitement of getting into a new home, and one of a quality they never felt they could ever own, is a way to miss all the details of the loan, which would eventually increase significantly in monthly payments as economic conditions changed.
That brings us to the judicial system and Judge Arthur M. Schack, who has over a period of two years thrown out 46 of 102 foreclosures, according to the New York Times.
When asked why he has been so tough on the banks, Schack replied that the “Banks had given out loans structured to fail.”
In many cases the loans were for far more than the building was worth, underscoring the judge’s assertion.
The point the judge is making isn’t that people shouldn’t be held responsible by their actions, but that not only were some of the loans irresponsible in the first place, but now that the resultant foreclosures are rising, he has found that in checking the paperwork from financial institutions, they have been so poorly filled out, that there were a number of cases where ownership of the mortgage was unable to be established.
So his thought is he’s not going to throw people out of their homes if the banks aren’t able to establish outright ownership. In some cases the banks foreclosing on people weren’t even the owners of the mortgages at all, and had no legal right to even be involved in the proceedings.
All of this is to say that the type of shoddy and sloppy filling out of paperwork and accountability has largely left the banking industry, and this judge is simply holding them to standards everyone should have to adhere to.
Banks, like the U.S. Government, are increasingly operating more like a dictatorship not accountable to anyone, while the rule of law has largely been cast aside.
To send out decrees and assertions expected to be followed and obeyed by those they consider inferior, has nothing to do with rule of law, and the pompous banking industry which has greedily gotten into bed with the government, has found pockets of growing opposition like this judge, who says they need to be held to the existing standards like anyone else. He’s right.
