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Full-Text Articles in Law

Beneficial Ownership And The Remic Classification Rules, Bradley T.` Borden, David J. Reiss Nov 2012

Beneficial Ownership And The Remic Classification Rules, Bradley T.` Borden, David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

REMICs are securitized pools of mortgages that qualify for special flow-through taxation. To qualify for flow-through tax treatment, the pool must satisfy several requirements. An intended REMIC that fails to satisfy those requirements will likely be taxed as a corporation and payments made to holders of interests in a failed REMIC will likely be nondeductible dividend payments, subjecting the REMIC to significant tax and penalties. Such tax and penalties will cause beneficial interests in the pool to lose value and frustrate investors who relied upon REMIC classification as an incentive to purchase interests. Thus, tax classification is critical to REMICs …


Eminently Reasonable, David J. Reiss Sep 2012

Eminently Reasonable, David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

Local governments across the country are considering an innovative use of eminent domain. They propose to condemn underwater mortgages (those that exceed the fair-market value of the home) in their communities and restructure them so that home­owners can afford their payments and so that the new mortgage is for less than the fair market value of the property. If this proposal is implemented, the local government will pay the owner of mortgages of "underwater" homes the fair market value for the mortgages. The local government will then restructure each mortgage by reducing the principal amount owed to be in line …


Wall Street Rules Applied To Remic Classification, David J. Reiss, Bradley T. Borden Sep 2012

Wall Street Rules Applied To Remic Classification, David J. Reiss, Bradley T. Borden

David J Reiss

Investors in mortgage-backed securities, built on the shoulders of the tax-advantaged Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit (“REMIC”), may be facing extraordinary tax losses because of how bankers and lawyers structured these securities. This calamity is compounded by the fact that those professional advisors should have known that the REMICs they created were flawed from the start. If these losses are realized, those professionals will face suits for damages so large that they could put them out of business.


Comment On The Use Of Eminent Domain To Restructure Performing Loans, David J. Reiss Sep 2012

Comment On The Use Of Eminent Domain To Restructure Performing Loans, David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

There has been a lot of fear-mongering by financial industry trade groups over the widespread use of eminent domain to residential mortgages. While there may be legitimate business reasons to oppose its use, its inconsistency with Takings jurisprudence should not be one of them. To date, the federal government’s responses to the current crisis in the housing markets have been at cross purposes, half-hearted and self-defeating. So it is not surprising that local governments are attempting to fashion solutions to the problem with the tools at their disposal. Courts should, and likely will, give these democratically-implemented and constitutionally-sound solutions a …


Dodd-Frank, Securitization, And The Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Stephen P. Hoffman Jan 2012

Dodd-Frank, Securitization, And The Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Stephen P. Hoffman

Stephen P. Hoffman

There are few things more constant in life than the rise and fall of financial markets. When markets crash, however, we are forced to restore them while learning from our mistakes. In the wake of the recent subprime mortgage crisis, Congress has drastically but deservedly overhauled the regulation of financial markets in order to not only prevent such disasters in the future, but to help restore financial stability more quickly if and when they do occur. In this Paper, I provide a background of the events leading up to the most devastating financial crisis since the Great Depression, focusing on …


Shadow Banking, Financial Markets, And The Real Estate Sector, Steven L. Schwarcz Jan 2012

Shadow Banking, Financial Markets, And The Real Estate Sector, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

This is a relatively brief “firestarter” talk prepared by the author for the World Economic Forum’s Industry Partnership Strategists Meeting 2012 (held on October 3, 2012) on transformation of the real estate sector in light of ongoing shifts in the financial markets and broader global trends.


Shadow Banking, Financial Markets, And The Real Estate Sector, Steven L. Schwarcz Jan 2012

Shadow Banking, Financial Markets, And The Real Estate Sector, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

This is a relatively brief “firestarter” talk prepared by the author for the World Economic Forum’s Industry Partnership Strategists Meeting 2012 (held on October 3, 2012) on transformation of the real estate sector in light of ongoing shifts in the financial markets and broader global trends.


Rating The Raters: Restoring Confidence And Accountability In Credit Rating Agencies, Ryan Voorhees Jan 2012

Rating The Raters: Restoring Confidence And Accountability In Credit Rating Agencies, Ryan Voorhees

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.


The Roberta Mitchell Lecture: Structuring Responsibility In Securitization Transactions, Steven L. Schwarcz Jan 2012

The Roberta Mitchell Lecture: Structuring Responsibility In Securitization Transactions, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

In this Lecture, Professor Schwarcz examines how complex securitization transactions may have created a “protection gap,” the conundrum that transaction parties may be unable to purchase or might not want to pay the price for full protection. As a result, they sometimes choose or are forced to assume the good faith of the other parties to the transaction and the consistency and completeness of protections provided in the transaction documents.


In-House Counsel’S Role In The Structuring Of Mortgage-Backed Securities, Steven L. Schwarcz, Shaun Barnes, Kathleen G. Cully Jan 2012

In-House Counsel’S Role In The Structuring Of Mortgage-Backed Securities, Steven L. Schwarcz, Shaun Barnes, Kathleen G. Cully

Faculty Scholarship

The authors introduce the financial crisis and the role played by mortgage-backed securities. Then describe the controversy at issue: whether, in order to own and enforce the mortgage loans backing those securities, a special-purpose vehicle “purchasing” mortgage loans must take physical delivery of the notes and security instruments in the precise manner specified by the sale agreement. Focusing on this controversy, the authors analyze (i) the extent, if any, that the controversy has merit; (ii) whether in-house counsel should have anticipated the controversy; and (iii) what, if anything, in-house counsel could have done to avert or, after it arose, to …