Law Commons^™

It Takes A Village: Municipal Condemnation Proceedings And Public/Private Partnerships For Mortgage Loan Modification, Value Preservation, And Local Economic Recovery, Robert Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

Respected real estate analysts forecast that the U.S. is now poised to experience a renewed round of home mortgage foreclosures over the coming six years. Up to eleven million underwater mortgages will be affected. Neither our families, our neighborhoods, nor our state and national economies can bear a resumption of crisis on this order of magnitude.

I argue that ongoing and self-worsening slump in the primary and secondary mortgage markets is rooted in a host of recursive collective action challenges structurally akin to those that brought on the real estate bubble and bust in the first place. Collective action problems …

To Lien Strip Or Not To Lien Strip: Fourth Circuit Blesses Controversial Chapter 20 Valueless Lien Stripping In Re Davis, Timothy M. Todd

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vol. 5 No. 2, Spring 2014; "You Can't Handle The Truth" . . . Well, The States That Is: The Legality Of State-Imposed Transfer Taxes On Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, And The Federal Housing Finance Agency, Lars Okmark

Northern Illinois Law Review Supplement

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created by Congress to help stabilize the housing market. Congress included an express exemption from all taxation imposed by states, counties, and municipalities, albeit real property owned by Fannie and Freddie. In 2008, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), a similarly exempt government entity, became conservator of the federally chartered entities. Across the United States, Fannie and Freddie purchase mortgages to ensure all families have access to affordable housing. This is where the problem lies: when Fannie and Freddie offer the deed for recording, localities attempt to tax the recording of the deed. This …

Treading Water: Can Municipal Efforts To Condemn Underwater Mortgages Prevail?, Michael S. Moskowitz

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Reasons For The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Raymond Natter

Raymond Natter

One of the most repeated allegations about the financial crisis is that the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) that repealed two sections of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 was a significant contributing factor in the subprime mortgage meltdown. However, these allegations never specify the exact link between GLBA and the crisis. The reason is that there is no readily apparent link between the two events. Simply put, the provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act that were repealed by GLBA did not prohibit the origination of subprime mortgage loans, to the securitization of mortgage loans, or to the purchase of mortgage-backed …

Absolute Conveyance As A Mortgage In Iowa, Doug Rendleman

Doug Rendleman

None available

House Swaps: A Strategic Bankruptcy Solution To The Foreclosure Crisis, Lynn M. Lopucki

Michigan Law Review

Since the price peak in 2006, home values have fallen more than 30 percent, leaving millions of Americans with negative equity in their homes. Until the Supreme Court’s 1993 decision in Nobelman v. American Savings Bank, the bankruptcy system would have provided many such homeowners with a remedy. They could have filed bankruptcy, discharged the negative equity, committed to pay the mortgage holders the full values of their homes, and retained those homes. In Nobelman, however, the Court misinterpreted reasonably clear statutory language and invented legislative history to resolve a three-to-one split of circuits in favor of the minority view …

Property And Mortgage Fraud Under The Mandatory Victims Restitution Act: What Is Stolen And When Is It Returned?, Arthur Durst

William & Mary Business Law Review

The United States Circuit Courts of Appeals are split on how to calculate restitution in a criminal loan fraud situation where collateral is involved. This trend is best illustrated in cases involving mortgage fraud. The split stems from disagreement over how to account for the lender’s receipt of collateral property. The Third, Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals consider the property returned when the person defrauded receives cash from the sale of collateral property. The Second, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits deem the property returned when the lender takes ownership of the collateral property. This Note argues that the …

Social Hierarchies And The Formation Of Customary Property Law In Pre-Industrial China And England, Taisu Zhang

Faculty Scholarship

Comparative lawyers and economists have often assumed that traditional Chinese laws and customs reinforced the economic and political dominance of elites and, therefore, were unusually “despotic” towards the poor. Such assumptions are highly questionable: Quite the opposite, one of the most striking characteristics of Qing and Republican property institutions is that they often gave significantly greater economic protection to the poorer segments of society than comparable institutions in early modern England. In particular, Chinese property customs afforded much stronger powers of redemption to landowners who had pawned their land. In both societies, land-pawning occurred far more frequently among poorer households …

Gambling On Our Financial Future: How The Federal Government Fiddles While State Common Law Is A Safer Bet To Prevent Another Financial Collapse, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall