Heh. Why ever would they be opposed to having to PROVE their right to foreclose?!

Quote:

Banking groups challenge Colorado right-to-foreclose ballot initiative

Two of Colorado's largest banking associations are digging in for what could be a protracted battle against a ballot initiative that would require lenders to prove their right to foreclose on property.

Currently, a bank can foreclose with just a lawyer's signature without proof — such as a properly assigned mortgage — that it is owed the money.

Initiative 84 would require lenders to show proof of their interest in a mortgage or note before they could take someone's property. They could do so either by having recorded with a county the note and its assignment, or by providing certified copies in court of its endorsement to them.

The Independent Bankers of Colorado, a trade group of community banks, says the issue should be handled legislatively, not as an amendment to the state constitution.
"This could be a long battle," IBC executive director Barbara Walker said of the group's commitment to challenge a ballot initiative.

The Colorado Bankers Association, which represents many of the state's largest lenders, agrees, adding the initiative would be so onerous as to "dry up the secondary mortgage market," executive director Don Childears said.

"That will all grind to a halt from this nonsense," Childears told the Colorado Title Board during a hearing Friday in which the association unsuccessfully sought to have the proposed ballot issue kicked back to an earlier stage of the process for review.

"You can imagine the consequences if that happens," he said, noting that more than 90 percent of mortgages generated in the state are resold.

Homeowners get hurt, the CBA said in a statement, because the initiative would "stifle borrower-lender communication, the one mechanism for avoiding foreclosure that works well."

Walker said the IBC strongly opposes placing regulations of financial institutions in the state constitution. "Specifically, this would harm lenders, whether community banks, out-of-state banks, whomever," she said.

Advocates say that homeowners facing foreclosure want to know who really owns their note so they can discuss ways to avoid losing their homes, such as loan modifications. Too often they can't tell whether the bank foreclosing on them is the right one because paperwork isn't filed in the case to prove that.

"The initiative looks to remove a provision the industry wrote into Colorado law allowing them to circumvent constitutional due-process protections against the taking of property," said Corrine Fowler, economic justice director for the Colorado Progressive Coalition.

That provision is called a "statement of qualified holder," in which a lawyer representing a lender says the client has a right to foreclose but is not required to show how. The law changed in 2002 and 2006 when foreclosure attorneys tucked it into a much larger piece of legislation dealing with foreclosures.

At the crux of the issue is money — how much lenders and mortgage investors would have to pay county recorders if they had to file each transfer of a mortgage. Currently the price is $10 for the first page and $5 for each additional page.

Bankers created the national Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems as a means of tracking those transfers without having to record them in the county where a property is located. That saved the industry tens of millions of dollars — and cost county governments the same.

But Colorado's unique system relies on deeds of trust in the foreclosure process. Since MERS tracks only promissory notes and mortgages, it cannot file foreclosures in Colorado — although it can in nearly every other state that doesn't use a deed of trust.

Childears argues that lenders and investors will shy from buying mortgages from one another — a bank that makes the loan is able to sell it and then make yet another loan. A result, he said, would be fewer loans to consumers.

Proponent and foreclosure lawyer Stephen Brunette of Colorado Springs said the measure aims to return due process to the state's foreclosure system. "Any lender who shows they own the evidence of debt (the mortgage) and have the right to foreclose has nothing to worry about," he said.

The associations can still file a petition with the Colorado Supreme Court, which must hear the issue and render a decision within six weeks.

Meanwhile, proponents can seek to have their petition language approved by the secretary of state, then begin gathering signatures — more than 87,100 are required — to get it on the November ballot.

The initiative is the result of a bill sponsored by Rep. Beth McCann, D-Denver, which sought to do much the same. It was killed in a House committee, mostly along party lines.

The bankers "are working to ensure Coloradan due-process laws remain limited and that Colorado continues to be the easiest state in the nation in which to take a person's property," Fowler said.

There are no penalties if an attorney who signs the qualified holder statement is wrong, though a bank that wrongly forecloses indemnifies the homeowner from additional liability and must make good to the correct lender.


Read more: Banking groups challenge Colorado right-to-foreclose ballot initiative - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/c....
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

The Independent Bankers of Colorado, a trade group of community banks, says the issue should be handled legislatively, not as an amendment to the state constitution.


Translation: it's much easier to bribe a few hundred legislators than buy off an entire electorate.

Eff off you pigmen!

I wonder how much the bankers will drop to make this go away?
Shaking the banker tree. These fees are low hanging easy pickins.
An thare plenty more!

I don't understand.

They can provide a certified copy of the note and its endorsement over to them (does an endorsement in blank count?) or file the note with the county clerk. I didn't see anything about having to file all the intervening assignments, unless Colorado law has that requirement written into their statutes. Neither one of those sounds onerous to me. When they file in a judicial state, providing this kind of documentation is a bare minimum requirement.

It's outrageously arrogant that they would think it's too much trouble to come up with bare-minimum proof they own the debt, yet expect to be allowed to take someone's home.