Mortgage Servicing: Covid-19 Update with Marie McDonnell

Justin Woods
July 2, 2020


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"The right of the People to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…." ~ From the Sixth Article, U.S. Bill of Rights, Ratified: December 15, 1791, Fourth Amendment

By Catherine Austin Fitts

Marie McDonnell joined me on The Solari Report last year to help you learn how to successfully originate a mortgage without falling into the financial fraud traps that have become common in the United States: Your Mortgage: Financing Your Home Without Falling for Fraud.

Marie returned in February 2020 to address the risk and management issues related to servicing your existing mortgage. The February interview and the accompanying documents and case studies are essential background for this week's interview on specific Covid-19 mortgage servicing issues.

According to Black Knight's latest report, 4.76 million people in the United States are in mortgage forbearance. With significant increases in unemployment, more layoffs coming from local governments, and the possibility of expanded unemployment benefits ending this summer, mortgage defaults are expected to rise. This will put unprecedented pressure on mortgage servicers and the entire mortgage industry. Under these circumstances, it is advisable that you actively monitor your mortgage servicer. Our goal is to ensure you have the best intelligence on how to make certain that things go well.

Marie is President of McDonnell Property Analytics. She is a Mortgage Fraud and Forensic Analystâ„¢, a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), and a Master Analyst In Financial Forensics (MAFF) with significant experience in transactional analysis, mortgage auditing, and mortgage fraud investigation. Her firm provides a variety of analytical services to individual clients and offers litigation support, mortgage-backed securities research, and foreclosure forensics to attorneys nationwide. McDonnell Property Analytics also advises and performs services for county registers of deeds, attorneys general, courts, and other governmental agencies.

Because mortgage servicing is a complex affair, Marie has generously prepared and provided supporting documents. When we post the audios, please login to find a wealth of handouts that support our discussion. You can use the handouts—along with those from the February interview—to study this topic at your convenience:

  • Servicing Outline: Mortgage Servicing Abuses and Case Studies
  • Sample Call, Correspondence, and Payment Logs

There is one point you will hear Marie emphasize repeatedly: It is essential that you understand the documents that you are supposed to have, that you understand the documents that you sign, and that you maintain copies of everything. If you take care to manage the payment and monitoring of your mortgage and do a good job of archiving your documents, you should be able to avoid potential pitfalls and present your proofs if things outside of your control go wrong—such as your mortgage being transferred to a sloppy or fraudulent servicer or changing policies and regulations as a result of Covid-19.

In Let's Go to the Movies, I will review Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich. I will touch on Epstein's relations with the players who engineered the U.S. housing bubble—such as the Harvard Endowment and Bill Clinton. Clinton is now a leader in the effort to federalize contact tracing, creating systematic state powers to kidnap children. I will touch on why I believe that Epstein's operation was funded by federal missing money and mortgage fraud and why his demise was a logical result of the adoption of FASAB 56. Now that DOD can "Go Direct" for secret money, what does this mean for the future of mortgage fraud and the mortgage industry?

Subscribers can e-mail or post questions and story suggestions for Money & Markets for this week and find current financial charts here.

Related Solari Reports:

Your Mortgage: Avoiding Servicing Risks with Marie McDonnell
Your Mortgage: Financing Your Home Without Falling for Fraud with Marie McDonnell

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