By Sara E. Costello, ABA Litigation News Associate Editor – September 17, 2010 . A recent decision [PDF] by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reminds all attorneys that they must satisfy a “relatively high” standard when seeking to introduce a statement from a witness that is not available to testify. A [...]
Authored by Steven S. Kaufman, Esq. and Robin M. Wilson, Esq. Thompson Hine LLP The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a group of property owners in Florida on June 17, 2010 in deciding that Florida’s beach restoration program does not violate their property rights. We first told you about the case last December [...]
Posted by Mark Gillispie (Cleveland Plain Dealer) The criminal tools were houses and lousy loans. The ringleaders, critics contend, earned seven-figure salaries and hatched their plots from inside well-appointed boardrooms. The crime was mortgage fraud. The damage it created is still being calculated. There are estimates that at least $7 billion in fraudulent loans were [...]
Legislative Changes to RESPA To further bolster consumer protection and to ensure uniform and consistent enforcement of RESPA, HUD intends to seek legislative changes to the Act that will complement the regulatory improvements made by the rule. Currently, RESPA does not provide HUD with enforcement mechanisms for some of the most important consumer disclosures and [...]
A debate is simmering in the mortgage industry about whether mortgage brokers who arrange loan transactions act as agents of potential borrowers, or whether they are merely middlemen without agency responsibilities. The compensation structure by which mortgage brokers are paid fees by both borrowers (origination fees) and lenders (yield-spread premiums) has fueled the fire of [...]
During a lively court hearing Friday that included fire alarm interruptions and discussions about a hired hit man, bank robbers and a Buddhist temple, lawyers presented arguments (listen here) about the application of fair housing law to online community site craigslist.org and the extent of federal protections available to the site through the U.S. Communications [...]
(Riverside Press-Enterprise editorial, April 26, 2007) Good intentions don’t justify state taxpayer subsidies for risky borrowing and poor financial choices. Cracking down on lending abuses would offer a far better correction to the state’s slipping mortgage market. Legislators should reject AB 1538, which would create a fund to help first-time homebuyers refinance their mortgages. The [...]
From the California Association of Realtors: A properly recorded lis pendens may have no legal effect against a subsequent buyer until it is indexed by the recorder’s office. That was the decision of the Court of Appeal in the recent case of Dyer v. Martinez (2007 WL 549108) decided on February 23, 2007. On June [...]
Government agencies continue to ask, if not demand, subjects of government inquiries to waive the attorney-client privilege and/or the protection of the attorney work product doctrine as part of the subject’s desire or agreement to cooperate in the agency’s investigation of wrongdoing.¹ Voluntary disclosure to a regulatory or criminal authority may trigger serious consequences regarding [...]
To successfully defend or prosecute a lawsuit, a litigant must often rely upon and disclose information the litigant considers sensitive, whether private or proprietary. Litigants cannot simply assume that this sensitive information will be kept confidential. Rather, courts will balance the public’s interest in accessing a judicial system that serves – and is paid for [...]
