from HuffPost:
Top Citigroup executives sought to assure investors and the public Monday that the firm's foreclosure process and its handling of key documents in securitizing home mortgages is "sound," despite growing concerns over how lenders may have skirted the law when bundling home mortgages, selling them and kicking delinquent borrowers out of their home.
The nation's biggest banks have come under increased scrutiny over the past few weeks as revelations surfaced over how they routinely mishandled basic documents like the note to the property in their rush to securitize loans for sale on Wall Street. These came to light as bank employees and those of contractors and law firms employed by the banks to repossess homes admitted to carelessly handling mounds of paper. It may have seemed trivial at the time, but it may have been against the law. The validity of claims to properties has been called into question over false notaries, failing to read documents before signing them, and omitting names when transferring documents just to make it easier to securitize the loan.
In response, some of the nation's biggest mortgage servicers, like Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial, announced temporary moratoriums on foreclosure sales. For the first time in the long fight between aggrieved homeowners and rapacious bankers since the onslaught of the housing crisis, the homeowners appear to be winning.
It was under these circumstances that John Gerspach, Citi's chief financial officer, sought to assuage analysts who have quantified possible losses arising from this fiasco in the billions to the hundreds of billions. .........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/18/citigroup-says-it-didnt-u_n_767389.html