Foreclosure-Gate: Securitization and the broken chain of assignments

12-05-2010 • NakedCapitalism.com/

It’s worth looking at the entire language used in PSAs, not the selectively quoted language referred to by the ASF. For example, consider the PSA for Securities Asset Backed Receivables LLC Trust 2005-FR3, dated July 1, 2005, § 2.01(b), July 1, 2005. It provides that the depositor will deliver to the trust: “the original Mortgage Note bearing all intervening endorsements showing a complete chain of endorsement from the originator to the last endorsee, endorsed ‘Pay to the order of _____________, without recourse’ and signed (which may be by facsimile signature) in the name of the last endorsee by an authorized officer.” Note the bold language (my emphasis; the italics are original). There can be no question that this language is calling for every endorsement from the originator to the trust, and cannot be satisfied with a single endorsement in blank. For deals with this language, at least, ASF’s testimony is demonstrably wrong. Now, it is important to note that not every PSA has such language…The incidence of various PSA language is unknown, but certainly there are a good number of PSAs where there has to be a complete chain of endorsements. Another inconvenient fact is, contrary to the ASF assertions, that judges are also looking for the chain of endorsements to make sense.