JP Morgan Told Judge To Stop Paying Mortgage For Loan Modification

01-13-2011 • ZeroHedge.com

In the latest stunner of disclosure in what goes on just below the murky surface of the biggest scam market in the world (that would be the multi-trillion residential debt market), we learn that a Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court judge, Peter Sikora, who is facing foreclosure on his million dollar (8 room) home. But that is not what makes him unique: after all the story of your average American who buys iPads and garter belts with money that should be going into mortgage payments is all too well known by now. What is amazing, however, is that the reason for his 12 month delinquency is that according to JP Morgan, who service the loan, the only way Sikora would be eligible for loan modification would be if he were in delinquency, which is what they advised him to do. That's right - a bank formally told a client to willfully default on a mortgage. Now obviously no institution in its right mind would ever tell a counterparty to stop paying it for a service it is providing. Which begs the question: how is it that there is an opportunity cost for JP Morgan that is lower than a person paying a set mortgage, which involves both the cessation of payments and the lowering of payment rates. If there is any smoking gun that JP Morgan makes up for mortgage delinquency shortfalls by dipping in the GSE piggy bank of infinite taxpayer capital, this is it. And since in the aftermath of Ibanez ever more mortgages are about to see a freeze on their payments, it begs the question: just how profound will the Fannie and Freddie rape this year be, if the GSEs end up having to fund hundreds of billions in capital shortfall for the Too Parasitic To Fail? We are certain that in any other banana republic, at least some answer to this rather important question would be sought. But not in this particular one...